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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 9241419" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, I am not motivated to be particularly critical of other people's ideas about how to approach accomplishing various goals, so I don't have anything particularly negative to say related to the 'manifesto'. I mean, from my personal perspective, while I get what you are stating above and I wouldn't really disagree with it, I'm not sure it brings me too much closer to executing a game design or running a game in a way that would fulfill my vision of 'a neo-trad RPG'. Going back to a more 'product approach' to things, the first step in a process like this IMHO is to develop a charter and a thesis. That is, what sort of thing, in an abstract sense shorn of any implementation-related baggage, am I trying to accomplish? And then put forward a thesis, a statement as to what might accomplish that. I can see your statement above as being pretty close to being a thesis, its a not there yet, but it suggests one (that being a game with the traits you mention would hypothetically support neo-trad play). I would refine that thesis in the context of an actual project or in terms of figuring out how to run a game of that type a bit more. So, perhaps inject a bit of opinion into your thesis, because it needs to be testable! However, in 'manifesto terms' you don't have to do that, if you see the manifesto as something of a blueprint. In that case I would back up and suggest the form which a specific 'neo-trad project charter' might take, as that will tell people what your manifesto is really ABOUT, and not just what it hypothesizes.However, next you will, in any real project, need to develop metrics, this is the third layer of project success. What am I trying to accomplish, then how do I believe it might be accomplished, and finally how do I know I've succeeded or failed? Beyond that might be the 'meta-process' such as the kind of things envisaged in various agile methodologies where you put the above inside a refinement loop driven by the metrics, but IMHO that gets into an implementation process layer which you're probably not aiming at.BUT, now you still have to do the 'real work!' This is the point most people are trying to focus on, things like which actual games, systems, mechanics, principles of play, etc. are going to embody the actual solution which runs at the table. Again, I don't think you NEED to address that at all in a 'manifesto', though if you want it to be more opinionated you could include statements as to what YOU consider might fall inside or outside the limits of a game which plays in accordance with your ideas. Still, the core statements, the 'charter' and 'thesis' templates need to be constraining enough to say these things if its coherent, and that will make your effort more and more niche. I think that's the ultimate downfall of the 'manifesto approach' is that it either evolves into an actual project, or becomes so ideologically limiting that it loses utility.Which leads me to the ultimate (forgive my wordiness) point, which is that I think something like analysis of the nature and requirements of specific play agendas and how to structure a game in those terms might still be the better overall approach. I mean, GNS for example, actually got someplace. People might not LIKE where it leads, that's simply a matter of taste, but the actual game implementations and play are real things that exist! At worst they are non-hypothetical for sure, so I always find it peculiar that people argue some other approach is 'better'. Sure, maybe, GR is 'better' than Newtonian Mechanics, but Newton still works, and so does GNS and its ilk!</blockquote>

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