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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ratskinner" data-source="post: 7717957" data-attributes="member: 6688937">Basically, (and this was a few years ago) some folks pointed out that DW could sometimes feel more like an Old-School game at-table than some of the ostensibly OSR games that were in print and favored by the community. That begged the question (in there minds, anyway) about whether the mechanics where the actually important part of the Old-School experience, or whether it was the whole Fantasy Vietnam experience being sited by the OP of this thread. I saw this on a couple of boards, both Old School and general rpg. No real resolution was reached and people just sorta went into their corners to play OSRIC when it was done, AFAICT. I agree, and such are the limitations of e-communication. Its not particularly easier, IME, to point out inconsistencies face-to-face, I might add. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Given that Hit Points and Apocalypse Engine "Clocks" function basically the same way (the abstract category), I take your point. However, I've noted that many (advertised) story games seem to leave things in the realm of abstract mechanics, sometimes having precious little "concrete" mechanics at all. I believe that that "excess of abstraction" can leave players uncomfortable engaging in an argument at all and just shutting down mentally/socially retreating from the game. At that point, the game is "lost" to the player (or vice versa) because they are "not getting it."Now, people can obviously make abstract mechanics work, but I think concrete mechanics can help "ground" players in the fiction. How much is "necessary" is variable by individual, of course.I would point out, additionally, that the conversation has already drifted back to a traditional rpg framework. I don't feel obligated to think that a good "story game" necessarily needs to ride on an rpg chassis. In fact, I would say that having such a base is making the creative jobs of game designers harder, because it is so very easy to fall back on that familiar structure. I could imagine a game that functions like The Quiet Year where players turns are driven by cards drawn, possibly spawning questions for the whole table to answer that inform the direction of the "scene" associated with that player's turn. I think they are starting to get made, or rather, they are getting better. My sort-of blanket evaluation is that they have a tendency to require a lot more GM/player -- policing?, engagement?, herding?, restraint? of play than tactical play would require.Total agreement here. I think one of the not-so-subtle realizations in story mechanics has been that more specificity is good. The tough part about that WRT traditional rpgs, is the diversity of story types require vastly different events/skills/twists. I mean, events that you would expect to see in a murder investigation story aren't the same as you'd expect to see in a heroic journey. So, in a traditional rpg context, where both are (at least theoretically) acceptable story arcs, how do you include them both? I don't think that that's an impossible design task, but I think its still waiting to be done. I'm not sure that the rpg audience would be willing to pay for supplement supporting a family of plot options in the same way that its willing to spend money on current options. Plus, I gotta figure that combat needs to be subsumed under the broader story "wrapper" mechanics somehow, and that seems like a big leap for most traditional rpgs.I agree and think this is another reason that I would advocate letting rpgs be rpgs and take story-centric games in another direction. Edit: I would also add that I think explicit mechanics can alleviate a lot of that discomfort.</blockquote>

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