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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9298209" data-attributes="member: 42582">No RPG design is perfect - but as a general rule, if &quot;story&quot; and gameplay are working at cross purposes, that's a sign of poor RPG design.I think RPGing is better when, as a player, I can play my character without having to &quot;work together&quot; to make things cool and interesting. The system should ensure that.A RPG that I have GMed a fair bit, that makes combat important, and that does not use initiative, is Prince Valiant. It's possible, in Prince Valiant, for players to build PCs with different degrees of combat effectiveness - and that is the case in our game. As GM, the main thing that I use to make things interesting is my control over the situation, and this can be done in (at least) two ways:(1) If there is a fight going on, and three knights are there, some of the opponents are going to do things that involve the third knight, even if that third knight is not stellar in combat;

(2) If there is a fight going on, then the opponents might do things that provoke the third knight to action (eg threaten his loved ones), even if that third knight is not stellar in combat.I'm still getting my head around the DaggerHeart rules, but it seems to me that the GM's use of the action tracker, and making of moves more generally, are the pathways to (1) and (2).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 9298209, member: 42582"] No RPG design is perfect - but as a general rule, if "story" and gameplay are working at cross purposes, that's a sign of poor RPG design. I think RPGing is better when, as a player, I can play my character without having to "work together" to make things cool and interesting. The system should ensure that. A RPG that I have GMed a fair bit, that makes combat important, and that does not use initiative, is Prince Valiant. It's possible, in Prince Valiant, for players to build PCs with different degrees of combat effectiveness - and that is the case in our game. As GM, the main thing that I use to make things interesting is my control over the situation, and this can be done in (at least) two ways: [indent](1) If there is a fight going on, and three knights are there, some of the opponents are going to do things that involve the third knight, even if that third knight is not stellar in combat; (2) If there is a fight going on, then the opponents might do things that provoke the third knight to action (eg threaten his loved ones), even if that third knight is not stellar in combat.[/indent] I'm still getting my head around the DaggerHeart rules, but it seems to me that the GM's use of the action tracker, and making of moves more generally, are the pathways to (1) and (2). [/QUOTE]

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