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Message: <blockquote data-quote="loverdrive" data-source="post: 8987507" data-attributes="member: 7027139">While, yes, the first thing I imagine when thinking about "player skill" is hitting railgun shots at supersonic speeds, the first example I lead with was a tabletop wargame -- Warhammer 40000.A good Warhammer player,<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Before the game: leverages their knowledge of other armies and current meta to build a competitive roster</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">During the game: leverages their knowledge of opponent's units and their rules to gain every possible advantage and win the game</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">After the game: reviews performance and learns lessons</li> </ul>All of which are venues for skill expression.In a team tournament (which used to be the main competitive format back in my days, but I haven't touched the game in half a decade now), there's also skill expression in captain's job of securing favourable match ups, building a well-rounded team that can handle any challenge, knowing what positions to give up, all that.All of this would be completely impossible if all the participants didn't know exactly what their opponents can bring to the table. You can't really play Warhammer when someone can just decide to pull a new mini outta their backside or when you don't know how many shots a gravigun makes.Well, I think that Fallout and Arcanum are absolutely horrendous games (as in, both are trivially solved and the gameplay is nothing more than a chore), but I really enjoyed them both -- because the story and the characters are cool and interesting enough to forgive the sins of boring gameplay.More generally, the part of RPGs I enjoy the most (well, storytelling) is completely antithetical to challenge that involves Shared Imaginary Space in any way shape or form. There's no way around that, and RPGs I enjoy mostly limit or eliminate any challenge. Apocalypse World will ensure that everything will always get worse, regardless of what you are doing. Fate ensures that you'll always have tools to deal with any situation. Microscope and Awesome! just place you in charge of deciding outcomes.But when the game involves challenge, and then goes out of its way to make it as braindead as possible, I can't help but question "why?".</blockquote>

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