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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 9311341" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>I would ask THEM this question! lol. I pointed to the rule, what more do I need to do? Read the section 'Starting the Game' on page 201 for a description of an initial start of play, the first session. While the situation is certainly 'in motion', the game DOES NOT start with a position roll! You're not catapulted instantly into a score. Play is most closely described as 'free play' at the start. The PCs ask questions, gather info, making inquiries, figure out who to align themselves with (or maybe to just sit back and watch for a chance to act in their own interests). Heck, on page 204 under 'opening a scene' there's even a nice hint at a way to actually turn the first scene into the start of a score:</p><p></p><p>"Are you actually here to kill him for the Red Sashes? (If so, do a flashback and pick a plan for the assassination.)"</p><p></p><p>Now, I agree it may well be possible to 'trigger' a score. I have suggested as much to [USER=6795602]@FrogReaver[/USER] in response to his attempt to claim that BitD's structure is unworkable. I think the above quote is indicative of the sorts of techniques the GM would have available to them in order to accomplish that.</p><p></p><p>No they're not. EnWorld is full to overflowing with 'RPG nerds', as you put it, endlessly and vociferously denying the most obvious and plain of truisms! Where am I 'undermining' anything? I have no idea what you even mean by this. The game is pretty clear about how things start and proceed. It IS pretty flexible, but I don't think that is 'undermining' anything. I think it is just stating that maybe sometimes you will want to interpret the 'modes of play' and such in a fairly flexible way.</p><p></p><p>Oye. I'm simply looking at the rules of the games in question and the play that I have experienced. Which one do you believe in, your own experience or posters on the Internet? I mean, I can only say it how it is. Honestly, to a large extent, when I hear things like this what I conclude is that everyone plays and experiences games in a slightly different way. So what SOME posters somewhere decided wasn't perfect for them, or that they were not comprehending something, etc. that's not someone laying down some law. I'm pointing out that there are people who don't have some of the problems that you specifically mentioned. In fact, my guess is that most of the people who didn't have problems, didn't start posting all about how they were perfectly satisfied, they just kept playing because it worked. So, it is probably not a great idea to generalize from "a few of the 1000's of people who played game X complained about Y" to Y is a big poo and needs to be excised from the game. I mean 1000's of people complained and complained about 4e SCs, yet the damned things work beautifully for many other people. I mean, if you hate fronts and you have some other thing you think works better, that's great. Concluding that fronts are therefor bad is however unwarranted. I find that the game works poorly without them! [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER], who's assuredly run plenty of DW, has yet a different position (I'll let him describe it if he is inclined, I don't think I can).</p><p></p><p>I don't claim to answer for other people. I didn't find them clumsy for me, nor did I ever really naturally do quite what a front is, though I agree they're not some sort of revolutionary radical new kind of thing. I found them to be a nice tool for organizing my thought space in a systematic way which allowed me to easily present front content as moves, which seems to be the intent. I'm not sure why people thought it was confusing. As a software engineer I would rate it as some fairly solid technical documentation, actually! Sure, there's going to be room/need to apply some common sense to the execution at times, but that's pretty much par for the course in RPGs, isn't it?</p><p></p><p>Well, obviously you don't have to stick to RAW, or to anything. Honestly, I don't even think you are 'breaking a rule' exactly if you don't bring any fronts into play. The game describes the GM using them, but you are free to choose any move that complies with the principles and agenda of DW. At worst you are just leaving something on the table that you COULD use. However, I found, and other people have found, that the game feels a bit 'dead' without fronts (or potentially something equivalent, this I cannot speak to). As I said, I don't follow a lot of game designer news and, as typical for me with other games, when I got DW I just went back to my long list of people that I play things with and got going with it, relying on LONG GMing experience and a close reading of the text. Through play we discovered why the various parts are there, how they work, etc. So it may well be that Sage and Adam hate fronts and never use them. As I said before, everyone plays things a bit different. If I ever run into one of them maybe we'll discuss it, but I doubt that will happen.</p><p></p><p>As for Sage talking about wiping all 'trappings of D&D' from the game... Eh. I think there are some people who are frustrated with the way many people have simply skipped actually reading much of the game and just tried to play B/X D&D with it, treating 2d6 as if it was a d20 and missing the whole point. The D&D-class emulating playbooks and whatnot easily lets them do that. So that might be one motivation for wanting to change things. There may be others relating more to D&D culture, etc. However, I would say that I have 2 basic reactions:</p><p></p><p>1) D&D's classes really are pretty core archetypes of characters. So, sure, you could devise playbooks that didn't speak quite so directly to D&D classes, but at some level they're going to do somewhat similar things, especially if you are devising a game that lives in a similar space to D&D where it lets you depict fairly classic fantasy characters. I think attempts to change how the space is parsed up that are based on "not doing it like D&D" are ultimately going to just do it in a 2nd rate way.</p><p></p><p>2) The cat is so far out of the bag on this stuff that it isn't even funny. Stonetop, Ironsworn, and numerous other games have already taken general fantasy themes and reworked PbtA mechanics to handle them. I would point out that in each case the resulting game's playbooks look somewhat different from D&D's and yet A) not THAT different, and B) are devised to inhabit a much more specific niche than DW aims at.</p><p></p><p>So, it might be interesting to see what Sage would do with that. I certainly am in no position to criticize other people's ideas about RPGs to write, but I'm not sure DW needs that. IMHO it occupies a nice spot in the FRPG space and it wouldn't be hurt by a much more modest clean up. I mean, there have been some tweaks made, and Perilous Wilds definitely added some good stuff. It wouldn't hurt to have it all kind of cleaned up and polished a bit. FOR ME that can be a pretty mild update, but since I'm not volunteering to do it I don't really have any say.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 9311341, member: 82106"] I would ask THEM this question! lol. I pointed to the rule, what more do I need to do? Read the section 'Starting the Game' on page 201 for a description of an initial start of play, the first session. While the situation is certainly 'in motion', the game DOES NOT start with a position roll! You're not catapulted instantly into a score. Play is most closely described as 'free play' at the start. The PCs ask questions, gather info, making inquiries, figure out who to align themselves with (or maybe to just sit back and watch for a chance to act in their own interests). Heck, on page 204 under 'opening a scene' there's even a nice hint at a way to actually turn the first scene into the start of a score: "Are you actually here to kill him for the Red Sashes? (If so, do a flashback and pick a plan for the assassination.)" Now, I agree it may well be possible to 'trigger' a score. I have suggested as much to [USER=6795602]@FrogReaver[/USER] in response to his attempt to claim that BitD's structure is unworkable. I think the above quote is indicative of the sorts of techniques the GM would have available to them in order to accomplish that. No they're not. EnWorld is full to overflowing with 'RPG nerds', as you put it, endlessly and vociferously denying the most obvious and plain of truisms! Where am I 'undermining' anything? I have no idea what you even mean by this. The game is pretty clear about how things start and proceed. It IS pretty flexible, but I don't think that is 'undermining' anything. I think it is just stating that maybe sometimes you will want to interpret the 'modes of play' and such in a fairly flexible way. Oye. I'm simply looking at the rules of the games in question and the play that I have experienced. Which one do you believe in, your own experience or posters on the Internet? I mean, I can only say it how it is. Honestly, to a large extent, when I hear things like this what I conclude is that everyone plays and experiences games in a slightly different way. So what SOME posters somewhere decided wasn't perfect for them, or that they were not comprehending something, etc. that's not someone laying down some law. I'm pointing out that there are people who don't have some of the problems that you specifically mentioned. In fact, my guess is that most of the people who didn't have problems, didn't start posting all about how they were perfectly satisfied, they just kept playing because it worked. So, it is probably not a great idea to generalize from "a few of the 1000's of people who played game X complained about Y" to Y is a big poo and needs to be excised from the game. I mean 1000's of people complained and complained about 4e SCs, yet the damned things work beautifully for many other people. I mean, if you hate fronts and you have some other thing you think works better, that's great. Concluding that fronts are therefor bad is however unwarranted. I find that the game works poorly without them! [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER], who's assuredly run plenty of DW, has yet a different position (I'll let him describe it if he is inclined, I don't think I can). I don't claim to answer for other people. I didn't find them clumsy for me, nor did I ever really naturally do quite what a front is, though I agree they're not some sort of revolutionary radical new kind of thing. I found them to be a nice tool for organizing my thought space in a systematic way which allowed me to easily present front content as moves, which seems to be the intent. I'm not sure why people thought it was confusing. As a software engineer I would rate it as some fairly solid technical documentation, actually! Sure, there's going to be room/need to apply some common sense to the execution at times, but that's pretty much par for the course in RPGs, isn't it? Well, obviously you don't have to stick to RAW, or to anything. Honestly, I don't even think you are 'breaking a rule' exactly if you don't bring any fronts into play. The game describes the GM using them, but you are free to choose any move that complies with the principles and agenda of DW. At worst you are just leaving something on the table that you COULD use. However, I found, and other people have found, that the game feels a bit 'dead' without fronts (or potentially something equivalent, this I cannot speak to). As I said, I don't follow a lot of game designer news and, as typical for me with other games, when I got DW I just went back to my long list of people that I play things with and got going with it, relying on LONG GMing experience and a close reading of the text. Through play we discovered why the various parts are there, how they work, etc. So it may well be that Sage and Adam hate fronts and never use them. As I said before, everyone plays things a bit different. If I ever run into one of them maybe we'll discuss it, but I doubt that will happen. As for Sage talking about wiping all 'trappings of D&D' from the game... Eh. I think there are some people who are frustrated with the way many people have simply skipped actually reading much of the game and just tried to play B/X D&D with it, treating 2d6 as if it was a d20 and missing the whole point. The D&D-class emulating playbooks and whatnot easily lets them do that. So that might be one motivation for wanting to change things. There may be others relating more to D&D culture, etc. However, I would say that I have 2 basic reactions: 1) D&D's classes really are pretty core archetypes of characters. So, sure, you could devise playbooks that didn't speak quite so directly to D&D classes, but at some level they're going to do somewhat similar things, especially if you are devising a game that lives in a similar space to D&D where it lets you depict fairly classic fantasy characters. I think attempts to change how the space is parsed up that are based on "not doing it like D&D" are ultimately going to just do it in a 2nd rate way. 2) The cat is so far out of the bag on this stuff that it isn't even funny. Stonetop, Ironsworn, and numerous other games have already taken general fantasy themes and reworked PbtA mechanics to handle them. I would point out that in each case the resulting game's playbooks look somewhat different from D&D's and yet A) not THAT different, and B) are devised to inhabit a much more specific niche than DW aims at. So, it might be interesting to see what Sage would do with that. I certainly am in no position to criticize other people's ideas about RPGs to write, but I'm not sure DW needs that. IMHO it occupies a nice spot in the FRPG space and it wouldn't be hurt by a much more modest clean up. I mean, there have been some tweaks made, and Perilous Wilds definitely added some good stuff. It wouldn't hurt to have it all kind of cleaned up and polished a bit. FOR ME that can be a pretty mild update, but since I'm not volunteering to do it I don't really have any say. [/QUOTE]
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