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Message: <blockquote data-quote="loverdrive" data-source="post: 8993528" data-attributes="member: 7027139">I would disagree.Right now (well, not right right now, but you get what I mean) I'm playtesting a game. Two players take on roles of different drives:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Steel: discipline, honour, cold calculation</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Blood: passion, love, rage and all the emotions that make us human</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Sun: lust, greed and utter, total domination</li> </ul>They are intentionally vague and intentionally abstract. Finding conflict between the two the players have chosen is their job, it is an integral part of the gameplay.During the game,<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">A prompt card is drawn (well, it's not actually physically drawn, as the game can only be played with a "VTT"), eg: "Bad Omen", "Betrayal", "Crisis of Faith", "Death of God's Will"</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The players play out this scene, fleshing it out, right until they disagree about something crucial.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The disagreement is then settled using a fighting mini-game, very reminiscent of Dark Souls PVP, but without the jank (I hope at least)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The winner narrates the conclusion of the scene</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The next scene is drawn, and the loser narrates how it starts, with an opportunity to change characters, location or whatever else, scenes themselves don't need to be directly connected to each other</li> </ol>I, as the designer, rule over the game with an iron fist. There never will be a scene "Catboy Café" because I'll never add such a scene card. Yet, every time I played it or watched others play it, the stories, the conflicts, the characters, the mood, the moral were different. Some went for disconnected vignettes, some went for a grand story with multiple leading characters, one time playtesters asked "The visual aesthetics seem to suggest fantasy, but can it be cyberpunk?" and I replied "Yeah?".The only constant thing was the essence, in a similar way to how every Quake 3 match is different, depending on the map, the players, the micro decisions they make, yet each and everyone of them unmistakably feels like Quake 3.The same, I guess, can be said about MUJIK IS DEAD, or Monsterhearts, or Wanderhome, but I can't exactly say that I've had a diverse yet unified experience with, say, World of Darkness. Despite all the thematical difference between Vampires and Mages, despite all the difference between Berlin and Shanghai, it was always the same bland slog, and all the times I did bleed (metaphorically, obviously), it was because I've had enough and started cutting myself. Even though I've played way too much of World of Darkness.</blockquote>

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