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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 6732771" data-attributes="member: 16586">We tend to think about what constitutes system in different ways. To you system is all about the artifacts of play (character sheets, dice, and numerical representations of stuff). For me it includes directives on how to play the game, and I think those directives are the most crucial area of design because it has the biggest impact. None of that stuff (including the artifacts of play) is like binding for individual groups. We can easily play Ars Magica (as in using whatever artifacts of play and directives serve the kind of game we want to play) without like playing Ars Magica (following directives and using all artifacts of play that apply).  Basically, we have different ideas as to what counts as playing a particular game as designed.What you said still struck a chord with me. Here's the thing - the indie RPG community didn't invent a new way to play role playing games. They attempted to capture a way to play role playing games people had been using since role playing games were like a thing and create a set of games that were more suited to that way of playing. When John Harper was play testing Apocalypse World and read the How To MC chapter he was like "Isn't that just the way you GM?". It was nothing special for a lot of people because they were already like playing a game based on D&D of their own design that utilized the same set of techniques and procedures. Vincent Baker acknowledges this directly in the text of Apocalypse World. The same is true of Ars Magica and Vampire. They had successfully captured a different way people had already been playing role playing games.  The Ravenloft and Dragonlance modules are probably the earliest published form of this. The play techniques they utilized were something a lot of people were already doing, including a popular way to play Champions. Monte Cook totally played Champions this way, and has a post on his site I could dig up. Current games that use these play techniques (the ones in Vampire - not Apocalypse World and Sorcerer) include Numenera and Shadow of the Demon Lord. It's not a way to play the game that I like very much, but people were already doing it.This sort of thing is important to acknowledge. The indie community totally did a poor job of communicating this from the start, and tried to appear way to avant garde. We were like making a statement man!</blockquote>

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