Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 6733106" data-attributes="member: 16586">Sorry for the wall of text, folks.  What I was trying to say was mechanics are like contextually useful, but should not be mistaken for the thing we are doing in play and how we go about doing it. I believe that this is fertile design space and bears equal if not more consideration, and it's a good thing to have games that approach this from different angles. I do have a personal bugaboo about taking what I call the artifacts of play as a fetish and making play about them instead of the things they represent. I believe play happens in the conversation we have about the play space (fiction or mental model depending on who you talk to).I also have a little bit of hate in my heart for Vampire: The Masquerade. Luckily, I now have the 2nd Edition of Vampire - The Requiem which does everything I ever wanted out of V:tM. I'm overly strident about this in a way I probably shouldn't be, in the same way I'm often more competitive than I should be.I want to clarify something here: My opinions on Vampire - The Masquerade are strong, but I don't think by any stretch that it is a bad thing that it was written. I'm not a fan of the pervasive effect it had in the community, but don't mistake my criticism for the idea that I can impose the things I value on the community as a whole. The idea that we need to serve as gatekeepers as to what games people are allowed to design or like or play is totally not something I want to say. Our hobby is diverse, and I view that in a positive light.I think criticism of that style of play is useful and was sorely needed. It was taken too far at times, and is part of the reason I'm glad that my corner of the hobby moved on from The Forge. The point of that criticism should be to understand why certain games don't work for us and encourage new games that we can totally jam out on, and not to deny a part of the hobby the sort of play they like or attempt to excommunicate them because they like different things. Where the OSR has been effective it's because of celebration of this thing they really like and think other people would like too if they gave it a shot. We really need more of that in general. Here's why more people should play Apocalypse World - you can get together with friends and play a game where you are all dangerous, capable people trying to carve out your own piece of a world that's gone to <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />. You get to be a vital part of a community that needs to reestablish itself after society just hit the reset button. Do you push it towards oblivion or build something new? Let's play to find out.As an aside for [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION]: Have you taken a look at Stars Without Number? It's a totally cool space exploration RPG that is designed for the sort of play experience it sounds like your after. In between sessions part of GM prep involves a phase where you use random charts to figure out what's going on in the galaxy. It's a cool little game.</blockquote>

Verification