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<blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 8309541" data-attributes="member: 16586">In a number of conversations on these boards the idea that indie games are these narrow curated experiences and more mainstream games are somehow more flexible keeps coming up again and again. There's usually no real justification for this. I like a lot of mainstream games. I am player in D&amp;D 5e and Infinity games right now. I love running Pathfinder Second Edition, Exalted Third Edition, Legend of the Five Rings Fifth Edition and Vampire. There are a lot of attendant expectations that go along with running and playing these games. They are almost on adventuring where players are expected to work together to complete the adventure of the week. There are all sorts of expectations around the sorts of scenes you are expected to frame, the sort of consequences you can inflict, and like how the player characters are oriented towards each other. In my experience there are also strong expectations around stuff like spotlight balancing, character concepts, and the like.Sure there are constraints placed on a GM in games like Blades in the Dark, Apocalypse World, and the like. There are also things you can do as a GM that would not go over well in D&amp;D or another mainstream game. Like in a game like Masks or Apocalypse Keys the GM has the ability to say it makes sense you would feel Angry and have that impact play. In Blades in the Dark if you can get arrested and have to serve out a sentence. Having that sort of consequence without giving players lots of opportunities to avoid it or escape would be very fraught in most games. The sort of hard moves I make when I run Apocalypse World just don't work in most mainstream games.I guess I don't understand how someone could make the case that mainstream/traditional games are more flexible without accepting their constraints as the norm.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Campbell, post: 8309541, member: 16586"] In a number of conversations on these boards the idea that indie games are these narrow curated experiences and more mainstream games are somehow more flexible keeps coming up again and again. There's usually no real justification for this. I like a lot of mainstream games. I am player in D&D 5e and Infinity games right now. I love running Pathfinder Second Edition, Exalted Third Edition, Legend of the Five Rings Fifth Edition and Vampire. There are a lot of attendant expectations that go along with running and playing these games. They are almost on adventuring where players are expected to work together to complete the adventure of the week. There are all sorts of expectations around the sorts of scenes you are expected to frame, the sort of consequences you can inflict, and like how the player characters are oriented towards each other. In my experience there are also strong expectations around stuff like spotlight balancing, character concepts, and the like. Sure there are constraints placed on a GM in games like Blades in the Dark, Apocalypse World, and the like. There are also things you can do as a GM that would not go over well in D&D or another mainstream game. Like in a game like Masks or Apocalypse Keys the GM has the ability to say it makes sense you would feel Angry and have that impact play. In Blades in the Dark if you can get arrested and have to serve out a sentence. Having that sort of consequence without giving players lots of opportunities to avoid it or escape would be very fraught in most games. The sort of hard moves I make when I run Apocalypse World just don't work in most mainstream games. I guess I don't understand how someone could make the case that mainstream/traditional games are more flexible without accepting their constraints as the norm. [/QUOTE]

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