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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8192846" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm not really sure what the point is here. Are you arguing that there has been no change or development in RPGing since 1974? If that's not your argument, then what is it?Do you think designers like Luke Crane and Vincent Baker and Greg Stafford are/were not interested in the joys of actual play?I have active campaigns in multiple systems - Classic Traveller, MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic, Prince Valiant, Burning Wheel. These are different systems. They produce different play experiences. They are enjoyable in different ways.It would be strange for an advocate of cinema to argue that technique doesn't matter. Or to suggest that there's no difference between Star Wars, Manhattan and The Seventh Seal - "they're all just cinema!"In fiction, there's a difference between (say) LotR, REH Conan and Graham Greene.In RPGing, I can testify from experience there's a big difference between (say) the essential light-heartedness of Prince Valiant and the demanding "weight" of Burning Wheel. And both are different from Classic Traveller, which in play will reveal relatively little about the characters themeslves and is much more focused on the external world they inhabit.I don't know what the basis is for your quantitative claim.But anyway, the whole notion of adventure design and telling stories is something that is system-dependent, so you've already shown that system does matter. None of the games I've mentioned in this post, as played by my group, involve designed adventures or released great stories. And none of them, played as written, will support such things. (MHRP claims to, but there is a huge tension between that claim and the actual resolution procedures - you would have to just ignore these procedures to get the game to fit into a designed adventure.)I would also add: my active games are all with the same group. The differences between them aren't driven by the group, they're driven by the systems.Here are some simple differences that matter:* Classic Traveller has almost no mechanics that pick up on, or respond to, or affect, the commitments or "inner life" of the character; * MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic does not incorporate fictional positioning into resolution unless the participants make the effort, as part of the resolution process, to bring it under the umbrella of mechanics. This produces a feeling of "setting as backdrop" which from time to time gets starkly foregrounded - it was invented for super hero play, but I think also works well for JRRT; * In Prince Valiant, "damage" taken simply results - as a mechanical matter - in incapacitation. It is always up to the GM to decide what, in the fiction, follows from that incapacitation, and hence how serious it is and how long it takes to heal. As a general rule, therefore, there is no PC death unless the fictional positioning absolutely demands it (eg the damage results from falling a great height or being swallowed by a dragon or something similar); * In Burning Wheel failure rates can be in excess of 50% - this is one cause of the feeling of "weight" or "oppression" punctuated by occasional victory that is (in my view) a hallmark of BW play.None of these games will produce a 5e D&D-like play experience.</blockquote>

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