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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crimson Longinus" data-source="post: 9851052" data-attributes="member: 7025508">So whilst I think "play to find out" is a confusing catchphrases as these forgey terms tend to be, but the concept it is pretty much the low prep, low myth play I was alluding to earlier. And I've been trying to think what sort of mechanics support that, and one thing I feel is counterproductive to it, yet often paired with is the clocks, or at least certain sort of use of them. (I am eager to once again hear how we are playing the Blades in the Dark wrong.) Like these games often have the structure which compel the GM to invent consequences on failure or partial success, and this is supposed to push the events forward instead of just being "nothing happens." But if that consequence is just being some abstract clock ticking forwards, then the situation at the moment still is "nothing happens." And if the clock is something that only matters for that score, then it merely encourages you to manage it until you've accomplished enough of your goals and then bail out before the it gets filled, and I doesn't think this creates particularly interesting gameplay. So in general I feel consequences that require you to react at the moment or recontextualise the situation are significantly better for producing compelling fiction and gameplay.I think the issue might arise because these games ask the GM to invent consequences so often that it might become difficult for GM to make up something interesting constantly, so it is easy to just default to ticking "alarm will be raised" clock or some such. And this of course is a skill issue, and some GM's will be way better at this than others and will have no problems with coming up with cool consequences. But I think design-wise the designer should carefully consider how often the system prompts the GM to come up with such stuff, as I feel rarer, but more impactful consequences is better than frequent but boring ones.There also could be some mechanics that would help the GM with coming up with this stuff, like, you'd have chart for random action scene consequences and social scene consequences and then you would roll and get "betrayal" and that would help you spin the fiction. Though personally I feel this would be way too mechanical and restricting, but I think as some sort of optional extra it might be something that could help some GMs.How are people feeling about some sort of mechanics and aids for randomising story beats and events in RPGs? Like of course we randomise results in some way constantly and random encounter charts are a classic, but I am thinking on more conceptual level, randomising event, people, themes, and such. Do you know games that do this? Like the GM drawing cards for plot points and twists etc?</blockquote>

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