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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 8933462" data-attributes="member: 5142">Most definitely! I agree that we don't necessarily need to agree to the significance of a game when it comes to applying critical frameworks and these various critical frameworks can be applied to insignificant games. However, IMHO, the common use of discussing significant works is, IME, often about providing a conversational starting place or even historiographical benchmark: i.e., about understanding the development of works in the field. I think that this is distinct from establishing a "canon" in the sense of greatest works in the field. Regardless of the varying levels of design quality or good-/badness anyone may ascribe to Apocalypse World, for example, I would say that it had a profound impact outside of mainstream TTRPGs to the extent that it became its own "game type" that others copied: i.e., "Powered by the Apocalypse." Also regardless of the game's popularity, this game made waves with many other TTRPG designers, including by designers of more mainstream games like D&D 5e or reviewers like the Alexandrian and GnomeStew. So I think that Apocalypse World gets discussed in a similar way that the computer game Rogue. Rogue became a hallmark for the genre of "Roguelike" or "Roguelite" games for people on UseNet in the early '90s as it was the "first," at least according to them. Is Rogue as significant in its quality or popularity as the Roguelikes that followed in the forty years since? Not really in the grand scheme of things. So if I wanted to talk about PbtA games and how they function in comparison with other games out there, it seems like Apocalypse World would be a significant work in the context of a conversation trying to understand why there are a fair number of PbtA games out there, describing their chief characteristics, or even why Vincent Baker's name shows up in a lot of TTRPG inspiration and thanks credits. To be honest, I don't think that Apocalypse World was ever trying to be Finnegan's Wake. I think it was trying to be the basis for a fun game for Vincent Baker's wife and friends, probably in the way that the story of Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus was just meant to be an entertaining story for Mary Shelley's friends around a campfire rather than a desire to be a revolutionary pioneer of modern science fiction or monster horror stories. For the record, I also don't think that 5e D&D wanted to be Finnegan's Wake either. I definitely agree with you here that what Dick & Jane books are trying to do is different than what Finnegan's Wake is. I also think that point gets lost when it's applied to non-mainstream TTRPGs. They are not trying to do what D&D or Pathfinder are doing. So why are they being criticized for not doing things the way that D&D or more traditional games do them? Nah. I don't use any jargon or game theory principles at all in my TTRPG games! Right now I'm running a West Marches sandbox style hexcrawl game focused on dungeon-crawling and hexploration since I hate adventure paths that railroad the PCs. Even as the DM, I wanna play to find out what happens. Anyway, the players were free to be hack 'n' slash murder hobos if they wanted, but I told them that I preppred unbalanced encounters and would run this sandbox as a living world. In Session 0 the table decided in favor of a rules-lite system that used TotM set in my homebrew world instead of a crunchy grid-based system. Last week I had to fudge the dice to prevent a TPK but I regretted it after getting into an OOC argument with the metagaming rules lawyer about how their character critical hit should have worked against the BBEG according to RAW, but I reminded them that it's (a) rulings not rules, (b) that they may be right per RAW but not per RAI, and (c) their dice were cocked. They are something of a rollplaying munchkin anyway, but that's what they get for treating Strength attribute score as their dump stat. Then maybe critique the game creation engine itself, particularly how that seen half affects play in the unseen half. <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="🤷‍♂️" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f937-2642.png" title="Man shrugging    :man_shrugging:" data-shortname=":man_shrugging:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" /></blockquote>

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