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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 7036115" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I figured <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=":)" />  Thank you for the kind words.  I appreciate being able to chat with you guys about this unbelievably underappreciated game we all enjoy with such a high signal to noise ratio.  Honestly, I'm optimistic.  It is far too good to not have a resurgence at some point.  Just one quick (lol?) response that is a bit of the above and a bit of your exchange with  @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=6780330" target="_blank">Parmandur</a>.  I completely understand your sense of being trolled when folks start talking about "tactical 4e".  We dealt with so much "not an RPG" rubbish related to shallow understanding and/or outright malicious hit-pieces masquerading as informed and objective analysis.  I get it.That being said, I don't think folks who play 4e as actual "tactical combat linked by freeform roleplay" have anything to apologize about.  Going further still, I don't think folks that run it as just a series of cinematic set-piece combats (where campy barbs are exchanged between players and between players and GM) with just a very stray interlude in a tavern, shop, or a campsite (or whatever) for mere color have anything to apologize about.Torchbearer is a game inspired by Moldvay Basic.  It is about a truly grimdark PoL setting where deadend adventurers dare to go beyond the stone walls that hold back the encroaching darkness.  Maybe pull some modest treasure from the inhospitable wilds and the ruins within?  Maybe return empty-handed...beaten, broken in spirit and body.  It is a profound game about dealing with the fading of the light (metaphorical and literal), your nature, inevitable loss, all-too meager gains...death...and maybe heroism.  The synthesis of the resolution mechanics, PC build mechanics, feedbacks, and GMing principles utterly push play inexorably toward this paradigm.  You cannot play this game (or at least I can't fathom the purpose of trying) and not be emotionally provoked and invested.However, its inspiration, Moldvay Basic is utterly capable of (and emboldened toward, actually) casual dungeon crawling where you need not be emotionally provoked nor invested (from a first-person, PC habitation, perspective) in the slightest.   You can play dozens and dozens of dungeon crawls with Bob005 (your 5th "Bob the Fighter" because the first 4 died...tragically) or maybe grab your Sir Elfington the Elf001 for this dungeon?  You'll explore, you'll map, you'll puzzle, you'll encounter resistance/obstacles, you'll parley, you'll run, you'll fight, you'll rest...you'll die...you'll sometimes return to home base with a nice haul.  The games mechanics and procedures are beautifully coherent and facilitate this paradigm.  Detached, sometimes silly, "pawn stance" play is rife.  In fact, I'm not sure if I can recall too many Basic dungeon crawls that I've run that were anything but!But Torchbearer is no more of an RPG than Moldvay Basic.  Its just different.  So while getting annoyed with people who try to define your RPG experience (or an RPG you enjoy) in a way to demean it or "gatekeep it out of the RPG club" is completely inevitable, natural, and to be expected (and you SHOULD push back against them HARD)...no 4e player (or pawn-stance, Monty Pythoning it up, Moldvay Basic player) has anything to apologize for, regardless of how prominent "tactical combat" is featured in their 3-4 hours per week (or whatever it might be).Heck, I UTTERLY LOATHE metagame-averse, GM Force/Illusionism-driven games.  But I'm well aware that (a) this is a very prominent form of playing D&D (post-White Wolf/Dragonlancing of AD&D 2e) and (b) that the participants (GMs that are driving the games and players who are mostly setting/metaplot tourists but do a heck of a job acting out their characterizations) are enjoying themselves (c) in the course of playing an RPG.  They don't have to apologize to me and I certainly don't begrudge them either their "belonging in the RPG club" status nor their enjoyment (certainly not enough to pathologically troll/sock-puppet internet forums on multi-year campaigns of trench warfare)!</blockquote>

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