I wanted to touch on this, I don't really support systems that require you to play the GM in the sense described here, but I do absolutely think players should be avoiding rolling when possible, and should be able to take actions without risk, and frankly should be trying to do so. If they must take risks, the next step is to minimize both the chance of and consequences of failure.
This is generally what I'm describing as "parasitic" here, that players always take on new risks when they attempt anything at all, and that there is no course of action they can take that doesn't expose them to penalty, and depending on the system and the precise rules for "success at cost" (somewhat less an issue in Blades because you can buy off consequences with stress) that risk may be unbounded and unknowable.
I found Blades incredibly... Claustrophobic? The entire take on heists as a unit of gameplay for example. I like heists in my RPGs, they're an excellent closed loop situation to make and execute a plan with some room for improvisation if things go awry. There's a clear goal and a set of challenges to overcome (including learning about those challenges, so you can go plot to overcome them). The entire model of a heist in Blades inverts this. You improvise everything, including the plan, and declare moves in response to risk, instead of to avoid it. It's actively very frustrating to play as a result. I can never feel safe declaring an action, and any input I put into game can snap into a risk at any moment, and the game is very clear that's the intended play state.
I play games that involve risk mitigation/assessment as a primary mechanic, most significantly Netrunner, but those games still reward me for planning, and reward good decision making that limits risk or mitigates downsides. Knowing that your opponent could play a card that tags you if you run, you ensure you have sufficient economy to survive that, or don't run, unless say, the game is at match point and your only remaining out is to score the last point with a successful run.
Blades did not, in my admittedly limited experience, feel amenable to that analysis. I felt like I was being asked to make decisions without performing risk analysis. In particular the game kept insisting my character was competent, but felt like it was forcing me to play incompetently, in a way I found particular dissonant.
So some thoughts:
* Again, I like your classification of "Parasitic" (in that I think it does quality work to diagnose a particular form of design), but something is really off with your diagnosis of it in Blades in the Dark. It seems to me that a few things must be true for a game to qualify with your designator:
1) Either the gamestate is inherently degraded or, at some point, the gamestate must degrade (whether precipitously or suddenly) despite the inputs of the participants, and the competitive integrity of the play degraded with it, as a natural course of merely playing the game. This is because the gamestate is sufficiently decoupled from the skillfulness of the operators to render it irrelevant and...
2) This degradation must, therefore, be encoded, meaning, it must be foundational, built into the very framework/DNA of play. Play cannot escape it, either incidentally or by concerted effort of the participants (within the framework of the game engine).
So, effectively, we've got a deterministic system that has an inescapable inertia because no external force can act upon it to arrest the motion. Skillful play cannot exist. As an impartial observer, as a GM, or as a player, you cannot suss out masterful play from skillful play to poor play to "misplay city."
Alright...so, a significant part of my background is in athletic contests, martial arts (including contests), and fitness (including contests). I took up climbing 3.25 years ago. I've been running TTRPG games forever (especially games where skilled play is ether the apex priority, like Moldvay Basic, or, at least, an essential priority). I have played all of the big CRPGs that measure varying forms of skillful play (from games like Slay the Spire to all the Dark Souls to Darkest Dungeon etc). My life has, more or less, been an endless march of competition.
And I've probably GMed something like 1000 hours worth of Blades in the Dark in the last 4 years and change (I average running somewhere between 2.5 weekly TTRPG games of various sorts)?
I don't know what is going on broadly with your Blades in the Dark experience, but something is very...very...off. (1) and (2) above is just fundamentally not true. And then the conclusion of the paragraph below it is also fundamentally not true. Reading what you are saying, it seems to me (and I hope that I'm not creating offense here...but this is just my read) that you have some of...purity test (?) happening in your brain when it comes to the competitive through line of gameplay, and the attendant skillfulness metric associated with that through line, that is just a bit disconnected from the facts of the ground when it comes to any competitive enterprise. Its something like:
- if you must engage with the actual parameters of a designed game...
- and you cannot reject those baked-in parameters to establish your own parameters of engagement outside of them...
- and those parameters beset the participants with the inability to reduce their assumed risk profile to 0 or near 0 (as is the case in virtually every game designed...and not just TTRPGs)....
- then the game ceases to become a test of skill and competitive integrity because the gamestate must degrade (or is inherently degraded) to some degree whereby you feel it is decoupled from participant input.
Its like..."if you can't opt out of playing the game
as-is in order to outright nullify risk...then the game ceases to become a contest of skill?" There is another saying that comes to mind; "the only way to win is
not to play." If this reading of your position is correct (or its even in the vicinity of near the mark)...then something is very off here (and imo, disconnected from the reality of virtually every competitive endeavor humanity has built).
I like "Parasitic Design" as a piece of taxonomy technology. But I think (maybe I'm wrong) that there is something "off" with your assessment or you're casting your net, far, far, far too wide.
* Ok, on Blades and risk assessment specifically? Again, something befouled your play. I don't know if the GM didn't understand the system or the participants at large didn't understand the system, but this is not correct. Blades is shot through with elements (both discrete and integrated) that are fundamentally about tactical or strategic risk assessment and mitigation.
1) Every Action Roll has Position and Effect. Managing this matrix is about risk assessment and mitigation with both tactical and strategic elements. Do I want to keep my present risk/threat level (Position) or can I endure enhanced threat (by proxy of evaluating resources/approaches I can bring to bear to both (a) amplify my prospects of success and (b) mitigate or outright resolve downstream Consequences)? What are the Consequences on the table for this particular obstacle/situation? Do I like this array of Consequences (good GMing often means more than 1 Consequence on the table for any given Action Roll...eg; if its Desperate, I'll telegraph a Risky Consequence and a Controlled Consequence for players to fold into their risk assessment/decision tree) or do I want to negotiate different ones via a different approach (either a different approach to the situation entirely or a different matrix of Position/Effect)? Can I assume the risk of Desperate Position here so I can tick an xp that I need for downstream Advancement? How much Effect do I need to turn the tide of the situation or to outright resolve the Obstacle (eg I've got x ticks on a Clock remaining or I need to ensure that if the GM hits me with Reduced Effect as a Consequence, that I've got enough Effect to "carry out my play")?
2) You're managing your own Stress Pool, your Trauma totals, your own Harm and Recovery Clocks, your Cohorts' Harm, your Crew's Heat and Wanted Level, your juggling the decision-space of Threat/Faction/Setting extra-Score Clocks that might go off against you and how you can dispatch your Crew and Cohorts on Scores (the current Blades game I'm running features 2, sometimes even 3 Scores per loop) and manage your individual and collective Downtime Activities to push back against these gathering Clocks and their "go boom" results. You're managing your Claim Map. You're managing your Advances (PC and Crew) and analyzing the risks/benefits of the constellation of courses charted vs those not charted. You're managing the risk of At-War status or the realities of At-War status once you inevitably get there.
3) You're managing an evolving fiction (with looming threats in the way of Rivals and interconnected Enemy Factions and assets in the way of Friends/Contacts/Allies that need to be folded into the large decision-space that involves risk assessment in Blades) that is accumulating during the Score and up-to this point in play.
This is all deeply laden with tactical and strategic risk assessment. Its inescapable.
