Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="The-Magic-Sword" data-source="post: 9016427" data-attributes="member: 6801252">So I ended up discussing it with my 'neo-trad player' as I sort of think of him, with most of his friction coming from when games don't align with these values, and we actually ended up agreeing that one thing we like conceptually about this system, is that the mechanics that enforce narrative offer a lot of possible counterplay through specific play strategies and character options, and that a lot of the elements are tempting but not involuntary (e.g. most of your dramatic failures are likely going to be via intentionally invoking them for beats, willpower can be used to make feeding in Vampire safer in terms of humanity so if you're conservative with willpower you have better odds of retaining humanity, and there are processes for simply shoring it up, you can avoid picking up too much Blood Potency and can have safer feeding overall) and you can guide the GM to tragedy you're comfortable with via aspirations. At the same time, there's a temptation for the player to live dangerously as a voluntary choice and invoke the dramatic spiral and descent of horrible consequences.Essentially the game offers the player brakes to exert additional control over it's narrative mechanics, offering them power in exchange for dramatic spiral, but not gluing a brick to the gas pedal and letting them decide when their comfortable with the narrative, in tandem with a lot of advice about checking in with your players about upcoming story elements you might try and put their character through.Its an interesting case study in the compromises between narrative enforcement and player empowerment-- the net effect is that everyone lives in a world dominated by negotiating the mechanics, but not always by the direct consequences of these mechanics. Its comparable to "what-if-I-avoid-taking-on-too-much-stress" in BITD, but with a lot more player facing tools.</blockquote>

Verification