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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Indaarys" data-source="post: 9199578" data-attributes="member: 7040941">The implicit problem though is what I was relating through the Kerbal example. Kerbal (in sandbox mode) doesn't force any sort of plot. It has a de facto goal list to follow (ie, eventually you're going to make a goal of going to the Mun), but you can also just sit around and make stupid contraptions out of the lego rocket parts.By taking that framework and approaching it with the direct intent to make a story happen, it quickly spirals out of control.This doesn't mean forcing a plot. It means forcing a narrative. I don't believe I related it in this topic, but in the past Ive given a criticism of PBTA being the fact that its near impossible to play most of them without a Narrative forming. I can't just play, I always have to be telling the story the game constructs. They feel like Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glenn Ross telling me to naughty word myself, metaphorically. (Literally in AWs case)I don't think, given that, its coincidental all of my favorite games are ones where I have the relative freedom to just not do anything like that. Simulator games tend to do it the best, as do sandbox and open world games. But even more structured experiences can introduce that sort of lull state. Civ V for example is one where I can just play. I often will set up Marathon games where I turn all the victory conditions off. Id probably like EU4 and all that better, but the Civ games appeal to me more. And in the tabletop space, the ones I play and prefer all support it. When I play DCC, we can just dick around within the context of the game and its still all good fun, and I'm intentionally designing my own game to be very supportive of this, as well as the concept of "home" in games. (A virtual Third Space)Indeed, this is another reason why Ironsworn in particular clicks for me, because the bulk of the narrative it imposes is the same thing I'd do when I play. It doesn't fight me because its base experience is how I'd play. You're not wrong. As far as genre emulation goes, Moves are typically going to synch up with specific narrative patterns that endemic to the genre being emulated. Go Aggro, for example, is pretty straightforward. Its emulating basically any scene in a post-apoc story where someone is using the threat of violence to get their way, and the possible results reflect how such scenes play out in the genre. And in fact, going back and reading it (or at least version Im looking at), it even constrains the agency of the player:[ATTACH=full]332143[/ATTACH]The only purpose such a thing serves is to reinforce the genre. If a character goes aggro in these stories, and the person they're doing it to forces their hand, the story generally isn't going to pull back on it.This specific example is actually a case where I'd say the genre emulation has gone completely wrong, as I could easily imagine a lot of scenarios where this constraint would be out of place. Easily ignored in-game, but its still there, and as they say, the System Matters. So Im not familiar with BITD. I read it once to see what Clocks were about, but by this point I had bounced off these games. Does Stress/Trauma have any sort of feedback response that the Player is obligated to incorporate, or are they just resources with a thematic name? By response, Im thinking along the lines of a Wound. In my own game, a Wound is mechanically a Status Effect, but also directly represents a real, major wound like a Laceration. This in turn obligates the Player to treat and roleplay their PC as injured. Is Stress actually reflected like that, or is that just left to the player to interpret and incorporate if they want? If its the latter, then I don't count it as being an example of the trope. See the Go Aggro example above. Actually an example of an unambiguous Success causing the same issue. Its not so much that what was done in the fiction was unintended, but what the Move introduces to the Fiction may be unintended and uncontrollable in a way that reflects on the player's agency as their character. A healthy blend of immersion and that sense of Home I mentioned earlier. I enjoy narratives, and I enjoy them best when I engage them willingly, but I also need to be able to back off from them, and I don't want that to mean I stop playing. Being creatively expressive as a form of fun for me works better within that space, incidentally. In real life my first passion and most skilled talent is in creative writing, and I liken that as being another reason why I, unintuitively, don't really click with those games. If I want to form a narrative, I can do so dramatically easily. Gamifying it just gets in the way of how I do that normally, so its seldom enjoyable unless the game is in a state where expression isn't obligate. I don't think its that coincidental that this tends to be the exact appeal of Minecraft, which is another video game I particularly enjoy and find very immersive and homely. Even in Survival mode, you can slip back into the lull that Creative mode provides all the time, and its actually in a way kind of brilliant, as that lull is essentially integrated into the Survival experience. Once you've got a stash of blocks to play with and an Automatic KFC going, you can basically play Creative until you run out, and then you can kick in for more Survival, and then it just keeps going. Immensely satisfying gameplay loop, and it, as well as other games like it (Space Engineers, Ark) is why Crafting and Gathering in my game is as massive a part of the game as it is, to the point that I innovated a new dice mechanic just to run it. Very exciting. Prosyletizers don't sit well with me and my social weakness on the internet is being compelled to resist and counter them, particularly when it comes to too narrow minded about creative endeavors. Positioning Genre emulation as the peak of RPGs, etc. I may give the impression of picking on PBTA fans a lot, but I have the same issues with Pathfinder people and certain OSR people too. These latter two don't seem to have much presence on EnWorld though, which if nothing else I appreciate. It gets exhausting and if I can be allowed to generalize, those latter two are a lot more infuriating to engage with.</blockquote>

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