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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 7414750" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Alright, so I haven't posted in almost 3 months.  I'm pretty much in my death throes of posting thoughts on TTRPGs.  But I'm going to flail out a response here before rigamortis fully sets in.There are so many reasons why these conversations never bear out any fruit on ENWorld, but a big portion has to do with play priorities and the facts that:a) Not all play priorities play nice with each other because...b) Play priority x may either subordinate (in play) or be nearly mutually exclusive to play priority y...c) Play priority x's machinery may force multiply its priorities to the exclusion of priority y.d) When this happens, the expression of player agency inherent to play priority y is impacted.This is where people get annoyed, because this is a large component of The Forge's concept of incoherency.  And The Forge and ideas of incoherency of game agendas/priorities gets people pissed.But it always becomes manifest in a thread like this and should be (but my guess is I can't do it) easily conveyed when you examine a game like Moldvay Basic vs a game like Dungeon World.  At the veneer level, they look to be similar fantasy games.  In play, they are most definitely not.Moldvay Basic's primary play priority is about testing a player's skill at logistics/strategic planning, puzzle solving, and using effective teamwork (in both maximizing output in Exploration Turns, parlay, and combat) to overcome the game's machinery (a complex series of obstacles + the Exploration Turn > Wandering Monster Clock > Monster Reaction synthesis) to limit dire peril in order to pull treasure out of a dangerous dungeon.Dungeon World's primary play priority is about an endless stream of danger and peril and finding out what what kind of world and rich characters comes out of such a fray.  ALL of the game's machinery pushes towards that play priority.  Yes, there is some resource management and logistics, but that component of the game is there to augment that primary play priority, not to reduce its impact (eg; dire peril and danger is coming no matter what...that is the point of play...so spend your Adventuring Gear "here" or "there", it won't reduce the game's overall danger, but it will change its present nature, shape the world, and enrich your characters and others as we find out what happens).If you try to mash those two together?...One of those two play priorities will invariably become subordinate to the other.  They don't inherently play nice together and matters are made worse when the game's machinery supports one paradigm over the other.  Imagining that they do is a big problem in these sorts of conversations.Now some games do a better job of synthesizing those particular play priorities than others due to the cleverness of their machinery.  This is one of the reasons why Blades in the Dark has become such a hit.</blockquote>

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