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<blockquote data-quote="Joshua Randall" data-source="post: 9305812" data-attributes="member: 7737"><p>You are correct that hype is a problem, and 90% of everything is crap anyway (Sturgeon's Law), but I can tell you about some actual play experiences.</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><a href="https://apocalypse-world.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Apocalypse World</strong></a><strong> / Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA)</strong> in general -- AW is the (IMO) earliest example of a 'story now' game that is actually coherent and fun <em>as a game</em> rather than as a thought experiment or intellectual example. I have never failed to have fun playing or MC-ing (GM-ing) a game of AW. Of course, you do need the players to buy into the 'story now' model... or to put it more bluntly, you probably need to re-educate your group in that mode of play.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Other PbtA games that I can personally vouch for:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><a href="https://evilhat.com/product/monster-of-the-week/" target="_blank">Monster of the Week</a> -- A lot of people say this is a better intro to PbtA than AW which... sure, that's an opinion. It may be the genre (Buffy-esque + lots of interpersonal drama) is more generally appealing that post-apocalypse? The tone is also less in-your-face / punk / swearwords, so there's that. Anyway, had fun playing a team of monster hunters in loosely connected missions.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><a href="https://magpiegames.com/collections/urban-shadows" target="_blank">Urban Shadows</a> -- I've only played this a couple of times as one-shots, and it was fun, though I'm not super into the genre. I will say the "play in your hometown so the players are familiar with that world" is genius in its simplicity.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>The Sprawl</strong> -- cyberpunk. Another genre I'm not super into, but this game made me like it. It does suffer from baked-in "Mr. Johnson betrays the party" inherited from Shadowrun, which is terrible, but you can ignore that part.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Legacy: Life Among the Ruins</strong> -- This is a really interesting take on AW, where you control both a person-playbook and a family/clan-playbook and you're kinda perpetual across a long period, like the named leaders in a Civilization game. (Lincoln of the Americans, from 2000 BCE to 2000 CE!)</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">aaand... I was gonna keep listing other games but I feel like I'm taking over the thread with wall-o-text, so moving on</li> </ul><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I have tried many many times to wrap my head around the core resolution mechanics of Burning Wheel and the gameplay loop but it is too opaque and Gygaxian sloppily scattered (with key rules 50 pages away from each other) for me to spend that much effort learning the games. I would welcome a BW SRD that stripped out all the cruft and just explained the rules.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>Blades in the Dark</strong> is a fantastic blend of story-now AW play with old-school D&D simulationist super-detailed setting, plus some gear (although it's Heisenbergian), plus territory control... it's this weird fantastic blend of two seemingly competing legs of the GNS stool that somehow works really well.</p><p></p><p><strong>Agon</strong> reads amazingly but I would never, ever be able to get my group to play it. (I've pushed them pretty far and I know them well.) pemerton has an actual play of it here: <<a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/agon-2nd-ed-actual-play.690886/" target="_blank">https://www.enworld.org/threads/agon-2nd-ed-actual-play.690886/</a>></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I like Kevin and have met him IRL (plus of course he's an admin here), but it strikes me that Gumshoe is exactly the wrong system for 4-color swords'n'sorcery play like Swords of the Serpentine wants to enable.</p><p></p><p>I feel the same way about Night's Black Agents (err... not by Kevin Kulp; it's Ken Hite): you want to play Jason Bourne vs. vampires, that sounds awesome... and then you pick Gumshoe as the system? WHY, MAN?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Joshua Randall, post: 9305812, member: 7737"] You are correct that hype is a problem, and 90% of everything is crap anyway (Sturgeon's Law), but I can tell you about some actual play experiences. [LIST] [*][URL='https://apocalypse-world.com/'][B]Apocalypse World[/B][/URL][B] / Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA)[/B] in general -- AW is the (IMO) earliest example of a 'story now' game that is actually coherent and fun [I]as a game[/I] rather than as a thought experiment or intellectual example. I have never failed to have fun playing or MC-ing (GM-ing) a game of AW. Of course, you do need the players to buy into the 'story now' model... or to put it more bluntly, you probably need to re-educate your group in that mode of play. [*]Other PbtA games that I can personally vouch for: [LIST] [*][URL='https://evilhat.com/product/monster-of-the-week/']Monster of the Week[/URL] -- A lot of people say this is a better intro to PbtA than AW which... sure, that's an opinion. It may be the genre (Buffy-esque + lots of interpersonal drama) is more generally appealing that post-apocalypse? The tone is also less in-your-face / punk / swearwords, so there's that. Anyway, had fun playing a team of monster hunters in loosely connected missions. [*][URL='https://magpiegames.com/collections/urban-shadows']Urban Shadows[/URL] -- I've only played this a couple of times as one-shots, and it was fun, though I'm not super into the genre. I will say the "play in your hometown so the players are familiar with that world" is genius in its simplicity. [*][B]The Sprawl[/B] -- cyberpunk. Another genre I'm not super into, but this game made me like it. It does suffer from baked-in "Mr. Johnson betrays the party" inherited from Shadowrun, which is terrible, but you can ignore that part. [*][B]Legacy: Life Among the Ruins[/B] -- This is a really interesting take on AW, where you control both a person-playbook and a family/clan-playbook and you're kinda perpetual across a long period, like the named leaders in a Civilization game. (Lincoln of the Americans, from 2000 BCE to 2000 CE!) [/LIST] [*]aaand... I was gonna keep listing other games but I feel like I'm taking over the thread with wall-o-text, so moving on [/LIST] I have tried many many times to wrap my head around the core resolution mechanics of Burning Wheel and the gameplay loop but it is too opaque and Gygaxian sloppily scattered (with key rules 50 pages away from each other) for me to spend that much effort learning the games. I would welcome a BW SRD that stripped out all the cruft and just explained the rules. [B]Blades in the Dark[/B] is a fantastic blend of story-now AW play with old-school D&D simulationist super-detailed setting, plus some gear (although it's Heisenbergian), plus territory control... it's this weird fantastic blend of two seemingly competing legs of the GNS stool that somehow works really well. [B]Agon[/B] reads amazingly but I would never, ever be able to get my group to play it. (I've pushed them pretty far and I know them well.) pemerton has an actual play of it here: <[URL]https://www.enworld.org/threads/agon-2nd-ed-actual-play.690886/[/URL]> I like Kevin and have met him IRL (plus of course he's an admin here), but it strikes me that Gumshoe is exactly the wrong system for 4-color swords'n'sorcery play like Swords of the Serpentine wants to enable. I feel the same way about Night's Black Agents (err... not by Kevin Kulp; it's Ken Hite): you want to play Jason Bourne vs. vampires, that sounds awesome... and then you pick Gumshoe as the system? WHY, MAN? [/QUOTE]
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