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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Emberashh" data-source="post: 9153665" data-attributes="member: 7040941">Ie the game starts to break down and become unfun if played in a particular way. Some of what that entails you can't strictly avoid (you can't really make an in-game rule that'll stop cheaters from ruining a game, for example), but there's a fairly wide gulf between unsolvable problems and gameplay thats too rigid.But this also relates to the idea that any given game is not going to survive intact with its audience; once players are playing the game, how they choose to play it becomes a part of the experience, and developers have to be conscious of it. So when one designs a game that is so rigid that player agency to engage with the game as they wish becomes difficult if not impossible, then there's going to be problems of abrasiveness. And likewise if a game has no intended way to play, then players are going to define one for themselves, and then run into problems when/if the game can't support what they chose. It is not a coincidence that both PBTA and WOTC DND are as divisive as they are when they both have problems with this coming from the different ends of the scale. Something like Call of Cthulu for example doesn't have this issue at all. While one can be punished in-game for trying to play it like its DND, the actual mechanics don't stall or start violating the intended experience if they do. If COC players come up with an ingenious plan to fight Cthulu himself, they'll deal some 800 damage perhaps and he'll keep on coming, and that just reinforces the themes of the game that these things are simply beyond humans and even reality itself.Whereas if one tries to play BITD or even Ironsworn like its DND, it quickly becomes a farce as constant consequences start diminishing the capacity for the game to be dramatic like it wants to be, and players that (at least in Ironsworn) are meant to be gritty heroes start to feel like bumbling morons, which is obviously not intended. And the fix there isn't necessarily hard design wise, but it would take a significant shift in how Moves are designed. (And just because its on my mind, Ill note with PBTA games that much of what they do, including their core philosophy of fiction first, are not impossible in Trad or other games. But where Trad games often don't do a good job of establishing that practice, PBTA forces it. Not good)</blockquote>

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