RPGaDay 2024 (Day 13 and 14)

(I thought I'd posted this pair a few days ago... then life got in the way again. I guess I'll need to do a few posts in quick succession to catch up.)

Day 13 - Evocative Environments

I can't go past Planescape for this one. The writing, the imagery, the first time perusing the books of the setting when it was first released in the 1990s still stick with me. The artwork was so different to other products available at the time...

...but it was more than that. It was written with lots of fragments, an abundance of places to visit, but every one of those places felt different. It wasn't just a string of medieval cookie cutter towns with the same mysterious hills behind them, and similar dungeons.

Day 14 - Compelling Characters

Here's the bit where I think my method of answering questions by giving games has basically reached it's end. I've been wondering whether I should approach this question from the perspective of which game system creates the most compelling characters at the start of play, or which system creates the situations in play that drive players to show how compelling their characters are, but this is starting to feel like a false dichotomy. 

I actually think the most compelling characters are often the product of what happens between the rules...rather than what happens when they apply. 

Day 13 (Take 2) - Evocative Environments

With the modified idea for answering Day 14, I'm going to take another crack at Day 13. Now I'm thinking of the ways I've created evocative environments in the past...

I've discussed the 3-way tension a few times, and it's been a favoured way to look at the structure of play for a few years. With this in mind, I've often tried to ensure that the environments I create are an offering of ideas, with an assortment of deliberate gaps in them for players to fill in the blanks while I run a game. If I'm writing a game,