Observations of the Fox

    It's an interesting theory, and I've certain seen players like this at a number of tables that Ive either been a part of, or have run, at various stages over the past few decades. In the last couple of posts I mentioned narcissistic players, and this is certainly in the same ballpark as that phenomenon (I can almost hear the player screaming "Fake News") . The screenshot post goes into a bit of depth, regarding the subcategories and it's nice to see a social media post that actually scratches a bit below the surface. I've heard players explicitly use each of the types of displacement mentioned, and in some cases I can think of players who've used multiple examples during my time gaming with them... however, when things go well, they love the GM, they love the rule systems, they love the unfolding story, (they typically see everyone else in the group as supporting characters to their success, and don't often think about them) . If this type of play...

I've been collecting posts from online to respond to... some giving me positive reactions...and some... ...seriously, for fuck's sake!!! Let's deconstruct it a bit... bearing in mind that I don't have a lot more context,and I'll be inferring a lot of details based on patterns I've established over the years in context with my assortment of recent posts.  I've just finished Lanterns as well, and it was a great show. I can see how someone would want to tell stories in that universe, or stories of that nature. But...   Any one or two of these c ould be modified to bring D&D closer into alignment with what we see in Lanterns, but we either start drifting from the core concepts of Lanterns, or we start drifting away from the core concepts of D&D. We have a tension between the diegetic source (Lanterns) and the non-diegetoic rule systems (D&D). If I had players who were hell bet on playing D&D, but who wanted the Lanterns style of storyline, there...

The liminal space is a powerful thing. The idea of being able to step out of yourself for a couple of hours, inhabit a character in a shared world with friends, where there is a ritual8se space with instruments sacred to the moment like dice and possibly maps, figurines, tokens, cards, or anything else that might help create a stronger link between the real and the imagined. Texts that describe the interactions within the world, or how the sacred instruments can be utilised to affect the imagined world. Some of that text is written by Prophets (game designers), published in hardback and purchased...other parts of the text are defined by the the local arbiter/priest (DM/GM/MC/etc.), perhaps in hastily written notepads and journals, maybe printed in a folder... then there's the elements of the text written by the congregation (the players), who might be writing accounts of their own experiences in the liminal world, and those accounts may be fed back into the space when the GM says ...

 If you're reading this, you're either: A. an uber hispter delving into arcane knowledge from an obscure designer who'll probably never make it big, so it's safe to read and maintain your indie credibility... B. someone who has followed a link from a social media site because it seemed interesting, but otherwise aren't sure... C. a person who has come here in the far future from when this post was written, because finally the authr actually has made it big in some way... D. an AI trawler bot that has been programmed to go through blogs and collect data for the LLM that drives other parts of the algorithm... E. someone who founf my moderately successful series of map drawing tutorials, and you wondered what else might be around here... F. someone I haven't accounted for... ...either way, here comes a bit of a rant.  In my experience, most people who participate in the hobby of TTRPGs don't run games for themselves, and most of them only ever play games under ...

  There has often been a debate between "Rules and Written" (RAW) and "Rules as Intended" (RAI). The debate goes back to the earliest days of gaming, and can probably be traced back to the concepts of rules versus rulings. I've indicated a number of times over the years that I'm not a big fan of systems that build convoluted sets of mechanics that detail different ways of resolving different types of task. I prefer an overall system that will basically approximate everything, and keep the complexity of the game to a manageable level. I know it's not as "realistic", but what is "realism" in a session of fantasy escapism anyway. The post above prompted my thoughts on this. It's kind of the reason why I'm developing the "SNAFU Cookbook". Cortex had its "Hacker's Guide", showing ways you could adapt the system for various purposes. A lot of this comes down to issues I've discussed many times here on the...

It's a day late, but lets finish off this run of posts.   Batch 10 (L5R) I love the Legend of the Five Rings setting, as it was one of the first fleshed out fantasy settings I had encountered which wasn't based on a pseudo-Europe. It has a rich combination of elements from various "oriental" mythologies, and it was pretty well thought out. I lost touch with it over the years, especially after the group of friends who shared a love for the CCG drifted apart, and when the game itseld seemed to fade away. (It's probably not surprisong that the clan which I feel the strongest affinity for is the oldest of the minor clans in the setting, the Fox Clan, but none of the prompts really spoke to me as a match for them...) Emotion – Devotion – Fair of Face (Doji Crane) Hanako is a courtier of the Crane Clan, and she was raised to be a diplomat and courtesan who would continue to bring honour and influence to her family and the empire. She is a painter and poet, and knows...