Observations of the Fox

Looking through some other people's RPGaDay posts and then looking more carefully at the image where the prompts are found, I can see that each of the weekly rows has a sub-prompt that seems to be based on a distinct characteristic. and each of the daily columns has a sub-prompt (which seems to be based on that old poem of "Monday's child beig full of woe..."), when combined with the daily prompts and the text at the bottom of the image, a few people have been making characters for various games by combining these elements. I might try that for a series of posts ext month, picking a game system where I think that kind of character might fit, then building the character...or just trying to build each character type in a single system to see how versatile it is...   For the moment. I'm just going to keep plunging ahead with the prompts in the same way I have so far.  5. Burden Naturally, I'm reading this two ways. The first being a psychological burden that a ch...

Alright, next two. (I also noticed that there's a range of weekly prompts on the side of the chart. I might do these next months once the daily prompts have been dealt with)   3. Poise Calm and balance, readiness to move. There's often something of escapism here, players like their characters to feel in control of the situation... or should I be saying that players like to feel that their characters are in control. There's a subtle but important difference here. Are the characters in control, or are the players in control? Is there a tension that makes them feel like they aren't completely in control but they have enough agency to make a difference in the world around them. Poise is the readiness to act, knowing that something unstable or unsettling is on its way. Not just react, but act with confidence and determination. It's an experience that most players just don't reallt have in the physical world, and it's something that the group agrees to as it explo...

Quite some time ago, I was writing about the Vector Theory (wow, that was 16 year ago), describing a perspective on how games are run. It used illustrations like these.                     I still think there's some value in these ideas, however my current thoughts are less about specific flowchart paths that a story MUST follow, and now my thoughts tend to flow more organically because we can't account for crazy choices that players might make, or every type of action that characters might choose to engage.   So everything basically collapses back to the "Simple Path" or "Path of Clouds" in the images above.   The point here is that the Three Way Tension doesn't always only to the GNS triangle, the actual essence of the model applies to the specifics of the GM, the Players and the Rules.       We can look at this a few ways when considering the dynamics at the table. With each player pulling on the di...

  [ I forgot this was coming up, but even when I remember I usually do the "daily" posts. It's always interesting to read other people's responses to the prompts when I can find them as well.   1. Discipline Naturally, when it comes to TTRPGs, the first idea that comes to mind with the word "Discipline" is the range of supernatural abilities possess by the kindred in "Vampire the Masquerade". So, the next thing that I thik of is the bizarre range of disciplines possessed by the unusual clans and bloodlines in the game. Vicissitude for the Tzimisce, allowing them to transform into horrific demonic forms...Valeren for the Salubri, with the twin paths of the warrior and the healer.  So yeah, I was really annoyed with the changes made to the 5th edition of Vampire which culled all of those fun powers and stripped all the abilities down to the core Discipline paths, then made everything else a clan specific combo effect from the core paths. I can kind o...

The last bit of this descriptive stage for the three-way tension theory pulls the concept into a more graphical format so that readers can observe the concept from a visual perspective. I'm doing this because I'm more of a graphical/visual thinker, and because sometime text can be a bit dry.  Let's look at what we've discussed so far... The whole things fits onto a triangular grid.  We can probably break down the types of games into that grid. Of course there's going to be debates over the labelling of the types of games, because if there's one thing we always debate about in game design circles, it's terminology, but bear with me for the moment...  GM/Narrators (I really should find a better single-word descriptor here) may aim to facilitate a game, tell a story with their players, provide an immersive setting experience, or some combination of the three. Players may be looking to complete the session by winning it (or at least ending up with characters in ...

The last post broke down the various stereotypical tensions between a GM/Narrator and their players. However, the players are not a monolithic block who all want the same thing from their session experience. There will often be tensions between players who have different requirements or who are aiming toward different session experiences. A session will often (but not always) work smoothly when the entire group is after the same type of thing.  If everyone has a Narrativist aim, they'll all be working toward producing a tale and exploring the unfolding story as they follow character goals as they work toward a logical and satisfying conclusion, or just generally meander with no particular goal or direction to see where things might head (working out a narratively satisfying tale from the events of the session later). The biggest tensions here will come from interpretations of how goals might come into conflict. If everyone has a Gamist aim, there will generally be a friendly (or no...