Observations of the Fox

  9. Privilege Since I'm getting into a  bit of a groove of responding to these prompts in the context of the three-way tension model, let's consider the idea of "privilege" from that perspective. What is a privilege in a TTRPG, and how might it impact of the dynamics of the session? My first thoughts here linger on the notion of "niche protection". A player who is portraying a cleric or healer has a privilege on their actions when it comes to removing wounds from other characters. This privilege might be diegetic or non-diegetic. Now I'm trying to work out which of these options is more diegetic, and which is more non-diegetic....but here's where my current thought patterns lie. Non-Diegetic (existing outside the narrative): The player who has a privilege with regard to this sort of action is the one who has a bonus on their skill rolls (or whatever mechanisms is used for randomising an action result). It is also known among players that this person...

  7. Mercy What does it mean to have mercy? The first idea that comes to mind here is to not be too harsh or too hard with punishment when mistakes happen. There are some game systems that have very little mercy, especially when it comes to combat situations. I particularly think of this when it comes to low fantasy "gritty" games. On the other hand, many "slice-of-life" and "cosy-fantasy" games are far more merciful and forgiving. Is one style of game better than the other, is it better for a system or a GM to be merciful with the players? I've always tried to be a fan of the idea that different types of games and different styles of play are a better fit for different groups of players. Having a degree of mercy in the game turns down the immediacy and the tension in a game, but some games do better when they have some breathing room. Personally I often try to begin my game with an exploration phase where the players have lower stakes and a higher deg...

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...

  [ 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...

  Again, we can look at this diegetically (considering the rewards that characters get in the game), or non-diegetically (the rewards that players get outside the game). Rewards are something that is often expected, it’s just a part of the concept going back to the earliest days of TTRPGs, sure there are plenty pof games in the past 20 years that have deviated from this pattern, but it’s still fairly common across the spectrum, especially among trad games. I’ve tried to play with the way rewards are offered in game, starting early on with the idea of levels (because I didn’t know better)…moving to point buy systems where you had to earn experience relating to a specific aspect of your character, then only improve that aspect when you got enough…and to general systems where you earned points for playing with fidelity to your character, the story, or the genre tropes, then allowing those points to improve anything with a bit of justification. I’ve toyed with systems where you ask...

Experience points, development of characters… or the experience we get from playing a great session of a game. I remember my first few TTRPG sessions, I don’t know if it was the people running the game, or the systems we used (old school D&D Rules Cyclopedia), or maybe the mismatch of what I expected from the game compared to the other players in the group. I just didn’t get the imagined experience I was hoping for. I played games with a few people, and I caught a glimpse of what could be. Moments where I caught the dragon, and moments that I looked for again, hoping to string them into full sessions. Wanting something more, and chasing the dragon like a junkie chasing the amphetamine high. It was a moment of enlightenment, satori, where a bond with others led to something more. It was how I tried to run my games, trying to make sure everyone got a taste of what had addicted me. I became a dealer of the TTRPG narcotic, and became a “forever DM” as a result. I don’t know tha...

(I’ll knock out the last of these today, then get back to my other observations and musing. Maybe even get back to some other design work… we’ll see) I’ve always found TTRPGs to be a fun way to connect with other people, to connect with story and to connect with an imagined world that simply doesn’t work in most other mediums. The SNAFU SRD is specifically designed to reflect this concept. Everything in the game is connected, it’s all about the connections, the interactions between parts in a network…the way ripples pass along the web of those connections, and the way they may magnify when multiple wave ripples combine in unexpected ways. Even though this system does everything I think it needs to, the trick to a good TTRPG system isn’t just the ability to simulate elements, or drive a story. The trick is to form meaningful connections to the players, because that’s what the game is, yet that’s only a part of it. A TTRPG is a tool to facilitate the connection of the players to an...