Scatter ideas… players are unlikely to move in any specific order or direction because that’s what’s expected. Most experienced players are terrified to do what the GM wants because they believe they’ll all die. Players and GMs are commonly perceived as adversaries, but they should be collaborators. So the GM can scatter ideas and little bits of business al over the place and then the group can choose. Members of the group can ask for elements and the GM can choose. Create the series together, allow the players to affect change in the setting, and never let an NPC do what a player does. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

Back in the 80s we were just guessing most of the time. At least until Akira was released in the United States in 1988 and only then white people started realizing there was a market.

Notes, and links, etc: UpNote Fantastic app, Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, Android; Markdown support.

I very much appreciate UpNote for three reasons. First it is a flexible and straightforward notes app. Second, there is a one time purchase option. Third, I can use it for Linux, Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. Nothing else combines these value propositions.

I was an Evernote user since version 2 but it has just become a bloated terrible experience, and it’s egregiously expensive. UpNote gives me those key features without any cruft.

Some people just love to bitch, especially if that’s all they do. James Wallis said (IIRC) “Game designs aren’t tools, but some game designers are”.

Fuck Hasbro

VTM illustrates all of the pros and cons of the Storyteller milieu. It is still the game that people talk about, even more than WoD.

I’d definitely study the evolution of the hobby using books like The Elusive Shift (Petersen), Role-Playing Game Studies: Transmedia Foundations (Deterding, Zagal) and Designers & Dragons: A History of the Roleplaying Game Industry (Appelcline). Once the students had a grounding in the history I would suggest a unit on Dice and Probability, the Mechanics and influence on settings.

• D&D for level and progression, and contrasting that against Palladium’s approach.
• Traveller for the lifepath concept as well as the developing of universal setting.
• Hero System and the rise of point based mechanics, contrasting with GURPS.
• Interlock (Mekton, Cyberpunk) and the emergence of Unified Game Mechanics, maybe contrast with Atlas Games All Flesh Must Be Eaten, et al.
• Vampire, and the development of Dice Pools and the rise of “splats” as a business model.
• Over The Edge and Amber Diceless as differing approaches to non-traditional RPGs.
• Sorcerer, indie games, The Forge, and the story game movement. See also gamist/narrativist/simulationist as styles of play.
• D&D 3.0 and the OGL explosion.
• Apocalypse World and the New Wave of RPGs as a reaction to OGL. (one man’s opinion).

Yes, 2013, 2020, and RED are. I am not certain about 3e as I wasn’t a contributor.

Just curious, as a former 2020 freelancer I occasionally check in.

Why just RED? Why not a wider group?

I have never met a dice-pool mechanic I didn’t dislike or despise. What makes your compelling?

It is much faster than a GM fiat.

• I refer to this as the ‘Video Game Rule’. In the last thirty years the visual aspects of the hobby have become more important because we’re think we are ‘competing’ with video games. Once we realize we are making a different kind of experience it allows the story (that is the narrative elements) to outshine the graphics, if you will.-

I was about to comment “When one of my players asks whether they can do something completely unreasonable I look at them, roll a D20 openly on the table and without checking the result, say ‘no’”

Oh, GM Fiat… I always preferred the GM Camaro, but you do you… ;-)

I have always done this randomly since 1977. I was a kid but my mom and godmother were huge ERA supporters and it just seemed correct.