We already have an item that fills this literary niche and it's not a stick... it's a conch.  Didn't you grognards read Lord of the Flies as kids like I did!?! 

Quote from: RNGm on March 19, 2024, 12:10:58 AM
Didn't you grognards read Lord of the Flies as kids like I did!?! 

Certainly any gathering of gamers will resemble the end of Lord of the Flies in short order.

Don't give a shit about the politics, and mocking the designer's physical appearance is childish. But I did download the playtest packet and Pundit is right about the game being incoherent. It seems to lack mechanics where they would be valuable and tack on mechanics where they're superfluous. The mechanics themselves are all over the place. The authors tell you on page 8 that it's a melting pot of concepts from a bunch of other games. Except we ain't talking chocolate and peanut butter here. The ingredients simply don't go together. The game reads like it would be a headache to play and run.

By contrast, the MCDM game's development appears to be guided by a clear and coherent vision. The mechanics are going through a thorough and iterative design process. I don't expect it will be to my taste as it's super-powered high fantasy and I prefer a Sword & Sorcery style. But I'm confident Colville's game will at least work. Daggerheart not so much.

Quote from: Jason Coplen on March 17, 2024, 02:45:10 PM
I expected this garbage. Thanks for the video!

Thank you for watching it! Share if you can.

Quote from: RNGm on March 18, 2024, 12:39:09 PM
Does having a mechanic where you can modify either the environment or your action's results with an expendable resoure make a game "storygame trash" just by itself?  I'm referring to things like fate/hero/karma/whatever points that allow for things like rerolls or for you to change the encounters some small way directly like by introducing minor details or objects to use on the fly.  Does the answer depend on which subgenre the game belongs to in the traditional RPG space (specifically NOT explicitly "narrative" games) like for example doing it in a high fantasy/high magic game vs a grimdark low fantasy one?  Or does simply being able to spend a point to alter the skein of fate by changing a miss to potentially a hit or add an item to the environment make the game "narrative" in and of itself?  Does the answer depend on whether you're modifying (after the fact) a player's own action versus pre-emptively altering the environment?

If you as the player can just invent that there's some object or person in the environment that would otherwise not have been there if you didn't have "story points" (or chose not to spend them), that's a Storygaming mechanic, and therefore trash. It destroys the nature of a living world, and it shifts players away from immersing in their characters and instead acting as players with a degree of separation from the character.

Quote from: Cathode Ray on March 18, 2024, 11:44:48 PM
I didn't know what "storygaming" was until viewing this video.  Now I understand it as a glorified version of a campfire story, where you tell part of a story and pass it to the next person to continue where you left off.

One big thing of the more psychotic of the storygamers is the push to restrict and shackle the DM into little more than a vend bot for "the fiction!" or in the more extremist groups, get rid of the DM totally.

Perkins in an interview for "totally not 6e D&D!" is pushing this. "the DM is there to serve the players" and "every player is a DM". which is pure storygamer screed. Assuming they get their way this is what "totally not 6e D&D!" will be teaching new DMs.

The really far end of the extremists push for the removal of all game mechanics, and alot of storygames are already low on actual mechanics already.

They also love to try redefine what an RPG even is and during the big push several years ago they loved to pull some "gatcha!" where they tried to prove everyone was really playing storygames all along. Reading a book is really real Role Playing! I wish I were joking.

And the really pathetic part is that for all their incessant bitching about the evils of DMs and how they take away "player agency"... They sure love their railroads and taking "agency" away from others. And if they arent railroading players "for the fiction!" then they are abusing being in character left and right. "Rule of Cool" is a new invention of theirs.

The cure for the hated DM turned out to be a festering cancer.

Quote from: Silverblade on March 19, 2024, 12:09:39 AM

Quote from: Cathode Ray on March 18, 2024, 11:44:48 PM
I didn't know what "storygaming" was until viewing this video.  Now I understand it as a glorified version of a campfire story, where you tell part of a story and pass it to the next person to continue where you left off.

So basically similar to fan-fiction? 

Might as well just write fan-fiction at that point...

Collaborative fiction is closer. And at the more extreme ends of the fanatics thats all it is.

Powered by the Apocalypse broke my heart with Avatar Legends so Daggerheart can sit in the milk with the foul-mouthed rice crispies even before the review video.  After the review I now know it's not even a "good" storygame. 


I'm a fan of some storygames.  If you have the right game group and know that your signing up to tell a shared tale of swashbuckling, pirating, and rescuing ladies in distress it is not impossible for one to enjoy an evening of 7th Sea 2e.  Given the reviews I've seen so far I can't say the same for Daggerheart.


My prevailing thought is that much like Avatar Legends this is a method to get fans of the IP to pay for something that they won't actually use or enjoy.  I cannot see it being a playable game.

Quote from: Festus on March 19, 2024, 03:05:08 AM

By contrast, the MCDM game's development appears to be guided by a clear and coherent vision. The mechanics are going through a thorough and iterative design process. I don't expect it will be to my taste as it's super-powered high fantasy and I prefer a Sword & Sorcery style. But I'm confident Colville's game will at least work. Daggerheart not so much.

Really?

The game where they keep saying that they don't know how mechanics that are already in their playtest documents work? Colville has said that the idea of the Elementalist using fire powers give them fire knowledge to research more fire powers, but then he admits he doesn't even know how that system is going to work.

It's a game being created by committee. An old saying goes like this: "I don't know what you need to do to please everyone. But, I do know that if you try to please everyone, you will please no one."

Who knows how MCDM will end up, but it does not have a "coherent" vision. In a year that the playtest has been going on they haven't solidified many mechanics. And the little mechanics that have been decided are still mentioned to be completely in flux and subject to change and only go so far as level 1. A few months ago they were still changing how damage and attack rolls work.

That's less game design completed than Candela Obscura. Let that sink in.

Sounds like it will be barely a game. But more of a game than Universalis which is just short of storytelling. Not even a game. The only mechanic in the game is... Bidding for control of the narrative if one of the players (no DM) wants to override or oppose the current player's narration. Use up all your bids and someone could completely override you.

Quote from: Omega on March 19, 2024, 10:05:24 AM

Quote from: Cathode Ray on March 18, 2024, 11:44:48 PM
I didn't know what "storygaming" was until viewing this video.  Now I understand it as a glorified version of a campfire story, where you tell part of a story and pass it to the next person to continue where you left off.

One big thing of the more psychotic of the storygamers is the push to restrict and shackle the DM into little more than a vend bot for "the fiction!" or in the more extremist groups, get rid of the DM totally.

Perkins in an interview for "totally not 6e D&D!" is pushing this. "the DM is there to serve the players" and "every player is a DM". which is pure storygamer screed. Assuming they get their way this is what "totally not 6e D&D!" will be teaching new DMs.

The really far end of the extremists push for the removal of all game mechanics, and alot of storygames are already low on actual mechanics already.

They also love to try redefine what an RPG even is and during the big push several years ago they loved to pull some "gatcha!" where they tried to prove everyone was really playing storygames all along. Reading a book is really real Role Playing! I wish I were joking.

And the really pathetic part is that for all their incessant bitching about the evils of DMs and how they take away "player agency"... They sure love their railroads and taking "agency" away from others. And if they arent railroading players "for the fiction!" then they are abusing being in character left and right. "Rule of Cool" is a new invention of theirs.

The cure for the hated DM turned out to be a festering cancer.

Yeah, to me that's the problem with the storygame mechanics like Fear. On paper I can understand how someone can find it cool, you use this resource to raise the stakes. The thing is... GMs don't need that to raise the stakes. And, the stakes shouldn't be raised artificially due to a counter.

The monsters cannot even act unless they get action tokens to spend after the players had taken their action, which adds action tokens to the jar. It's trying to be more of a boardgame than a roleplaying game and that makes it very gimmicky. And it seems that's by design, since boardgames have been getting more popular lately with the normie crowd.

But, there's a reason why boardgames are not roleplaying games. As a GM, I don't need the Players to generate Fear through their rolls to give me permission to raise the stakes, or give them a penalty to a test or whatever complication I can come up with as a result of their character's choices.

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 19, 2024, 09:36:18 AM
If you as the player can just invent that there's some object or person in the environment that would otherwise not have been there if you didn't have "story points" (or chose not to spend them), that's a Storygaming mechanic, and therefore trash. It destroys the nature of a living world, and it shifts players away from immersing in their characters and instead acting as players with a degree of separation from the character.

I'd assume that it still has to be approved in a traditional RPG by the gm so that it's not just a unilateral bullshit dispenser for players.  I agree that it's a storygaming mechanic but don't think that it changes a whole game to narrative trash though.   I think the root of the disagreement is that we have different views on what a "living world" truly means.  For me, giving the players a limited (both in scope and number) ability to add to the world around them (subject to approval of course) enhances the idea of the campaign as a type of "living world"; I prefer both as a player and GM as a kind of walled garden as opposed to an amusement park ride where you have to stay on the track and only interact where the designers say you can.  True storygaming is the chaotic wasteland of the apocalypse outside of that walled garden though.  Incorporating that single mechanic doesn't break down that wall in and of itself.   As for player/character separation, there will always be a degree of it unless you have an unhealthy amount of either mind altering substances or mental illness present.

Quote from: Omega on March 19, 2024, 10:05:24 AM

Quote from: Cathode Ray on March 18, 2024, 11:44:48 PM
I didn't know what "storygaming" was until viewing this video.  Now I understand it as a glorified version of a campfire story, where you tell part of a story and pass it to the next person to continue where you left off.

One big thing of the more psychotic of the storygamers is the push to restrict and shackle the DM into little more than a vend bot for "the fiction!" or in the more extremist groups, get rid of the DM totally.

Perkins in an interview for "totally not 6e D&D!" is pushing this. "the DM is there to serve the players" and "every player is a DM". which is pure storygamer screed. Assuming they get their way this is what "totally not 6e D&D!" will be teaching new DMs.

The really far end of the extremists push for the removal of all game mechanics, and alot of storygames are already low on actual mechanics already.

They also love to try redefine what an RPG even is and during the big push several years ago they loved to pull some "gatcha!" where they tried to prove everyone was really playing storygames all along. Reading a book is really real Role Playing! I wish I were joking.

And the really pathetic part is that for all their incessant bitching about the evils of DMs and how they take away "player agency"... They sure love their railroads and taking "agency" away from others. And if they arent railroading players "for the fiction!" then they are abusing being in character left and right. "Rule of Cool" is a new invention of theirs.

The cure for the hated DM turned out to be a festering cancer.

the #1 responsibility for the DM was to be a neutral referee and rule arbiter. Once you take that away, there is no rules enforcement, nor clarification of rules by a final say from ONE PERSON. If you don't have that, you don't have a game. You have chaos. The DM is along for the ride and nothing more. All you have left is shitty fanfic.