I didn’t immediately get a sense of how the dice choices would impact play and options. Seems like if I take forceful and strong, I can never ever succeed at at least one categories of options? That seems limiting.

I’m not mathy enough to instantly see how the dice are going to limit me.

Unclear how health and recovery work. Seems like the double d6 would have low stress, high wounds?

Have you played Fate? This seems like a distant relative of Fate Accelerated.

No meta game points or succeed at a cost?

Fate is maybe the biggest game that uses this. You can spend a Fate Point to declare a story detail.

It’s a big change in mind set from the default of DND, where you’re super zoomed in on your character. Instead you’re more like a writer on a project.

For example, a group of players were trying to escape from an office building. They’d set off alarms and were fleeing upwards. One of the players said, “I bet the executives here have a helicopter on the roof, with a chopper always ready to go.”. Spend a fate point and it’s true. They stole the helicopter and escaped into new problems.

I like being able to steer the game. I don’t like just being along for the GM’s ride. I like when my players provide ideas.

But some players hate it. I guess some players really want to focus on becoming one with their character. I’m more focused on trying to tell a cool story.

https://fate-srd.com/fate-core/fate-points#declaring-a-story-detail

I find vanilla DND really weird after spending time in other games. Like I’m missing limbs and senses.

I usually ask the players something like “if it was this easy, why doesn’t everyone else do it?”. Sometimes they’ll dismantle their own ideas given the prompt.

Or, sometimes I’ll say “are you sure you want NPCs to use this tactic?”

I’m not sure I follow what you mean by originality and complexity as opposed concepts.

It’s important for players to be able to engage with the content. If you add too much new stuff up front, they’re not likely to retain it. If they can’t retain it, they can’t engage with it. You can drop them in store brand middle earth and they’ll be able to engage. If you drop them in a wholly original setting with winged squid people, eternally young goat poets, and living clothing, that’s a lot to try to integrate all at once.

One of the most disappointing games I ran was Vampire, where the players just didn’t do any reading about the game’s fiction or factions. They didn’t understand what the major NPC players wanted, so they were always lost and confused. After we abandoned that game, I started a new one that was basically Diablo. They did a lot better in that one, in large part because there was no up front details. Yeah yeah fallen kingdom, demon problem, we get it.

I think the real factor is “how much new stuff do they need to learn to engage?”

Should be careful not to just shut down player ideas. If everything they do slams into an annoying problem, it can quickly stop being fun.

I sometimes try to sync with the players and be like “hm do you think the 300 year old vampire has had to engage with the city before? What sort of plans and influence do you think he has?”. Then it doesn’t feel like I’m just screwing them, if they’re thinking about it too.

Yeah I made an account on another instance because I was having trouble getting here reliably. It’s been okay lately, though.

There are of course some weak points, and I’ll gladly expand upon them and any other points it if you’re interested. But I’ve really enjoyed my time in PF2e on both sides of the screen and consider it my TTRPG of choice currently, even as a 3.5 Grognard.

It’s still mostly a spells-per-day game, right? You probably don’t lose the first fight of the day because you can go nova

It’s been really interesting playing Vampire with a person who’s only ever played DND. We keep telling him “you can use your cool powers”. He keeps thinking it’s like a special move to save for a big encounter. No, you don’t have to come up with an elaborate scheme to get past the bouncer. You can just Dominate him. It’s a big shift in mind set!

Personally I hate the “save your cool powers for later” mode of play. I think Pathfinder 2e is less of that, but not free of it?

A good post.

I personally find DND unsatisfying for many reasons (little to no degree of success, static magic system that encourages hoarding, the primary defense is all or nothing avoidance, very coarse progression, some character concepts are simply not representable, etc)

But what is even more annoying than that is when players respond with “but you can just change the rules!”. I know! That’s true of any pen and paper game! It’s not some unique property of DND. But sometimes I don’t want to do the work of designing a system, and I almost never want to play some stranger’s pre-alpha homebrew.

I’d rather spend N minutes reading a list of book recommendations than 5*N minutes watching a video. Presumably the target audience for books is literate.

I’m tired of video.

On the one hand, this might help fence sitters that are like “there’s no content there”.

On the other, I just don’t personally care for a stream of random images like Instagram et al do.

There’s something off about a video about books.

It’s not “retire and live a life of luxury” money, at least in many parts of the world.

It’s a lot of money in terms of paying down debt and covering rent for a while, though.

Poor emotional regulation.

Someone speaking another language makes them afraid (maybe they’re talking about me) or feel bad (I only know one language am I stupid?). Getting angry at the other person is easier on the ego than healthier options.

I love mage, but its magic is so involved and powerful I wouldn’t want to use it in a game unless everyone was a mage. You don’t really want one players options to be “I hit him with my club” and the others to be boundless.

Awakening 2nd edition was really good, imo, but I never actually got to play Ascension

I used nWoD for fantasy games. The core dice pool system works pretty well, and few things are tightly coupled to any setting in particular.

I mostly don’t like d20, so when someone tells me they’re doing a game about secret vampire societies in it, I’m a lot more disappointed than if they ported a system I like or am neutral on. Also 5th edition in particular makes a lot of assumptions about how things work.

Isn’t that what people were calling it anyway? Well that’s nice I guess.

I dunno man. I’ve had a lot of conversations with players that go like “do you think your character is the first to come up with this hijink? If it works, why doesn’t the entire setting revolve about this infinite damage trick you’re trying to sell me?”

Like, if it was as easy as casting Charm Person on the king to become the new ruler, other people would already be doing that. Therefore, there must be reasons why it doesn’t work.

My parents are difficult. Not the worst people and not monsters, but at many times unpleasant.

Plus it was a house in the suburbs. Not ideal for socializing or culture.

And lastly, living with parents in the suburbs would be huge negatives for dating.

Still, the costs for defendants, even if ultimately exonerated, have been enormous, with many having their mugshots blasted by the government and some forced to languish in jail or have criminal charges hang over them for weeks and months

Fundamental flaw in the legal system right there.

In several high-profile cases, the prosecutions fell apart because they relied on statements by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers that had no supporting evidence or in some instances were proven by video footage to be blatantly false.

Prosecute the liars. Ruin their lives instead.

All it takes is one cop to be like “he was resisting arrest and I feared for my life so I had to shoot him 17 times in the back”.