@mrundkvist I wonder if a computer game will ever be able to say "but that's stupid, let's say this happens instead". Or more importantly "that's not possible, but it's really cool, so yeah, you do it."

@si_fuller
Or "I vaguely remember that there's detailed rules for getting shot at while partly covered, but never mind, the villain misses you."

@mrundkvist I don't know if I'd call that a feature, but it is a bug I regularly rely on!

@mrundkvist The largest amount of work in C&S has nothing to do with dice. Playing a C&S mage involves huge amounts of inter-session paperwork for enchanting materials, making magick (sic) items and learning spells.

@mrundkvist I've certainly come to the point that mechanics have to be justified. I've got a simple system that I consider to be rules-minimal. So, if you're going to add a rule, it better model and enable something awesome, that isn't possible with less.

@ZDL
It's a fabled system! But I am very, very good at ignoring the system, often through actual ignorance.

@mrundkvist It's not a system I would pick up today if I were looking at new games. But it's a system I love from the many, many, many hours of fun it has afforded me in the '80s and '90s. And the latest (5th) edition is also actually, while quite the tome, far more playable.

Because it has precisely *two* systems: the "Skillskape" (sic) resolution system and the old-school influence system (slightly modified to work with Skillskape).

It's actually playable without postgrad degrees!

@crabsoft
Unworkable rules are often the result of simulationist over-ambition. But the combat system in Swords of the Serpentine manages to be both unworkable AND non-simulationist.

It's a 2008 rules-lite system that by 2022 had mutated into a hideous bush of exceptions and odd links to the game's skill system, all because the designer wanted to insert hard-coded narrative opportunities into combat. Also unintended exploits...

#ttrpg

@mrundkvist "Simulation" is code for "lazy". Game design is all about making abstractions both satisfying and fun. Calling it simulation is just refusing to do the work.

@crabsoft
Or it's a yearning to do another kind of work than functional RPG design. Akin to coding a physics engine for video games.

@mrundkvist

Apropos of nothing, RPGNet currently has a thread on "Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth".

How we figured out how to play Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth | Tabletop Roleplaying Open

Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth promises a game where you can create a world, zoom in and out of aspects of it and speed up and slow down time as you play...

RPGnet Forums (forum.rpg.net)

@juergen_hubert

"Verbose, obtuse, badly explained, badly organised, repetitive, over-complex, pretentious, but containing one phenomenally good idea. Aria should have been a milestone in the history of roleplaying games. Unfortunately, it has turned out to be a large and expensive doorstop instead. Aria is quite literally unplayable."

Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

@mrundkvist

I still have it on my bookshelf, because I am a sucker for worldbuilding tools. But I have neither run nor played it.

@mrundkvist @juergen_hubert

"Verbose, obtuse, badly explained, badly organised, repetitive, over-complex, pretentious, but containing one phenomenally good idea.“

Thought they were talking about me for a second.

@juergen_hubert @mrundkvist

I have read it once. It was excellent for generating interesting dreams.

@BOOKHOUSE
Aaaaw! ️

@juergen_hubert
IMHO, worldbuilding tools belong on computers. But I am very interested in scenario generating tools. This is of course in line with my general unwillingness to invest in a game world beyond the needs of a given scenario.

@mrundkvist

I dunno, I think there is something magic about a good set of random tables. For me, they really get those creative juices flowing.

I buy pretty much anything from Sine Nomine Publishing, for instance, even though I am not keen on OSR rule systems as such.

@juergen_hubert
Yeah, I like random tables, I just don't want them to generate a world for me.

I have had fun gamemastering the randomly populated wilderness hex crawl "Dark of Hot Springs Island" (2017). And I've signed up to run four sessions with it at cons this spring semester. Maybe this this is what you mean by a world generator?

#ttrpg

@mrundkvist

First, a disclaimer: I love worldbuilding as an expression of the #ttrpg hobby, and putting a lot of effort into this makes it easier for me to improvise setting details when the PCs go off-script.

For me, random tables are a useful starting point which allow me to break out of my own habits and assumptions, similar to how I assign NPC gender randomly these days.

As an example, let's say I want to add a village to the map. I use the random tables from p. 159 in "Worlds Without End" to get a basic idea of what the village is all about. I get:

Rationale for the Village’s Existence: (8) "A bandit camp that went legitimate"
Who runs it? (8) "A pragmatic warlord"
Significant Locals: (10) "Native hedge mage"
A Current Pressing Problem: (1) "Vital food stores have been lost or stolen"
Local Likely to Interact with Adventurers: (3) "Gentry who wants no local gossip about their need"
Interesting Things the Place Can Offer Heroes: (1) "An unusually large amount of saved coinage"

And within a mere minute or two, I already have a vision of the place and some local flavor which I can use to improvise things when the PCs are poking around the place. And I can build upon these concepts and make the village more fleshed out if the PCs stay there for an extended time. I find this _tremendously_ useful.