Post AvQv2MXlCh48FsACdk by Colman@mastodon.ie
(DIR) More posts by Colman@mastodon.ie
(DIR) Post #AvQq6QdxP1ZKMHBJse by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-06-23T19:38:48Z
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#TTRPG #GMingOnce again, social media inspires a relatively lengthy response. The traditional concepts of the role of DM/GM are referee versus storyteller. But what if I told you, you don't have to pick one of those?https://grimtokens.garden/Thoughts/GM-as-adjudicator+or+GM-as-storyteller+-+Or+Is+There+a+Third+Way
(DIR) Post #AvQrKrZYB6sHswZDRw by Colman@mastodon.ie
2025-06-23T19:52:35Z
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@lextenebris is modern ttrpg discourse entirely reruns of forty year old discussions?
(DIR) Post #AvQsmh01BM359imUNM by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-06-23T20:08:50Z
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@Colman All of it. Every single bit of it. I have had these discussions numerous times since the beginning of the era. Usenet was full to the brim of the same discussions. I was there. The Eternal September was after my time. Well, technically, we all suffered it.We do have the advantage of 40 years of game development that have brought us a lot more flexible designs. There is a lot of solo and co-op TTRPG going on, much of it quite good. Journaling RPGs get some distribution, and that's nice to see. Once upon a time, it was almost impossible to find a GM-less RPG of any sort. And now, you've got excellent choices.So if nothing else, we have a wider variety of ways to attack the questions, even if the questions themselves haven't changed.
(DIR) Post #AvQuUHpQECgZmlAyJM by utterfiction@mastodon.me.uk
2025-06-23T20:17:25Z
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@Colman @lextenebris đ I think itâs like a lot of hobbies, it lacks institutional memory. Lessons have to be passed down from person to person, or relearned the hard way.I prefer to think of myself as a âsimulatorâ than an adjudicator, but the effect is the same. And companies could sell materials to me, if theyâd only realise it. In-depth settings with well-drawn characters and events that are actually a series of open-ended interlinked problem chains in disguise? Iâd snap your arm off.
(DIR) Post #AvQuUIjQrxUMaTNhc8 by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-06-23T20:27:54Z
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@utterfiction @Colman The funny thing is that for the last 30 years, tabletop RPGs have been very strong inhabiters of the online spaceâforums, chat rooms, all sorts of things that leave digital paper trails and have worked their way into the search engines of the universe. There is an absolute buttload of saved documentation of all of these discussions available at a whim. The institutional memory exists. The desire to call upon memory is almost entirely absent.In fairness to the hobby, it's not constrained merely to those people.As a simulator, you are adjudicating the rules of the world as you understand them, cranking through the turns in your head and updating all the tiles of moving parts in the setting. That's perfectly reasonable. Companies can sell you materials, but they really need to focus on the fact that they have to communicate something new to youâsomething that is useful for you to simulate within the context of the games you play.Doing that is hard, which is why it's not commonly done.
(DIR) Post #AvQuWz9O82swj2nm7M by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-06-23T20:28:26Z
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Personally, I don't want to be the simulator. I like it when systems are relatively lightweight and have levers and buttons that everybody at the table can push, pull, and crank stuff out of what our evolving shared understanding of the world is. That means there's not much of a pre-existing set of expectations beyond basic physics and noted exceptions thereto for there to be a simulation of.I am more than happy to sit down and play Ironsworn/Starforged all day long. I've also given out $1 to $5 at a time to all sorts of people who've made cool little bits for those games thanks to the open license, whether it be a magical system or a take on an established setting which talks about how to translate it into the context of the mechanics that already exist. In that sense, we have some overlap in the things that we want, which is great because there are people putting those things out.
(DIR) Post #AvQuYbrTgfZT4kCOiu by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-06-23T20:28:43Z
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The really funny part is, I'm contradicting myself here. There are people putting out this kind of content on a regular basis. Itch.io is full of it. It is the larger press companies who aren't really doing that. They would rather sell you a new edition in 600 pages and heavy cardboard binding with $1,000 art pieces inside every couple of years. They aren't actually selling people stuff that they need or want on a regular basis.But that's okay. I'm much happier giving away $1 to $5 a week to people who really love the hobby than I am dropping $85 on the latest and greatest thing I will never play. And I say that as someone who literally lives in an RPG library and has a display table of first editions designed for collectors.I don't know, man.Here we are, I guess.
(DIR) Post #AvQv2MXlCh48FsACdk by Colman@mastodon.ie
2025-06-23T20:34:04Z
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@lextenebris @utterfiction I think the paths to monetisation have a lot to do with that. Americans seem to expect/be expected to make anything they spend some time on into a job and you donât make money saying âoh yeah, Bob on Usenet solved that thirty five years ago, here yah go.â
(DIR) Post #AvQvpttZzUFlsqzUVk by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-06-23T20:43:03Z
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@Colman @utterfiction I don't think that's an American's thing. I've dealt with people all over the planet with that assumption. Once they're exposed to the idea that they can willingly engage in commerce with other people of similar interests, they kind of want to do it.I don't think that's actually what we're seeing here.I think it's that people want to have these arguments. They actively wish to have them. They get gratification from treading over this same well-worn ground because there's a reason that it's well-worn. You can engage in the argument, feel superior to the other side, go off and do whatever it is that you do, and feel like you got the better of them even though all you did was repeat word for word the same argument people have had for the last 40 years. The irony truly is that often it's the same people having the same argument for the last 40 years. They just like it.