Quote from: sage_again;736540Sorry about that. Our intent was to be straightforward and explicit and not assume anything. I can understand how that'll come across as redundant if you already get this stuff.

You don't have to apologize, I am not offended or anything. I'm just trying to imagine what kind of people would *not* already get this stuff. To me it comes across as a convoluted way to explain something pretty simple: your character can do stuff and with a weapon it can do other stuff than without a weapon - it's so obvious that I fail to see the need to spell it out.

BTW I doubt all the narrative/forgian/whatever you want to call it lingo is as "accidental" as he claims, but even so, it's not Sage's fault if the Forgeoisie (great term btw) want to treat his game like the liberation of D&D-land by the Second Coming of Baker, and all the purple-nurples want to think it's a new game instead of simply laying out styles and tools used for 30 years.

Quote from: 3rik;736543You don't have to apologize, I am not offended or anything. I'm just trying to imagine what kind of people would *not* already get this stuff. To me it comes across as a convoluted way to explain something pretty simple.

That's actually exactly what we found. For some people this just didn't enter into their thinking. They expected a halberd to specify every single thing about it, and if it wasn't specific in the rules it didn't exist. People wouldn't make judgement calls based on what's going on, they wanted exact rules ahead of time.

We like judgement calls, so we hammer that home a lot. If you're already used to that it's going to feel maybe redundant.

Quote from: 3rik;736543You don't have to apologize, I am not offended or anything. I'm just trying to imagine what kind of people would *not* already get this stuff. To me it comes across as a convoluted way to explain something pretty simple: your character can do stuff and with a weapon it can do other stuff than without a weapon - it's so obvious that I fail to see the need to spell it out.

This is a common reaction IME. If you get past the outrage, you may find that the explicit and transparent approach is at worst no worse to an experienced RPGer, who can easily ignore as required, and at best very useful for a newbie or certain players who prefer the approach.

TBH despite over 30 years of GMing experience, I found that DW has helped me reexamine some long held ideas, once I got over that sense of outrage. This has ultimately assisted me in improving certain aspects of my GMing, especially in relation to my sandbox gaming.

I have also found that DW excels in accomodating both old school style and new school style players, which ultimately gives me a much larger pool of D&D players to draw on. Which is also a good thing for people who may struggle to gather enough players normally.

Quote from: Skywalker;736549This is a common reaction IME. If you get past the outrage, you may find that the explicit and transparent approach is at worst no worse to an experienced RPGer and at best very useful for a newbie.

TBH despite over 30 years of GMing experience, I found that DW has helped me reexamine some long held ideas, once I got over that sense of outrage. This has ultimately assisted me in improving certain aspects of my GMing, especially in relation to my sandbox gaming.

Come on, even as a newbie I had no need for Moves that needed to be Triggered and put into Teh Fiction. It was pretty clear and obvious from the start that you made dice rolls to see how well your character succeeded at something. Maybe today's newbies are erm... different.

Quote from: 3rik;736550Come on, even as a newbie I had no need for Moves that needed to be Triggered and put into Teh Fiction. It was pretty clear and obvious from the start that you made dice rolls to see how well your character succeeded at something. Maybe today's newbies are erm... different.

I think RPGing as an activity, especially for a GM, can be more esoteric than many remember for a newcomer. I base this on my own hilarious errors in those early days with Basic D&D.

And again, if it isn't needed for you, it's not hard to bypass it, right? It's all upside benefit IME

Quote from: CRKrueger;736541Not to mention that doing a two-handed downward stab with the POINT of the halberd into someone at your ankle would not only be a simple move, but a devastating one.

This is probably blindingly obvious, but: Adam and I are not experts in arms and armor. That example probably does suck. Our intention is "if you have a long pole it's hard to hit someone hugging your leg with the end of it."

Quote from: Skywalker;736552I think RPGing as an activity, especially for a GM, can be more esoteric than many remember for a newcomer. I base this on my own hilarious errors in those early days with Basic D&D.

And again, if it isn't needed for you, it's not hard to bypass it, right? It's all upside benefit IME

To me DW makes it *seem* like something esoteric with its Moves and Triggers. Now this may be unintentional or not, I really cannot know, but I do believe it is the reason why it appeals to the Forgy/"indie"/storygame crowd - for lack of a better term. I've never had to explain it like that to make it clear to any newbie GM.

It goes without saying that DW's approach will work for some people and not others. There are many approaches to RPGing after all. I think the main thing is that there is very little benefit from being outraged about an approach that works for other people. If anything, it's insightful. And, in the likes of DW which can cater for those people as well as your own approach, it just opens up the pool of people you can have fun with

Quote from: 3rik;736554To me DW makes it *seem* like something esoteric with its Moves and Triggers. Now this may be unintentional or not, I really cannot know, but I do believe it is the reason why it appeals to the Forgy/"indie"/storygame crowd - for lack of a better term. I've never had to explain it like that to make it clear to any newbie GM.

I have no idea who our real audience is, partially because I don't think there's much of defined 'Forgy/"indie"/storygame crowd' these days. My experience is that most people are playing most everything and finding their tastes along the way.

We've had great feedback from people who have played D&D longer than I've been alive and horrible feedback from people who always look for story in their games, and vice versa. No skin off my back. It's just a game, and we approach it with no agenda. If some people play it have fun that's awesome and the people who it's not for are no big deal, of course nothing is for everyone.

And FWIW IME DW has excelled most with either complete newbies or 3e and 4e players being rehabilitated to a more freewheeling style of play that I associate with my old school D&D experiences.

Most "indie/forgie/storygamie" people find DW to be too loose an experience and lacking in CWB to really work for them without going way beyond what's on the page

Quote from: sage_again;736548They expected a halberd to specify every single thing about it, and if it wasn't specific in the rules it didn't exist. People wouldn't make judgement calls based on what's going on, they wanted exact rules ahead of time.

We like judgement calls, so we hammer that home a lot. If you're already used to that it's going to feel maybe redundant.

I can dig that; it beats books that assume one is already steeped in the culture, and so are useless to novices. A slightly different criticism, though, is that the text might be too prolix about saying what you said so plainly here.

Quote from: Phillip;736559I can dig that; it beats books that assume one is already steeped in the culture, and so are useless to novices. A slightly different criticism, though, is that the text might be too prolix about saying what you said so plainly here.

I can see that. This was also our first time making a game as a product, and we learned a lot about writing from releasing it. I kind of think that the only thing that can teach you about writing a game for a broad audience is writing a game and having a broad audience pick it up.

We're working on some other projects that I think we'll present a little better, mostly because we've had several thousand people to get feedback from.

Quote from: 3rik;736554To me DW makes it *seem* like something esoteric with its Moves and Triggers. Now this may be unintentional or not, I really cannot know, but I do believe it is the reason why it appeals to the Forgy/"indie"/storygame crowd - for lack of a better term. I've never had to explain it like that to make it clear to any newbie GM.

I can get that.  Calling things out that are second-nature to you can make them seem artificial.

Also, I think that in the early days of D&D/etc. there was less need to make a distinction, as there's now a subset of games/gamers that believe that the game starts and ends with the character sheet, that the proper thing to do is look on your sheet for your kewl powers, and directly call them out off of the sheet without thinking about what's actually happening in the shit that everyone's imagining in their heads.

You know, kind of the antithesis of "just say wtf your guy is doing, and the GM will tell you what to roll".  Which is ultimately what the whole 'triggered moves' thing is trying to codify.

The language issue was a bit of a hurdle for me when a friend took me to play D&D 4E. That it didn't sound like D&D as I had known it would be a non-issue to someone with no prior experience; but what did it sound like?

It sounded sort of as I imagine (with next to zero actual experience with either) World of Warcraft would sound as a porn movie. There's a curious phenomenon: People who don't know jack about the current video game scene get ripped for saying 4E is like a video game; but it's the players who are totally familiar with the video game scene who take the stuff referred to for granted rather than as really strange and a bit offputting.

So, there is an element of selecting a certain narrow audience when we indulge in jargon or style that is usual in a subculture, but not so normal to a wider public. Early D&D texts assumed a bit too much the same audience as had enjoyed Chainmail and Fight in the Skies. Later works were written to speak to more ordinary folks. Now, we've come full circle to stuff seemingly addressed to RPG cognoscenti: John Wick and Robin Laws writing for each other, not for the kid who's just picked up his or her first FRP product.