Hope I bump into you! Playing Starfinder this morning.

3e, but _better_ was a fascinating design space. Similar to now, with the post-OGL-crisis proliferation of ‘5e, but _better_’ games. I often think I’d have played a lot of AGE (a rather radical version of that) if 5e had been different or hadn’t happened.

Since “how much can each PC do at once” isn’t a part of the balance the way it is in D&D etc, you could set a three-action limit per PC spotlight. Unlike D&D/PF a player wouldn’t be wasting anything if they just take one in a spotlight, but would have the flexibility to do a combination of things.

I wonder what having each player do as much as they want (subject to a vague reasonableness test) but then naming the next player or even play defaulting to moving clockwise would be like.

I think the lack of a “one action per go” limit is a key part of the system - “I move across the battlefield and attack” or “I cast this buffing spell then target the enemy” might require two action rolls and risk the GM getting to interrupt but it’s an interesting difference from D&D.

I really enjoyed watching/listening to this. Seemed like it showed off Daggerheart’s ability to be played in a traditional dungeon exploration/combat mode. It’s got various collaborative prompts and mechanics but it doesn’t break if they take a back seat for a group which wants to play an adventure?

And then add Draw Steel for a fourth? You could time jump them to a mech future and finish with Lancer!

I only spent a few hours there last year but compared with pre-pandemic I was pleasantly surprised at how many different stalls I saw selling RPGs this year. Far too many to check them all out, and many more non-D&D too, though I noticed a lot of people with 5e adventures etc for sale.

A dog at the entrance to a Viking re-enactor’s tent

UK Games Expo is busy already! #ukge Saw a cute Viking dog from my hotel window this morning

It’s definitely not Dragonbane in feel and attitude!

I’m excited by it. But I want to find a game with modern story-framing mechanics which clicks for me and I think Daggerheart may be an expert merging of rules, approaches, and advice from various games which has the potential to work very well.

RFK Jr. Encourages Americans To Do Their Own Research About Dragons WASHINGTON—Claiming the fantastical creatures were “way too cool” to leave their investigation to a handful of so-called experts, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. issued a sta...

RFK Jr. Encourages Americans To Do Their Own Research About Dragons

Congratulations!

A crumpet has a very well-done but thin base with a thick texture but above that is lighter and spongy and full of holes. You can’t cut in half the way the pictured muffin is. A muffin is a sort of bread roll, which is buttered on the “insides”; a crumpet has butter or topping on top, which seep in

The Diana Jones Award is a prize for ‘excellence in gaming’. It is named after ‘The Adventures of Indiana Jones Role-Playing Game’ that was a flop in the 1980s and whose unsold copies were burned. The only legible part of the very last copy after the burning was ‘...diana Jones'.

Those together makes me want to play tiny Victorian animals foiling cultish plots. Or maybe The Borrowers trying to deal with the ghost the new human beans brought into the house.

Adventurers should be confronted by more farmers waving pitchforks and angry that the Druid’s lion companion is scaring the livestock

Amazing!

We could do with a bit more mainstreaming of some game theory. Sometimes I think game players are talking past each other, leading to all kinds of frustration.

I like the description of third person POV and players shaping the story out of character. It describes well my thoughts about a fun multi-session Apocalypse World game I played, where (from my trad POV) I wasn’t sure whether my character or the story was what I was supposed to care most about.

@gmcarl.bsky.social Happy birthday!

Glad to have found a friendly space with a familiar mix of games chatter and news. Hope you're having a good day!

Looks like Bluesky has taken off. There's been a twitter-shaped hole in my social media for a few years now which it looks like it'll fill.