![Stressing Out & Cooperative Tests Stressing Out does not preclude participating in cooperative tests (p. 84), provided all of the following are true: * you are not leading the test * doing so does not otherwise violate any of the prohibitions that being Stressed Out imposes * the way you Stressed Out would reasonably permit it What this looks like in descriptive terms will necessarily vary based on present circumstances. In a combat scenario, it may involve another God-eater simply picking up your insensate body and using it as a weapon or shield; other situations may demand more creativity. Regardless of your God-eater's condition, you as a player still decide which Traits you contribute to tests made in this way. [begin sidebar] As the question will doubtless arise, you typically may not employ the effortful effects of your Forms when participating in a test while Stressed Out; you are unable to perform the requisite effortful action, and the test's leader cannot perform it on your behalf. Exceptions may be granted if a convincing (or amusing) explanation is furnished. [end sidebar]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/78b1069c90453c83aeb0baae89890fa6/34a7b1da1b2da81f-d2/s75x75_c1/f5ad0741f365530bb7a86559c30079a5471cbd8e.png)
ALTSometimes a playtester asks a silly question and the only reasonable response is “sure, why not”.
You know, as far as tabletop RPGs go, Dungeons & Dragons was pretty obviously always going to be the 900-pound gorilla when it came to cross-media adaptations, but if you'd asked me thirty years ago which contemporary game would take second place, I would not have called Cyberpunk 2020.
Well, now I want to know your... is retrospective predictions the right phrase? I would like to know what your answers would have been if you'd been asked that thirty years ago
In 1996 you’d get laughed out of the room for saying anything other than Vampire: The Masquerade – it was briefly more widely played than D&D for a bit in the mid 1990s.
(Indeed, arguably it’s been more broadly influential than any non-D&D tabletop RPG, given how many very obviously V:tM-inspired IPs there are, but it’s failed to receive much in the way of direct adaptation because its various IP owners keep tripping over their own dicks.)
You know, as far as tabletop RPGs go, Dungeons & Dragons was pretty obviously always going to be the 900-pound gorilla when it came to cross-media adaptations, but if you’d asked me thirty years ago which contemporary game would take second place, I would not have called Cyberpunk 2020.
What really perplexes me about the Dungeons & Dragons diehard crowd is that there's a certain segment who fully recogise that D&D structurally "wants" to be a totally different game from what a lot of people are using it for, and further recognise that foisting the responsibility for closing that gap between the experience of play the game wants to produce and the experience of play the group wants to have entirely on the GM is tremendously stressful and labour-intensive, but think that's a good thing because a Real Man should be willing to suffer for their art.
@crane12jp replied:
Is there a segment that’s like “we’re putting a lot of work on the GM’s shoulders, but that’s an appropriate price to pay for the power to railroad us into their bullshit stories.”
Genuinely yes, yes there is.
(It’s mostly the same segment that thinks the players doing everything in their power to obstruct, divert, and otherwise frustrate whatever the GM is trying to do is an essential part of play, in my experience.)
What really perplexes me about the Dungeons & Dragons diehard crowd is that there’s a certain segment who fully recogise that D&D structurally “wants” to be a totally different game from what a lot of people are using it for, and further recognise that foisting the responsibility for closing that gap between the experience of play the game wants to produce and the experience of play the group wants to have entirely on the GM is tremendously stressful and labour-intensive, but think that’s a good thing because a Real Man should be willing to suffer for their art.
Common crowdfunding fulfillment fuckups:
If you're going to ask what tabletop RPG you should use to run [insert premise here] on Tumblr, you need to understand that half of the people responding have never run a tabletop RPG of any description and are going on pure vibes, and the other half are wilfully ignoring 75% of your clearly stated criteria because they wanted to plug their favourite game.
#This phenomenon is not limited to tumblr (via @stupidsexynonbinaryperson)
The broader phenomenon of getting bad recs in response to simple questions isn't limited to Tumblr, no, but the particular distribution of reasons why those recs suck is a lot more platform-specific. It's not all people who've never run a game in their lives and disingenuous evangelists; depending on where you go, you might also run into substantial cohorts of "person who's genuinely baffled at your reluctance to just hack Dungeons & Dragons", "person who regards the question as meaningless because they think 'universal' systems are a real thing that exists", "self-labelled storygaming advocate who thinks caring about system at all means you should just go play board games", "extreme homebrew enthusiast who regards anything short of designing your own game from scratch as selling out", "guy who openly acknowledges that the system they're plugging isn't a good fit for your described premise but thinks your premise is stupid and you should change it to fit the system", and "the game in question's actual author".
I miss the days of weirdly niche recommendations from specific internet forums, like when someone on RPG.net in 2002 told a dude looking for an Initial D rpg to hack Exalted 1st ed, as was the style at the time.
To be excessively fair, before the indie RPG renaissance of the early 2000s really kicked off there were only a few dozen published tabletop RPGs you could reliably count on folks actually being able to get their hands on, so suggestions like that sounded more reasonable back then!
If you're going to ask what tabletop RPG you should use to run [insert premise here] on Tumblr, you need to understand that half of the people responding have never run a tabletop RPG of any description and are going on pure vibes, and the other half are wilfully ignoring 75% of your clearly stated criteria because they wanted to plug their favourite game.
#This phenomenon is not limited to tumblr (via @stupidsexynonbinaryperson)
The broader phenomenon of getting bad recs in response to simple questions isn’t limited to Tumblr, no, but the particular distribution of reasons why those recs suck is a lot more platform-specific. It’s not all people who’ve never run a game in their lives and disingenuous evangelists; depending on where you go, you might also run into substantial cohorts of “person who’s genuinely baffled at your reluctance to just hack Dungeons & Dragons”, “person who regards the question as meaningless because they think ‘universal’ systems are a real thing that exists”, “self-labelled storygaming advocate who thinks caring about system at all means you should just go play board games”, “extreme homebrew enthusiast who regards anything short of designing your own game from scratch as selling out”, “guy who openly acknowledges that the system they’re plugging isn’t a good fit for your described premise but thinks your premise is stupid and you should change it to fit the system”, and “the game in question’s actual author”.
If you’re going to ask what tabletop RPG you should use to run [insert premise here] on Tumblr, you need to understand that half of the people responding have never run a tabletop RPG of any description and are going on pure vibes, and the other half are wilfully ignoring 75% of your clearly stated criteria because they wanted to plug their favourite game.
For clarity, when I say that a tabletop RPG is so high concept it's barely playable, I'm not misusing "high concept" to mean "weird" or "surreal"; I'm talking about games which, at a structural and mechanical level, prioritise fidelity to their high concept more strongly than they prioritise actually being playable games. Phoenix Command 100% goes in the "so high concept it's barely playable" bucket.
*does some duckduckgoing*
What the actual fuck?
Phoenix Command’s high concept is “what if a dude had a gun?”, and it addresses the fuck out of it.
maxknightley
