>>5880331>DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS vs other rpg rulesetsRecently I have also been revisiting the original Blades In The Dark actual play run by John Harper himself as GM (creator of the ruleset and the game - Adam Koebel plays in these sessions). Those games are genuinely incredible, probably because the players are all GMs lol and whilst John Harper goes fairly easy on the players in terms of threat (if Matt Mercer is zero player threat, John Harper is easygoing highly described sense of threat but no follow through, whilst Adam Koebel is just sadistic DM player torment mode lol inflicting real life psychological trauma lol) I think it is worth anons considering the Blades In The Dark system, which unlike dnd only needs two concepts in fictional positioning, POSITION and EFFECT.
John Harper's idea is that all player harm and threat should be telegraphed and if possible extended and delayed. The basic idea is that every imaginary situation should be categorised as either CONTROLLED, RISKY or DESPERATE and every player action assigned an effect LIMITED, STANDARD, GREAT etc. The idea is you only really get xp for the desperate situations. The idea also is that you can trade around position for effect and vice versa eg move from a CONTROLLED standard effect position to a RISKY position but with great effect etc. The idea also is to constrain the DM a bit so that they cannot instant kill a player or inflict debilitating harm but instead can move down the scale towards DESPERATE, changing the circumstances and consequences of the imaginary scenario. The incentive is also given for the player to IMPERIL THEMSELVES because by taking more dangerous and potentially lethal risks they can achieve a higher likelihood of accomplishing their intended action (more dice added to dice pool etc)
So in the Blades games, often the DM describes and threatens a deadly horrible outcome, but instead the players resist it, it never happens (adding more dice to the pool by describing some fictional positioning that places them in more dramatic situations etc). I was thinking about this system again because I have noticed that players here generally do not enjoy placing their characters in genuine game-ending danger, hehe
Anyway, pic related is the core rules of the game. It is worth contrasting this philosophy to dnd
>my GM approach>only two choice scenarios, INSTADEATH and IMPENDING DEATH>if you think about it, this is just like real life