Pretty good read! Probably worth repeating here, although I’d assume if you’ve self selected into this collection you should already know all this, yeah? But maybe not.
There are a couple points I think are incomplete — specifically, the idea that “nothing happens” if characters interfere with each other — but the spirit is in the right place.
Grant is great, and I’m sad that his blog has gone dormant. Nonetheless, his Patreon is one of the best ones out there:
https://www.patreon.com/gshowitt
I remember this article making the rounds a while back. What brought it up?
Facebook.
Yeah, pretty good indeed!
It must be doing the internet rounds, I read this off a link on reddit this morning.
Is it strange that everyone treats roleplaying (from the players side) as the same skill? It seems jarring in the face of System Does Matter.
Timothy Stanbrough I try to read articles like these with the implied context in mind, i.e., that kind of general roleplaying that you do when you’re playing any of the RPGs most people have heard of and that don’t actually tell you how to play: D&D/PF, Shadowrun, CoC, etc.
Timothy Stanbrough actually, can you unpack what you’re getting at? I don’t want to make assumptions.
There were definitely a couple points that I think aren’t universal, like the one I mention in my op.
Paul Beakley Sure.
I was thinking that if system does matter then the rules define how you play, there’s no assumed universal roleplaying game to base your play off. It just seemed odd that we (and systems) often assume that there still remains one true way to be a player.
Edit: I was also making a distinction between player and GM because it seems like GMs tend to be given more direct instruction on how to play ‘this’ game.
Oh, sure. Fair point!
I do think this article points at some best practices for probably 80% of what I actually play, personally. I mean we don’t really need to reinvent the wheel every time a new game comes out, do we?
(Says the guy who has railed for years about taking the rulebooks at face value and not bringing assumptions to the table.)
Totally agree that these are some great best practices, worth keeping game to game. I’d love my players to read this article, but I’d like it even better if it was in the rulebook.