Do you have your RPG campaigns be an A-Team dungeon craw, or are they a dramatic and emotional Breaking Bad? A great campaign I had a while ago featured a player having the plague, while not telling anyone else, and a lot of weird interactions only made sense once we found out later. The player and the DM exchanged folded notes related to it, there was a mystery all the time, good stuff.
Lindybeige has seriously never come across a narrative focused game before? He comes across the most autistic looking one of all time, and assumes this is some kind of revolution?
Ian Anderson
Not even every game is D&D, every game is D&D played by a terrible group who evidently want something more than a dungeon crawler but still play the game as nothing but a dungeon crawler.
Logan Howard
Assuming this isn't yet another Lindybeige bait thread, this Drama System itself seems horrendous to actually play. If Lindy actually described how this plays out accurately I don't understand the point, it just sounds like freeform RP based on nothing but group consensus. It doesn't seem like there are any actual mechanics or cruch behind it at all, given how everything you need to run a setting is apparently contained in four pages with some of that being taken up by artwork.
However, as a set of optional character creation rules this actually does sound like an interesting way of doing things. I've always found trying to start a campaign with the party beginning as an established group to be very awkward and a pain in the ass to get everyone to agree on something that fits all of their intended backstories. Hashing out the party's established history in this format does seem like something that would work well if you get everyone on board, and don't have someone really stubborn ruining all the fun.
Nathaniel Garcia
The Dramasystem is designed for one very specific thing - Social PvP. In other words, your pc is in conflict with every other pc, and that is what drives the campaign forward. Specifically trying to emulate the modern drama-centric tv storytelling format. Couldn't tell you how often it succeeds at that, but that's what it's for; there's plenty of 'dramatic' rpg stories that can be told without these rules. (Then again, it's probably possible to bolt these rules onto a more robust combat/action system if you want to try that sort of 'conflicting pc agendas' drama in your other sorts of game; I wouldn't know, I've never tried it.)
Colton Rodriguez
>Hillfolk won the Indie RPG awards for Game of the Year and Best Support for 2013
t. wikipedia
So its a "support" that you add on to your other manual, which would house the exploration/combat mechanics and such.
Austin Long
'Best Support' meaning 'best supported game'. Assumedly for 'Blood on the Snow', the second book of campaigns and extra rules that came out pretty much on the main book's heels. But yeah, unless you want player on player social combat to be the main focus of the game, you may want another system in use.
Grayson Gonzalez
>'Best Support' meaning 'best supported game'. Assumedly for 'Blood on the Snow', the second book of campaigns and extra rules that came out pretty much on the main book's heels.
Ah, I see. My bad.
Aiden Rogers
This game sounds like a more restrictive version of Fiasco.
Jacob Gomez
It's kinda like Fiasco writ-large. Fiasco is a fantastically fun game that obviously isn't sustainable for extended play; Hillfolk works with some of the same ideas, but is specifically intended for campaigns rather than one-shots.
>it just sounds like freeform RP based on nothing but group consensus The point is actually to specifically apply a framework to social interaction, which is one area that often gets the least meaningful attention from most RPG rulesets.
It does this not with mechanical subsystems, though, but by providing a meta-narrative currency that encourages more dramatic give-and-take between characters.
The mechanics governing non-dramatic encounters are intentionally spare, as these sorts of "procedural" scenes aren't the focus of the game. DramaSystem offers you a means to resolve them quickly—but if you want a game that focuses more on those kinds of scenes, it's easy to bolt the meat of DramaSystem (the interaction meta-game) onto another system whose general mechanics you like.
>It doesn't seem like there are any actual mechanics or cruch behind it at all, given how everything you need to run a setting is apparently contained in four pages These are called "Series Pitches," and they're not pre-fab settings; they're designed to inspire your group to create a setting that interests them.
So, e.g., the Pirate series pitch in the core book doesn't give you a list of specific NPCs, a map of the setting, monster stats, gear lists... It gives you an elevator pitch for what a Pirate campaign would actually be ABOUT, and follows it up with ideas for the kinds of characters that might feature in such a campaign, suggestions for the sorts of locations and conflicts it might focus on, appropriate themes, etc. Each pitch also ends with a section on "tightening the screws," which describes lots of different complications you might introduce to reignite dramatic tension as the campaign goes on.
This guy gets it.
John Brown
So Lindybeige just explained it horribly, got it.
James Cruz
I'd say so, but that's my opinion as someone who admittedly loves DramaSystem, so I can't say I'm unbiased.
I still have no idea how this would actually play in reality. Do you just take turns in doing shit which other players can barge in on?
Michael Garcia
Have you ever played Fiasco before? Structurally, it's very similar.
Going around the table, each player gets a turn to call a scene. Usually, this is a roleplaying interaction between them and one other PC or major NPC. You say who's involved, set the scene, and then go—acting out the dialog between your characters until some kind of resolution has been reached.
Then you move to the next player, and they get to call a new scene. Repeat as long as you like. It's intended to model the format of dramatic television, taking one scene, exploring a dramatic question posed between two (or more) characters, and then jumping to the next interesting scene as soon as that question is answered.
Note that a "resolution" doesn't have to be positive, or even conclusive. The excitement of the game comes from the constant back-and-forth as players call scenes with each other and attempt to press their characters into dramatic concessions. Describing it as "social PvP" is actually pretty accurate.
Eli Torres
So role-playing games are not role-playing games?
Gabriel Martin
It came up in my sub feed and it honestly feels like Lindy is trapped in Baldur's Gate or something.
>Role play games have to grow up >Drama Revolution!
Like really dude. I don't think I got halfway through it before just giving up. His videos about RPGs are always so weak.
Ian Stewart
His videos about any given topic are weak to specialists in that topic. Same as any other "well rounded person". You only think he is an expert on other topics because you yourself aren't.
William Reyes
No, his videos about RPGs in particular are just awful. It feels like he hasn't read anything published after the late 80s, and all of his ideas are terrible.
Ryan Reed
>It feels like he hasn't read anything published after the late 80s, and all of his ideas are terrible. Just like Veeky Forums.
Camden James
I disagree. His videos about military history are even worse.
Evan Moore
>No, his videos about RPGs in particular are just awful. No, you are just particularly knowledgeable about RPGs. If you were knowledgeable about any other topic he covers, you'd notice that too.
Aiden Thompson
You got me interested. How many players do I need with myself? Is it always a one-shot or you can have an extended thing going on? Is it hard to GM(actually how GM even works in this game)
