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I think this is the best TTRPG review I've ever seen. I hope you review my TTRPG when it comes out. Subscribed!

really love the calling out a particular issue I also have, have a SPECIFIC in the rulebook, like the "terrible consequences" is too vague, however having ... like say, GM EYES ONLY, the world will end, but the players shouldn't immediately know this! if I as a GM then think, hmm idk high stakes maybe I just want the consequences to be an NPC gets killed, I can do that since there's nothing contractually, mechanically, or legally that binds me to follow the letter of the law- even if you want to encourage that kinda thing you can be like, ADDENDUM: feel free to get creative and replace shit, or like an asterisk saying *or come up with your own shit this is just a suggestion.

When I’ve looked up recommendations of new games I feel like all I see is a summary or repackaging of the marketing. Having a spine (idk maybe too harsh) and being clear about what you want allows me to make a better decision whether or not I agree with every point you make. P.S.: I feel like procedural generation is something I always look for and subsequently always get let down by. I think as a GM I want to be inspired to make my own things but it seems like the only solution presented in the majority of works I’ve had are just prompts you need to hamstring or retool which is more effortful than creative to me. Feels related to most writing inspiration being a collection of prompts I don’t care for.

I know I'm probably in the minority, but I appreciate your honest and thoughtful reviews. Thank you for your authentic words. There's not enough good critics such as yourself in the ttrpg space.

oh, I noticed that your awesome review of mothership is missing, what happend? where can i find it?

I would like to know if you have a fundamental issue with PbtA as a system. I think most PbtA games are bad and most should use a different system, but i also really like Monsterhearts 2 so i don't. The adventurers in the book suck though because PbtA adventurers don't make sense. I like improvising with my friends who aren't improv actors and Monsterhearts 2 gives me enough tools to do that. I hoppe I'm not giving the book too much credit, but when i read through it i felt like i could bring nearly everything it offered to the table and I did and it was good.

Oh also I should say, watching this and the first souls like vid back to back have put me in game dev brain, so thank you for that motivation

So happy to have my silly comment influence your video choice! I showed this to my wife and she says you're allowed to be mean if you review Magical Land of Yeld, which you didn't need permission from and she didn't even make it. Excited for the secret project :D

The Runecairn: Wardensaga section, especially when contrasted against the Cragcliff adventure, really has me once again asking myself whether anyone actually plays these games (ESPECIALLY before rating them on Itch or your storefront of choice). And, to go a step further, I sometimes find myself wondering whether anyone even READS these games. And I'm not just talking about the really small projects. This includes the big success stories, too. At a glance, Wardensaga looks really exciting. The evocative art in the book really works to sell a *vibe* to the reader. Unfortunately, it's all a smokescreen. It just ends up hiding the quality of the writing and design from the reader until they actually sit down and read the book. And the reader STILL might be forgiven for not recognizing the severity of the lackluster writing, because TTRPGs always expect players to build upon what's provided in the book. It can just be hard to know what the game looks like until you actually try to play it (unless you've read and played a lot of games). And the perception of a "premium product" can go a long way towards convincing the naive reader that the game will be what they imagine it to be (I'm getting AAA PTSD flashbacks). I can't stop thinking about how BAD The One Ring (Second Edition) book is. I have this horrible memory of sitting with the book during Christmas day, head in hands, trying so hard to cram everything in the book into my head so I could run an exciting Lord of the Rings themed adventure. I remember sitting there, miserable, holding what felt like a premium product. The pages were thick and covered in beautiful artwork. It felt luxurious to own. And yet in hindsight, that misery was completely the fault of the book. If a TTRPG book should a. quickly onboard players with the things they need to know, b. be an easily parsed rules reference, and c. provide gameable content and adventures, then The One Ring is a MISERABLE failure on all accounts. It's an unbearably verbose, bloated sprawl of poorly organized game terms, mechanics, and lore details that you probably already know if you're a LOTR geek. And yet it was emotionally *hard* to reach that conclusion, because they had literally sold me the promise of an exciting adventure with my friends that I was already emotionally invested in. The One Ring (Second Edition) is a game that I can't imagine running without a ton of hand-made resources which I would say are borderline necessary to compensate for the disaster that is the core rulebook. Yet the publishers provide almost no useful free resources on their website. Why? Yes, I already know *why*, but that doesn't make it any less depressing. I guess the real question is why it's acceptable. The game has a 4.8/5 star rating on DriveThruRPG with 325 ratings at the time of writing, and I just can't imagine that those ratings are from people who have read, let alone played, the game. Like, is this just the hobby now? Are we just people who buy exciting looking games, flip through them, imagine what it would be like to play them, and sigh and say, "maybe one day"? I know I'm reiterating a lot of the ideas that are in AAA. But that question of why nobody seems to be talking about the embarrassingly poor quality of a lot of these products is one that's just... stuck in my head.

I think the Cowboy Bebop video commenter might have been making a joke about how you dunked the book, like, into water. Maybe not idk 😅

It's so good to see someone still using Windows 95.

Oh my god Snow! I love Snow!

God, this is the type of meta shit that I love.

You are my favorite person currently making videos. I'm not saying that this is you but video esseys need more people being actually critical. It's so hard to understand someone from what they love but you really get them when they tell you what they hate. Anyway, this is coming from someone who generally likes most things.

I have barely started the video and the presentation is already amazing

I love Snow so much. I got to read more of her gamed.

I thought the section on Dating Souls was interesting as most of your problems seam to come from it being a 2400 hack. I know you talk about 24XX but I think you should have probably read one of the originals or the SRD, don't blame you for not doing that though. I don't think Dating Souls should have used 2400 for it's system just for what the game wanted to do and not having a randomly generated lovers chart is very odd for the stated goal of the game. I like 2400, but more in concept then in play, I find it a bit too open for it to run super well.

FLAME WAR

Fascinated by the... Scripted? Verbal flubs??? What a wild choice Very jazzed to see this but I'll have to finish it tomorrow

Id like you to speedrun smoking a brisket.

Missed ya.

I dunno. “You raised half a million on Kickstarter, maybe you should have paid for a decent editor” is a totally valid criticism! But I’m not into this whole ‘dunking on people for the lulz’ thing. (Except for WOTC and fascist edgelords, of course)

I'd like a TED Talk about hating capitalism, but please don't include any reasoning!

I will never, NEVER, not choose property destruction.

you gotta love how they don't even get any original art involved and its all just screenshots from the anime or promotional art from the show.

I miss the way they used to do licensed games. My vote is for fake livestream, don't know what it is but I'm intrigued

'Ron Edwards' paired with [extremely loud buzzer], geez don't jumpscare me like that!

oh yay video fake livestream next please since you said no mothership

It's been a year and some change, and I think 3 rewatches of this video. This is my Lord of the Rings, apparently

This video does not hate PbtA games. I think that is important to remember. It certainly doesn't like the Root RPG and I think that's pretty fair. It also doesn't like The Forge ideology because it heavily relies on behaviorism which is bad. The Root RPG doesn't understand why PbtA works bt it's also what you get when you try and make a perfect behaviorist game using a system that came from that ideology. PbtA as a system is good ibspite of the design space it came out of, not because of it. The Forge didn't make bad games, it made bad ideas. And those ideas lead to bad game design and analysis to this day.

I really love how EVERY faction in Root is equally bad. Its not about bring good or bad. Its about different factions, with their own interests, fighting for power and control in their own ways. While you, the player, navigates throu that trying to profit. Im a RPG writter with 2 PbtA published games and I agree with most of your critiques. PbtA is verry friendly for new PLAYERS, bit definatly not for GMs. The way PbtA games writte everything in a fancy confusing way thats not intuitive is a huge mistake thar I try to avoid in my games. The way they mechanize the GM with "rules" instead of a tips and guides is abother mistake I avoid.

I fond myself back at this video a tear later as a refresher. Its still great. Also, a lot of people in the comments seem to not he engaging with the arguments made here in good faith. This isnt a screed on why PbtA is bad, its an essay on the futility of trying to "correct" player behavior using mechanics.

This is top notch critical theory. Bravo.

Would loovvveeeee to peek that Whitehack vid, youre the reason I found out about white hack. Cant find it for some reason tho?

Watched the whole essay, while there were some great points made, the constant snarky comments, personal attacks and overall sarcastic tone made it difficult to watch. It would've been be great to dive into the PbtA principles before starting to criticize the game, at least for the viewers, as I had a feeling at some point that you misunderstood how the game should be played (or it's me 😅) , judging by the way you described it should be played. It would be really fun to watch a video dissecting the PbtA philosophy. I am not sure that the premise that the game should be concerned to be as all encompassing as possible (meaning that it should be support any narrative that can occur at the table). It happens with all systems, be it DND, Mothership or whatever, as we agree upon the vibe and type of story we want to create before committing to the campaign on session 0. So anyone can expect what is not going to happen at the table ever. PbtA games are just explicit about that. People run sci-fi on 5e, is it possible? Yes, is it a good Idea? I do not think so. PbtA games just explicitly tell you that no, you cannot run anything but this type of story using this system. Another point extrapolating The Root RPG experience on all PbtA games is a bit unfair? Like the size, there are hundreds of small indie PbtA games with handful of moves supporting epic and long campaigns. There are good and bad PbtA games, like with any other games. I do agree, that some PbtA are sometimes too wordy and excessive, and the root RPG may be is a such game Additonally, TTRPG experience is something that happens at the table, and what the original creators designers envisioned it be, may be a completely different from the emergent experience at the tables of the majority of players. Personally, I dislike when there is too much setting in the rulebooks, I prefer rules and the setting to be separate, so I can choose what it's going to be in my world, or to avoid situations where prewritten narratives constrict the emergent narrative at the table. So in this case, having a few pages maximum is a huge plus for me. Sometimes it's fun to play in a pre-written setting, but nowadays I prefer where setting, dangers and everything is created at the table And really loved what you said, TTRPGs is a folk art

I cannot imagine being bothered that they don't outline the specifics of who rules the factions in the rulebook, thats there so you can decide amongst your table for fun, lmao makes you sound like someone who plays adventure modules (derogatory)

A minor observation, but I think the vagueness surrounding faction specifics, like who the leaders are, what they believe, what resources they have and so forth, might be a legacy of missaplying features from Apoclypse World. In Apoclypse World such setting details are undefined in the book becouse you can play a local leader, which means some of the most important factions for a campaign might be defined at character creation. This doesn't apply to Root: The RPG becouse your not playing leaders, and players already know the factions before characters are made. Also it hits me that a Root rpg that gives you the option to lead a faction would be much more intresting then one where your restricted to only be adventurers.

tell me you don't understand PbtA without telling me you don't understand PbtA

This was an awesome watch, wtg

Thank you for this. Glad i saw it before the upcoming expansion campaign 😅

I found your behaviour annoying, but, although I think we wouldn't get much along if we met irl, I'm glad I've come across your video. Thanks for the food for thought and for actually preventing me from wasting money on Root: the RPG.

what happened to the first video. the Alpha that was dope bring it back.

The timing of this video popping up felt wild as I've just recently started loving Root the board game, bought the Root RPG and felt disappointed. I also feel like the algorithm has sniped me as I co-wrote a paper/did a group art project in university centered around agency in games (writing partly about The Stanley Parable), I work with autistic kids as an art teacher and I'm currently creating a TTRPG. Stayed up way too late watching this. Great video!

While the playing of TTRPGs is unquestionably folk art, not everyone playing TTRPGs sees themself as an artist. Maybe that’s a result of the alienation you speak of, but I think it’s more attributable to the broad range of approaches and playstyles in this medium. Some folks need more structure to foster their creativity, and some folks like practicing some degree of agency yoga (AKA system mastery) even if TTRPGs aren’t truly closed suitsian games. And even still, some people like the little accomplishment chemicals from gaining XP or following a rule “correctly”, especially in this late-stage-capitalism world where everything is so complicated that we often don’t have a clue what the “right” thing is anymore. If we can’t defeat an irredeemable monster to save the world in our fictions and get awesome rewards as a result, where can we? Rules, art, microfiction, authorial voice, setting material, random tables, it’s all just creativity prompts. A rule’s impact on a group’s gaming can be just as powerful as the game’s art direction or a pre-written adventure. And in my opinion, game books barely even matter anymore; these days a game is only as good as its printable resources for table use. At least when playing it for the first time. That said, I wholeheartedly agree with your call to arms that more game designers to need to pay attention to the non-rules portions of their games. This is a super thought provoking essay that I keep finding myself returning to. Thank you for making it and I hope you’re able to find more cool ways to make art with your friends!

𝓡𝓸𝓸𝓽: 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓡𝓟𝓖 insists upon itself lois

Another aspect to the "Is D&D 5e bad at horror" thingy is that...not all horror is desperate and powerless? Like Aliens is horror, but the aliens get their asses kicked quite a few times. I don't think 5e is particularly good at horror, or particularly bad. You can do horror in 5e perpendicularly to the system, not much supports or prevents it. You can't really make long-term horror in HERO System 6th edition when playing superheroes, at least not very easily: the whole system is about making cool stuff. I still pull it off at least once every three sessions. System matters, but system isn't everything.

Absolutely beautiful and thought provoking video. I'm considering a lot of how I engage with video games, system-guided and systemless roleplaying, metafiction, and fiction in general in the light of the study and analysis put forth in here and I will probably be thinking about that and discussing it with my friends for a very long time; absolutely something I will be obnoxiously sending the link to I'm something that cares a lot about the rules of a game (or similar activity) that I'm engaging with in the name of engaging with the source material as the thing that it is, but I'm also a longtime freeform roleplayer and (I would like to think) am sensitive to the fuzzy realities of that, and by extension how they intwract and do not intwract with a system I might be playing with the paradigm of. These priorities aren't necessarily in conflict, but when and how they come into tension and how I weigh them when they do or don't is something I'm always thinking about, and this has given me a lot of new material and perspective to ponder on. Thank you so much. I have to DM my friends about our pretend game in Minecraft immediately Funnier alternate comment: tabletop guys™ will literally invent ABA before talking to their players

It's wild, I've known about Dread for years (thanks for reminding me that I found it through the Wil Wheaton show). I only ever took the tower and questionnaire from the game, so it's funny just how overwritten it is. I never realized just how weird that first story was either. Thinking of trying new games makes me think when my high school friends and I tried d20modern. Everyone was so nervous cause it wasn't fantasy, and they almost never played it again after an unceremonious TPK. It's funny now thinking about how in our comfort zone that game was mechanics wise.

sup