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Xanoth's avatar

A thought provoking read.

I spent most of my youth wanting a profane game, something I always felt D&D fell short of through most editions simply because even at its most profane, its just the dice being treat as sacred.

Yet some of my fondest RPG experiences from my youth were from DMs who ran more narative focused games but with high verisimilitude. The system wasn't profane, but their world felt more profane for it. For context most of these were more gritty games in tone: survival horror, cthulhu, vampire, etc. but it was deviation or disregard for the systems where the world felt more engaging.

I certainly feel there is a distinction between sacred and profane games from both a game system perspective and game tone... setting? Pulp Cthulhu is probably a useful example where the systems used to play that kinda of game encourage and promote what is thematically appropriate for the game being played. You can play both OG Cthulhu and Pulp completly by the rules and treat the games as profane as you like but the experience is completly different.

I'm skirting close to conflating profane with simulation centric systems, but I do mean the immergant gameplay that the system encourage and promote by how those mechanical systems are built that there is a clear expectation at the table.

These days I keep buying game systems, yours included, and I'm not even sure what I'm looking for in them but I never get to play them as my friends only want to play 5e.

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jason campbell's avatar

Thanks! I realize that when I first played AD&D, we were very much looking for the profane, while nearly all the games I GM now run clearly in the sacred.

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