Aug 16, 2022·edited Aug 16, 2022Liked by Monte Cook
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.
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.
This is a great read. In a lighter context, a good sacred/profane mnemonic is that profane worlds seem to elicit more player profanity as their heroes get mulched by bad die rolls in insignificant encounters :)
You've really got me thinking about how I run the tables and tell the stories I do. Especially in my own Numenera game, I feel like I'm maybe middle of the road between s/p. Great ideas, brilliant actions, lots of those things do succeed without dice required because they're narratively killer, and there's always player intrusions. But combat is dangerous, and all the die rolls are in the open. I think Cypher's safety hatch of "someone pay an XP so I can reroll and not die" has kept the party whole more than once.
Good stuff Monte; concise and thoughful. Your caveats were well done, although I feel that in times gone by people took these without saying. I guess that's just the world we live in now : )
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.
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.
This is a great read. In a lighter context, a good sacred/profane mnemonic is that profane worlds seem to elicit more player profanity as their heroes get mulched by bad die rolls in insignificant encounters :)
You've really got me thinking about how I run the tables and tell the stories I do. Especially in my own Numenera game, I feel like I'm maybe middle of the road between s/p. Great ideas, brilliant actions, lots of those things do succeed without dice required because they're narratively killer, and there's always player intrusions. But combat is dangerous, and all the die rolls are in the open. I think Cypher's safety hatch of "someone pay an XP so I can reroll and not die" has kept the party whole more than once.
Good stuff Monte; concise and thoughful. Your caveats were well done, although I feel that in times gone by people took these without saying. I guess that's just the world we live in now : )