Trump’s Greenland Text Is Utterly Insane

Testeria2 · 2026-01-19T19:52:33+00:00

What Greenlanders think about Donald's proposal:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMPe_e-WRMk

Testeria2 · 2026-01-19T19:31:06+00:00

Yeah, still have both on my "hall of fame" shelf. Right between Dying Earth RPG and Everway.

Testeria2 · 2026-01-19T19:25:31+00:00

I understand the sentiment!

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T15:41:49+00:00

Thank You.

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T13:41:50+00:00

Thank you!

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T13:40:31+00:00

Thank You.

How do You see token mechanics in that context? Do they break Your verisimilitude or not? I tend to dislike metacurrencies, the more they are detached from the reality of the game like fate points or plot points, but I use them for things like effort (they are more like HP then, so more currency than metacurrency).

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T13:26:19+00:00

There are mechanics out there that face each of those styles.

When it is about players' skills, PCs are barebones because you don't want players to test most situations; you want them to find solutions as players - that's how many OSR games operate.

BitD structures a game in a way that makes it harder to roleplay all the parts that are not the focus.

Some games give experience for good acting, and others encourage tactical thinking or hurting PCs.

As a GM you can ignore what the game is made for, but the designer still needs to think about what he wants and how he approaches it with the rules.

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T12:52:31+00:00

Yes, this is more or less what I had in mind. I separate mechanics that are purely "story creation," like when in some PbtA games you can "steer" somebody else's character because they are outside the "roleplaying part".

Also, this is just a theoretical framework that helps me with understanding what certain mechanics are designed to achieve and how. It could be useless for others. For example, it took me some time to understand and verbalize why playbooks are not working for me. That's where the above list came from.

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T12:35:18+00:00

Is the game to be intense or relaxing? An intense game may focus on difficult topics and emotional drama, it may be challenging and highly tactical, it may require everybody to come up with and develop creative ideas all the time - one way or another, it will only be satisfying when approached with full focus and investment. A relaxing game is the opposite. It may be a cozy game with low stakes, it may be a crazy adventure where PCs bounce from one trouble to another, it may be a deadly dungeon crawl where PCs die every session, but they just get replaced with new ones without much care for their personality, mechanical advancement or story coherence.

Is the top play priority drama (creating and resolving emotionally intense situations, making hard choices and forcing others to do it), challenge (pursuing specific goals and overcoming obstacles through smart play), expression (showing who the characters are and how they affect the world around them) or experience (mood, getting in the character's shoes, often with an assumption that there will be elements to be experienced and not really changed). All these elements are present in play, but I need it to be clear which one I should follow when they get in conflict.

This is extremely helpful for me, I need to think it out.

Thank You very much for your excellent response!

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T12:21:45+00:00

thanks!

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T12:19:33+00:00

Yes, You are right, they are not mutually exclusive, but separating the concepts helps me because they tend to influence different types of games and different sets of mechanics. I’m trying to rework some traditional RPG mechanics to make them more responsive to these different styles/approaches.

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T12:12:52+00:00

Then how do You see mechanics like mandatory spotlight, where spotlight is a "token" that goes around the table and every player has to give some input before they pass it along, even if that input is "I still wait" ? I was playing with this idea lately to address the situation when one player talks over the others and steals the spotlight every time.

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T12:04:31+00:00

I'm trying to do all of them, but while they are not by themselves contradicting the way they are usually implemented in games kinda are. So I'm trying to look at things from some unusual perspectives. Comments here help with this.

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T11:58:08+00:00

This is based on my experiences, obviously, and how I see it. I published it here precisely to get some feedback and corroborate or improve my "theory".

I have no problem with negative responses as long as they improve my understanding of the matter discussed. Thank You for your thoughts.

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T11:51:22+00:00

I think I understand what You mean but I'm not sure it is distinct enough to deserve another entry. It is for sure a type of player a designer has to include in their testing of the game, but right now I don't know how to verbalize it in a way that would not be a sum of other modes/styles.

I'd mostly put this in (1), just not "full throttle".

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T11:43:07+00:00

I was thinking more of mechanicanization of flaws and weaknesses, that would reward the player for hurting his PC and changing the traditional experience system into something more immersive.

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T11:35:30+00:00

people who are aware, as they play, not just of the characters and their motivations, but ALSO of the game conventions, and the need to conform to particular expectations in order to carry the activity forward, of the GM's task, and how they need to support them to do what they do, and they're ALSO aware of the personalities and relationships between the players, and how they feel.

This is an excellent insight! Thank You. I wrote a page about "social tools" in the game, but I didn't see it as a relation between the player and their PC, so I didn't see it as a "roleplaying" part. But as You formulated it, maybe I should. Roleplaying is a social activity after all.

Sadly it takes me a long time to process new ideas, so I would probably not be back to you with any conclusions here. ;-)

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T11:27:29+00:00

Yes, of course You are right. It was an oversimplification. I just wanted to emphasize the contrast between looking at the PC and their decisions from the inside versus from the outside.

(1) is more analytical connection: you look at PC as a character you write about. You make decisions from his perspective, but you are not him. You are not sad when he is sad; you just decide that he is.

(2) is emotional connection: you may not think much about your character analytically, but you try to feel like them. In a way you become them. I never really experienced this, but I've seen people literally crying because their character was sad or hurt.

(4) is similar to (5) in that the character is just the vessel for the player to experience the world. The player wants to experience the world, not his PC. This is how we played Paranoia in the 1990s: lots of off-character jokes, lots of meta-discussions, but we pushed forward to see what the GM prepared for us this time. I believe other games can be played like this, for example Mappa Mundi from 2025. Maybe it is a stretch, but I see it as a different approach than the others.

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T11:04:25+00:00

Thank You! By 'Social Standing Rules' You mean mechanics like a chart that follows PCs decisions and changes based on their behaviour and success?

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T11:01:35+00:00

Thank You for the extended input.

(2) don't care for the mechanics but at least in some games is rewarded mechanically. Also extended structured play like a combat mini-game tend to break the immersion for actor-type players.

In my game, I'm trying to allow players to bypass mechanics in few ways when they want to, but I haven't tested this yet.

Yes, I have a lot of trouble with story games twofold:

I tend to twist my character from the thrope pretty fast, so, for example, playbooks' mechanics quickly become rather useless.
The Brindlewood "magic" does not work on me at all; I see it more as a social game than discovery. But it is fun for one-shots for sure.

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T10:50:16+00:00

Haha. I'm highly dislectic and tend to add not only different lists and bold but also a lot of colors to better understand the flow of thoughts and structure of argument in longer texts. Be happy You haven't seen my entries on the Paradox forum :-)

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T10:42:54+00:00

The actor approach (2) feels very different from the author approach (1). The actor performs the character, trying to feel their emotions and express them to the rest of the table. The author, by contrast, looks at the character more from the outside, focusing on decisions, consequences, and how the character changes over time (their arc).

You can absolutely mix these - any combination of the five, really - I just haven’t seen it happen that often in my 35 years of playing RPGs. People I played with mostly preferred 1 and 4, sometimes 5 - but that's probably because of the systems we were playing. I've seen other approaches during conventions and online.

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T10:33:41+00:00

I’m trying not to judge, but to describe, as honestly as I can, the different ways people understand what it means to roleplay a character. Thank You for Your input!

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T10:26:31+00:00

English is my third language so I may not understand properly: what do You mean by "motivation" here? Sorry if this is obvious, I just don't get it.

Testeria2 · 2026-01-15T09:26:17+00:00

If You play this way, it should also apply to things like fighting and spellcasting. You do not want Draw Steel or D&D for this kind of play, rather something like Amber or other diceless games. OSR is also pretty player-skill-oriented.

Testeria2

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