https://deadletters.nyc/forum/ Sat, 24 Oct 2026 11:06:39 +0000 MyBB https://deadletters.nyc/forum/showthread.php?tid=27 Sat, 17 Oct 2026 03:30:54 +0000 natknight]]> https://deadletters.nyc/forum/showthread.php?tid=27 For the Queen!

I agree that putting safety tools in the rules is aesthetically suboptimal, but I'm fairly sure Roberts has spoken to why it's in there: part of the idea with FtQ is that it's a box that a totally new player could pick up in a big-box store and play with their friends. Of course the sickos (complementary) in this forum don't need to be told to put it there, but it feels irresponsible to throw totally un-enfranchised players in with no tools, especially given the charged nature of some of the questions.]]> For the Queen!

I agree that putting safety tools in the rules is aesthetically suboptimal, but I'm fairly sure Roberts has spoken to why it's in there: part of the idea with FtQ is that it's a box that a totally new player could pick up in a big-box store and play with their friends. Of course the sickos (complementary) in this forum don't need to be told to put it there, but it feels irresponsible to throw totally un-enfranchised players in with no tools, especially given the charged nature of some of the questions.]]> https://deadletters.nyc/forum/showthread.php?tid=20 Sun, 27 Sep 2026 22:56:58 +0000 JimMonsoon]]> https://deadletters.nyc/forum/showthread.php?tid=20 https://deadletters.nyc/forum/showthread.php?tid=19 Tue, 22 Sep 2026 12:13:45 +0000 JimMonsoon]]> https://deadletters.nyc/forum/showthread.php?tid=19 I think I can guess how y’all will respond to Electric Bastionland in this regard, but curious if any of you have read Andrew Kolb’s Oz which is his take on a city crawl. Very detailed, but maybe a lot of prep to reskin if you’re not into the specific flavor.]]> I think I can guess how y’all will respond to Electric Bastionland in this regard, but curious if any of you have read Andrew Kolb’s Oz which is his take on a city crawl. Very detailed, but maybe a lot of prep to reskin if you’re not into the specific flavor.]]> https://deadletters.nyc/forum/showthread.php?tid=15 Sat, 12 Sep 2026 09:41:02 +0000 Randalf the Gray]]> https://deadletters.nyc/forum/showthread.php?tid=15 The Man Who Knew Too Little, because I believe it is one of the greatest satires ever filmed. What elevates it above the level of a mere spoof is precisely its meta narrative framing, which hints at a sort of phantom fourth wall that exists only on the level of the diegesis created by the film. This phantom fourth wall is seen by the audience, but can only possibly be experienced by the protagonist within the narrative, and it is this tension which fuels the comedy, and which allows the premise to facilitate the audience's identification with the protagonist. A lesser film would have eventually lifted the veil and devolved into antics, but Bill Murray's charming Everyman Spy plays it out to the very end. I believe it is a masterful addition to the surprisingly diverse subgenre of spy comedies, rivaled only by Rowan Atkinson's own bumbling Everyman Johnny English.

This actually relates to my comments on the episode as a whole, which I found quite interesting, as always.

With special regard to Walid's statements concerning a "Perfect Roleplaying Game".

Imagine a person, playing a game, who has taken on the role of themselves within this game. The game is called Life, and the rules are quite harsh, but this person has faith in the good intentions of the Designer, and so when the difficulty ramps up this person doesn't blame the game, they seek only to improve their playing.

Now this is absurd to a degree, I know, but it illustrates the point that what constitutes a "Game" or "Roleplaying" is only a matter of perspective, intent, and behavior.

Now imagine there's a different person, playing a different game, who has taken on the role of the Designer of a game called Life, which has one player, though they do not know it.

Do you see where this is going?

If the Designer has gamified the game of the Player, who is playing their own game in which the Designer unknowingly takes part, who is the player and what is the game?

They each exist as people playing games (Exogenous), who have taken roles within their games as Player and Designer (Endogenous), and the actions taken by each within their respective games affect their own game and the game of the other (Diegesis).

As for the Invisible Rules:

1. Role-playing is an interactive process of 
defining and re-defining the state, properties 
and contents of an imaginary game world.

While "interactive" has social implications, its use here refers to the interaction between players and the imaginary world, while a more precise wording would emphasize that the interactive process of defining and re-defining the imaginary world is also shared between the player-participants. I also disagree with the necessity for an "imaginary" world. "Imagined" would be more accurate, however I don't believe that an imaginary overlay is ultimately required in all cases for a Game to qualify as Roleplaying.

2. The power to define the game world is 
allocated to participants of the game. The 
participants recognize the existence of this 
power hierarchy.

Again, this doesn't necessarily apply in all cases. A GM-less game played from a prewritten module using oracles to address unknown variables, as many solo games are played, would provide no power to define the world itself. Though the characters and their actions could be freely defined, the hierarchy then would exist purely between the players and the game itself, which is also doing the allocating through its very structure. Over-reliance on closure to fill this gap feels incomplete, because as stated in the paper, closure is often unconscious, and such an automatic process would be better suited to a term with less connotations of intent as "power". I'm being pedantic on terminology because I find it lacks precision, but it may just be a translation issue with the paper as a whole.

3. Player-participants define the game world 
through personified character constructs, 
conforming to the state, properties and 
contents of the game world.

I feel like this is just an extension of Rule 2, though it does seem contradictory in a sense. Rule 2 states that the "participants" have the power to define the world, but Rule 3 states that they do so through "personified character constructs". Is Rule 2 then merely stating that "power to define" exists and it is allocated between the participants, and Rule 3 then describes how that power is actuated? I don't believe that can be true, because the allocation of power in Rule 2 is what grants authority to the GM to freely define the world, which they do (mostly) without use of a "personified character construct". The GM role is further explored in the "optional or additional" rules later in the paper, but since these three Rules are supposed to be applicable to "all role-playing in general" I feel they must bear the burden of that claim in all cases, which they clearly do not.

By these Rules, my absurd Designer and Player are playing the same game. More importantly, while the Designer exists and continues to play, the Player is playing a game whether they know it or not, much like our Everyman Spy from above.

Is the phantom fourth wall "real" in the sense that it exists irrelevant to whether it is perceived or interacted with, or does it only exist insofar as it is perceived and interacted with by some agentic entity, on either side of the wall?

Whatever the answer, if any, I'm definitely using Personified Construct as my definition for PC going forward.

Thanks for the awesome and inspiring discussion on the podcast! And thanks for bringing these thought provoking works to our attention!]]> The Man Who Knew Too Little, because I believe it is one of the greatest satires ever filmed. What elevates it above the level of a mere spoof is precisely its meta narrative framing, which hints at a sort of phantom fourth wall that exists only on the level of the diegesis created by the film. This phantom fourth wall is seen by the audience, but can only possibly be experienced by the protagonist within the narrative, and it is this tension which fuels the comedy, and which allows the premise to facilitate the audience's identification with the protagonist. A lesser film would have eventually lifted the veil and devolved into antics, but Bill Murray's charming Everyman Spy plays it out to the very end. I believe it is a masterful addition to the surprisingly diverse subgenre of spy comedies, rivaled only by Rowan Atkinson's own bumbling Everyman Johnny English.

This actually relates to my comments on the episode as a whole, which I found quite interesting, as always.

With special regard to Walid's statements concerning a "Perfect Roleplaying Game".

Imagine a person, playing a game, who has taken on the role of themselves within this game. The game is called Life, and the rules are quite harsh, but this person has faith in the good intentions of the Designer, and so when the difficulty ramps up this person doesn't blame the game, they seek only to improve their playing.

Now this is absurd to a degree, I know, but it illustrates the point that what constitutes a "Game" or "Roleplaying" is only a matter of perspective, intent, and behavior.

Now imagine there's a different person, playing a different game, who has taken on the role of the Designer of a game called Life, which has one player, though they do not know it.

Do you see where this is going?

If the Designer has gamified the game of the Player, who is playing their own game in which the Designer unknowingly takes part, who is the player and what is the game?

They each exist as people playing games (Exogenous), who have taken roles within their games as Player and Designer (Endogenous), and the actions taken by each within their respective games affect their own game and the game of the other (Diegesis).

As for the Invisible Rules:

1. Role-playing is an interactive process of 
defining and re-defining the state, properties 
and contents of an imaginary game world.

While "interactive" has social implications, its use here refers to the interaction between players and the imaginary world, while a more precise wording would emphasize that the interactive process of defining and re-defining the imaginary world is also shared between the player-participants. I also disagree with the necessity for an "imaginary" world. "Imagined" would be more accurate, however I don't believe that an imaginary overlay is ultimately required in all cases for a Game to qualify as Roleplaying.

2. The power to define the game world is 
allocated to participants of the game. The 
participants recognize the existence of this 
power hierarchy.

Again, this doesn't necessarily apply in all cases. A GM-less game played from a prewritten module using oracles to address unknown variables, as many solo games are played, would provide no power to define the world itself. Though the characters and their actions could be freely defined, the hierarchy then would exist purely between the players and the game itself, which is also doing the allocating through its very structure. Over-reliance on closure to fill this gap feels incomplete, because as stated in the paper, closure is often unconscious, and such an automatic process would be better suited to a term with less connotations of intent as "power". I'm being pedantic on terminology because I find it lacks precision, but it may just be a translation issue with the paper as a whole.

3. Player-participants define the game world 
through personified character constructs, 
conforming to the state, properties and 
contents of the game world.

I feel like this is just an extension of Rule 2, though it does seem contradictory in a sense. Rule 2 states that the "participants" have the power to define the world, but Rule 3 states that they do so through "personified character constructs". Is Rule 2 then merely stating that "power to define" exists and it is allocated between the participants, and Rule 3 then describes how that power is actuated? I don't believe that can be true, because the allocation of power in Rule 2 is what grants authority to the GM to freely define the world, which they do (mostly) without use of a "personified character construct". The GM role is further explored in the "optional or additional" rules later in the paper, but since these three Rules are supposed to be applicable to "all role-playing in general" I feel they must bear the burden of that claim in all cases, which they clearly do not.

By these Rules, my absurd Designer and Player are playing the same game. More importantly, while the Designer exists and continues to play, the Player is playing a game whether they know it or not, much like our Everyman Spy from above.

Is the phantom fourth wall "real" in the sense that it exists irrelevant to whether it is perceived or interacted with, or does it only exist insofar as it is perceived and interacted with by some agentic entity, on either side of the wall?

Whatever the answer, if any, I'm definitely using Personified Construct as my definition for PC going forward.

Thanks for the awesome and inspiring discussion on the podcast! And thanks for bringing these thought provoking works to our attention!]]> https://deadletters.nyc/forum/showthread.php?tid=2 Sat, 05 Sep 2026 13:23:53 +0000 JimMonsoon]]> https://deadletters.nyc/forum/showthread.php?tid=2

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Also you guys should get Beau Rancourt onto the podcast (edit: or just read and respond to his work). I don’t agree with all his tuff, but he has very strong opinions on adventure writing and puts in the work for some very detailed critiques. He discusses this module in depth on his blog.]]>

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Also you guys should get Beau Rancourt onto the podcast (edit: or just read and respond to his work). I don’t agree with all his tuff, but he has very strong opinions on adventure writing and puts in the work for some very detailed critiques. He discusses this module in depth on his blog.]]>