Been reading the book over the past few days and I noticed that there’s no Principle for “Never speak the name of…

7 thoughts on “Been reading the book over the past few days and I noticed that there’s no Principle for “Never speak the name of…”

1. Maybe it’s implied. But that is interesting.

2. It does look like AW principles such as “Make your move by misdirect” and “Make your move but never speak its name” have been combined into this “Begin and end with the fiction”.

   I guess overall it’s the same but it probably would be good if it was spelled out in nice big letters to never mention your move by name. I’d played a fair bit of Dungeon World before coming to this so I knew this particular principle.

3. Yeah, I combined all those moves under Begin and End with the fiction. For me, this is one that depends on your group and how you deal with “immersion”. I’m often in groups where everyone has run an PbtA game, so we’re rather free with mentioning moves by name without it getting in the way of immersion in the fiction. Accordingly, I combined those moves into what I saw as the essential element, to keep the fiction at the forefront. I should make a note to discuss this if I do a designer’s commentary of the game.

4. Thanks Hamish! That’s good reasoning. The only thing I would worry about is that putting a bunch of ideas into one principle can make them tougher to remember, but if they’re not the essential thing, then I guess it’s fine.

5. I agree. There’s definitely an extent to which the principles in The Sprawl are my own personal take on what’s important in PbtA games. I think most other PbtA games are the same: lots of little tweaks and personal preferences.

6. I assumed “Make your move, but misdirect” covered that. Huh. Either way, I get it.

7. Ben Liepis Oh yes, that too!

Comments are closed.