Game in the Brain

1) do not take any turn away from players, if there are costs then give penalties or costs but never take a turn away from a player. Example – No-Action Conditions in combat or Lost turns in Board Games. My favorite way of correcting it – Make the condition the challenge of the PC, and give them something to roll for. 

2) you succeed you get something, if you can give little wins then GO! never have a roll that has nothing to gain, that’s bad design. Example: Task Chain in MGT2, rolling a success of 0 has no benefit in the Task Chain (and Failure has penalties).  

3)  Reward Cooperation, look at the system if it Punishes Cooperation – Example. current Task Chain in MGT2 punishes cooperation. Heck- reward AIDING, if a Player sacrifices their turn to AID, automatic BONUS, no need to roll. TREAT turns like they matter! 

Simple Correction – allow Effect to Transfer to the next character in the task Chain. “Oh no, the players are COOPERATING and maxing out their bonuses” Oh Tragedy. The fucking GM/REf can just give them something HARDER to do. yeah, a group of people OVERCOMING PROBLEMS by working together “That’s Broken and OP!”- 

Why do people do drills, work as a team, coordinate, talk out their problems and resolve them – could it BE that working together has BENEFITS!?

4)Effects, degrees of Success and failure matter. I realize its the GMs that learn IMPROV  who know how to make Mixed Blessings/Costly Success/Complications and Escalations – Make something bad or good depending on Context – this is a fucking important life skill – if I know when X becomes terrible or a blessing on context then I have the ability not to get Tricked/Deceived – “Outrages headline, Click Bait, etc…” is defeated by CONTEXT.   

I have a bit of a fever since the Summer here in the Tropics is at 90F and my body is getting shocked at the temperature changes. I wish i can work on my book.  

There was someone at WORK refusing work because “Thats not my Job” what happened because of the pandemic was they had to take Forced leaves because they could not justify their work hours – the department that needed their helped was overturned and have overlaping skills and capabilities. That resulted in Lost workdays during a FUCKING pandemic – WHY: because “Fuck everyone I’m here for myself”. That stressed me so much I got a stomach ache and disturbed my sleep for the week. 

When i See bad systems that dont seem to reflect Working together to survive (especially given the pandemic) – Thats red flag in design. 

I’ll fix it in my book, that’s the thing about being NICHE – a ton of game Designers doing this Part time and Drawing from their life and experience to make a Niche product and Support their patrons. Imagine I BUY a book and I can talk to the Author and give feedback how his stuff can be BETTER! win-win!