I barely made it two pages into the meat of the mechanics before
seeing that the primary form of gameplay is the GM making up percentage
chances for future events based off of nothing but vibes.
Ironically, I would have called this /too/ predictable if I weren’t
reading it with my own eyeballs.
EDIT: That’s not to say a GM having to intuit a chance of success for
a player action is at all alien in the realm of TTRPGs, just that the
way they frame it aligns perfectly with how Yud-y geeks justify their
doomsaying.
Come to think of it, maybe there’s a useful lens of analysis in how
these prediction-chance-people approach AI risk and TTRPGs from the same
place because at its core what they are doing is trying to justify a
narrative in both examples.
Hot take: If the primary gameplay interaction is "players state their intent and GM assigns arbitrary probability of success," then the game should not need a 100+ page rule book.
I'm actually tempted to remix this into a snarky one page RPG just for the hell of it.
Yeah, the GM making up a chance of success based on vibes is a pretty valid form of TTRPG, but it normally comes with a zero to ten page rule book. It's the sort of things where you write down ideas to help inspire the GM's homebrew, not where you try to codify rules.
White Wolf and that other connected company that I can't remember the name of has been telling people for ages not to treat their games like reality or as an endorsement for the ideas the games mess around with for decades but they've only met with partial success in doing that.
I bet this game is actually good, but only because it’s a sci-fi game informed by sci-fi
Because we know it’s not informed by research
I barely made it two pages into the meat of the mechanics before seeing that the primary form of gameplay is the GM making up percentage chances for future events based off of nothing but vibes.
Ironically, I would have called this /too/ predictable if I weren’t reading it with my own eyeballs.
EDIT: That’s not to say a GM having to intuit a chance of success for a player action is at all alien in the realm of TTRPGs, just that the way they frame it aligns perfectly with how Yud-y geeks justify their doomsaying.
Come to think of it, maybe there’s a useful lens of analysis in how these prediction-chance-people approach AI risk and TTRPGs from the same place because at its core what they are doing is trying to justify a narrative in both examples.
It’s so freaking weird to see a free TTRPG written by techbro libertarians where the players control a paperclip AI that brings about the apocalypse.
this is a nice recruitment tactic and a really cool site
oh boy do we have another case of the classic “chaos means random” blunder on our hands
Eclipse Phase did it already. They even have psychic powers in that game despite an aesthetic of hard science.