The "writer's room" stuff is, by definition, not role-playing. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely enjoy it, but if you tell me we're role-playing and then hit me with that, I'll be upset at the whiplash.

I feel like games like FATE need to pick a lane. Either we're all writers telling a story together, or we're trying to role-play as characters and be immersed in the world. But you can't accomplish both things at once.

And if we're doing the writer's room thing, we should just play Microscope. It's my favorite improv-game so far (although I'm open to trying others).

FATE is my favorite least favorite system. I love so much about it, but find about half of it absolutely intolerable.

For example - players making up their own consequences. It's so metagamey that it immediately kills my immersion.

Edit - Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of the Consequences system, but it rubs me the wrong way for the players to be the ones choosing them.

The 5-min adventuring day is more of a "poor GM management" problem than anything. If time effectively stands still when the PC's rest, of course they'll rest at every opportunity. But yes, PF2 has a bit less of powers per day and a few more powers-per-short-rest (well, PF2's equivalent of a short rest, anyways).

Pathfinder absolutely can be used to tell a great story. In fact, I think it's better at that than most of the so-called "narrative systems" out there. But perhaps that's because most of the narrative systems out there run into some of my own pet peeves - namely encouraging metagaming via player abilities that are entirely divorced from the character you're playing as. Some other pet peeves include giving players the ability to retcon/declare things as an ability, or having mechanics that explicitly assume that the world only exists insofar as the PCs interact with it.

In my personal opinion, player's choices only feel important if they have real consequences. This means that the GM must, at a minumum, have enough mechanical 'rigging' to work with that players can reasonably predict the likely outcomes of a given course of action, and see those consequences ripple out into the world in the thousand tiny ways that make the game world feel real.

Plus, there are dozens of ways to streamline a crunchy system and make it easier for new players to handle. But there just aren't that many (good) ways to add complexity to a game that's transparently simple on it's face. I find that simpler rules systems paradoxically encourage power-gaming in this way - if you know you can solve any problem with a +8 Tomfoolery skill and a pile of "story points", why would you ever do anything else? But if you have to choose your approach based on its consequences - not just based on what number is higher - then all of a sudden he decision of whether to bribe, lie to, persuade, sneak past, or assassinate the guard becomes a whole lot harder. And there's no way to weasel out of it because the skills have extremely defined uses that can't be bent to mean something other than what they mean.

(Sorry, that reply kinda ran away with me there 😅)

(But if you would like thoughts/help/advice on how to run a crunchier system in a way that produces very "story focused" results, I have a lot of practice with that. It's both very rewarding and not as hard as it seems. Anyone who reads this and wants to chat, please do. My dms are open.)

I always found D&Ds "linear fighters quadratic wizards" thing to be kind of garbage

Not to be a walking stereotype here, but you've really got to give PF2 a try. It's hard to succinctly say why martials feel so good in PF2 - it's due to a lot of little changes across a lot of different systems - but let's just say that Fighters and Rogues are legitimately my favorite classes in PF2. And I've pretty always been a magic girlie in D&D.

Well that would entirely depend on how she feels about you, wouldn't it 😅

You're Caitlin Jenner's kid? That's rough.

That's, uh, not the usual meaning of t4t.

well you didn't explicitly say you were checking this tile

Yep, that sucks. But tracking time is still good for gameplay

It might not seem more fun that way, but surprisingly it is.

See: BLeeM and how all his BBEGs are actually Capitalism

you have them roll for perception first then you are narrating the area and having players say what they want to do afterwards

now their actions are going to be influenced by their low perception roll

You shouldn't be rolling for perception first. Players don't get to roll until they actually do a thing, until then you use passive perception. And even if you are rolling a perception check on their behalf, you do it behind the screen. So they won't know if they rolled well or not.

rolls come after the declaration of actions

Hard agree! But passive perception isn't an action or a roll. It's passive.

The thing about BAD traps versus a GOOD traps, though, is ensuring that players have the opportunity to try avoiding it.

Exactly. The players should have the opportunity to avoid it. If traps are only a binary - perfectly obvious or completely invisible depending on a single roll - then the characters had a chance to avoid the trap, but the player didn't. And then "optimal play" is painstakingly triple-searching every square foot of the dungeon in case Schodinger's Trap is lurking somewhere.

Which is either trivial and tedious (in games where you don't track the passage of time) or stupidly punishing and tedious (if you are tracking time). Since I do prefer to track time spent, I'd rather give my players the sense that they can 'logic out' where traps are likely to be and encourage them to spend their valuable time searching only when and where it makes the most sense. After all, skill expression is a very rewarding part of playing a game. And being able to predict where a trap is likely to be and then finding one there? That really makes players feel like adventurers.

Who advocated for removing dice rolls? There's still plenty of room for dice rolls here, but it makes traps more interesting and engaging instead of a boring save-or-suck you blindside players with.

Fair enough. I could see a more "lawful neutral" sort of paladin being fond of jails. But usually the stereotypical paladin is depicted as good-aligned.