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Hey, so what’s your opinion on “system-agnostic” modules?

I think they work best as a starting point for GMs, because ultimately the game system you end up running a module in will invariably end up affecting how the module itself runs. As such, with system-agnostic modules more than anything designers really shouldn't try to present a neat progression of scenes that the characters can be expected to go through regardless of system, but instead a situation with multiple ways to approach it.

Like, the reason it's kind of popular to present an "adventure" in modern D&D and similar games as a sequence of challenges that the characters can be expected to get through, the main variable being "how many resources do the characters expend," is because D&D is ultimately a game where challenge is the main gameplay and things are skewed in favor of the player characters. If you however tried to run a Mythras group through a D&D 5e adventure, even if you somehow managed to convert the stats so they're fair approximations of the original stats in Mythras, it would still result in heavily different gameplay because Mythras is very different from D&D (despite them both being very trad!).

So yeah, system-agnostic modules if anything require the designer to be more aware of all the various gleeblors they are operating under. Are you assuming a baseline of competence that is only true in a very specific type of game? Are you assuming that characters will have access to verbs which are in fact not universal? Are you assuming that the characters will be working together? All of this and more is important stuff to think about and make explicit in the text!

So yeah, none of this is to say that you shouldn't write a system agnostic module, but if you do you REALLY have to remember that you are not writing a story: the story is what HAPPENS in the game, and you as a module writer cannot write a progression of events that will be unaffected by the game system, because the game system is an active participant in creating the story. What you can and should write is a setup, a starting situation, with lots of room for the story to emerge from the empty space.

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Boring man (BBC small town mystery protagonist) becomes aware of the absurdity of his circumstances (he is actually in an American genre film and not a British one)

Essential genres of British comedy:

Boring man grapples with absurd circumstances

Boring man is unaware of the absurdity of his circumstances

Boring man becomes aware of the absurdity of his circumstances

Boring man is aware of, but does not acknowledge, the absurdity of his circumstances

Boring man's peers fail to acknowledge the absurdity of his circumstances

Boring man hyper-focuses on seemingly insignificant detail of absurd circumstances

Boring man inappropriately reacts as though mundane circumstances are absurd

Boring man's mundane faux pas provokes absurd reaction

Farts, the great equaliser

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It's my birthday, so I'm having a reverse sale on itch! If you want to support me, you can support me 50% more than usual.

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Sevika Sevika Sevika

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poor Sevika's been embarrassed ever since, yet still stuck around😔✊

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And before anyone starts discourse on this post, let it be known that I think “Bobby you’re gay” is good, and more importantly really really funny

Jean Grey Outs the Marvel Universe

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Jean Grey Outs the Marvel Universe

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"whack em for me, my x-men"

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I don't even want context

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i was jumanji’d too when i was a kid but no one cared

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Handbook heights be damned, my vibes-based heights for the NM are

Tol: Sam, Dani, Catseye, Jimmy, Amara

Smol: Rahne, Beto, Doug, Yana, Roulette, Tabby

Average Sized: Karma, Tarot, Jetstream, Rictor

I love that in the classic New Mutants stuff, Amara is so tall and Rahne is so short that they always look like they're at a parent-teacher conference.

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I love that in the classic New Mutants stuff, Amara is so tall and Rahne is so short that they always look like they're at a parent-teacher conference.

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I am very passionate about how Portal is a very feminist game. I see a lot of people say that Portal is progressive because it could’ve had a protagonist of interchangeable gender, and that Chell being a woman affects nothing. But it completely does! Chell being a woman is inherent to the plot and theming of the narrative! Portal is progressive because it depicts corporate exploitation of women and actively shows a woman perservering and overcoming that abuse!!!

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sinister estrogen that makes you left handed

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Sneak peek at The Returned playbook for Masks. Coming soon!

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Like, for example, Pride and Prejudice is a book that is ABOUT the romance between Elizabeth and Darcy. To analyze it primarily through the lens of “well I think Darcy should date Bingly” is to have an inherently shallow analysis of the book

Not to derail that other post because I think it’s largely correct, but it’s interesting how “you need modes of analysis and ways of interacting with media other than shipping” melds into “not everything needs to be about romance/sex.”

Like, there are many works of art PRIMARILY about romance/sex that you need to interact with in other modes than shipping