Local recluse Nathan Paoletta has weighed in on one of the major issues current occupying indie roleplaying’s awkward adolescence: dealing with how mechanics actually get implemented in play, instead of narrowly looking at how they might work in an abstract, ideal case. Folks have brought this up before, but this seems to be a popular topic recently.
Nathan’s comments remind me of what Paul Tevis was saying over on Cultures of Play, that he was slowly coming to realize that there’s a number of things that we like about roleplaying that can’t (or maybe just shouldn’t) be the focus of mechanics. This relates to earlier conversations about the “fruitful void” a bit, but is also the sign of something new. It’ll be interesting to watch how different people choose to react to this growing concern, both in play and in publishing.
one thousand one 
2008 May 27 at 4:25 pm
Actually, what I was saying is closer to Nathan’s point. I’m feeling like a lot games today give players tools but don’t necessarily create the social space for people to use to them. Designs that explicitly address and shape the players-around-the-table dynamic are a lot more interesting to me right now.
2008 May 27 at 4:27 pm
Well, at least I was correct that your feelings were related, even if my memory of what you said was completely off :)