Deputy Dragonspawn, of the BSPD

I believe that you may have forgotten to mention that players often times have the ability to retcon elements of the game or story. In some game systems, it’s even part of the meta/mechanics, such as Bennies in SW or Story points in Genesys (and others).

I’ve used this as a player and some of my players have done this as well, such as “Actually, l do have a 50ft rope” or “my PC knows one of the mooks facing us and she’s really on our side”

This is also a form of retcon that is part of the system, to encourage everyone around the table to contribute to the story and feel that they have a say in the narrative.

To Mr Kelley, no i have not heard of Prime Time. I will have to look into it. Thank you.

Continue to produce such excellent content. And have fun the right way…or else I may show up at your door.

YOU WILL RESPECT MY AUTHORITAH!

Jared comments on the forums on pulling mechanics in from other rpg’s

One other aspect of this I was thinking of was borrowing procedure from other games. For example, if everytime you start a mission in a game, you make checks for X, Y, and Z, you can port that procedure over to another game if you cna map those checks to skills or abilities in a different game.

I like this idea for games that don’t give you a set way to model something, even though it’s assumed as part of the game rules. For example, in some games, you might need to get a job from someone, but you don’t have a set means of determining where and when a job shows up, and you don’t feel like always controlling the whole process. You might pull in procedures from another mission based game that let you know how trustworthy your employer is, how well the job pays, and how dangerous the job is.

I should be less lazy, but I’m pretty sure the Misdirected Mark folks did a discussion on the difference between mechanics and proceedure, even though both are part of the “rules” of the game.

The Warden comments on The Thing About RPG Editions

I’ve been personally struggling with a new edition of my first original RPG for years. Ten years ago, I squeaked out my first game about professional assassins called Killshot. It did what I wanted to do at the time and then I came up with a “faster, better” way to clean up the system and tried launching a second edition the year after the game’s initial release. It did not fund. Too soon.

Every year, I come back to a new idea for Killshot’s second edition. A new system or any variety of mechanical alterations. Maybe a PbtA version, could it work with the current d20 system, and on and on. Nothing clicked and my disdain for how the original version plays is locked – I love the idea of the game, but no longer appreciate how it’s played.

What’s clicked has been a revised approach to what the game’s about. In the first edition, it was just about completing jobs. Kill the target, check to see how many Evidence Points you collected and determine if the cops are onto you, rinse, lather, repeat. It didn’t really provide a framework for campaign play.

The current title for this next edition is Killshot Syndicate. You are a low-ranking member of a crime syndicate tasked with forming a crew to eliminate targets. You live a life of crime, a life that means avoiding getting caught by the cops, sure, but can you survive the very syndicate that is considered your family? Can you rise through the ranks or will your crew become the next target to protect their interests? Pulling this off requires a new system (the same one I’m using for my upcoming supers game, Pandora: Total Destruction) and now it feels like a worth new edition. Similar, but different enough to feel like a new game.

Those are the editions I can personally get behind and it’s why I’ve been more inclined to buy new editions of D&D with significant changes between editions (including the core mechanical loop) rather than subtle option changes and new rules in games like Earthdawn, which really has new editions come out when a new publisher buys the rights to it. For me, a new edition of an RPG is a new game, not a correction.