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Nate Whittington's avatar

> Right at the beginning, though, I knew the “so grim it’s funny” feel that most of the third party stuff had wasn’t for my table. There’s plenty of laughs at my table, but we generally shy away from comedic *material*, knowing the comedy will be there regardless.

I think intrinsically most people know this, but I’m so glad you repeated it. Humor *will* happen -- regardless of how you try to push it away, so you have two choices: fully dive into a slapstick gonzo game where humor is sort of the point, or use humor as a fine tool to break up larger chunks of drama, melancholy, terror, etc.

> The common complaints/remarks of most people about MB is the advancement system feeling too “mother may I?” or not interesting enough, and its deadliness, which, as someone who has played this game extensively, I find is wildly overstated.

I find these complaints far too commonplace among *many* games. It’s almost like the Dark Souls effect, where because the game is advertised as or visually gives the impression of brutality and deadliness, people just regurgitate that at face value. I think this ends up making the game sound *unfair*, which is hardly true. Really good points here.

> I’ve also been heavily experimenting in solo play with things like Lore mechanics - discovering “true” world lore having one-time scroll-like benefits, or lower powered lasting effects, something I began developing in my Tarvannion project as a way to make lore cooler for players.

This is fascinating for a number of reasons that I’ve been working on in my own projects. Do you have further readings or articles on Lore mechanics or how you’ve implemented them in other games?

> The presented lore about the basilisks is really a sort of parable about a religious war between two powerful churches, or religious sects.

Ooooo, I love this along with your other edits as well. Really enjoy the take that the core book is almost like this heretical piece of literature spread through cults and anticanon religious sects that make all the traditional histories and traditions into pseudo-gnostic esotericism.

Eager to read more on all this! I’ll admit my own forays into MB have been pretty traditional and, literally, by the book. Maybe I ought to take another look through and see what inspirations I glean.

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Captain Machine's avatar

I love the game but you are right (in part) about the setting as it tends to wear thin and players start to ask what is the point if the world is going to end.

I've toyed internally with remodelling it to resemble the old FF books I read as a teenager and maybe even set it on Titan. Switch out the Swedish names for Old English and swap out the scratchy metal art of Johan Nohr and replace it with the muddy art of Russ Nicholson.

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