In a previous post chost I talked about maxims I apply to my game writing; personally held, subjective principles. What follows here are a set of maxims I apply at the table, while playing or facilitating games.
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Advice on writing, designing, or running games, broadly stated as being universal, is almost always pablum. That is to say, it's insipid and very likely to not actually be useful. Back on the birdsite, pretty much any time I tried to pose a question about my own work that escaped my usual sphere, I'd get a flood of insipid takes, like:
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Core mechanics should always be roll equal to or above (never just roll over or roll below).
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Core mechanic success rates should always have a certain percentage success rate because this one study people did on slot machines.
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And so on.
I don't think these bits of advice are necessarily completely useless. There are contexts in which they're good advice. The problem is when people latch on to an idea and just extrude it uncritically as if it's a universal truth.
A couple weeks ago I saw someone posting something about hit points, and I thought it might be good to write about my Lifeline concept. And I'm just now getting around to it. So, here goes:
Story is a byproduct of play the same way alcohol is a byproduct of fermentation. When we sit down to play, we are the yeast, not the bar patron.