Message:Not for me. It seems not so much clever as pretentious. The ideas it exposes are fine for free-form story-telling but it's not gaming.
Roll a die and if its low it's bad and high it's good. That's okay for very seasoned players. But most everyone else would balk and think favoritism, when someone else gets the benefit of the doubt.
When I string together card flips of random events in a Q&D table the outcomes are surprisingly connected and effective. The story is told through gaming results. Free-style is not just free form. The mechanics are constructed and are not presented in a dismissive fashion.
When I look at this game--see it has sold more copied than Cutlass--I feel mutter. Not sad, not mad, just confused. There was a time when 1200 pages of source would seem overwhelming but brilliant. My first question would be (circa 1978) was anything left out? Now (in 2023) I think 1200 pages of source is seen as ridiculous without the player even thinking about why any of it is in the manual.
Everything is broken up in dances (Morrison).
Yours,
IronRed
04-Jan-2023