The fact that you don’t know the answer to that question yourself is pretty much clinching evidence that it’s AI code.

Nice work!

There are several pre-modern cities with populations as little as 10,000 in history. When I consider that I used to live in this town:

Well, that’s a town of about 3500 people. A third of a “city”. I could bike from end to end of it in minutes, and over the three years I lived there I probably got to know well over half the population by face.

So if “Underdark City” is a pre-modern city with a population in this range, I could easily see this map as being a (smallish) neighbourhood of the city.

Because the “global” news/politics communities are filled to the brim with Americans mouthing off American talking points?

What I did in an old C&S campaign was purloined lettered the Hell out of the lab.

The PCs invaded the wizard’s keep. They quickly searched the grounds, kicking down doors and making sure all the guards were subdued before hitting the main tower. There they fought their way up the tower to where the most defended room in the keep was. After disabling most (not all!) of the traps, magickal and physical both on the entrance way, and taking their lumps for the traps they missed, they broke into the proper lab, all filled with glassware and books and components and braziers and whatnot.

Only to have it turn out that everything in there was common and useless stuff glamoured up to seem important until you touched it.

In the mean time, while the PCs were being kept busy in the keep’s tower, the wizard came out of the basement crudely hidden under straw in the stables with all his most valuable stuff packed and carried out of the grounds to a safe distance before he triggered the final trap that turned the tower into a towering inferno.

The fools hadn’t even rolled to check for anything in the stables; I mean it was just the place where the horses were kept, right…?

I’d read a few issues back in the day (borrowed from an ardent participant) and I’m still gob-smacked how lively and active game designers were back in the early '80s. And how well they knew each other, all because of the pages of this little APA.

It’s the most influential publication on RPG designers that you never heard of. Most of the game design innovations that were made in the '70s, '80s, and '90s came from the pages of A&E in their embryonic form, and it still held quite a bit of impact in the '00s.

剧本杀 are absolutely RPGs. They’re non-traditional, but so are most LARPs and storygames.

Champions was amazing, but it was also effectively a derivation (and improvement) of the earlier Supergame. (Yes, I know. Stupid title.) Supergame used d% and d6, not just d6, but let’s see if any of this rings a bell: (😁)

• you build a character with 250 points¹
• you get a number of actions based upon a prime statistic (Dexterity or Intelligence, depending on the type of actions)
• two different types of damage (Physical and Agony), one of which is very slow to recover, the other very rapid
• a collection of powers that are more descriptions of effects, rather than specific instances (what, not how or why)
• a specific form of attack for Charisma (like, you know, Presence…)
• … and a cast of dozens.

Champions’ creators have always said they were inspired by Superhero:2044 and Villains & Vigilantes and have never even mentioned Supergame, but I find that a bit sus myself:

1. Superhero:2044 is a super-rare book. It was not very common to see it at all, ever. (The earlier pre-Zocci edition Superhero:44 was even rarer.)
2. Neither Superhero:2044 nor Villains & Vigilantes are in any way like Champions (aside from attempted genre).
3. Supergame wasn’t super-rare. It was never a huge seller, but it was in most decent gaming shops in 1980-1981.
4. There’s a good mechanical overlap of at least 50% between Supergame and Champions.
5. The game designer community of the late '70s and early '80s was very close-knit and there was a lot of cross-pollination.

Don’t get me wrong: Champions was the better game. Being inspired by Supergame and making a better game is emphatically not a negative. I just think it’s a bit weird that they refuse to acknowledge the influence.

And in the context of an RPG design essential reading, Supergame needs to be there to show the dramatic change in ideas that were beginning to pop up around that time.

¹ “Prime Statistics, super powers, devices, trainings, and abilities are all purchased using the same character construction points. The points are allocated according to relative effectiveness and usefulness. In other words, one power that costs 20 points is as useful in a variety of situations as any other power, ability, or device that also costs 20 points. Therefore, what is bought with these points is not the how or why of a power, but only the what.”

First I’ll double up on this one:

Amber Diceless Roleplay

Pair it with Theatrix so you can see two completely different approaches to diceless, non-stochastic games. Amber and Theatrix make a fascinating “compare and contrast” study.

To your list I’m going to add (or at points replace with):

• Chivalry & Sorcery (1st edition)

The first game designed from the ground up as a social simulation where your character’s place in society is far more important than grubbing through dungeons, killing things, and looting their bodies. (Indeed for some characters that would negatively impact their experience and growth!) I might put it alongside Traveller to show the difference between a game having a setting and a game being the setting. Also the grandfather of later “mega-mechanics” game systems.

• Bunnies & Burrows

To my knowledge the first attempt at making a game (and a pretty CRUNCHY game at that!) that is 100% based on non-human protagonists.

• Runequest (1st or 2nd edition)

First non-class-and-level game. Second game that came with a detailed, very non-European fantasy setting. Maybe put it alongside 1974 D&D to show how early people started breaking off from the D&D style.

• Maelstrom Storytelling

I’d actually replace Apocalypse World with this because it is the very first game, to my knowledge, that broke completely free of even the vestigial wargames roots of RPGs, complete with traditional story structuring being part of the game mechanisms, no fixed attributes (and no numerical ones), scene-level resolution (you roll once for an entire scene, not turn by turn). It’s innovative enough that it’s of interest. It’s good enough that it’s worth studying. And it has enough mis-steps and flaws that it’s worth discussing. Pretty much any “storygame” owes a debt to this game.

Not even slightly surprising to me. Mention China, directly or indirectly, and the fee fees of American neocon thugs get hurt and the downvote brigade comes out to fight as only they know best to fight.

snort

The downvoting brigade is out in force I see.

Terrified, are we, about an alternative to the current broken system?

The “deal” may be a dictation the way things are going.

And you think the Chinese are going to deal? They have absolutely no incentive to.

Tariffs raise prices? But that’s unpossible!

They’re absolutely delicious, but good luck getting the smooth finish. That’s witchcraft right there!

Here’s one of mine.

Short form: take finger peppers, stuff them with a paste made of sesame and flour, roast them until they’re crisp, add peanuts.

They’re not as spicy as they look.

Because it’s easier to throw the latest Monster of the Week at players than it is to craft NPCs and relationships such that there is compelling drama. Combat is easy. Drama is hard.

That’s really weird to me.

If I’m playing a board game (like Xiangqi/Chinese Chess) what’s cool is when I spot an opportunity and exploit it. This is playing according to the rules of the game.

If I’m playing a card game (like Fight the Landlord) what’s cool is when I assemble a good combination of cards that drains my hand with inexorable play. Or when I find just the right timing to interfere with someone else draining their cards. Again this is playing according to the rules of the game.

In sportball, presumably when the audience is going wild at a cool play by some player they’re playing according to the rules of the game. (I can’t attest yeah or nay to this because sportball isn’t my vibe.) Is this not cool? (I’ll let sportball fans answer here.)

So why would RPGs be the exception to this? Why do you have to break the rules of play to do cool things?

That’s really weird to me.

I still have no idea. “I critically succeed.” How? Why? With what?

There’s a reason why rule books are larger than half a page of A4. I genuinely have no clue how this works even with an example. Because there’s no explanation.

Your example needs to be “explain like I’m five”-grade. YOU know how this works. WE don’t.