Casting Shadows

Today’s prompt offers us the bold word SMARTEST as an inspiration to share an aspect of RPGs. The question in 2014 caused a stir as people wondered what was really meant by the prompt. Now, ten years later, hopefully, we have been better at communicating that it is a prompt to inspire,not a quiz to be answered. Some might see this prompt as an invitation to talk about good writing, others to enthuse about great design or clever mechanisms of play. That’s not all! Some might find it prompts them to talk about the play the game inspires in their group, while others might talk about the snappy trade dress and well-matched accessories in which the game goes out on the town. Who knows what other meanings people will be able to draw from ‘smartest’ this year!

#RPGaDAY Tip: If you are unsure what a prompt means, make it mean what you need it to mean in order to share a positive post about your play.

I gave a different answer on the podcast for this prompt, mainly because I can answer about “smart” RPGs, but not “smartest” – at least, not this year.

For this entry, I would like to call out Pendragon. From the conception of a new way to use BRP, to a novel idea of how to present characters who are culturally ingrained to recognize and feel the pull of a certain code on their behavior, and ultimately to it contributing to more and more people exploring Arthurian literature and how that in turn feeds back into play before deepening the interest in exploring the literature further…

It’s a cycle worthy of Arthur himself~