Lex Larson I feel a bit that part of it here for me is about the context of those who seek for system levers and/or system mastery, and the weight of the number of options and complexity of interactions with them.

For example, Paul is a big system mastery guy. He wants to use the system well to do what it was intended to do to get a positive outcome for his table. Thus, when he comes to the table he’s going to try to interact with all the levers of the system in the best way as he can.

OTOH, when several of my players engage with PtbA games, the same number of levers doesn’t necessarily affect their play (or effect their game) in the same way because they don’t care about the levers, as such. Like, they come to play a character and get some feels, and so they do what their character does, and if they trigger a move along the way — cool.

I’m somewhere in the middle, and it often gives me an odd space to fit in where I’m dealing with a different level of cognitive load than either set of my players or folks I play with at cons or whatever. I don’t fit easily into either model of interaction with system, and so I find folks discussing how and why they interact with levers, and the points it hits them at, useful and not at all naval gazing. Even if I don’t agree with their analysis, their analysis helps me understand how they approach system, and thus how I approach them when we game together.

edit: Damn computer… didn’t mean to post yet.

Legacy, in terms of cognitive load, is an interesting game to me. As when I’m actually playing (the two times I played) I didn’t struggle with it particularly hard. But when I’m setting up a game, or doing mental prep to get my head into the game? Then it’s pretty brutal.

I think it has less to do with the number of moves though, and with the high variability of setting and the number of inputs that can go into it.