What alignment are you, and what does that mean? Does it drive your behavior? Does your character’s alignment drive theirs? We look at one of D&D’s most durable sacred cows: alignment as personality test, moral framework, table tool, campaign problem, and cosmology. Somehow, we try not to come to blows.

We want to hear how alignment plays into your games.

00:00:22 What Alignment Are You?

00:07:45 Origins

00:20:40 Descriptive or Prescriptive

00:25:00 Character Dynamics

00:31:25 Ubiquitous Evil Campaign

00:43:00 In Other Games

00:52:20 Relativistic View

01:14:00 As Cosmology

01:35:50 Recap

01:50:15 Practical Approach

For more on the discussion of System and Style check out our written articles and Scott’s additional thoughts on specific systems on our YouTube channel.

ModernMythology.net

In Episode 25 of Modern Mythology, we take on the Cypher System, a well-known universal tabletop RPG system with a strong reputation for flexible, narrative-driven play. Because Cypher isn’t tied to a single core setting, it gives us a good way to look at how a system’s mechanics shape story across genre—and in this case, through a fantasy lens.

We’re joined by SJ McKeen—author, fellow pro GM, professional voice actor, and streamer—who brings both GMing experience and firsthand familiarity with Cypher to the discussion. Together, we look at what the system does well, how it supports narrative play, and what it offers groups who want a framework that can adapt to different kinds of stories rather than one fixed world.

As usual with most of our actual-play episodes, we wrap up with a discussion of what the session surfaced for us about system, story, and play more broadly.

Topics discussed:

00:00:35 Introducing the Cypher System

00:01:20 Special Guest SJ

00:03:35 Broad strokes of setting?

00:06:35 Meet our characters

00:11:20 Monster Hunting

00:12:40 Mountainside Temple

00:44:00 The Gateway

00:53:00 Miasmic Hallway

01:05:45 The Prison

01:10:45 The Inner Sanctum

01:27:30 Charge!

01:54:00 LTB!

01:58:45 Denouncement

02:02:00 Break it down

02:04:10 Combat Downward Spiral

02:12:00 Madness in RPGs

02:21:40 Arcs and XP

02:33:00 Learning Curves

02:37:20 Read Character

02:41:20 Functional Character Sheets

02:48:00 What's SJ Up To?

For more on the discussion of System and Style check out our written articles and Scott’s additional thoughts on specific systems on our YouTube channel.

ModernMythology.net

In Episode 24 of Modern Mythology, we dig into one of the biggest questions in tabletop RPG design: how setting and system actually interact at the table. This is a dense, nearly two-hour conversation about the ways mechanics shape player behavior, how they steer attention toward certain kinds of choices, and how that pressure can either reinforce the fiction or get in its way.

As always, we don't come away with a final conclusion so much as many opened avenues of discussion. We spend a lot of time teasing apart what happens when a game’s rules and its setting are working together, and what happens when they might be at cross-purposes. When does system push play forward? When does it create friction? When does a setting give players a strong sense of what matters, when do constraints help and when does they start to constrain the very story the table is trying to discover? How important is a fantasy map?

Along the way, we look at the interplay of structure and fiction from several angles, asking how games teach people to play through their mechanics, and how different approaches can produce very different narrative results even when the premise looks similar on paper.

One quick correction: during the episode, we say “rules agnostic” a few times when what we actually mean is “setting agnostic.” Apologies for any confusion there.

Topics discussed:

00:00:20 Framing the Conversation

BTRC

Phoenix Command

00:16:00 Simulationism

00:25:30 Setting Agnostic Systems

Daggerheart

00:53:40 Death in system and setting (more on this in an upcoming episode)

00:58:25 System Informs Setting

01:11:40 Ideas about Setting informing System

For more on the discussion of System and Style check out our written articles and Scott’s additional thoughts on specific systems on our YouTube channel.

ModernMythology.net