Extra Credit Episodes as to TTRPGs, "Difficult is Fun" and Plan, "Practice, Improvise".

Relating and Adapting Extra Credit with what I'm learning and my own notes. Always a great resource for ideas and key concepts. 

Quick Summary: Punishing vs Extra Challenging Games as related to TTRPGs.

1. Extra Challenging games have more consistency in rules thus rewarding mastering the rules. in TTRPGs it helps when the core system is applied to as much of the game as possible, with less exceptions. 
2. More tools to work with or allowing for more strategies to win. This is accommodating the different strategies players favor to use in situations. 
3. Telegraphing Opportunities within the game. Fore-shadowing and Managing Expectations tend to fit this in many ways. This is part of pacing as well (why pacing is a key sensing skill).  
4. Iteration to retry (lowering the cost of retrying)  This is how the GM paces or moves from challenge to challenge when presenting other options and opportunities to succeed. 
5. Usability. Strongly related to 1 and 2, rules that are easy to use and tools (or strategies) that are easier to get into. 
6. Challenge Curve.  Basically how to pace challenges. Pacing is also the skill

Review: Pacing - the set of sensing* questions and techniques
Check out the #sidequest regarding Dark Souls (which I reminds me 

Another jewel from Extra Credit. More tools to assess and work on my game :D while most TTRPGs favor the other two (planning and improvise), practice comes in the form of techniques that can be encouraged.

In my case  I've been studying skills related to preparation, framing, negotiation, sensing  etc... these soft skills used in real life are problem solving skills that are player based. in this video, polishing these particular skills and challenges for these skills serve how best I can prep for a game and hone my gming. 

PPI and Difficult is Fun reminds me that these virtues in DiF applies directly to the skills we want to focus on. So if I should be able to identify the PPI or strategies I want to be Open About in my GMing and make sure to ask myself if I'm being consistent when I make certain decision about the Game. 

How We Learn by Professor Monisha Pasupathi Ph.D. talks about something similar in Chapter 16 under learning strategies. by What is similar is the 5 techniques discussed in Difficult and Fun is a form of feedback loop between Players and GM in learning each other and the game. They are elements that make up a particular set of strategies discussed. Plan Practice and Improvise relates very similarly since its how the GM designs his game and draws from himself. In my Hypothesis: We game the same way we solve problems, it is a way to deconstruction our own favored strategies in problem solving.

*sensing is a term used by Professor Michael Roberto to describe when we are trying to find out where we are in any given point or in the middle of an ambiguous problem. I'm a person who have attention overload and find myself lost in problems because I cannot hold on to the data I need to sort through it. So often I'm sensing where I am. Over time I believe I'll be doing this more often, and if your mental situation is like mine having a reserve of techniques for sensing.