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"Proiritising roleplaying" doesn't mean anything – it's a piece of vacuous marketing text targeted at people who've constructed their identity politics upon arguing about the correct way to pretend to be an elf.

The basic problem is that the term "roleplaying" is, itself, not well defined; in practice, it means whatever the person trying to sell you something wants it to mean. Here, for example, by invoking the presence or absence of "mechanical social encounter support" as the distinguishing feature of self-styled "RP forward" systems, you seem to be implicitly defining "roleplaying" to mean "set-piece encounters in which a player character attempts to persuade an NPC to do something for them without resorting to violence". Is this justified? Is playing out the process of hitting each other with sticks not "roleplaying"? Why not?

What most people mean when they toss the term "roleplaying" around in the context of tabletop games is something in the vicinity of "roleplaying is when we do things I'm interested in doing, and not-roleplaying is when we do things I'm not interested in doing". As all game rules are unavoidably opinionated about what player characters ought to spend their time doing – indeed, arguably this is the only thing that rules can meaningfully express opinions about! – the question of "does this system 'prioritise roleplaying'?" is typically reducible to "does this system agree with me about what kind of game I'm playing?". Games are then sorted into "priorities roleplaying" and "does not prioritise roleplaying" based on which side of the answer to that question they fall on for the person doing the sorting.

This is the ultimate root of a lot of this "the best sessions I ever had never touched the rules at all" stuff. For a variety of reasons, many people have genuinely never experienced playing a tabletop RPG whose rules agree with them about what sort of experience of play they ought to be having, and in some cases they can't even imagine what that would look like. If you and the system you're using disagree so badly about what kind of game you're playing that "engaging with the rules" and "engaging with my desired experience of play" are mutually exclusive activities, it's not surprising that ignoring the rules entirely would be your best play.

well, no, i was actually thinking about scenarios like navigating a ball/gala type event and exploring the plot through verbal conversation, but i suppose i didn't say that, so fine, egg on my face

i ask this because i've been thinking a lot about why i keep bouncing off games like Blades in the Dark and Monster of the Week, both of which like to bill themselves as "rp forward". there's a lot of tools and toys to play with in terms of social encounters for both of those games, to be applied in heist and monster mystery situations, respectively, so i think we can safely say that we're aware of what the rules want to be doing in this instance, and are broadly in agreement with them.

but in practice, i often forget that i even have those tools, or the conversation regularly grinds to a halt while people review their abilities lists, and it's just.... weirdly exhausting. and i keep thinking that surely there must be a better way, but i'm not a game designer, so fuck me if i know what that better way might look like. hence, asking an expert.

i suppose we do need more precise terminology, because yeah "roleplaying" is technically applicable to any aspect of game engagement you can think of. "navigating social situations" is slightly narrower, but maybe just "having a conversation" is what we're after. and maybe part of the problem is that most people are already halfway proficient at having a conversation? in ways that we're not proficient at the aforementioned hitting each other with sticks. so we can just Do It without needing to abstract parts of the process into dice rolls and hit points, because we can just observe what the other guy says and then decide how our character feels about it and how they want to respond.

These are extremely rules-lite and bill themselves as no-prep. The rules consist of a set of minigames that cover the expected scenarios in your plot and genre context, most of which involve engaging with an opponent or enemy in some way. Guys & Brands is a hack that takes place in the anime Neo Yokio, where you play as either a shitty socialite or a working-class demon-hunting hacker, and your goal is to improve your standing in the list of eligible bachelors (gender-neutral). Minigames include dinner conversations that potentially progress the plot and interviews where you score cheap points off one another.

Divine/Mundane is a version inspired by western mythology, where players play as gods or epic heroes with interpersonal conflicts and dramas. Minigames include a dance with potential romantic tension and 1v1 fights.

If you want to try before you buy, some of the big itch.io bundles in the past have included Firebrands hacks like Dragonhearts and Ocean Tides. Hierophants is pay-what-you-want, though I’ve never played or read it and can’t attest to its quality. Ditto for We Became Seabirds.

If you end up playing and enjoying the minigames but wish they had more of a campaign structure you can follow instead of either spinning plot yourself or having the game peter out after 2 sessions (the original Firebrands was designed to be played during downtime, and most hacks lend themselves better to one- or two-shots), you might want to check out Stewpot and its hacks. Our Travelling Home especially has some solid scaffolding and very explicit requirements about what player characters will be doing, but surprisingly there’s plenty of room for plot differences even so. Theres a clear two-act structure with official endings and plot arcs.

Apologies if there were unwanted spoilers; I’m assuming you’ve already read Rebecca because… well. The book seems to scream that it’s the kind of thing you read and enjoyed a long time ago.

Yes, I read it! It's one of my favorite Gothics for exactly the reasons you mention, though of course, I find that haunting less horrifying than sensual, both emotionally and physically intimate. Original x The Second Mrs de Winter OTP, and someone please toss Maxim off that cliff in Monte Carlo. Though I probably shouldn't get too detailed about my opinions if you're only partway through.

I recall having this thought around the time I read Rebecca but your ask reminds me how little distinction there truly is between supernatural ghost Gothic and psychological Gothic. And then, many original Gothics like Anne Radcliffe's novels, Castle of Otranto, and Jane Eyes are all in the latter camp (IIRC - I might be misremembering either Otranto or Radcliffe, but I know at least one of them has a materialist explanation for everything). The more recent wave in the 1970s and 1980s leans a bit more supernatural, but I don't think much of it relies on supernatural powers to carry the tale -- it's ultimately about the people. And when you have a setup as perfectly, thoroughly haunted as Rebecca, I'm not sure what a ectoplasm-and-blood ghost could even add to the story. Though Wuthering Heights is one of the original Gothics that does have a 'real' ghost, there to do things that the living people couldn't do beyond their deaths. I suppose that's something to watch for as you read on to the end of Rebecca--how much power is that woman still able to exert, beyond her death? If she was ectoplasmically present, what would she even need to do to make things turn out differently?

The one novel I've read in which the two Mrs De Winters kiss does involve a touch of the supernatural, a time-travelling vision, because Rebecca can't kiss her successor without it! I believe the title of that one is Rebecca's Tale by Sally Beauman. Some might accuse it of making Rebecca overly sympathetic, but I think even in the original tale, Du Maurier has to rely a lot on faith in her audience's cynicism, plus misogyny, to convince us Rebecca is so bad. But damn was she an excellent writer. If you enjoy Rebecca, there are several other novels by her to check out. Including at least one with time travel, The House on the Strand. I found Jamaica Inn an entertaining page-turner (the villain has some great lines at the end even though he's writing cosmic horror checks he can't cash), The King's General is an interesting historical about the British Civil War with some Gothic secret rooms, and My Cousin Rachel is one of my favorites even as I find it painful to reread; I'd call it a take on Rebecca that's more sympathetic to Rebecca, while remaining tragically unfair to her (maybe?).

I think my take on whether Rebecca was actually so bad is that she was and I support and love her for it >:)

Yes, Maxim is misogynistic and born and raised in this old patriarchal society, and clearly likes his women shy and docile and inexperienced; but even Danny, who adored Rebecca and is sympathetic to her, suggests that she was incredibly cunning and never loved a man but played with all their hearts for fun. And!!! That’s very sexy of her. I also fully think she knew everything Maxim thought of her, and that’s how she managed the suicide-by-jealous-husband. Good for her!!!

Part Six. The LAST one. for now.

Sex is not essential. You can live without it. Full stop.

Not having sex isn't shameful or a sign of failure. It also doesn't make anyone boring.

You are not entitled to having sex with anybody and nobody is entitled to having sex with you.

Sex is not what makes someone an adult.

Nobody's worth is defined by how much sex they have or don't have.

Sex is not equally important to everyone.

You can have fulfilling and happy relationships without sex.

You should only have sex on your own terms, not because you feel like you owe it to someone, or because you feel like you'd be incomplete without it.

Know your boundaries around sex and be firm about them. Know how to respect other people's boundaries.

The previous point also applies when it comes to discussing sex. If someone doesn't wanna talk about it or hear about it you have to back down.

I still supported him and opposed his cancellation, because he should be allowed to speak freely like everyone else on television. But. He sucks.

Pretty much every episode you’ll get a joke that makes it completely obvious he has this wannabe frat bro mentality towards sex and sexuality, like he’s been stuck in trying to live a more popular version of his college years and hasn’t matured since graduating.

He’ll try to insult someone, and the big all-caps punchline is “Well, this guy is A VIRGIN!!!”

He’ll get in a slap fight, and the best diss he comes up with is “Yeah, well, you probably MASTURBATE!”

His attitude towards “getting laid” is that it’s an achievement to brag about, and “not getting laid” is a funny insult to use on people he doesn’t like.

He’s not the only one, of course. Comedians like him tend to reflect the attitudes of the society and audience they swim in, so it’s a clear indication that there are big groups of U.S. society at least that have these toxic views around sex.