Search results

Torchbearer uses, as its version of "say 'yes'", "Good Idea" - which is mostly GM control over pacing/focus. Because of its turn/grind structure, Torchbearer establishes stakes for tests that are independent of player-authored PC priorities. When something is a good idea, no test is required...

I don't have Mouse Guard, and have never played it. I have a memory of being told it doesn't have "say 'yes' or roll the dice". And so is different from Burning Wheel.

OK. But if we don't regard risk as inhering in fictional position, then an instruction to the GM like "only call for a roll when there is risk involved" will be pretty hopeless, won't it?

I was just rereading Vincent Baker on character sheets and currency: anyway: Things on Character Sheets (2) In the constable example, there is a currency relationship between position and effectiveness: when you make a Resources test (which is about your character's effectiveness at acquiring...

In Burning Wheel, the rule is "say 'yes' or roll the dice" in combination with the GM's job being to frame scenes that put pressure on the players by putting pressure on their PC priorities - predominantly Beliefs, but also Instincts, Relationships, Affiliations etc. So if there is an action...

Sure, but I don't think this shows that it makes sense. I mean, WotC could write that, canonically, there is a circular square. But that wouldn't mean that the square circle make sense. Or, they could write that there is a box, and the number of widgets in the box, canonically, is what each...

Yes that's my point: risk has to be assessed, and if there is a risk then there are stakes, and a roll to see what happens. (The leverage step is analogous to the "credibility test" in some other systems.) It's the opposite heuristic to BW. And I think assumes that risk will be worked out from...

Not as I read it. It first asks is there a risk?

To an extent, yes. That's why I've given examples from a few different systems. There does seem to be a significant dissensus, though, over whether or not generative resolution is (or should be) a thing in Apocalypse World. I don't think this is fully accurate. One known consequence of a failed...

This is important in Torchbearer 2e.

I don't think this makes much sense. There is no objective entity the D&D multiverse. When I play D&D, it's objectively true that I'm playing D&D. But it's not objectively, or canonically, true that the stuff I'm imagining with my friends is a component of some other imaginary thing the D&D...

I don't know exactly how BitD explains what you've posted here. I think Ironsworn does a pretty good job. And your post is clear too! It's pretty hard to translate it into a difficulty-based system without loss or distortion, but here's my attempt: In D&D, the difficult position would be...

I don't know Sorcerer as well as I should: what happens when Aedhros's hand goes to the hilt of his knife?

@thefutilist That most recent post sets things out very clearly. I'm trying to think about some of my play through that lens. I think that my Prince Valiant play has little (off the top of my head, none - but that probably isn't right) generative resolution. Generally the conflict, if there is...

I tend to agree - the "boatload" suggets a lot of prescripting events, and maybe also a monopoly on backstory. I think this depends on the system, and other stuff too. I've run plenty of games where I didn't prep, and plenty of those have been plenty of fun.

I haven't played or GMed BitD. But it seems to me that, if a player wants to roll Prowl to reflect their PC taking a sneaky strike in the midst of an ongoing melee, that should increase the risk - like, Risky to Desperate? (If I've got the terminology right.)

My take away from this is that, for the skill list to work, (i) the table has to care about the difference between getting in close and fight-y with the bluecoats, and bowling them all over by wildly swinging your hammer, and (ii) the GM has to make the effort to have these things play out...

This made a lot of sense to me! I can't really credit that the way players debate and discuss among one another and work out their action declarations is "organic" in D&D but is "writers' room" in BitD.

By "internal consistency", you seem to mean something like "has a uniformity of trope and tone". Not a property of the fiction from the fiction's perspective, but of the fiction from an audience's perspective. You also seem to be assuming that RPGing involves "an (or the) adventure". The whole...

I'll accept that the games I mentioned - In A Wicked Age, Wuthering Heights, and Cthulhu Dark - are pretty niche. But I've never read Wuthering Heights (or any Bronte novel - I'm better read in non-fiction than fiction! And thus am one of those who reads the reviews rather than the works). To...