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Vincent Baker on mechanics, system and fiction in RPGs
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9201705" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>AW is not an improv game. It deliberately departs from improv precisely by including player-side moves.</p><p></p><p>Vincent Baker has a good explanation of that here: <a href="http://lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/360" target="_blank">http://lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/360</a></p><p></p><p>The TL;DR version is that mechanics can bring something that improv can't, namely, the introduction of content that no one wants (and hence wouldn't choose in improve) and yet is compelling.</p><p></p><p>I don't know what you mean by <em>choosing a move</em>. That's not a thing that exists in the rules of AW. If the player says "I go aggro", the GM <em>has</em> to ask "OK, what are you doing?" Otherwise the action can't be resolved.</p><p></p><p>This goes back to the OP. If you don't want to play a game whose currency says the things that Go Aggro says, then don't play that game.</p><p></p><p>It's not a flaw in the game that it's not to your, or anyone else's, taste.</p><p></p><p>I've scrutinised Burning Wheel pretty closely, and it holds up!</p><p></p><p>I try not to play games with terrible gameplay.</p><p></p><p>But here's an example of a RPG that does not have dramatic and compelling things happen if all the players do is play their characters from the perspective of their characters: classic D&D. It's quite possible to play your character from the perspective of your character, and to have very little happen with none of it being dramatic or compelling. Nor any of it leading to inhabitation of character.</p><p></p><p>An example might be a sequence of play in which the characters fail to pick a lock and so cannot go through the door they had settled on, then head down a corridor instead, find a secret door, go through it, and fall down a pit trap on the other side, and then when they climb out discover a dead end that they can't make their way through.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 9201705, member: 42582"] AW is not an improv game. It deliberately departs from improv precisely by including player-side moves. Vincent Baker has a good explanation of that here: [URL]http://lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/360[/URL] The TL;DR version is that mechanics can bring something that improv can't, namely, the introduction of content that no one wants (and hence wouldn't choose in improve) and yet is compelling. I don't know what you mean by [I]choosing a move[/I]. That's not a thing that exists in the rules of AW. If the player says "I go aggro", the GM [I]has[/I] to ask "OK, what are you doing?" Otherwise the action can't be resolved. This goes back to the OP. If you don't want to play a game whose currency says the things that Go Aggro says, then don't play that game. It's not a flaw in the game that it's not to your, or anyone else's, taste. I've scrutinised Burning Wheel pretty closely, and it holds up! I try not to play games with terrible gameplay. But here's an example of a RPG that does not have dramatic and compelling things happen if all the players do is play their characters from the perspective of their characters: classic D&D. It's quite possible to play your character from the perspective of your character, and to have very little happen with none of it being dramatic or compelling. Nor any of it leading to inhabitation of character. An example might be a sequence of play in which the characters fail to pick a lock and so cannot go through the door they had settled on, then head down a corridor instead, find a secret door, go through it, and fall down a pit trap on the other side, and then when they climb out discover a dead end that they can't make their way through. [/QUOTE]
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