My group might be playing this incorrectly. Our reading of the SG makes it that the grind does not tick forward unless you make a test or conflict.
SG 40 A turn contains a test or a conflict
SG 216 It’s as if they passed a test without rolling dice or taking a turn
I see discussion on this on Reddit, and folk seem to feel that a Good Idea doesn't advance the Grind. In our play, we've been understanding that as the powerful reward for good ideas. Perhaps wrongly?
TB1 has a myriad of ways to handle A Good Idea. The default effect is "obstacle obviated, turn not spent, resources intact."
However, there are other options (which don't involve a test) but which always involve A Good Idea changing the situation. This might be a Twist or Condition and then move on (obstacle resolved). A Turn spent is less than a Twist or Condition but its "a tax" for a Good Idea. I like that as a consistent, default middle ground for A Good Idea and I don't like a Twist or Condition as the tax.
So, consequently, I've always run TB1 with the Good Idea = Twist or Condition "tax" throttled back to a Turn. The cost (don't mark an advancement and spend a Turn) + payoff (resolve an obstacle) has consistently yielded the most agreeable (in terms of enjoyment and in terms of hewing to the aesthetic of TB play and in terms of consistency in handling) play.
I think TB2 has this exact same thing, but I don't have my books or PDFs on me. And again, its a pretty good edge case so managing it in your personal best way possible isn't going to perturb play to any noticeable degree.
EDIT TO RESOLVE OTHER THING
Yup, I feel that is a fair statement. What I don't know yet is how practice effect will impact this. Implicit in the idea of "skilled play" is the possibility of learning, especially where system architecture/mechanical interaction is at issue. So that at some point - perhaps after 10-20 sessions - our learned skill might obviate preoccupation with those things.
Were that the case (if that learning transpires) would you then say that TB2 is - at least on those grounds - not ruled out as a Story Now experience?
Yessir!
What you've put above here is one of the pillars of my position on TB2 as a functional Story Now vessel (along with comparisons to Mouse Guard, the engine it is based upon, which is clearly a Story Now vessel...Dogs in the Vineyard being a quintessential Story Now vessel yet having its own, mechanical-interaction-based learning curve...and various and sundry other things...but I'll get to that later in the conversation).
So yeah. Very fine point (one I very, very much agree with and have said in private conversations on this very subject!).
Torchbearer will never be a Story Now engine in the vein of something like My Life With Master or Dogs in the Vineyard (which is ALL PREMISE AND CHARACTER EXPLORATION...ALL THE TIME). But there is plenty of DNA/tech there (even if the DNA's accessibility requires the time and effort required to get your operating system up to speed).
All that being said, I'm still very sympathetic to that position I Steelmanned in the lead post. Until and if the participants at the table get both their operating systems and their handling time logistics up to speed, TB2's Story Now capacity will be either muted considerably or rendered obselete.