RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[Crimson Longinus]

@pemerton noted that you were thinking in the mindset of 'hoarding information', and here you are actually thinking in that very mindset! There's no problem with the existence of hidden information in Narrativist play because there IS NO hidden information in narrativist play!

But the issue was specifically about hidden information conflicting with action declaration. So yes, if there is no hidden information the problem obviously doesn't exist. So you are in fact agreeing with me that hidden myth is a bad fit with conflict resolution!

So, whenever some information about the state of the fiction is relevant to play, the players will discover it.

Then why on Earth is "you open the safe (without a roll) and the papers are not there" not a valid way to provide the players the information that the papers are elsewhere?

No Myth is thus, as pointed out, a very convenient technique in these games, one that AW leverages, as it clearly allows for whatever fiction to be brought into play which will meet the needs of play.

Yes.

Fictional position obviously will exist in all these games (even Toon has it). It WILL constrain the players AND the GM to whatever extent facts have been established. That's just the nature of all RPG games, and its not 'meaningless triviality', it is in fact what gives play its shape and meaning!

Yes, it obviously always exists. But in the example the notion that travellers or woods (or literally any location) existing were meaningfully limiting fictional position is obviously laughable. And that some fictional context is required still doesn't change what the roll actually does, which in that instance was introducing the presence of the orcs into the shared fiction.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But the issue was specifically about hidden information conflicting with action declaration. So yes, if there is no hidden information the problem obviously doesn't exist. So you are in fact agreeing with me that hidden myth is a bad fit with conflict resolution!

I'm 'agreeing' if that is the way it must be put, that fictional position exists as a thing which generally binds play. It isn't about hidden and not hidden, if a piece of information, in narrativist play, is required in order to understand the fictional constraints in operation at that time, then hiding it is dysfunctional play.

Then why on Earth is "you open the safe (without a roll) and the papers are not there" not a valid way to provide the players the information that the papers are elsewhere?

Oh, I am not against that, its simply explication and color. I mean, it isn't a full revelation of the location of the papers, but further play will follow. In general most Narrativist play strongly tends to cut to the chase though, revealing lists of places where something is not located is beating around the bush. The papers are rumored to be located in the Banker's Office, as the Mayor's clerk will tell you she saw him making off with them several weeks back, and she thinks he's blackmailing the Mayor too!

Yes.


Yes, it obviously always exists. But in the example the notion that travellers or woods (or literally any location) existing were meaningfully limiting fictional position is obviously laughable. And that some fictional context is required still doesn't change what the roll actually does, which in that instance was introducing the presence of the orcs into the shared fiction.

I don't think I agree. I mean, neither of us participated in said scenario (I think it was hypothetical anyway) so we don't know what ACTUAL constraints the GM and players took note of. However, I do not believe that those things were immaterial to the formulation and acceptance of the proposition of an orc. Nor is the character utilizing an 'orc summoning' power which provides some sort of alternate logic. Play in these games, in all RPGs generally speaking, revolves around appropriate fiction and its appropriate, expected, and consistent use in constraining the evolution of the game state and further fiction. You can, of course, assert that any given example of play does not exemplify this, but that just makes it 'bad play'. I guess you could further assert that game system X is difficult to use and leads to a lot of bad play, perhaps. I'd stick to specific examples and fairly narrow cases there.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm 'agreeing' if that is the way it must be put, that fictional position exists as a thing which generally binds play. It isn't about hidden and not hidden, if a piece of information, in narrativist play, is required in order to understand the fictional constraints in operation at that time, then hiding it is dysfunctional play.

That is actually a nice way to phrase it.

Oh, I am not against that, its simply explication and color. I mean, it isn't a full revelation of the location of the papers, but further play will follow. In general most Narrativist play strongly tends to cut to the chase though, revealing lists of places where something is not located is beating around the bush. The papers are rumored to be located in the Banker's Office, as the Mayor's clerk will tell you she saw him making off with them several weeks back, and she thinks he's blackmailing the Mayor too!

Sure, one might think it is not the best possible way to do it, but I also don't think a situation like this occurring is any sort of a problem.

Though personally I rather like if information is gained due some sort of active participation by the players rather than just divulged to them as passive receivers. And I don't necessarily mean in mystery solving way, but just to get the player involved and thus more invested. Like DitV advice about NPCs instantly blathering all their issues seemed weird to me, as to me it would seem more fun to make the NPCs to be obviously bothered or obviously lying and something like that, and then after some modest prodding by the players they would divulge what the issue is. Not as any sort of attempt to "hide" the information, just to get some nice RP going and reveal the information interactively as a part of it. Granted, safes are way more boring to interact with than erratic NPCs.

I don't think I agree. I mean, neither of us participated in said scenario (I think it was hypothetical anyway) so we don't know what ACTUAL constraints the GM and players took note of. However, I do not believe that those things were immaterial to the formulation and acceptance of the proposition of an orc. Nor is the character utilizing an 'orc summoning' power which provides some sort of alternate logic. Play in these games, in all RPGs generally speaking, revolves around appropriate fiction and its appropriate, expected, and consistent use in constraining the evolution of the game state and further fiction. You can, of course, assert that any given example of play does not exemplify this, but that just makes it 'bad play'. I guess you could further assert that game system X is difficult to use and leads to a lot of bad play, perhaps. I'd stick to specific examples and fairly narrow cases there.

It was not actual play anyway, it was just an example. In any case, no fictional positioning in general is obviously not immaterial. But yes, such action declaration can be characterised as "or creation roll" or some such as that is what it does. I used "wagon creation power" in our last Blades game when I used a flashback to establish an existence of an escape wagon for us.

 

[Aldarc]

As a complete aside to this conversation, I do wonder if the whole Task Resolution vs. Conflict Resolution discourse plays a role in the perception of "mind control" in games that frequently use social mechanics paired with conflict resolution.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That is actually a nice way to phrase it.


Sure, one might think it is not the best possible way to do it, but I also don't think a situation like this occurring is any sort of a problem.

Right, in practice I think this type of play just requires getting used to focusing more on stuff that wasn't germane in trad play, and leaving out some stuff that was. All the same situations can arise, they're just used in different ways in play, and not always much different either. A lot of PbtA play can be pretty familiar to anyone.

Though personally I rather like if information is gained due some sort of active participation by the players rather than just divulged to them as passive receivers. And I don't necessarily mean in mystery solving way, but just to get the player involved and thus more invested. Like DitV advice about NPCs instantly blathering all their issues seemed weird to me, as to me it would seem more fun to make the NPCs to be obviously bothered or obviously lying and something like that, and then after some modest prodding by the players they would divulge what the issue is. Not as any sort of attempt to "hide" the information, just to get some nice RP going and reveal the information interactively as a part of it. Granted, safes are way more boring to interact with than erratic NPCs.

I would think that is probably what happens a lot. I think some DitV quote even talked about that a while back, like making the lie obvious, and sometimes needing to convince/threaten/investigate/whatever to get stuff out of them.

It was not actual play anyway, it was just an example. In any case, no fictional positioning in general is obviously not immaterial. But yes, such action declaration can be characterised as "or creation roll" or some such as that is what it does. I used "wagon creation power" in our last Blades game when I used a flashback to establish an existence of an escape wagon for us.

I like Blades' mix of what is and is not established, and the use of info gathering checks in the planning phase allow a mix of approaches to work.

 

[pemerton]

Though personally I rather like if information is gained due some sort of active participation by the players rather than just divulged to them as passive receivers. And I don't necessarily mean in mystery solving way, but just to get the player involved and thus more invested. Like DitV advice about NPCs instantly blathering all their issues seemed weird to me, as to me it would seem more fun to make the NPCs to be obviously bothered or obviously lying and something like that, and then after some modest prodding by the players they would divulge what the issue is. Not as any sort of attempt to "hide" the information, just to get some nice RP going and reveal the information interactively as a part of it. Granted, safes are way more boring to interact with than erratic NPCs.

To repost, again, from DitV, p 139:

So instead of having the NPC say “oh no, I meant that things are going just fine, and I shut up now,” I have the NPC launch into his or her tirade. “Things are awful! This person’s sleeping with this other person not with me, they murdered the schoolteacher, blood pours down the meeting house walls every night!”

...Or sometimes, the NPC wants to lie, instead. That’s okay! I have the NPC lie. You’ve watched movies. You always can tell when you’re watching a movie who’s lying and who’s telling the truth. And wouldn’t you know it, most the time the players are looking at me with skeptical looks, and I give them a little sly nod that yep, she’s lying. And they get these great, mean, tooth-showing grins — because when someone lies to them, ho boy does it not work out.​

I also provided an actual play report of The Blue Cloak. Did you read that and observe the ways in which, in play, the backstory was actively revealed?

 

[pemerton]

Right, if the secret backstory is actively revealed - ‘the dirt is in the safe’ being that secret backstory (laying aside questions of how the players can know this for a fact without having checked the safe - an interesting discussion in its own right).

So the player knows the dirt is in the safe, so then if the dirt ends up not being in the safe the revealed myth has been negated.

But maybe the revealed myth is - ‘the incriminating evidence is usually in the safe but might not be’. If this is the case then there’s no myth about the documents actual location to violate. This is more the case of what I suspect @pemerton has in mind. The only issue is that it doesn’t address the situation we are discussing where the myth about the documents precise location has been revealed.

I am not really following this.

If the players know that the dirt is in the safe, then the dirt is in the safe. (By application of the general rule that *If A knows that p.) So how would it turn out that the dirt is not in the safe? Only if the players declared an action that put the location of the dirt at stake - eg they know that the NPC knows the PCs know that the dirt is in the safe, and they choose to do something else that takes up time, and then as some sort of consequence the GM narrates that the NPC moves the dirt.

This happened in my Burning Wheel session yesterday: my PC kidnapped someone and (as part of that success) brought him back to the other PC's workroom; the other PC then did his stuff, and the NPC swooned and lay unconscious in the workroom; then - through a chain of events - my friend declared a careful action for his PC (gaining a bonus die for working carefully) and this action failed, which - as per the rules for acting carefully - licences a significant time-based complication. Which was that while you are on the other side of town doing your thing, the NPC in your workroom regains consciousness and escapes.

So my friend is hardly, now, going to declare actions like "I go back to my workroom and speak to my captive", because it is established that his fictional position does not include the captive is in your workroom, and does include your captive has escaped.

The same would apply in the hypothetical case of the players, having learned that the dirt is in the safe, putting its location at stake and losing. They would know that their fictional position has changed.

I am looking it trough the lens where existence of secret information is a possibility, because that is what the contention is about! Countering it with "but what if there is no secret information" is meaningless as that is not the case we are discussing.

I am not saying "what if . . .". I am saying that the procedures and techniques of play, applied in accordance with the principles, will ensure that actions are not declared which put at stake things that are impossible due to GM prep.

I mean, I've done this. For years now. It doesn't happen as you are expressing concerns about, because - as a GM - I actively reveal the fiction in play.

Then why on Earth is "you open the safe (without a roll) and the papers are not there" not a valid way to provide the players the information that the papers are elsewhere?

To answer the second question, allowing the players to declare an action - they are deliberately having their PCs look in the safe, to see if the dirt is in there - while knowing that, in fact, nothing is at stake, is not actively revealing the town in play. It's reactive, and creates anti-climaxes, and moments of "OK, what do we do now". For a game whose principles are drive play toward conflict and escalate, escalate, escalate it is - as I have posted - an error, a type of failure in play.

Sure, one might think it is not the best possible way to do it, but I also don't think a situation like this occurring is any sort of a problem.

It's a problem if the goal is to drive towards conflict nd to escalate. Because there has been no driving towards conflict, and no escalation.

But the issue was specifically about hidden information conflicting with action declaration. So yes, if there is no hidden information the problem obviously doesn't exist. So you are in fact agreeing with me that hidden myth is a bad fit with conflict resolution!

the information does not remain hidden. It is actively revealed. In play. I come back to the significance of this below. At this point, I simply reiterate that you are saying two things are a bad fit, when I know from my GMing of Prince Valiant, using a broadly similar approach to DitV, that this is not true: that a prepped situation, with secret information, does not create problems for conflict resolution provided that the GM follows the principles properly.

So what? And of course similar statement could have been made about any terrain the player wishes the orcs to appear in. These are meaningless obfuscatory trivialities.


All those things do not make it not an "orc showing up roll." That is what it does, that is what is happening. I really don't understand why you constantly need to keep obfuscating what is actually going on.

I don't agree that I am obfuscating.

No one described attack rolls in D&D as a roll to find out whether or not the designated opponent becomes dead. That doesn't accurately describe the process of play.

Describing a Wises check as "an Orc showing up" roll is likewise not an accurate description. The fictional position informs our understanding of what is possible by way of action declaration; and of what will follow if the action declaration succeeds; and of what will happen if the action declaration fails. It doesn't exhaust any of those things, but it contributes crucially to them.

For me, your apparent failure to take fictional position seriously sits in the same space as your apparent failure to take seriously that the GM, in DitV (and many other RPGs) actively reveals the fiction in play. The implication of your position, as I see it, is that there are only two possible states: the GM hands over all their notes at the start of the session, so there is literally no secret backstory; or the GM does not do so, and now there is the risk of the collision between stakes and prep that you are posting about. (To me, it also seems highly consonant with the idea that 4e skill challenges are a mere dice rolling exercise - as if there were no fiction that is established and unfolds as a result of the sequence of dice rolls.)

Neither of the possible states that I've set out is the one that DitV advocates. Neither of them is how I GM a scenario in Prince Valiant. Because neither of those states takes seriously the active revealing of prep in play - so that what is secret from the players at the start of the session becomes known to the over the course of the session, but not - as it were - by way of a telegram arriving from HQ, but rather by way of the GM presenting the fictional situations, framing checks, narrating consequences, etc. This is the core of RPG play.

The following posts express it wonderfully:

So, we discussed the role of fiction, for example in DitV. It isn't there to serve as a menu of things that players must discover in order to navigate some existing plot. There IS no plot, and the fiction is simply revealed in a narratively appropriate way. So, sure, if you don't go to the Mayor's Office you may not see the safe, and maybe you thus don't have the opportunity to get the papers, but (demonic forces aside) its not the focus of play to test your ability to crack open safes. That fact isn't revealed simply because there's no narrative logic leading to its revelation. Presumably the character went somewhere else, and revealed some other facet of the highly pregnant with conflict potential situation! Very soon they will cross paths with NPCs who will oppose the PCs goal, purging the town of its evil influence. Conflicts will involve convincing people, maybe intimidating them, maybe spiritual and physical struggle, etc. Those things are not part of any secret backstory, and whatever information is required to bring them forward and resolve them will be presented as required. Thus there is no potentiality for 'facts to get in the way' of intent.

There's no problem with the existence of hidden information in Narrativist play because there IS NO hidden information in narrativist play! There may be some things which are temporarily obscured, behind the trees so to speak, but it isn't a secret, it is simply not within the scope of the current scene, at least not yet. In these systems where such is possible (DitV apparently, certainly Apocalypse World) intent is not focused on finding out things. It is focused on adjudicating the clash of wills between different characters (and possibly character might sometimes be taken in the looser sense), or even between a character and herself.

So, whenever some information about the state of the fiction is relevant to play, the players will discover it. No Myth is thus, as pointed out, a very convenient technique in these games, one that AW leverages, as it clearly allows for whatever fiction to be brought into play which will meet the needs of play. High Myth does work though, you simply have to make sure you are not being trapped into 'trad thinking' about information. The goal in this High Myth play is to directly address the premise of play, not to root about in safes and such, though that may be the way the narrative is described.

Fictional position obviously will exist in all these games (even Toon has it). It WILL constrain the players AND the GM to whatever extent facts have been established. That's just the nature of all RPG games, and its not 'meaningless triviality', it is in fact what gives play its shape and meaning!

The reason that DitV uses prep, and that AW uses prep, is not to create "facts" that the players must make effort to discover during play. It's to enable the GM to come up with interesting, worthwhile situations that the GM then actively reveals in play, so that the players - via their PCs - can engage with, and respond to those situations.

Yes, it obviously always exists. But in the example the notion that travellers or woods (or literally any location) existing were meaningfully limiting fictional position is obviously laughable. And that some fictional context is required still doesn't change what the roll actually does, which in that instance was introducing the presence of the orcs into the shared fiction.

Fictional position doesn't just exist. As @AbdulAlhazred says, it gives play its shape and meaning. It establishes the context for, and informs the content of, what is possible for the character to do, and what might happen if a check succeeds or if a check fails.

In my past two Burning Wheel games I have attempted two Circles checks. Both have failed. On the first occasion, Alicia was dying in front of Aedhros, and all this was happening in front of Thurandril Aedhros's father-in-law, whom Aedhros blames for the death of his spouse 39 years ago, and who in turn regards Aedhros as hopeless and beneath him (or, at least, that's how it seems to Aedhros). Aedhros was not going to have someone else in his care die in front of Thurandril, and he looked around the docks desperately hoping that one of the low-lifes he finds himself surrounded by - due to his reputation as Ill-fate, for himself and others - might turn up now, a necromancer or similar type who knows how to prevent as well as bring on death. The roll failed, and so who turned up instead? Someone from Aedhros's implicit, though as yet-unwritten, past, the Death Artist Thoth. Who carries a lock of hair from Aedhros's dead spouse, and to whom Aedhros had no choice but to submit, carrying the dying Alicia into Thoth's secret workroom. All the while with Thurandril looking on.

In yesterday's session, Aedhros found himself singing the Elven lays to himself, as he does when his mind is elsewhere, and walking past Thurandril's residence in the more up-market part of town, only to be approached by a guard. (Who, rightly, suspected that Aedhros might have been the person who attempted a kidnapping on the city streets earlier the same night.) Aedhros's response was to wonder if any noble Elf would come and help him, and acknowledge that he was in the right. (Circles test with +1D for an affiliation with the Elven Etharchs.)

The test failed, and all that happened was that another guard joined the first, and the two of them took Aedhros into custody.

To characterise these as Have a necromancer show up or Have an Elf show up rolls would completely miss (i) the point of what was going on in play, but also (ii) the method in which the tests were framed, obstacles established, and consequences of failure established. That all depends on fictional position; and learning how to incorporate that fictional position both into action declaration and action resolution is a crucial skill for a BW player and even more so a BW GM.

such action declaration can be characterised as "or creation roll" or some such as that is what it does. I used "wagon creation power" in our last Blades game when I used a flashback to establish an existence of an escape wagon for us.

I've made no posts about BitD in this thread. I've not played it, or read it, and only have a general knowledge of its play procedures. I am talking about DitV, Burning Wheel, HeroWars/Quest, Maelstrom Storytelling, Torchbearer 2e, Agon 2e, MHRP, Prince Valiant, and 4e D&D - ie the RPGs that I have mentioned and provided rules text and examples from.

Others who have played BitD can comment on whether or not they agree with you that fictional position is irrelevant.

 

[pemerton]

In terms of things like 'punch the Earth in half' we have basic garden variety solutions to this problem that have existed since the first days of Dave Arneson's game! The rules don't allow for such actions! In DitV if I stated that my character's desire is to march down to the Governor's Residence and seize power the GM will simply present me with obstacles which my character is entirely incapable of coping! This is just basic narrative integrity and gamist game integrity stuff, it is the least possible concern!

<snip>

The rules of the game are plain and agreed prior to play, as is the premise, agenda, and principles/techniques. While it may be too much to ask that every player is fully cognizant of every implication of what they're agreeing to play, it is pretty clear that a basic agreement on the satisfactory nature of the 'rules of the game' is a precursor to success. Nor is it any more 'GM control' in AW to say you can't punch the Earth in half, than it is to say in D&D you can't just walk through the walls of the dungeon and see every secret door. This is all just part of how the game works.

Agreed.

I'd note that the 'scale down' advice in DitV, from the sound of it, isn't really so much concerned with THAT as it is with the more nebulous kind of "well, we just cut to the heart of the conflict and toss a few dice." sort of issue. Since intent type resolution systems don't really INHERENTLY present a 'scale' this can be a concern. I mean, you could imagine the same sort of question in a 4e campaign "Hey, why don't we just have a skill challenge to decide if the RQ takes over the whole Lattice of Heaven or not?" I mean, you COULD, the rules don't really put a limit on the stakes of an SC... That's where one of the GM's main tasks in Narrativist play comes in. Note how it is approached in AW/DW, moves only have limited scope and everything that has stakes will trigger SOME move pretty quickly, so there's no way to trigger "I win the game" in one shot! Beyond that AW's strongly articulated principles/agenda means the GM shouldn't want that play, and has the power to make moves which will effectively 'scale down'. It is just not an issue in any actual Narrativist play I am aware of.

Agreed. Ron Edwards discusses the same issue here:

The final minor problem is to resolve play-Situations rapidly and without developing them much beyond the initial preparatory circumstances: "over before it begins." This typically occurs when people are so floored by the possibility of actually addressing a Premise through play, that they hare off to do so before some RPG god notices and intervenes to stop them. Usually, this sort of play is a short-lived phase as the group builds trust with one another.​

As for the idea that any of the above amounts to 'GM Control' or 'saying no', nonsense

100% agreed,

So, frankly, I don't see any of @Crimson Longinus objections as being really substantive. I will grant that, if you have only understood RPGs from the Trad D&D point of view, then some of these may be questions you will ask, but the answers exist and are well-practiced.

And still in full agreement!

 

[Lanefan]

I am not really following this.

If the players know that the dirt is in the safe, then the dirt is in the safe. (By application of the general rule that *If A knows that p.)

Does this mean that player knowledge can never be faulty - they're sure the dirt's in the safe but they've been misled all along?

This happened in my Burning Wheel session yesterday: my PC kidnapped someone and (as part of that success) brought him back to the other PC's workroom; the other PC then did his stuff, and the NPC swooned and lay unconscious in the workroom; then - through a chain of events - my friend declared a careful action for his PC (gaining a bonus die for working carefully) and this action failed, which - as per the rules for acting carefully - licences a significant time-based complication. Which was that while you are on the other side of town doing your thing, the NPC in your workroom regains consciousness and escapes.

So my friend is hardly, now, going to declare actions like "I go back to my workroom and speak to my captive", because it is established that his fictional position does not include the captive is in your workroom, and does include your captive has escaped.

Which suggests your player is metagaming, in that the character - being on the other side of town - would have no way of knowing the captive had escaped!

To answer the second question, allowing the players to declare an action - they are deliberately having their PCs look in the safe, to see if the dirt is in there - while knowing that, in fact, nothing is at stake, is not actively revealing the town in play. It's reactive, and creates anti-climaxes, and moments of "OK, what do we do now". For a game whose principles are drive play toward conflict and escalate, escalate, escalate it is - as I have posted - an error, a type of failure in play.

My bigger issue here is that this sort of game, in constantly driving toward conflict, is also pulling away from realism in that reality has moments of anti-climax and times when the next move isn't obvious to anyone. Why not have this reflec tin play now and then?

 

[clearstream]

I am not really following this.

If the players know that the dirt is in the safe, then the dirt is in the safe. (By application of the general rule that *If A knows that p.) So how would it turn out that the dirt is not in the safe? Only if the players declared an action that put the location of the dirt at stake - eg they know that the NPC knows the PCs know that the dirt is in the safe, and they choose to do something else that takes up time, and then as some sort of consequence the GM narrates that the NPC moves the dirt.

Gettier, essentially. The presumed JtB that the dirt is in the safe turns out not to be robust.

This happened in my Burning Wheel session yesterday: my PC kidnapped someone and (as part of that success) brought him back to the other PC's workroom; the other PC then did his stuff, and the NPC swooned and lay unconscious in the workroom; then - through a chain of events - my friend declared a careful action for his PC (gaining a bonus die for working carefully) and this action failed, which - as per the rules for acting carefully - licences a significant time-based complication. Which was that while you are on the other side of town doing your thing, the NPC in your workroom regains consciousness and escapes.

So my friend is hardly, now, going to declare actions like "I go back to my workroom and speak to my captive", because it is established that his fictional position does not include the captive is in your workroom, and does include your captive has escaped.

The same would apply in the hypothetical case of the players, having learned that the dirt is in the safe, putting its location at stake and losing. They would know that their fictional position has changed.

I am not saying "what if . . .". I am saying that the procedures and techniques of play, applied in accordance with the principles, will ensure that actions are not declared which put at stake things that are impossible due to GM prep.

I mean, I've done this. For years now. It doesn't happen as you are expressing concerns about, because - as a GM - I actively reveal the fiction in play.

To answer the second question, allowing the players to declare an action - they are deliberately having their PCs look in the safe, to see if the dirt is in there - while knowing that, in fact, nothing is at stake, is not actively revealing the town in play. It's reactive, and creates anti-climaxes, and moments of "OK, what do we do now". For a game whose principles are drive play toward conflict and escalate, escalate, escalate it is - as I have posted - an error, a type of failure in play.

It's a problem if the goal is to drive towards conflict nd to escalate. Because there has been no driving towards conflict, and no escalation.

the information does not remain hidden. It is actively revealed. In play. I come back to the significance of this below. At this point, I simply reiterate that you are saying two things are a bad fit, when I know from my GMing of Prince Valiant, using a broadly similar approach to DitV, that this is not true: that a prepped situation, with secret information, does not create problems for conflict resolution provided that the GM follows the principles properly.

I don't agree that I am obfuscating.

No one described attack rolls in D&D as a roll to find out whether or not the designated opponent becomes dead. That doesn't accurately describe the process of play.

Describing a Wises check as "an Orc showing up" roll is likewise not an accurate description. The fictional position informs our understanding of what is possible by way of action declaration; and of what will follow if the action declaration succeeds; and of what will happen if the action declaration fails. It doesn't exhaust any of those things, but it contributes crucially to them.

For me, your apparent failure to take fictional position seriously sits in the same space as your apparent failure to take seriously that the GM, in DitV (and many other RPGs) actively reveals the fiction in play. The implication of your position, as I see it, is that there are only two possible states: the GM hands over all their notes at the start of the session, so there is literally no secret backstory; or the GM does not do so, and now there is the risk of the collision between stakes and prep that you are posting about. (To me, it also seems highly consonant with the idea that 4e skill challenges are a mere dice rolling exercise - as if there were no fiction that is established and unfolds as a result of the sequence of dice rolls.)

Neither of the possible states that I've set out is the one that DitV advocates. Neither of them is how I GM a scenario in Prince Valiant. Because neither of those states takes seriously the active revealing of prep in play - so that what is secret from the players at the start of the session becomes known to the over the course of the session, but not - as it were - by way of a telegram arriving from HQ, but rather by way of the GM presenting the fictional situations, framing checks, narrating consequences, etc. This is the core of RPG play.

The following posts express it wonderfully:

The reason that DitV uses prep, and that AW uses prep, is not to create "facts" that the players must make effort to discover during play. It's to enable the GM to come up with interesting, worthwhile situations that the GM then actively reveals in play, so that the players - via their PCs - can engage with, and respond to those situations.

Fictional position doesn't just exist. As @AbdulAlhazred says, it gives play its shape and meaning. It establishes the context for, and informs the content of, what is possible for the character to do, and what might happen if a check succeeds or if a check fails.

In my past two Burning Wheel games I have attempted two Circles checks. Both have failed. On the first occasion, Alicia was dying in front of Aedhros, and all this was happening in front of Thurandril Aedhros's father-in-law, whom Aedhros blames for the death of his spouse 39 years ago, and who in turn regards Aedhros as hopeless and beneath him (or, at least, that's how it seems to Aedhros). Aedhros was not going to have someone else in his care die in front of Thurandril, and he looked around the docks desperately hoping that one of the low-lifes he finds himself surrounded by - due to his reputation as Ill-fate, for himself and others - might turn up now, a necromancer or similar type who knows how to prevent as well as bring on death. The roll failed, and so who turned up instead? Someone from Aedhros's implicit, though as yet-unwritten, past, the Death Artist Thoth. Who carries a lock of hair from Aedhros's dead spouse, and to whom Aedhros had no choice but to submit, carrying the dying Alicia into Thoth's secret workroom. All the while with Thurandril looking on.

In yesterday's session, Aedhros found himself singing the Elven lays to himself, as he does when his mind is elsewhere, and walking past Thurandril's residence in the more up-market part of town, only to be approached by a guard. (Who, rightly, suspected that Aedhros might have been the person who attempted a kidnapping on the city streets earlier the same night.) Aedhros's response was to wonder if any noble Elf would come and help him, and acknowledge that he was in the right. (Circles test with +1D for an affiliation with the Elven Etharchs.)

The test failed, and all that happened was that another guard joined the first, and the two of them took Aedhros into custody.

To characterise these as Have a necromancer show up or Have an Elf show up rolls would completely miss (i) the point of what was going on in play, but also (ii) the method in which the tests were framed, obstacles established, and consequences of failure established. That all depends on fictional position; and learning how to incorporate that fictional position both into action declaration and action resolution is a crucial skill for a BW player and even more so a BW GM.

I've made no posts about BitD in this thread. I've not played it, or read it, and only have a general knowledge of its play procedures. I am talking about DitV, Burning Wheel, HeroWars/Quest, Maelstrom Storytelling, Torchbearer 2e, Agon 2e, MHRP, Prince Valiant, and 4e D&D - ie the RPGs that I have mentioned and provided rules text and examples from.

Others who have played BitD can comment on whether or not they agree with you that fictional position is irrelevant.

While offering helpful insights, it struck me that this skirts presenting a "No-true-Scotsman" form of argument. Proper play dissolves concerns. I know that's not the intent, and perhaps the guidance as to how to achieve "proper play" is what does the most work. It's striking though, and I feel like one needs to be mindful of it.

Agreed. Ron Edwards discusses the same issue here:

The final minor problem is to resolve play-Situations rapidly and without developing them much beyond the initial preparatory circumstances: "over before it begins." This typically occurs when people are so floored by the possibility of actually addressing a Premise through play, that they hare off to do so before some RPG god notices and intervenes to stop them. Usually, this sort of play is a short-lived phase as the group builds trust with one another.​

I don't recall anyone being "floored by the possibility" or fearing some "RPG God" curtailing them. Folk hit problems relating to a tension between a narrativist approach and norms of game play itself. Such as around helping oneself to outcome. In a great many games that folk have learned to play from, they've learned that it's not the outcome, but how you get to it that counts. As Knizia put it "When playing a game the goal is to win, but it is the goal that is important, not the winning." So folk are used to focusing on the "how" (reminding of someone's comment elsewhere "play to find out how").

Baker is great at reminding that in a very real sense it's about what the people around the table are in fact doing. In that light, character sheets are player sheets, and resolution is rolling dice. There's no "proof" that a given fiction adheres to a roll; it's down to what folk will accept. DitV exemplifies that.

Rolling to see if I get the outcome I want requires adapting to norms and adopting practices that - hopefully - uphold gamefulness in the liminal space TTRPG occupies. Between storytelling and game playing.