Suggestions for a "what are RPGs"/"how to play RPGs" resources

[pemerton]

Pretty much

See just above: the "official" rule in BW is that failed roll = you don't get your intent.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

See just above: the "official" rule in BW is that failed roll = you don't get your intent.

Yeah, that's right. I was getting hung up on p 32 of Gold Revised: "When a test is failed, the GM introduces a complication."

Which Crane undercuts two paragraphs later right after the example: "Try not to present flat negative results -- 'You didn't pick the lock.' Strive to introduce complications through failure as much as possible."

Like, are we trying our best to introduce complications frequently or are we introducing complications?

 

[pemerton]

With the strong caveat that I haven't played BW only TB2 which isn't quite the same, I'm noting this rules text

You make tests during dramatic moments, when the outcome is uncertain.​

​

When a player sets out a task for his character and states his intent, it is the GM’s job to inform him of the consequences of failure before the dice are rolled. “If you fail this…” should often be heard at the table. Let the players know the consequences of their actions.​

​

Failure is not the end of the line, but it is complication that pushes the story in another direction. Once that is said, everyone knows what’s at stake and play can continue smoothly no matter what the result of the roll is.​

​

We roll dice when a conflict arises.​

​

When a test is failed, the GM introduces a complication.​

​

"If nothing is at stake, say “yes” [to the player’s request], whatever they’redoing. Just go along with them. If they ask for information, give it tothem. If they have their characters go somewhere, they’re there. If theywant it, it’s theirs."*​

​

Unless there is something at stake in the story you have created, don’t bother with the dice. Keep moving, keep describing, keep roleplaying. But as soon as a character wants something that he doesn’t have, needs to know something he doesn’t know, covets something that someone else has, roll the dice.​

*The BW rules appear to incorporate this DotV rule.

<snip>

So far, one might possibly interpret the rules text "When a player sets out a task for his character and states his intent" to mean what it says: GM indicates consequences up front (i.e. it's type B) only when players set out tasks for their characters. Whereas for other tests only "When a test is failed, the GM introduces a complication" applies (making it type A). Said other tests being triggered not by player intent, but by dramatic moments and conflict. Or one could understand the complication as simply being the concrete form given to the consequences indicated up front.

I think there is some relevant text missing from what you have quoted. The following extracts are from BW Hub and Spokes (pp 9-11, 30-31), and set out the basic process of play:

In the game, players take on the roles of characters inspired by history and works of fantasy fiction. These characters are a list of abilities rated with numbers and a list of player-determined priorities. The synergy of inspiration, imagination, numbers and priorities is the most fundamental element of Burning Wheel. Expressing these numbers and priorities within situations presented by the game master (GM) is what the game is all about. . . .

The players interact with one another to come to decisions and have the characters undertake actions.

One of you takes on the role of the game master. The GM is responsible for challenging the players. He also plays the roles of all of those characters not taken on by other players; he guides the pacing of the events of the story; and he arbitrates rules calls and interpretations so that play progresses smoothly.

Everyone else plays a protagonist in the story. Even if the players decide to take on the roles of destitute wastrels, no matter how unsavory their exploits, they are the focus of the story. The GM presents the players with problems based on the players’ priorities. The players use their characters’ abilities to overcome these obstacles. To do this, dice are rolled and the results are interpreted using the rules presented in this book. . . .

[W]hat happens after the dice have come to rest and the successes are counted? If the successes equal or exceed the obstacle, the character has succeeded in his goal - he achieved his intent and completed the task.

This is important enough to say again: Characters who are successful complete actions in the manner described by the player. A successful roll is sacrosanct in Burning Wheel and neither GM nor other players can change the fact that the act was successful. The GM may only embellish or reinforce a successful ability test. . .

When the dice are rolled and don’t produce enough successes to meet the obstacle, the character fails. What does this mean? It means the stated intent does not come to pass.​

The reason I've set this out is because they tell us where the stakes come from, what counts as a dramatic moment, and what informs complications. These are all relative to player-established priorities for their PCs - and are all referable back to the basic notion that the GM presents the players with problems based on the players’ priorities.

Hence why BW is not "if you do it, you do it": the need to roll the dice is not triggered by a player's action declaration falling under a certain action-type-description (like "trying to seize something by force" or "trying to read a situation*).

Nor is rolling dice triggered by "seeing consequences in the offing".

It is triggered by the interplay of the way the GM's framing presents problems that pertain to player-authored priorities for their PCs and the intention of the player's action declaration and how it relates to those priorities.

In Apocalypse World, there is scope for discussion, at the table, over whether or not a move has been triggered - the rulebook gives some examples. Those discussions are about whether or not a player's declared action really falls under the move-triggering description (eg "No, I'm not going aggro - if he really doesn't want to let me go past him, I'll go round the other way").

In Burning Wheel, there is also scope for discussion over whether or not the dice should be rolled, but that discussion is not about whether the declared action falls under a certain description but rather what is at stake in the situation as framed and the player's intent in response to that. It's reasonable for - and the rulebook gently encourages - the GM to stamp out "test-mongering" where the dice are rolled with an eye purely to advancement but with nothing really as stake. And conversely, it's reasonable for the player to call for a test, or an extended conflict, if they think that something important to them and their PC is in play.

This is why BW is more likely to produce a "meta-" orientation in the participants than is AW (something that @Campbell has often noted on these boards), although it is not the so-called "writers' room" of discussing plot or narrative trajectory, but rather a type of meta-level "introspection" of what really matters in the fiction.

Anyway, this is why I don't think that BW is either Type A or Type B as you've set them out, which is also why I agree with @thefutilist that the Type A/Type B analysis is not convincing.

Your documented play from last year shows some of this stuff in action

he did the only thing he could think of - as someone whose Circles include the Path of Spite, and who has a reputation as ill-favoured for himself and others, he looked to see if a bloodletting or surgical necromancer or similar ill-omened type might be nearby the scene!​

​

But the Circles check failed: and so no friendly bloodletter appeared, but rather the Death Artist Thoth, who - for reasons not yet clear, but certainly not wholesome - carries a lock of the hair of Aedhros's dead spouse​

​

Was Thoth in sight before the roll or added as a complication after? If the latter, then this Circles test looks like type A. But then

Today's session began with the Surgery attempt to treat Alicia's mortal wound. It failed badly (we have the notes somewhere, but from memory the Ob was 14 (7 doubled for no tools) and 1 success was achieved), and so her Health check to avoid acquiring the Mortally Wounded in the Head trait will be against Ob 19. A roll of the dice determined that it will take her 8 months to regain full consciousness, at which point she will then have to recover from a Traumatic Wound.​

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Was "8 months to regain full consciousness" in sight before the roll? Possibly this example follows a common pattern for type B. Which is, rather than exhaustively and inefficiently listing all scalable and forking consequences to meet the standard of informing player of the consequences of failure before the roll, GM indicates only their form or direction (e.g. "this might make it worse")... which here was likely clearly enough known to all.

As you have quoted, the BW rules state that the consequences of failure must be announced prior to rolling.

However, as Luke Crane notes in the Adventure Burner (p 251, reproduced in the Codex, p 116-7):

I confess that I do not explicitly announce the terms of each test. Why? Two reasons: I find the result of failure implicit in most tests. If I'm doing my job correctly as the GM, the situation is so charged that the player knows he's going to get dragged into a world of **** if he fails. We project the consequences into the fiction as we're talking in pcharacter and jockeying before the test. . . .

The second reason . . . is a bad habbit ab BWHQ. My players trust me. They know I have a devious GM-brain that will take their interests into heart and screw them gently but firmly. I can't write rules about this kind of trust and, frankly, I think basing a game solely on trust is awful. . . . However, it does have a positive side. Withholding some failure results allows for the game to move a little faster. It varies the monotony of the testing structure and provides room for the occasional inspired surprise. . . .

Announcing the risks of failure before a roll is absolutely a good rule and practice to follow. It forms good habits. It adds a new dynamic to the game - knowing that failure isn't arbitrary when you roll the dice. I'm a poor role model, so definitely follow what's written in the book.​

My own play drifts in the same direction as Luke's: the consequence of failure is very often implicit; and my players, who have known me for decades, trust me to be fair in my twists and surprises. Likewise when I'm playing I trust my GM.

In the example of play that you quote, the Circles test for Thoth is called for because it absolutely relates to Aedhros's Belief about Alicia, and also those other aspects of the character such as his Reputation. The failure is a standard invocation of the Enmity Clause for failed Circles tests.

The Surgery test for recovery is the standard one in the Anatomy of Injury sub-system. Like some of the other sub-systems, this one is closer to "if you do it, you do it" and less based around "intent and task" - though the players and GM could still dispense with it if they agreed nothing was at stake in the test. The roll for recovery time is also from the same rules sub-system.

Here's another example of a test from that same session, triggered I assume by player forcing matters along (intent)

Thoth, who has an Instinct to Always collect bits and pieces, also couldn't help but look around for Surgery tools, and succeeded on the Ob 10 test (Perception rolled for Beginner's Luck). A die of fate roll indicated that one corpse was available for collection, and Aedhros helped Thoth carry it off.​

The Ob 10 test is Beginner's Luck Scavenging. The fact that Thoth has an Instinct shows that this is a player-authored priority, and hence is not an appropriate occasion simply to "say 'yes'".

The DoF to determine the number of corpses available would have been agreed between me and Thoth's player, in a context where the availability of corpses on the boat was agreed to be a "say 'yes'" matter.

That's followed by something that perhaps was entertained as a dramatic moment the situation was ripe for

​

At one point, something particularly grotesque happened (I think, as narrated by my friend, a bit of the body Aedhros was holding onto sloughed off) and a Steel test was called for and failed. Hesitating, Aedhros dropped the body, and it nearly landed in the water - but Thoth, driven by his desire for corpses!, succeeded on a Power test to not let go.​

​

The Steel test here could count as an example of one of those "other tests" prompted by a dramatic moment: so type A (the body nearly fell in the water). In any case, I expect in play that the shift between types is fluid, and the rules wordings seem open to interpreting as

if we can see consequences, then we are going to roll dice, and then we are going to see consequences (type B/A)​

The Steel subystem is another departure from strict intent+task resolution.

The GM is the one who calls for a Steel test (Revised pp 121-2):

A GM can call for a Steel test under three main conditions: When the character is confronted with surprise, fear or pain. . . . GMs call for Steel tests; players don't.​

The rules specify the consequences for a failed Steel test - hesitation (= 10-Will actions), with the player having to choose their hesitation response.

The GM has to exercise judgement in determining whether to call for a Steel test as part of framing, or whether to use it as a consequence. I can't remember which it was in the example that you refer to - it's possible, for instance, that there was a failed Hauling test in there that I'd forgotten about when I wrote up the actual play. Or it may have been framing rather than consequence, in which case it really serves as a type of colour with a mechanical accompaniment.

The Power test for Thoth, on the other hand, is straight down the line, classic intent+task: I as GM am not going to "say 'yes'" given the stakes for Thoth the death-artist, and so a roll is called for and on a success Thoth gets his intent (ie keeping his corpse from falling into the harbour).

 

[pemerton]

Yeah, that's right. I was getting hung up on p 32 of Gold Revised: "When a test is failed, the GM introduces a complication."

Which Crane undercuts two paragraphs later right after the example: "Try not to present flat negative results -- 'You didn't pick the lock.' Strive to introduce complications through failure as much as possible."

Like, are we trying our best to introduce complications frequently or are we introducing complications?

Ron Edwards refers to this as the "motorboat effect":

The reasonably successful Narrativist-leaning GM is writing a game, and suddenly experiences a loss of nerve - he visualizes all those other players out there who obviously don't play in this fashion. One result is a kind of "but-but" motorboat effect scattered through the generally Simulationist-reading text: admonishments to keep non-GM participants from screwing up the apparently-Narrativist goals, usually by pleading, scolding, or imposing sudden and apparently out-of-place limits on the players' authority to provide input. Good examples include Little Fears, The Burning Wheel, Fvlminata, and The Dying Earth.​

Apocalypse World is much stronger in this respect, with its GM moves and the idea of soft => hard moves. The general tenor of those AW ideas can be incorporated into BW (and Torchbearer) adjudication even though they are not "if you do it, you do it" games.

 

[thefutilist]

Anyway, this is why I don't think that BW is either Type A or Type B as you've set them out, which is also why I agree with @thefutilist that the Type A/Type B analysis is not convincing.

I think a lot of what clearstream is saying may be applicable if you focus only on failure and ask if it's generative or reductive.

Example generative: Thief is trying to open the vault to get to the gold inside. They roll a failure and so they open the vault but villain is waiting for them instead.

In an intent+task game this would only make sense if the intent was to get the gold, not if the intent was to open the door.

In a reductive game, failure means you don't do it and is in some way causally linked to character action(s).

So in BW stuff like circles is generative but the core resolution doesn't seem to be? I'd always assumed it was reductive because it seems strange to me to have the following happen:

Player: Ok my intent is to get the gold and I'm using lockpicking to open the vault.

GM: On a failure the villain is going to be waiting for you instead.

The strangeness coming from the fact that there doesn't seem to be a reason for the GM to state what happens on a failure.

Or it could be that no one plays BW that way except when it applies to circles and wises. Which like my assumption about still getting intent on failure, would mean I'm wrong about a lot of Burning Wheel play.

Opening a safe to reveal the villain might also seem stupid so I'll show a similar example.

Thief has beliefs that he's the best thief. There is a villain mastermind thief who is the antagonist. Rather than waiting for him in the vault on failure, he's stolen the gold already and left a mocking note.

Anyway I think that retains a lot of @clearstreams analysis without having to worry too much about the specific triggers for a roll.

 

[pemerton]

I think a lot of what clearstream is saying may be applicable if you focus only on failure and ask if it's generative or reductive.

Example generative: Thief is trying to open the vault to get to the gold inside. They roll a failure and so they open the vault but villain is waiting for them instead.

In an intent+task game this would only make sense if the intent was to get the gold, not if the intent was to open the door.

In a reductive game, failure means you don't do it and is in some way causally linked to character action(s).

So in BW stuff like circles is generative but the core resolution doesn't seem to be? I'd always assumed it was reductive

Here are some actual play examples that seem like they might count as generative?

Thoth used his Second Sight to read its Aura, looking for traits. This test failed, and so Thoth learned that the corpse had been Stubborn in life - perhaps why this particular sailor had not evacuated the Sow - which is a +1 Ob to Death Art.

<snip>

Aedhros wandered away from the docks, up into the wealthier parts of the city, to the home of the Elven Ambassador. As he sang the Elven lays to himself, I asked the GM for a test on Sing, to serve as a linked test to help in my next test to resist Thoth's bullying and depravity. The GM set my Spite of 5 as the obstacle, and I failed - a spend of a fate point only got me to 4 successes on 4 dice.

My singing attracted the attention of a guard

<snip>

The dice were now rolled for the (careful) Death Art test, with 7 successes needed to raise the body from the ship as a Walking Dead. Only 6 successes (on 9 open-ended dice, with a Fate Point spent) were rolled, and so it failed. Looking at the GM advice for failed Death Art, I rolled an unwelcome summoning result, and something weird and creepy scurried out into the darkness.

And then, at that very moment - acting carefully, and failing, licenses a time-sensitive complication - there was a knock on the door. (How this door relates to the secret door onto the docks is not quite clear, but can be resolved in due course.) Serap, the maid servant of Lady Mina, had been told that Thoth was a surgeon whom she might be able to afford, to treat her mistress.

<snip>

Thoth performed Aura Reading on Lady Mina, and determined that she still lived, giving him +1D advantage on his surgery. Aedhros also helped with the Song of Soothing. But the test failed. And it had been performed carefully, which licensed a time-sensitive complication: I told Thoth's player that, even as he was trying to save the life of the Lady Mina, the guard George had regained consciousness and fled the workshop.

In regard to this example of yours:

Thief has beliefs that he's the best thief. There is a villain mastermind thief who is the antagonist. Rather than waiting for him in the vault on failure, he's stolen the gold already and left a mocking note.

That sounds cool to me! I gather this is meant to be an example of a generative consequence on failure.

 

[clearstream]

The reason I've set this out is because they tell us where the stakes come from, what counts as a dramatic moment, and what informs complications. These are all relative to player-established priorities for their PCs - and are all referable back to the basic notion that the GM presents the players with problems based on the players’ priorities.

Hence why BW is not "if you do it, you do it": the need to roll the dice is not triggered by a player's action declaration falling under a certain action-type-description (like "trying to seize something by force" or "trying to read a situation*).

Nor is rolling dice triggered by "seeing consequences in the offing".

It is triggered by the interplay of the way the GM's framing presents problems that pertain to player-authored priorities for their PCs and the intention of the player's action declaration and how it relates to those priorities.

In Apocalypse World, there is scope for discussion, at the table, over whether or not a move has been triggered - the rulebook gives some examples. Those discussions are about whether or not a player's declared action really falls under the move-triggering description (eg "No, I'm not going aggro - if he really doesn't want to let me go past him, I'll go round the other way").

In Burning Wheel, there is also scope for discussion over whether or not the dice should be rolled, but that discussion is not about whether the declared action falls under a certain description but rather what is at stake in the situation as framed and the player's intent in response to that. It's reasonable for - and the rulebook gently encourages - the GM to stamp out "test-mongering" where the dice are rolled with an eye purely to advancement but with nothing really as stake. And conversely, it's reasonable for the player to call for a test, or an extended conflict, if they think that something important to them and their PC is in play.

This is why BW is more likely to produce a "meta-" orientation in the participants than is AW (something that @Campbell has often noted on these boards), although it is not the so-called "writers' room" of discussing plot or narrative trajectory, but rather a type of meta-level "introspection" of what really matters in the fiction.

Anyway, this is why I don't think that BW is either Type A or Type B as you've set them out, which is also why I agree with @thefutilist that the Type A/Type B analysis is not convincing.

Thank you for explaining that further. It's worth calling out that my type A / type B analysis is about when consequences are identified and whether that itself triggers a roll, or is part of the result. It's not a broad analysis of every aspect of resolution.

PbtA is very clearly type A. It doesn't affect the analysis that there is negotiation about whether a move is rightly invoked, only that a move can be triggered without consequences in sight because rolling entrains consequences.

5e 2024 is very clearly type B. For styles of play common under D&D-ish designs, the admonishment to have consequences in sight up front is best implemented along the lines of the commentary you quoted from the Codex in your #93, which continues

When I do announce failures before a roll, it’s often after hearing a really important intent and task from the players. Once I give them the failure result, we have everything clear about what’s on the line. Even then, I’ll keep my failure results vague, “If you fail this, you’re going to be lost.” If the failure comes up, then I embellish with details. Otherwise, I leave it unspoken.​

The ongoing flow of conversation continues when a roll is called because GM discerns consequences and need not expressly announce them: players know what the deal is. In high-noon situations or when players ask questions, GM will say more. I emphasised some of the text as it chimes with my observation in #85 that

rather than exhaustively and inefficiently listing all scalable and forking consequences to meet the standard of informing player of the consequences of failure before the roll, GM indicates only their form or direction​

Other type-B designs call for an express procedure to be followed before proceeding: BitD is one example where what's riding on the roll is dialled in up front. I am not saying here that BitD uses "consequences resolution" I am saying that as to consequences, BitD resolution is type B:

An action is challenging if there’s an obstacle to the PC’s goal that’s dangerous or troublesome in some way. We don’t make an action roll unless the PC is put to the test.​

Unreflective type B resolution has a tendency to be reductive -- using @thefutilist's far better framing for what I was clumsily going for with wide/narrow -- echoing sentiments expressed up thread. One axis for skillfulness in applying type B is to see how it can be generative, and groups can evolve their norms in that direction if they find it appealing.

Type A is readily generative while also easily managing reductive. It's extremely efficient as player-invoked rolls propel the conversation without (in theory) any need for GM-side procedures. A simple example would be managing random encounters as exploration-move consequences, rather than via GM-side procedures such as rolling a die per "turn".

 

[clearstream]

I think a lot of what clearstream is saying may be applicable if you focus only on failure and ask if it's generative or reductive.

Example generative: Thief is trying to open the vault to get to the gold inside. They roll a failure and so they open the vault but villain is waiting for them instead.

In an intent+task game this would only make sense if the intent was to get the gold, not if the intent was to open the door.

In a reductive game, failure means you don't do it and is in some way causally linked to character action(s).

So in BW stuff like circles is generative but the core resolution doesn't seem to be? I'd always assumed it was reductive because it seems strange to me to have the following happen:

Player: Ok my intent is to get the gold and I'm using lockpicking to open the vault.

GM: On a failure the villain is going to be waiting for you instead.

The strangeness coming from the fact that there doesn't seem to be a reason for the GM to state what happens on a failure.

Or it could be that no one plays BW that way except when it applies to circles and wises. Which like my assumption about still getting intent on failure, would mean I'm wrong about a lot of Burning Wheel play.

Opening a safe to reveal the villain might also seem stupid so I'll show a similar example.

Thief has beliefs that he's the best thief. There is a villain mastermind thief who is the antagonist. Rather than waiting for him in the vault on failure, he's stolen the gold already and left a mocking note.

Anyway I think that retains a lot of @clearstreams analysis without having to worry too much about the specific triggers for a roll.

So to update my #72 taking advantage of your reductive/generative framing, a fundamental design choice for sequencing consequences in a resolution procedure lies between

Type A: If we are rolling dice, then we are going to see consequences​

​

Type B: If we can see consequences, then we are going to roll dice​

A related design choice at the principles layer is whether the said consequences ought to be reductive and/or generative

in a reductive style of play, concequences will be causally linked to the immediate situation, such as character actions​

​

in a generative style of play, consequences will reasonably follow what has been said so far, such as world premises​

​

as implied by "and/or" these can work together: they aren't mutually exclusive​

​

Here I have somewhat revised your framing to fit with my own notions: any problems that introduces are on me, naturally.

 

[TwoSix]

I take D&D to care about the intent of the player. For instance, here's a sequence we never see

Player: I want to climb the wall
DM: Okay, roll Strength (Athletics)
Player: 14+5 that's 19
DM: That's some real nice climbing you are doing there
Player: So I've reached the top of the wall?
DM: No, no, you're just climbing really nicely (cares only about how well the character executes the action)
Player: ... (expected to resolve their intent: reaching the top of the wall)

To be fair, in a standard D&D game I would expect a result of a 19 on the check to be narrated as the character actually climbing fairly well, but that the wall trying to be climbed was simply too slick and smooth (or whatever other challenge makes for a DC 20+ Athletics check).

I definitely think there's an expectation in trad games, especially with more granular resolution methods, that the value returned on the resolution check carries narrative and descriptive weight as much as the actual pass/fail result.

 

[clearstream]

To be fair, in a standard D&D game I would expect a result of a 19 on the check to be narrated as the character actually climbing fairly well, but that the wall trying to be climbed was simply too slick and smooth (or whatever other challenge makes for a DC 20+ Athletics check).

Yes, absolutely, but do you expect that would be all that the roll resulted in? That is, would the only thing the roll resulted in be "the character actually climbing fairly well" or would they get somewhere?

I definitely think there's an expectation in trad games, especially with more granular resolution methods, that the value returned on the resolution check carries narrative and descriptive weight as much as the actual pass/fail result.

I agree with you that the result carries descriptive weight. Here I'm asserting that a successful result leads to the player character achieving an intent - howsoever direct and immediate - beyond that descriptive weight.