D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Faolyn]

1) It would depend, in both cases. Generally, BW is very traditional -- the GM would be responsible for scene framing, including describing the setting, but it's possible a character's lifepaths or relationships might make the description something that could come from the player. For instance, the character is a guard in this town or their brother, who they have a relationship with, owns the inn.

2) Yes, there could be a secret basement kobold fighting ring, but this would only be germane if it was related to the situation in the game and the characters' beliefs. Maybe the situation is that there are dead kobolds popping up down by the river and a character has the belief that "Robert the Tavernkeeper is hiding something foul; I'll uncover his nefarious deeds!" It would be totally reasonable for the secret basement room to be brought into play. If no one's interested in this and the game's not about it, then it probably wouldn't be brought into play, save maybe as color. For the guard schedule, if it's not important, then we're in a "say 'yes'" situation; whatever the players propose is fine. If it matters to something else but isn't the focus of the scene and the GM doesn't know, we could be dealing with a Die of Fate situation (basically, a 1 in 6 chance of whatever being true -- is this door locked? are there guards here? -- I used this whenever I wasn't quite sure where a player was going with something and it hadn't been established in play). If it is important, then I'd expect players to scout and research and do all their normal due diligence in planning how to approach the guard tower and we'd go from there.

As far as secrets, BW is less suited to revealing secrets of these types than other games. It doesn't do dungeon crawls particularly well, and it doesn't pay off excessive prep. It's possible for there to be surprises, and maybe that's a better thing to think of than secrets?

Well, the point of my question isn't secrets; I was just using them as analogies.

Here, Micah asked why the PCs couldn't just get the guard schedule, and Pemerton replied that such an action would be "highly GM-driven" and "all the fiction comes from the GM." And, with what else has been said, that this is a Bad Thing for Burning Wheel. OK.

But according to you, the game generally expects that--like in most other systems--the GM will describe the the bulk of setting, and also that the players can decide what the schedule is (which doesn't need to be more in-depth than "the guard you're looking for works at nights) if they want to. This means that the proposed scenario is no more GM-dependant than what is considered acceptable in BW. So I don't get why Pemerton was opposed to it.

So now we're only left to wonder why Pemerton says that something like a heist--designed to further the PCs' goals, because for whatever reason, they need the schedule to get past or otherwise deal with the guards--is "low stakes". Sure, it's doubtful that a PC has a Belief that's literally about getting the schedule, but getting the schedule could very well be a necessary step in, for instance, uncovering Robert the Tavernkeeper's nefarious deeds, which is one of the beliefs of Sir Hypo of Theletica. I assume that the game allows the PCs to crack a few low-tension eggs in order to make some high-tension omelets.

(Edit for some clarity)

 

[AlViking]

I don't know how this could be answered satisfactorily? For instance, a character's Steel is generated at character creation, and the rules are player-facing. If my little dude's going to try to do murder but has a low Steel, then I know going in this might be a challenge for him. I can understand it not being to taste, but these are the resources the game uses and the play Crane has designed it for. In play, I don't find I have less agency in BW than I do in any other game. I find where and how I can exercise that agency to be different than other games -- I have different levers to pull than I do in D&D or Stonetop or Savage Worlds.


I can see where you got there from what I posted, but I'm not interested in efficiency for its own sake or achieving so much play in such-and-such time. What I am interested in is meaningfulness. I accept that my criteria for this may differ from other people's criteria. To be clear, I'm not advocating for a game without any color or a game that's solely conflict (using it to mean tactical action); what I want is the two to be in balance. I have board games and video games for games without color or games with only conflict. I want my RPG play to have teeth is all.


1) It would depend, in both cases. Generally, BW is very traditional -- the GM would be responsible for scene framing, including describing the setting, but it's possible a character's lifepaths or relationships might make the description something that could come from the player. For instance, the character is a guard in this town or their brother, who they have a relationship with, owns the inn.

2) Yes, there could be a secret basement kobold fighting ring, but this would only be germane if it was related to the situation in the game and the characters' beliefs. Maybe the situation is that there are dead kobolds popping up down by the river and a character has the belief that "Robert the Tavernkeeper is hiding something foul; I'll uncover his nefarious deeds!" It would be totally reasonable for the secret basement room to be brought into play. If no one's interested in this and the game's not about it, then it probably wouldn't be brought into play, save maybe as color. For the guard schedule, if it's not important, then we're in a "say 'yes'" situation; whatever the players propose is fine. If it matters to something else but isn't the focus of the scene and the GM doesn't know, we could be dealing with a Die of Fate situation (basically, a 1 in 6 chance of whatever being true -- is this door locked? are there guards here? -- I used this whenever I wasn't quite sure where a player was going with something and it hadn't been established in play). If it is important, then I'd expect players to scout and research and do all their normal due diligence in planning how to approach the guard tower and we'd go from there.

As far as secrets, BW is less suited to revealing secrets of these types than other games. It doesn't do dungeon crawls particularly well, and it doesn't pay off excessive prep. It's possible for there to be surprises, and maybe that's a better thing to think of than secrets?


I think we're butting up against some of the ellided material I mentioned earlier and the limits of APs that you mentioned earlier: this is a 1-on-1 game that's based around a campaign setting and characters that BWHQ has been using since the 1990s. So there's a ton of history wrapped up in it (e.g., Si Juk was responsible, along with Vega, for kidnapping the Emperor and delivering him into hiding), and the positions Rich has taken in play are directly related to his previous interests and actions (in Part 1, the Princess, who's functioning as regent, tasks Si Juk with finding her brother, the Emperor). Some of it's there, but I grant that it may not be clear, and it may not be useful, and Crane doesn't cover everything exhaustively (sometimes he talks mechanics when narrative might be more interesting, IMO).

If you don't want social conflict rules, BW is never going to be of interest. You don't have to play with DoW, you can do straight skill tests and opposed tests, but resolution is going to be handled the same way, so I don't expect that'll be more satisfying.

It's just a very different approach where it seems that both GM and player autonomy is limited. That's not necessarily a bad thing, in my games my autonomy as DM and my player's autonomy is limited but it's by the social contract of the table not the rules of the game.

The reason this becomes an issue is not that I think either approach is right or wrong but that some people push this idea that you can do a sandbox in BW but not D&D because of the issues of autonomy. To me it's once again just comparing apples and oranges, a player has limited autonomy in both. They're just very different approaches to gameplay and they aren't really comparable.

 

[Maxperson]

That post was liked by @Faolyn , @Maxperson @Lanefan and @The Firebird. So there is definitely an implication that exclusive GM control of the world is the defining feature of this approach.

I'm not sure which post you are referring to, but using likes to assume that every bit of a post was liked or agreed with is likely to lead you astray.

Quite often if I really like part of a post, even if I'm not on board with other parts, I will click like. I'm not saying this was the case with the post you are referring to, as I'm not sure which one it was. Just putting it out there to be careful about using likes to assume about people.

 

[hawkeyefan]

If you're looking for certainty, you won't find it. Some amount of trust is necessary.

I said nothing about certainty.

Consistently in what way? And how can you determine consistency if the process is unknown?

These seem like legitimate questions, no?

 

[Lanefan]

Do you mean like how failing in combat in D&D requires you to play your character as dead?

<facepalm>

If my character is dead, unconscious, or otherwise incapable of coherent thought and-or action then obviously I'm out of play for the time being.

While my character is alive and functioning and capable of making its own decisions, however, player agency says those decisions are mine to make as its player. The game shouldn't be taking those decisions away from me as part of its regular run of play and you're quite right to say "railroad" if-when it does.

Maybe I-as-player have thought through whether my character is really going to murder someone, maybe I haven't; either way, the decision to commit - or at least attempt - that in-fiction murder should be mine and mine alone assuming no-one else's character does something in the fiction to interpose and maybe stop me...or beat me to it!

And sure, there'll be downstream consequences. No issue with that in the least. It's the potential for the game imposing an upstream "no, your character wouldn't (or isn't allowed to) do that" which bothers me.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Well, the point of my question isn't secrets; I was just using them as analogies.

Fair enough.

Here, Micah asked why the PCs couldn't just get the guard schedule, and Pemerton replied that such an action would be "highly GM-driven" and "all the fiction comes from the GM." And, with what else has been said, that this is a Bad Thing for Burning Wheel. OK.

But according to you, the game generally expects that--like in most other systems--the GM will describe the the bulk of setting and that the players can decide what the schedule is (which doesn't need to be more in-depth than "the guard you're looking for works at nights) if they want to. This means that the proposed scenario is no more GM-dependant than what is considered acceptable in BW. So I don't get why Pemerton was opposed to it.

So now we're only left to wonder why Pemerton says that something like a heist--designed to further the PCs' goals, because for whatever reason, they need the schedule to get past or otherwise deal with the guards--is "low stakes". Sure, it's doubtful that a PC has a Belief that's literally about getting the schedule, but getting the schedule could very well be a necessary step in, for instance, uncovering Robert the Tavernkeeper's nefarious deeds, which is one of the beliefs of Sir Hypo of Theletica. I assume that the game allows the PCs to crack a few low-tension eggs in order to make some high-tension omelets.

I can't speak for @pemerton. My general feeling is that it could go either way. I think part of this is a framing issue. If getting the plans is critical for uncovering Robert the Tavernkeeper's nefarious deeds, say necessary as part of pursuit of a belief ("Robert the Tavernkeeper is hiding something foul; I'll uncover it by stealing the Plans(tm)"), then it could be pretty high stakes. If it's just a hurdle and doesn't much matter in terms of uncovering RtT's nefarious deeds, and there are other things that would do just as well in respect to that, then it's low stakes, and I'd be inclined to wonder why we're spending excessive table time on it, and I'd recommend moving past it relatively briskly. I think it might be more useful to think not in terms of tension but of scale for BW. You can crack small-scale eggs in pursuit of a big-scale omelet, but there should always be tension -- these things should be important to play, even if they're very, very local.

 

[The Firebird]

I said nothing about certainty.

Consistently in what way? And how can you determine consistency if the process is unknown?

These seem like legitimate questions, no?

You asked how we know it's consistent. You can't know with certainty.

As for consistent in what way, I think the previous examples in the thread suffice. We discussed the faction reprisal case, the unbribable guard, the unexpected consequences of carousing. If these aren't enough, what are you looking for?

 

[Faolyn]

Fair enough.


I can't speak for @pemerton. My general feeling is that it could go either way. I think part of this is a framing issue. If getting the plans is critical for uncovering Robert the Tavernkeeper's nefarious deeds, say necessary as part of pursuit of a belief ("Robert the Tavernkeeper is hiding something foul; I'll uncover it by stealing the Plans(tm)"), then it could be pretty high stakes. If it's just a hurdle and doesn't much matter in terms of uncovering RtT's nefarious deeds, and there are other things that would do just as well in respect to that, then it's low stakes, and I'd be inclined to wonder why we're spending excessive table time on it, and I'd recommend moving past it relatively briskly.

Sure. I imagine that it's perfectly fine in BW to say "OK, you sneak into the guardhouse and get a copy of the schedule. Now what?" and that's it.

 

[hawkeyefan]

<facepalm>

If my character is dead, unconscious, or otherwise incapable of coherent thought and-or action then obviously I'm out of play for the time being.

While my character is alive and functioning and capable of making its own decisions, however, player agency says those decisions are mine to make as its player. The game shouldn't be taking those decisions away from me as part of its regular run of play and you're quite right to say "railroad" if-when it does.

Maybe I-as-player have thought through whether my character is really going to murder someone, maybe I haven't; either way, the decision to commit - or at least attempt - that in-fiction murder should be mine and mine alone assuming no-one else's character does something in the fiction to interpose and maybe stop me...or beat me to it!

And sure, there'll be downstream consequences. No issue with that in the least. It's the potential for the game imposing an upstream "no, your character wouldn't (or isn't allowed to) do that" which bothers me.

It’s a matter of play focus.

Some games want the character’s determination or courage or loyalty or whatever other trait to be tested. Depending on the game, these traits may be highlighted in some way by the player as what they want to learn about in play.

If you want to learn if your character is hard enough to kill, then that’s something you want to learn about in play… you want there to be doubt about it. Allowing it to simply be player choice takes away the doubt.

Just like combat is uncertain… because there are dice rolls and we don’t just choose who wins.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

It's just a very different approach where it seems that both GM and player autonomy is limited. That's not necessarily a bad thing, in my games my autonomy as DM and my player's autonomy is limited but it's by the social contract of the table not the rules of the game.

I'm going to quibble with "limited" in favor of "constrained," but that is admittedly a quibble. Authority over the fiction, who gets to say what about what, is just arranged slightly differently in BW.

The reason this becomes an issue is not that I think either approach is right or wrong but that some people push this idea that you can do a sandbox in BW but not D&D because of the issues of autonomy. To me it's once again just comparing apples and oranges, a player has limited autonomy in both. They're just it's just very different approaches to gameplay and they aren't really comparable.

Oh, I don't think that's true (the bold bit, and I realize that you don't think so either). I'm sure you can do a sandbox in both games (though I feel like Traveller would be better suited out of the box, as written than either). As you point out, they're going to play very differently.