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

[Lanefan]

But my understanding of the Braunstein, and the dungeon version of it, is that it is all about the fiction - drawing on the established fiction to make new fiction that advances one's position - with mechanical elements (eg that door might be stuck - roll a die to see if you can force it) being secondary. The non-mechanical rules, as I understand it, were basically carried over from free narration resolution in wargaming.

The dungeon version of Braunstein may have had some mechanical resolution but the live-action version (which I've played with the game's inventor) is pretty much free-narration resolution. Each player has in-character goals for their character as advised before play begins; the players then do what they can to achieve those goals while also attempting to first realize there's a mystery involved and then solve it. At the end the GM - who has otherwise done nothing all afternoon except enjoy the entertainment and answer a few questions - tells us what we did right in character and where-how we messed up in solving the mystery (our lot missed it by miles).

It's actually much closer to LARP - e.g. different locations in the room stand in for different locations in the setting and you have to move to a location in order to talk to someone there - than to what we now know as TTRPGs.

 

[hawkeyefan]

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?

I don’t see how those examples display consistency. They’re mostly unrelated hypotheticals.

If you were in a game, how would you know the GM is being consistent in their adjudications? If there are unknown factors at play, how can you know? The criteria aren’t available to you.

 

[zakael19]

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.

Yeah, this entire branch of gaming chose to move beyond "mutual agreement" for resolving player vs player conflict; and welcome the unwelcome (the idea that most people will very rarely willingly choose to make things worse for themselves/their characters) intruding into play via neutral mandatory mechanics.

I think few other games focus on a character's internal beliefs and drives being the premise of play and the core thing you're always resting stakes on though? I think it's very cool to have that idea of giving that character some life and space of their own from where you sit as a player - letting them be more then just an extension of your imagination.

I like a more flowing novel-esque narrative play from my moment to moment conversation, which is why DW-esques are my Vibe rn, but I can see how Burning Wheel would lead to some really intense character moments where the suspense is around what will the cost be to follow your beliefs, or how will they change.

 

[zakael19]

I don’t see how those examples display consistency. They’re mostly unrelated hypotheticals.

If you were in a game, how would you know the GM is being consistent in their adjudications? If there are unknown factors at play, how can you know? The criteria aren’t available to you.

I do find this emphasis on like "goodness of DM" really interesting. Especially since that's totally indefinable for a conventional game, because every table's system of play & creative priorities are going to be totally different. An excellent neutral arbiter with encyclopedic knowledge of procedures and excellent information presentation may totally miss the mark for a group that actually wants all of play to be doling out a story based around the characters; a Brennan Lee Mulligan sort who does big dramatic storytelling would probably drive a procedures and exploration table absolutely insane.

 

[pemerton]

some people push this idea that you can do a sandbox in BW

Who? The only poster who said that it can be done is @Faolyn, drawing on someone else's list. And I replied to that reiterating what I had already said in the thread, that BW is (in my view) not a sandbox RPG, mostly because it doesn't give place and journey the right degree of "heft" in play:

I know two of the systems on your list very well.

Burning Wheel does permit "total freedom" of the sort that @Hussar described. It is not designed for the sort of learning of pre-authored setting details that you talked about upthread. It doesn't use map-and-key to resolve travel; journeying is just another test (say, on Orienteering) with failure narrated in the system's usual way.

Given the way that "sandbox" is normally used, I think characterising Burning Wheel as a sandbox game would tend to mislead.

 

[Lanefan]

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. 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.

Re the bolded:

What this would seem to prevent, or at least very strongly discourage, is the players in-character from distracting themselves with red herrings of their own invention.

Put another way, if the players have somehow convinced themselves that getting those Plans(TM) is the most important thing in the world right now even if in fact those plans are only tangential at best to their goals and thus the plans are a low-stakes thing, why not just let them play it out anyway even if it takes all night?

The bolded, as worded, almost seems to suggest gently leading them by the nose past the low-stakes stuff.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Who? The only poster who said that it can be done is @Faolyn, drawing on someone else's list. And I replied to that reiterating what I had already said in the thread, that BW is (in my view) not a sandbox RPG, mostly because it doesn't give place and journey the right degree of "heft" in play:

I think it could give place and journey heft if BITs were appropriate to exploration of place and journey. But it's going to play very differently than D&D or Traveller, for instance.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You're talking about the fiction: in the fiction PCs can research out the wazoo, or not, depending whether the feel of our game should be HPL or REH.

I'm talking about the game play.

The fiction informs the play. I'll always look to the fiction first.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Upthread, didn't you say you want the GM's imaginative decision-making about the setting, and the outcomes of actions that take place within it, to be unconstrained by rules?

Now are you saying that that sort of "GM imagination time" is not a game?

Once that imagination becomes part of the setting, then the rules come in.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, I just thought I was explaining why I find that sort of thing pretty railroad-y.

Well, then consider my response an explanation of how I disagree.