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.
You have me mistaken, I'm not suggesting being gentle about it at all.
More seriously, if the players have convinced themselves such as you've described, we can play that, but I'm going to expect Beliefs to be written about the plans, and we're going to play a game about pursuing the wrong damn thing at the expense of what's really important, at least for a while (a session, more, whatever?). BW will stagnate entirely and the reward cycle will break down if players don't pursue their Beliefs, so we'd have to rewrite them.
There's not a lot to add to what Old Fezziwig has posted. Scene-framing in BW does not need to be "gentle". If no one has anything at stake - by reference to beliefs, instincts, traits, etc - in the collecting of the plans, then - given that the core feature of the game is that
the GM presents the players (and their PCs) with situations that are based on the players' priorities they have determined for their PCs = why would we spend table time on it?
If the player writes a Belief -
I must have the plans! - then of course that's a different matter.
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.
I can't follow all of this. You're referring to my reply to a question that
@Micah Sweet asked about non-Burning Wheel play, as if I was describing BW play.
If the player wants to FoRK their Guards-wise or Schedule-wise into their Stealthy check to do whatever it is they're doing (I've lost track of the details of the conjectured scenario) then of course they're welcome to.
Also: both you and
@Lanefan seem to be taking the
stakes of something - high stakes, or low stakes - as an independent quality of some consequence. In Burning Wheel, it is relative, though - relative to player-determined priories for their PC. See, eg:
Why would you consider this to be lower risk and lower stakes than two people arguing about mending armor--something you yourself was high-stakes. Getting in to a guardhouse and getting the schedule is basically a mini-heist, which most people would think to be fairly high-stakes.
I gave the mending of the armour as something that is high stakes
as between two particular characters - this was something that actually happened in play. Thurgon - the character with the dented armour - had the belief
Aramina will need my protection. Aramina's relevant Belief was
I don't need Thurgon's pity. The context of the argument was Aramina's desire to go somewhere that Thurgon was concerned would be dangerous; such that, at least, she should mend his armour before they headed off there.
The argument bore directly upon the conflict between the two characters, flowing from their respective beliefs - a conflict about the nature of their relationship.
To reiterate what I and
@Old Fezziwig have said - what is at stake in the heist, that speaks to beliefs? If the answer is
nothing, then we don't spend time on it.
Questions:
(1) If the PCs in a BW game decide to go to a tavern, who decides what the tavern is like? If the PCs get to describe a tavern, then why can't the PCs get to describe the guardhouse?
(2) Can the GM decide that the tavern the PCs went to has a secret basement room where they hold illegal kobold fights? Or do the players have to decide that? And if the players get to decide that there's a secret basement room where they have illegal kobold fights, then why can't the PCs get to decide what the guard's schedule is like? (Or if in BW such a thing would be left up to the dice, then why can't the dice decide the schedule's detail?)[1]
I think
@Old Fezziwig gave a pretty complete reply to this.
But just to reiterate and perhaps elaborate a bit on that reply, the key question is
why are we paying attention to the PCs in this tavern? And
why is the idea of illegal kobold fights a thing we're caring about?
Here's a tavern sequence from BW play - as I've caveated a few times, this is a two-player/two-GM game (each of us frames the adversity for the others' PC), but it relies on the core procedures and principles of BW:
We agreed that Aedhros had travelled on the same ship as Alicia had been working on as a weathermage. Like Aedhros, she started with zero resources and no shoes, and with only rags as clothes. I asked her player why she hadn't been paid. Because bottom has fallen out of the market in soft cheese, so the cargo can't be sold. To work with this, I first got agreement that the port we had arrived in was Hardby (where the action of one of our other BW campaigns is centred). Then, as the ship master, I explained to the crew - including Alicia - that the wedding of the Gynarh (a plot point in our other game) had been delayed, and hence no one was paying for the cheese that had been brought from the green fields and fat cows of Urnst. Some were promised they would be paid tomorrow, but Alicia was told her passage was her pay! With her Base Humility, she accepted this (and earned a fate point). While this was going on, Aedhros took advantage of the distraction to Inconspicuously sidle up to the master and pick his pocket with Sleight of Hand. This earned 1D of cash (it was agreed). I then proposed to Alicia, whom I knew from the journey, that we find a room for a day or two before we rob the master in the night. She agreed.
We (the players) agreed the next scene was looking for a room for the two of us in a dodgy inn. (The standard resource obstacle for one person is Ob 1; we agreed that this would do for both of us at such a dodgy establishment.) Alicia offered to also work in the kitchens to help with board - and given her instinct, Don't ask, Persuade, where Persuade refers to the BW equivalent of D&D's Suggestion spell, this meant using her magic to get agreement. Alicia's player wanted to take time to prepare her spell, and as the GM for that purpose I thought that needed an Inconspicuous check. Unfortunately this failed, and so the innkeeper looked at her when she started muttering strange words, and so she just cast the spell. It succeeded (I set the innkeeper's Will, and hence the obstacle, at 3) and so he accepted her offer to work in the kitchen. The Tax for casting left her at Forte 1.
We agreed this gave me a bonus die for my Resources check, so I rolled two dice against Ob 1. This was a fail. We reviewed the Resources rules and had a bit of discussion and my co-GM decided that we didn't get a room and my cash die was gone (apparently the master's purse wasn't as full as we'd hoped). The innkeeper still insisted that Alicia work in the kitchen, though!
Why this scene? Because it played direclty into Alicia's Belief that
The strong do what they may; I will do what I must to survive; and thus, indirectly, into Aedhros's Belief that
Only because Alicia seems poor and broken can I endure her company.
