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

[Campbell]

So, Burning Wheel beliefs are beliefs - something we question - not something we reinforce.

That's a key part of the difference between Narrativist play and genre enforcement games (like L5R 5e). The premise is a question, not an answer. The game is about fundamentally playing through situations where we find out if the premise is true or not.

If I have a character Vertigan the Bold who has a belief of My wicked brother has ruined the kingdom with his treachery - I will end him. One of the ways we can frame scenes is to question what the cost of ending him might be. Another is putting that wickedness in doubt.

 

[pemerton]

Imagine we were playing together, and I was the GM, and I didn't tell you that I was running the Adventure of the Monster-Filled Cave, just that we were playing a medieval fantasy game. I put forth the hook and you didn't bite. You decided your character would rather go into the Darkleaf Forests than the Monster-Filled Cave. It's how you built your character and their background and personality--their beliefs and instincts, if you will.

And I tell you that the options are the Cave or no game at all. No forests for you.

I'm pretty sure you would consider that to be a bad thing, maybe even bad enough to make you want to leave the game entirely.

What you're describing here strikes me as radically dysfunction. Like, you turned up to play chess, I turned up to play bridge, and for some reason we're incapable of sorting out the confusion via a simple conversation.

 

[pemerton]

Yes, but I strongly suspect that they meant more what I said, than saying that the player can just decide to know the layout of a dungeon they have never been in and expect to be given the map.

I respond to what people post.

I said "mentally capable of" which in context it was discussing emotions and controlling their response. Similar to how a soldier likely doesn't want to get blown to bits but will still charge the enemy line. Not sure what you're trying to turn that into.

I thought you meant performing mental tasks.

 

[pemerton]

Some folks really like to completely dismiss GM attempts to adjudicate based on plausibility and verisimilitude as simple fiat. And somehow don't see that as reductive and insulting.

Speaking for myself, I don't dismiss plausibility as a heuristic: I use it all the time when GMing.

What I deny is that imaginary things participate in actual causal processes. The causal process is GM decision-making, not some imagined event exerting real power.

 

[pemerton]

How is a secret door or people dying about his character? What he said was he doesn't "find out" things about his character. Probably because he determines it and doesn't need to "find out" things.

My PC dying seems like a thing about my character.

 

[zakael19]

Then you are using a very flawed definition of agency

Two examples of play:

Running the excellent dungeon crawl "Winter's Daughter" for a group. I am running entirely per map&key notes, acting as an impartial referee per the procedures of OSE. The dungeon is full of context clues, Landmark/Hidden/Secret design philosophy environments ready for the players to poke, and traps. One of these is a giant silver mirror, facing a stairway. Plenty of clues across the dungeon, space to sidle behind it (or a variety of other possibilities), but if the players walk directly in front of it such that their reflection is caught, they must make a Save vs Paralyzed (or Doom or something, there's like 3 different iterations of the module for OSE/Dolmenwood/5e). One of the players, after doing some back and forth questioning on their turn, opts to walk in front of the mirror. I prompt for a save. They fail, and are paralyzed.

Is their agency harmed by their actions triggering a trap?

Running Stonetop, the Judge is pursuing a goal: find the remains of the ghostly Quiet Twins to lay them to rest. We know the veil between the living world and the Dead is thin in the area of the Crossroads near to town, he has further done a Know Things where I've referred to the setting guide and told him Something Useful per it about how to open a door, and shown him the Custom Move which along with what you can get, also shows the potential downsides (including something of Undeath comes through and makes things difficult). He goes out to the Crossroads, does a ritual to open Death's Door a crack and the twins manifest (a roll of the custom move: 7-9, a complication occurs: I give him a choice of something or an Undead coming through). He has a moment to talk with the twins, they shape a needle out of the remains of the vessel the corrupted spirit which drowned them ages ago was inhabiting before the Judge purged it. Then they flee in terror before a Dool Spirit, something which has never lived.

One of its moves is "Sense a victim's doubt and worries," so I ask him what it's sensing. He thinks for a second, and tells the table about how he's actually really worried that the town is turning on him because of how he's speaking up against the God Tor. I ask him what he does next, and he says he wants to strike at this thing; I Set Conditions and Ask. and use another of its Moves: "Manifest as the victim's fears (harmed only by one who has mastered their fear)" to say that as he strikes out the spirit melts into a crowd of faceless Stonetoppers jeering at him - and his fear is becoming overwhelming, what do you do? He says he calls upon his god to bolster him and his purpose (Defy Danger, Wis/Willpower); he succeeds and strikes out.

Was his agency harmed by calling forth his fears and making him confront them before he could take action?

 

[pemerton]

What amazes me is that on one side we have "This is what I prefer and why, play whatever game works for you." vs "You just don't understand and you're wrong. Let me tell you why."

Hang on - you keep posting assertions about Burning Wheel that are false!

Recently you also made assertions about 4e skill challenges that @zakael19 and I both know, from experience, to be false. (Perhaps they are true of how you played 4e. But you asserted them as universal.)

I mean, you might prefer it that BW rulebooks say X rather than Y. But that doesn't affect what they actually say.

 

[pemerton]

Running the excellent dungeon crawl "Winter's Daughter" for a group. I am running entirely per map&key notes, acting as an impartial referee per the procedures of OSE. The dungeon is full of context clues, Landmark/Hidden/Secret design philosophy environments ready for the players to poke, and traps. One of these is a giant silver mirror, facing a stairway. Plenty of clues across the dungeon, space to sidle behind it (or a variety of other possibilities), but if the players walk directly in front of it such that their reflection is caught, they must make a Save vs Paralyzed (or Doom or something, there's like 3 different iterations of the module for OSE/Dolmenwood/5e). One of the players, after doing some back and forth questioning on their turn, opts to walk in front of the mirror. I prompt for a save. They fail, and are paralyzed.

Is their agency harmed by their actions triggering a trap?

I mean, in backgammon it's possible to find myself unable to move - because I have a piece that was hit sitting on the bar, and the other player holds every point in their inner table. So no matter what I roll, I can't bring my piece back into play.

That doesn't mean I have no agency in backgammon. It just means that I'm probably going to lose that particular game!

 

[Campbell]

We end up discussing mechanics so often because discrete mechanics are sort of easy red meat, but the discrete mechanisms are really only important within the context of the holistic design of a game. What brings the emotional depth to a Narrativist game is the intentions we bring, the work we put into establishing the initial context and structure and practice of how we approach the conversation.

So, it starts by working together to create an initial context. This can be done up front or as part of the initial first 3 or so sessions, depending on level of myth. Based on the game premise we create characters and an initial situation, and we build a world around them we can all be invested in. We take the time to intentionally invest in all these characters and their struggles. Then we either setup or frame situations that speak to the characters and their struggles. The situations are all ones that will provoke change in the characters. That's where the depth comes. Mechanics are the cherry on top of the processes, serving to build reward cycles and help keep the momentum of play.

This all requires practice, vulnerability and intention. It does not happen overnight. The mechanisms are important, but the practice and procedures matter just as much. Bringing task and intent into a conventionally ran game without the actual play procedures and scene framing know how won't get you very far because mechanics serve the process - not the other way around.

 

[AlViking]

But prior to that moment, you wouldn’t have known the outcome….

Seems like learning to me, but whatever. We’re going in circles. You don’t like it, and that’s fine.

And you insist that I would learn something even though I said I would not.