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You can play for advancement in Burning Wheel. I'm pretty sure I posted about this upthread: when I play BW I am overwhelmingly in "actor" stance, declaring actions as I think makes sense for my character; my friend declares a lot of actions in "author" stance - that is, he makes a decision as a...

What's ugly about the fact that different people play RPGs differently, for different reasons?

I agree that there is zero difference here as far as "quantum" is concerned. I think there is a difference in procedure that is worth being aware of:

Just so we're all clear: managing risk and avoiding obstacles are not the only dimensions of meaning that are possible in RPGing. In games that use "fail forward" resolution, they are typically not that important at all.

I am assuming that The Firebird has in mind something like this: Case 1: 1. When you want to describe the weather where the characters are, roll. On a success, say what the weather's like there. (On a failure, it's 76°, few clouds, with a pleasant little breeze.) 2. When your character's...

I think it was @Enrahim who upthread mentioned wandering monsters. Wandering monsters are "quantum" beings. That's the essence of their use in classic D&D. As Gygax explains, wandering monster rolls - in the classic game - are made based on time and based on noise. Suppose that the player is...

I don't understand this post.

Why does hoping to meet an Elf cause a guard to arrive? In terms of cause-and-effect, I don't see any difference (when we're talking about structures/processes of play) between the guards being brought onto the "stage", and the screaming cook being brought onto the "stage". It's just that my...

I think we can take it that the cook screaming is a hard move. So let's reason back - what player-side move failed, such that the cook was startled and screamed? The most obvious candidate is Act Under Fire. So what was the character doing? Maybe they're the advance scout for the assault on...

You can see more of my thoughts in the post just above. "Fail forward" is primarily the idea that nothing happens is not a permissible GM response. Secondarily - and this is perhaps better captured via the "no whiffing" formulation - is the idea that the narration of a failed check need not...

You got a reply to this from @Old Fezziwig. I've also posted about this in many posts in this thread, including some in reply to you. John Harper is assuming that the fiction that is established during play has a type of emotional and/or dramatic and/or thematic "heft". And that it has a...

I don't see why not. That seems like a good move in a skilled play game.

I was at a workshop last week with a colleague who is a professor of constitutional law. (At an Australian university.) She has a Canadian PhD student. He had just recently told her, and she in turn informed me, that in Canada it's not wildly atypical for the PM to not sit in Parliament, and...

I was thinking of Chekhov's gun before I read your post. The difference, I would say, is that in the sort of play Harper is describing not every gun is going to be fired. Or at least that's my experience. And that's not because of clumsy authorship by anyone. It's because of the nature of the...

I know it's intended as a joke, but philosophers are notoriously unfunny - your only evidence for existence of most places in the world is the testimony of others.

I don't know what you mean by "game incentive", if you mean something other than reasons why a player in a game might do something. If you mean how does doing it help you win, I don't think that question is apposite for AW or BW, which aren't about "beating the scenario" or that sort of thing...

Again, if you want other posters to stop asking me questions, please take that up with them.

I don't know what you're getting at here. I don't see why I'm obliged to run a game about screaming cooks to satisfy you and other posters. I've posted actual examples from actual play. If you don't want to talk about them, and instead want to worry about screaming cooks, that's your...

The game incentive for checking if anyone is awake in the house is the same as the game incentive for declaring any other action - which can vary from player to player, moment to moment, and of course system to system. Perhaps the player thinks it's what their character would do. Perhaps...

It is illustrating fail forward. Failed attempt at kidnap => word on the street of a knife-wielding assailant. Failed Sing to try and restore my sense of self => harassed by a guard. Failed Circles hoping that an important Elf will turn up to help me => another guard turns up. This is what...