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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8134405" data-attributes="member: 42582">To add to what Manbearcat has said: the idea that you can separate rules from GMing techniques seems to take as a premise that the rules are something like what is the range of a longbow or how do we work out how much my PC can carry? , while GMing techniques are things like frame scenes that will engage the players via the flags they've run up in PC build.I don't accept that premise.The rules of Burning Wheel are pretty clearly stated in the books, and they include things like how to frame scenes and how to narrate successes and failures as much as how far a longbow can shoot or how well elves and half-elves can spot concealed and secret doors.Personally I think that the rules of AD&D include things like what sorts of things should be in a dungeon as much as how far a longbow can shoot. The idea that you can drop the first sort of thing while keep the second is (in my view) responsible for a lot of RPGing in which there really are no significant action resolution rules: because the mechanics are modelled on classic D&D, and so deal with weaponry, architecture and carrying stuff but not much else; while most of what matters in the actual action of the game is something else.Manbearcat has explained how Circles works. I see it as an extension of, and more character-focused than, Classic Traveller's Streetwise mechanics.I don't think the GM knows who "the master" is. He may have some ideas of where he might take that element that he's introduced; but he doesn't have the sole authority to decided it. Eg suppose I declare and succeed in a Wises check to learn that "the master" is actually XYZ (some interesting NPC connected to backstory and prior action), then the GM would have to respect that outcome.More generally, when the GM is creating NPCs they will be in response to action declarations, or as part of framing that is itself designed to challenge the PCs' Beliefs, and so will be responsive to those.</blockquote>

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