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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8135115" data-attributes="member: 42582">Burning Wheel is a complete success system. That's a fundamental principle stated and emphasised very clearly in the rulebook.But it's not a complete failure system. Action declaration requires both task and intent (eg as we head through the outskirts of Auxol I'm keeping an eye out <task> for Rufus <intent>). The general advice for GM narration of failure is to focus on intent - so the GM is entitled to narrate failure as success at task, but never intent. Of course sometimes task fails to - in BW that's up to the GM.In AW and DW, on a failure the GM is entitled to make as "hard and direct a move as s/he likes" - ie s/he can narrate whatever s/he wants that follows from the established fiction. This may be failed task, failed intent, or both. "Success with complication" happens in those systems on a 7 to 9 result - most moves elaborate in more detail what this looks like so eg an attack action might allow dealing damage on 7+, but unless it is 10+ the PC also suffers damage in return; an escape or avoidance action might succeed on 7+, but unless it is 10+ the escaping PC "brings something with him/her" eg one opponent follows, or s/he takes a wound on the way out, or something more elaborate or specific appropriate to the fictional context.To relate this to what [USER=7016699]@prabe[/USER] and [USER=29398]@Lanefan[/USER] have been posting - a 7 to 9 will generally be the context in which the GM might establish those adverse consequences (you've brought Pup to heel, but the followers may not be going along with it; you've stolen the jewel, but you catch a hint of a scrying viewer shimmering in the air as you make good your escape); whereas a 10+ is more likely to be genuinely free-and-clear.That's how these PbtA systems use mechanics to generate rising action, climax, pay-off etc (on a probability curve rather than strictly deterministically); whereas Burning Wheel leans more heavily into GM judgement in this respect, and so does a system like Classic Traveller which (in most of its subsystems) doesn't have the mechanical sophistication of the PbtA games, leaving the referee to decide what consequences should look like and to manage pacing as part of that.</blockquote>

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