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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8155735" data-attributes="member: 42582">This takes as a premise that the goal of play is to learn what is written in the GM's notes. It presupposes either literal map-and-key techniques, or else an approach that is modelled on map-and-key but extends that to other exploration-oriented action declarations (eg We go to the library and see what we can learn about such-and-such, with the resolution being that the GM then tells the players what is in his/her notes about information that can be found in the library).When I play Burning Wheel I am not playing to learn what is written in the GM's notes. I am playing to find out what happens to my PC - in Thurgon's case, will he be able to liberate Auxol and rebuild the Iron Tower and realise the will of the Lord of Battle? Will he fail in some way? Will he change - eg reconcile himself to Auxol's new status, or even lose his faith?The fact that the play of the game is about these things is, already and in itself, a manifestation of player agency. (As [USER=99817]@chaochou[/USER] pointed out way upthread.)The "problems" that have to be solved can be anything from finding someone to help us cross the river, to fighting a demon, to ensuring that Aramina has a restful sleep after she collapsed as a result of trying to cast spells. The way to solve these problems is to declare actions. In the first case, I kept a look out for other members or former members of my order, and (in system terms, because my Circles check was a success) we met an ex-knight of the Iron Tower who carried us over the river on his raft. In the second case, I fought the demon (in system terms, I scripted and resolved various attack and defence actions, and also relied heavily on my armour) until it withdrew from battle, I think because the time of its summoning was coming to an end; as a result I earned an infamous reputation in the Hells as an implacable demon foe (in system terms, this was a consequence determined by the GM). In the third case, I foraged for food and herbs but in the course of cooking them inadvertently set Evard's tower alight - at least we didn't eat the bad food!, as I threw the contents of the skillet onto the fire in an attempt to extinguish it (failed untrained foraging check followed by failed cooking check followed by failed die-of-fate roll to see if the skillet contents put out the fire).These action declarations were framed and resolved by reference to the system rules. I suspect the only ones that involved "notes" of any sort were those against the demon, because in Burning Wheel combat resolution is affected by the stats of the character being fought as well as the PC's stats, and so the GM must have had stats for the demon written up. The others were all resolved using the rules for setting obstacles for action declarations. Despite the absence of GM notes, there is simply no resemblance between this actual play experience and your descriptions of "stat[ing] things about the fictional reality and roll[ing] to see whether it sticks" or "invent[ing] clues and roll[ing] the dice to see if your invention applies".</blockquote>

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