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Message: <blockquote data-quote="robconley" data-source="post: 8166465" data-attributes="member: 5636">I didn't feel attacked but I did think you had a misconception I find annoying as I encountered it many times. If I upset in my response I apologize.ExcellentOk so if I read your post right we are talking about.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It about the Score a shorthand for a heist or something similar.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A target is selected</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">An approach is selected</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Once an approach is taken, a detail is selected.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Question and discussion follows the object of which is to determine the number of dice in the Engagement which starts out the heist.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Engagement roll is made determine how well the Score starts out.</li> </ul>And this is where it ends in your example. I am a bit disappointed that you are describing how Blade in the Dark is played in general. Not a specific instance of actual play like I did. But I can work with this as while it is not a specific situation is a ingle narrow situation, the heist. Heists are something that occurs in my campaign as well.I have players do the followingThe player decides to pull off a heist in pursuit of their goal. I don't have a say in this.The player select a target using their knowledge of the setting. I don't have a say in this.An approach is selected. Unlike Blades in the Dark the players in my campaign are not constrained by a menu of choices. Instead they use their knowledge of the setting craft a approach tailored to the situation. I don't have a say in this.Each approach has to have a detail is where there is a major difference. In general players know many of the details prior to the decision to do the heist by virtue of their knowledge of the setting. Here the detail are created after the decision that the group is going to play Blades in the Dark and create the experience of a heist movie. Another difference that the details are discovered not created on the fly. Through a combination of experience and out of game discussion I have an idea of what the player are considering doing and prepare accordingly if I don't have the details already. Next the discussion of the dice (modifiers) to the Engagement. This also a major difference with my approach. In my campaign every step is played out in resolved in the same way as if the players were there in a virtual reality as their character. When playing OD&D over GURPS the steps may be handled in more detail or in a more abstract way but the steps are still played out. Also in Blades in the Dark there is no chance that the heist will be avoided. The goal of the mechanics is just to see where in the heist the remaining steps start off yet. The assumption is that the heist will commence. In contrast in my approach, discovery of the details or more commonly the evaluation of the detail may result in the group not interested in commencing the heist. Which is OK because the point of the campaign is not to execute a heist. A heist in my campaign is just a means to an end of achieving some player's goal. Which is another a major difference between my campaigns and Blades in the Dark. In my campaign the players can do anything that their character are capable of. They can find a dungeon and explore (Dungeon World), they can wander the ruins of a fallen empire of magic (Apocalypses World), they can plan out a heist (Blades in the Dark) within the same campaign and the same setting. My view while the approach works for people, the actual implementations are so narrow in scope that the players wind up with less agency than my "traditional" campaign. Once the group embarks with Blades in the Dark the expectation is that the group will play out a heist to it conclusion. In all the session I been involved with or witnessed anything else  (romance, exploration of the setting, etc) was incidental to getting on with the heist. The same with Dungeon World and other games with a similar approach.Sure it great to get up an going with little prep and with everybody pitching, the price seems to be reduced scope, with agency reduced accordingly.And to wrap this part of. I don't get to pick the details the player choose focus on either.I think one disconnect we have, is you don't realize importance of how the setting described. I am not making up stuff all the time. It is actually uncommon. I am instead acting on information that been established beforehand. In the case of the Majestic Wilderlands often established decades ago by other players in pursuit of long ago goals.  But even with my newer setting like Blackmarsh part of my preparation is talking with the players and making sure the details they focus on are established. If they are something the players ought to know as their character I provide them.  It rare but I have been called out when something happened that the players found implausible. And I am able to produce notes written well before. And explain all the ways that the player could have learned about them but choose not to.Next the definition of sportmanship is fair and generous behavior or treatment while following the rules of a sport or game. So the only way that system can address this if the group exhibits good sportmanship by following the rules of the system. Can't have one without the other.Sounds like limiting agency to me. In my campaigns I had sessions that players enjoyed that amounted to a relaxing evening. I don't assume that the players want anything in particular other than to play the character they created. Since character are created with the setting of the campaign in mind they have built-in motivations to interact with the setting. Otherwise we would playing some other campaign in some other setting.Except in my campaigns the players get the choice of leaving the tower. Or ensuring they are never trapped in a tower with terrorist in the first place.Since 1978, I have played D&D, AD&D, Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, Universe, Dragonquest, Champions, Fantasy Hero, Harnmaster, Runequest, AD&D 2e, Ars Magica, GURPS, GURPS with Whimsy Cards, Vampire the Masquerade, Mage the Ascension, D&D 3.0, D&D 3.5, Fantasy Age, Fudge (<a href="https://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/MajesticRealmsRPG_Fudge_Rev%2017.zip" target="_blank">even wrote the beginning of my own Fudge RPG</a>), Fate, The Fantasy Trip, D&D 4e, D&D 5e, my own D&D variant, Blades in the Dark, Dogs in the Vineyard, Dungeon World. Plus many many wargames and boardgames. Do you need a more <a href="https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">formal </a>curriculum <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/2993/Bat-in-the-Attic-Games" target="_blank">vitae</a>? My view after all that is that system is a detail, an aide to make a specific campaign happen.  Otherwise the group might as well be playing a wargame for all the agency they have. Because there isn't a system on the planet that can encompass all the things Incidentally I find it humorous that I am being characterized as a "traditional" referee as because while people appreciate my comments and post on sandbox campaign, I also considered far out in left field by traditional referees because of my views on the role the rules, the system, setting, and campaign. Yeah that not what a tournament style dungeon is. There is a subcategory of tournament dungeons (C2-Ghost Tower of Inverness). But a tournament style dungeon is broader category a way of formatting an adventure. The format being you have a keyed map and text organized by those keys. That is by far the overwhelming most common format of adventure available in the hobby and industry. And this is not guess, just survey the various adventure category on DriveThruRPG or RPGGeekIt is format that I found that doesn't work well for sandbox adventure that maximize players agency as their character. The travelogue style found in games like Ars Magica or the World of Darkness series works better but it is too wordy to use at the table. Plus despite being better many of these adventure are basically a railroad of some type and not really a sandbox. So I had to develop my own which I first formally published in Scourge in the Demon Wolf. I disagree.</blockquote>

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