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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8933287" data-attributes="member: 82106">I don't think we're speaking the same language here. When we talk about 'fiction' we simply mean "what is going on in the game, fictionally." So, in a B/X dungeon crawl the PCs are marching in a certain order down corridor M in a westerly direction, and they are moving carefully. Corridor M smells moldy and has slick walls of cut grey rock. Roger the Elf has a nasty cut above his left eye which he got in an altercation with a kobold a few minutes ago. Belgar the Dwarf is annoyed with him because Roger moved too far out ahead of the rest of the group and is now unable to fight on the front line due to his injury, so that Belgar is stuck next to that rat (halfling) Gordo. Now, there may be what we call 'aids' or concrete tools at the table which turn some of this into a kind of mechanical game state (IE some minis that we use to indicate the marching order) but fundamentally all of this was agreed upon by the players and the GM either through some sort of informal negotiation; "give me your marching order" or via rules adjudication "The kobold does 2 points of damage to Roger!" (the nature of his injury is left to the imagination, perhaps Roger's player describes it).As I describe it above, the fiction isn't subject to 'destruction'. Agreement as to what the fiction IS can break down however, if the players stop communicating and agreeing on what it is.Which of [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER]'s models of game play process are you referring to here? I mean, we don't have to get exhaustive, but lets pick one and consider it. Or a different proposal that he didn't touch on.Torchbearer is a REALLY hard game! I mean, seriously, it takes some incredibly astute play to survive and get ahead in that game. It is in fact pretty merciless (at least IME, I don't doubt it can be played in a bit less hard-edged fashion). Every time your character attempts a task, first of all a 'turn' passes (the grind) and after FOUR turns you must eat or drink (and you can carry very small amounts of gear and supplies!). Beyond that, your light sources burn down, and again you can carry only a few light sources. So instantly you are severely challenged to find the most efficient solutions to every problem! Beyond the grind, TB is HARSH. Every time you don't roll 'success' you suffer a condition, or a twist. Conditions are NASTY, they take away dice from all your rolls (its a dice pool game, the core rules are basically Burning Wheel), and also reduce your abilities in other ways, like preventing you from invoking your wises, giving help, etc. Getting successes is also NOT easy. You have to earn fate and persona points in order to do things like tap nature (a large bonus), reroll dice, etc. You also need to earn 'checks' which are points you expend during down time and that is done by invoking your own traits against yourself (IE my character is 'quiet', so he might accidentally surprise someone and make them angry at him). Twists are generally WORSE even than conditions, involving things like "oops you just broke your weapon" or "the dragon wakes up" or whatever. Also, in TB, a lot of the game revolves around contests, which are fairly similar in a general way to a D&D combat. Each side figures out a strategy every round and then characters make checks based on interaction between the two side's strategies. If you pick unwisely, you could end up with no check at all, or only be able to defend, or give your opponent a big advantage in the next move, etc. Consequences of failure are also pretty critical here, as you can end up being disarmed or forced out of the fight (or whatever type of contest it is, it could be a baking competition). These things take considerable skill to win, and essentially the end result depends on the relative strengths of the sides, and their overall goals, modulated by how much 'damage' each side took.Well, your character could be ganked (gain the dead condition). Or wounded so badly that they can't do anything. MOST likely you will get a condition, like say "Exhausted" which causes a -1 to the disposition in a contest (basically how many 'hit dice' the party has to play with)and you are not allowed to use your "instinct", which is basically a situation where your character can gain a fate point by taking some action. Awanye the Elf has an instinct of "When in camp, sing soothing songs of recover" (he can heal people this way, AND gets fate points for it, which is pretty nice since fate points are not easy to get). But if Awanye is exhausted when we make camp, sorry, no fate points, bummer. Exhausted is actually a pretty mild condition. Injured pretty much gives you a -1 die in almost every situation, and if you get another condition while injured, that condition is always DEAD. These conditions are no joke, there are 7 of them (8 if you count dead). Only 1 is a bonus, the other 6 are bad, and you can have up to ALL SIX at one time! Usually if you have 3 you're hurting, and 4 is like being at 2 hit points in D&D, you MIGHT survive whatever happens next, but don't count on it!OK, so I remember once our PCs were on a raft and we were fighting this monstrosity of a polar bear that was in the water and wanted to eat us. Finally we killed it, but when we tried to haul it out on shore (because we were, as always super short of food) some of the PCs fell into the icy cold lake. This lead to a whole other obstacle centered around getting them out and making sure they didn't freeze to death (I think there were some conditions imposed during this process, someone got sick, which is nasty). We did come out of it OK, but by the time we spent grind processing the bears, made camp, built a shelter, etc. we only came out ahead like one grind worth of rations! Lets just say its a tough game. Yes, technically if you say "I'm doing X" then in some sense, assuming it is not a complete fictionally nonsensical BS move, you "do that thing", but just because I attached my rope to a tree at the top of the cliff doesn't mean its going to hold...</blockquote>

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