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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8287161" data-attributes="member: 42582">Who decides what the PCs' goal is, who the antagonists are, etc?Here's a summary of Curse of Strahd, taken from the Wikipedia page:Adventurers are mysteriously drawn to the realm of Barovia which is surrounded by deadly fog and ruled by the vampire wizard Strahd von Zarovich. This gothic horror adventure takes the players on a course through Barovia that culminates with a vampire hunt inside Castle Ravenloft. Using a deck of tarokka cards, the Dungeon Master can randomize parts of the adventure such as the identity of a powerful ally, the placement of important magic items across Barovia, and Strahd's location within Castle Ravenloft. Here are some features of the scenario:* It takes place in a realm where the PCs are strangers, and hence where there is no basis for the players to exercise any authority over the basic background fiction (eg a player can't posit that their PC makes contact with a friend or ally from their past); * It is already established that the scenario will end with a vampire hunt in a particular castle - so both antagonist and the location of the climax are pre-established; * The GM determines (via card draw) who will be a powerful ally of the PCs; * It's predetermined that various magical items will be important to the adventure.That seems like there is a lot of GM decision-making about the fiction; and it seems to invite quite a degree of curation by the GM and/or player-GM collaboration to make sure all that pre-conceived stuff actually happens.I'd be interested to hear from [USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER] about how closely his play experience reflected the above.Here's a bit about the Burning Wheel game I GM:* It takes place in or near places where the PCs have lived for some time and have friends and contacts whom they are able to call on from time to time; * The principal antagonists (Joachim and Jabal) were determined by the players: the first as an inimical relationship of two PCs, the second as the result of a failed Circles check initiated by one of the players; * The PCs allies have included NPCs established via Circles checks, and NPCs introduced by me as GM whom they have esetablished relationships with via play; * The most prominent four items have been (i) a cursed angel feather, introduced into the fiction by me as GM in response to a player author Belief, and described as cursed as a result of a failed Aura Reading check; (ii) a silver-nickel mace introduced into the fiction by a player as something his enchanter PC had been working on before the start of the campaign; (iii) evil black arrows made by Joachim, established by me as a consequence of a failed attempt by that player to have his PC find the mace in his PC's and Joachim's old and now ruined tower (this also helped confirm Joachim's status as antagonist); (iv) Joachim's blood, shed because the PCs failed to stop an assassin killing Joachim in Jobe's tower, and taken by one of the PCs because he had a Belief about brining Joachim's blood back to his master (a dark naga who wants to use the blood in a ritual involving spirits).This is a spectrum in the same way that none at all and heaps and heaps are a spectrum.</blockquote>

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