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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9662032" data-attributes="member: 42582">The goal of play in <s>D&D</s> BW is not to win. For the participant who is in the GM role, the goal is to present scenes that force the players into intense, engaging, thematically laden action with their PCs. For the players, the goal is to play one's character in accordance with their beliefs, instincts, traits etc. For all participants, there is a further goal that emerges from the intersection of their role-specific goals: finding out what happens to these characters when they are put through the wringer.<a href="https://www.arkenstonepublishing.net/isabout/2010/02/16/the-pitfalls-of-narrative-technique-in-rpg-play/" target="_blank">Eero Tuovinen describes this sort of play</a>, in general terms (he's not talking specifically about Burning Wheel, but about games that fall under what he regards as the "standard narratavistic model" (remembering that this is pre-Apocalypse World):I find that the riddle of roleplaying is answered thusly: it is more fun to play a roleplaying game than write a novel because the game by the virtue of its system allows you to take on a variety of roles that are inherently more entertaining than that of pure authorship. . . . all but the most experimental narrativistic games run on a very simple and rewarding role distribution that relies heavily on both absolute backstory authority and character advocacy. . . . One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments (defined in narrativistic theory as moments of in-character action that carry weight as commentary on the game’s premise) by introducing complications. . . . The rest of the players each have their own characters to play. They play their characters according to the advocacy role: the important part is that they naturally allow the character’s interests to come through based on what they imagine of the character’s nature and background. Then they let the other players know in certain terms what the character thinks and wants. . . . The actual procedure of play is very simple: once the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end. . . . These games are tremendously fun, and they form a very discrete family of games wherein many techniques are interchangeable between the games. . . . The fun in these games from the player’s viewpoint comes from the fact that he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character; this is the holy grail of rpg design, this is exactly the thing that was promised to me in 1992 in the MERP rulebook. And it works . . .EDIT: This post said "D&D" when it should have said "BW (Burning Wheel)".</blockquote>

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