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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8590226" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm just starting in this thread, but here are some thoughts.I think those two things are largely orthogonal. Fiction first is an approach to action declaration and resolution. Moldvay Basic is, to a significant extent, fiction first (though not in combat), but a poor "story now" vehicle in my view. Marvel Heroic RP is a good "story now" vehicle but not really fiction first. The fiction has to be mechanised - mostly via Scene Distinctions or via Effects that result from action resolution - before it can feed into action resolution."Skilled play" is an activity. "System mastery" is a capacity. Moldvay Basic encourages skilled play but does not really permit system mastery in the way I tend to see that used, because it's system is not very complicated.I think that can be a principle for some "story now" play but not all of it. Not all story now play is focused on the vulnerability of the PC to change. For instance, imagine playing a DL-ish or LotR-ish "story now" RPG - while the characters do evolve, the focus is probably more on the engagement of the PCs with the broader themes and issues that are at work in the (imagined) world. Sometimes this idea is expressed in the phrase "letting the players trash the setting" - ie it is the setting, not the PCs, which get treated as vulnerable and expendable like a stolen car.EDIT:I don't agree. See my example above. Burning Wheel, too, has boxes-to-boxes in places.I think if we use "fiction first" too broadly - to mean that those at the table care about the fiction - it loses utility as a descriptor.</blockquote>

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