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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8594390" data-attributes="member: 6696971">First, addressing the solicited anecdotes:Dogs and MLwM were actually my initial forays into these games (later came Sorcerer and The Shadow of Yesterday).  Both Dogs and MLwM have both plenty of scope for Skilled Play while simultaneously being games that center on visceral, provocative scenes where the thematic content the players are engaging with through their PCs demands a fairly high measure of (some alchemy of) fortitude/will + some level of engagement with a concoction of emotional commitment/retreat/revulsion (about the thematic touchstones, about the PC you're playing, about the milieu, and about the NPCs you're interacting with).The two RL groups I've GMed these games for have featured a mix of people in terms of personal background and history with TTRPGs.  I think a few interesting notes are:* As scenes accrue, statistics change, and nature becomes revealed (in either game), its nearly impossible to not reorient to your PC.* While there is absolutely a "Skilled Play Pressure" element to play, its inevitably entangled with the above emergent consequence of playing.  You may have either, or, both rough thematic goals for a character or even gamestate goals for a character at the outset of play (or even healthily into it).  But the pressure of those things intersecting with the scope of Skilled Play for these games gets perturbed as your orientation to your PC invariably changes.  It may result in a realignment...possibly a significant one (you may find yourself playing someone you are very conficted about...or worse).  That tension of scope of Skilled Play + clarified win/loss cons + confrontation with hardening/softening/reorienting scene content isn't an accident!  * Two of the players in the groups mentioned above have been regular Torchbearer and Blades in the Dark players in my RL group for those games.  They are very inclined toward (and capable of) Skilled Play in all four of these games mentioned.  However (and this is the last thing I'll say before I close out this post as I'm running out of time!), these "loss con" inputs in Blades and Torchbearer have had significant roles to play in their play (which incontrovertibly features a hefty dose of Skilled Play):1)  In Torchbearer, Nature 0 and Nature 7 means the character retires.  The reality that players have complete say in both (a) how much they risk this prospect and (b) how it resolves within the fiction if it comes to that means that these two players are, by far, the most apt to push toward these loss cons for their characters.  They've both retired multiple characters as a result of this while only a single other character has been retired from this within all the other players combined.  That is not a coincidence.2)  Those same two players?  Those two players are the most prone to take on the significant burden of concession in Conflicts, up to and including seeing their characters removed from play.  Again, they get so much say in this that I'm confident this is not a coincidence.3)  Cut to Blades.  The exact same thing applies for Traumas, retirement (or worse) due to collecting 4 Traumas, and being sent to Ironhook Prison when Arrest comes up on Entanglement.  Same deal.  These two players are much more apt to (a) play within that red line where Traumas are lurking, (b) get Traumas, (c) retired due to Traumas, (d) take the fall for the The Crew when Arrest turns up.Again...not a coincidence I don't believe.My point to all of this?I think "win cons" aren't the only pressure on or interaction with Skilled Play.  In fact, that may not even be the most remarkable/interesting/impactful one. It may very well be that the expression of agency (amount and kind) and the attendant trajectory on play that agency provides when it comes to "loss cons" is something that should be put under the microscope.  Particularly when it comes to Skilled Play pressures within Story Now ("capable"...we can append that rider to TB for now) games and particularly for players who are much more inclined to engage with that "Skilled Play Throttle."</blockquote>

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