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At the Intersection of Skilled Play, System Intricacy, Prep, and Story Now
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8601569" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>As a relative novice to the system, I can only say that I don't quite agree with this. There are guidelines - about how many obstacles, possible variation across them, how far from town - but my gold standard here is D&D 4e, and Torchbearer falls short. I think it also falls short of Moldvay Basic (but produces more interesting play - I'm not saying it's a bad system!).</p><p></p><p>The Cartographer's Companion has adventures graded by level, but there is no transparent description of how that has been done. The maths could probably be reverse-engineered, but I haven't tried.</p><p></p><p>Here, my gold standard is Burning Wheel.</p><p></p><p>In BW, the GM's yardstick for both framing and consequence narration is PC Beliefs. And from the player side, playing to (or against) Beliefs earns Fate and Persona, which are necessary to have a chance of success at crucial tests. That is not just exploring your character, it's shaping your character and perhaps having your character change radically before your eyes.</p><p></p><p>In TB, "fighting for what you believe in" is somewhat watered down: the Beliefs are in the mode of what BW would call a "fate mine", that is, a principle or motto that you evince in play to earn some Fate. And the goals - at least by default, as the system is presented - are oriented towards the GM's scenario. The "excelling" is spending Fate and Persona and thus gaining levels, but the design of TB means that crucial tests will not necessarily reflect player-priorities, but rather than GM's distribution of difficulties across their scenario.</p><p></p><p>What seems to me to be missing from the TB rules, and what I haven't worked out yet as far as feasibility and technique are concerned, is how to shift scenario design towards something like 4e's player-authored quests. That would change the authorial dynamic around goals, would set up new parameters for GMs in their scenario design, hence change what counts as a crucial test on which Fate and Persona are spent, etc. I've seen hints of this just within the scope of 2 sessions of play but because I'm still at the early stage of learning the system, I have no confident sense of where it might end up.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8601569, member: 42582"] As a relative novice to the system, I can only say that I don't quite agree with this. There are guidelines - about how many obstacles, possible variation across them, how far from town - but my gold standard here is D&D 4e, and Torchbearer falls short. I think it also falls short of Moldvay Basic (but produces more interesting play - I'm not saying it's a bad system!). The Cartographer's Companion has adventures graded by level, but there is no transparent description of how that has been done. The maths could probably be reverse-engineered, but I haven't tried. Here, my gold standard is Burning Wheel. In BW, the GM's yardstick for both framing and consequence narration is PC Beliefs. And from the player side, playing to (or against) Beliefs earns Fate and Persona, which are necessary to have a chance of success at crucial tests. That is not just exploring your character, it's shaping your character and perhaps having your character change radically before your eyes. In TB, "fighting for what you believe in" is somewhat watered down: the Beliefs are in the mode of what BW would call a "fate mine", that is, a principle or motto that you evince in play to earn some Fate. And the goals - at least by default, as the system is presented - are oriented towards the GM's scenario. The "excelling" is spending Fate and Persona and thus gaining levels, but the design of TB means that crucial tests will not necessarily reflect player-priorities, but rather than GM's distribution of difficulties across their scenario. What seems to me to be missing from the TB rules, and what I haven't worked out yet as far as feasibility and technique are concerned, is how to shift scenario design towards something like 4e's player-authored quests. That would change the authorial dynamic around goals, would set up new parameters for GMs in their scenario design, hence change what counts as a crucial test on which Fate and Persona are spent, etc. I've seen hints of this just within the scope of 2 sessions of play but because I'm still at the early stage of learning the system, I have no confident sense of where it might end up. [/QUOTE]
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