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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9471109" data-attributes="member: 42582">Given that it is not hard to read actual play reports, view actual play videos, or read rulebooks, I don't know why you're stuck with guesswork. As far as rules are concerned:You can download the core framing and resolution rules for Burning Wheel for free: <a href="https://www.burningwheel.com/burning-wheel-gold-revised-hub-and-spokes-pdf/" target="_blank">Burning Wheel Gold Revised: Hub and Spokes PDF</a> You can download a version of the core engine for Maelstrom Storytelling - which is an early scene-framed, player-driven RPG - for free: <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/81905/story-bones-plus-pdf" target="_blank">DriveThruRPG</a> You can read the core of the Blades in the Dark system for free: <a href="https://bladesinthedark.com/basics" target="_blank">The Basics | Blades in the Dark RPG</a> You can download the core of Agon 2e (the Paragon SRD) for free: <a href="http://www.agon-rpg.com/" target="_blank">AGON: Forge your legend in the trials of glory.</a> You can download Lasers & Feelings for pay-what-you want: <a href="https://johnharper.itch.io/lasers-feelings" target="_blank">Lasers & Feelings by John Harper</a> You can read the core of Dungeon World for free: <a href="https://www.dungeonworldsrd.com/" target="_blank">Dungeon World SRD</a> You can download Ironsworn for free: <a href="https://tomkinpress.com/collections/free-downloads" target="_blank">Free Ironsworn Downloads</a>If you look at these rules, you'll see a few different ways of structuring the "conversation" of RPGing. For instance, Burning Wheel, and even moreso Story Bones, lean heavily into the GM framing scenes that speak to concerns/interests/stakes that have been established by the players. Agon, and to a lesser extent BitD, rely on the game and its genre to provide the stakes - both are rather genre/situation-oriented in that respect, Agon especially so; but the players are expected to express their PCs and their PC's concerns in choosing how to approach action resolution, and in BitD in particular the way things unfold will ramify back on the characters, which will in turn feed through into what comes next. Dungeon World, in its basic structure of play, is very close to Apocalypse World and as a result is very player-led, similarly to what [USER=7029413]@CandyLaser[/USER] has described for Fellowship.So you've already had these misapprehensions responded to in the context of a PbtA-type game.Here are some relevant extracts from BW Hubs and Spokes (pp 9-11, 30-32), that set out the basic process of play for that game:In the game, players take on the roles of characters inspired by history and works of fantasy fiction. These characters are a list of abilities rated with numbers and a list of player-determined priorities. The synergy of inspiration, imagination, numbers and priorities is the most fundamental element of Burning Wheel. Expressing these numbers and priorities within situations presented by the game master (GM) is what the game is all about. . . . The players interact with one another to come to decisions and have the characters undertake actions. One of you takes on the role of the game master. The GM is responsible for challenging the players. He also plays the roles of all of those characters not taken on by other players; he guides the pacing of the events of the story; and he arbitrates rules calls and interpretations so that play progresses smoothly. Everyone else plays a protagonist in the story. Even if the players decide to take on the roles of destitute wastrels, no matter how unsavory their exploits, they are the focus of the story. The GM presents the players with problems based on the players’ priorities. The players use their characters’ abilities to overcome these obstacles. To do this, dice are rolled and the results are interpreted using the rules presented in this book. . . . [W]hat happens after the dice have come to rest and the successes are counted? If the successes equal or exceed the obstacle, the character has succeeded in his goal - he achieved his intent and completed the task. This is important enough to say again: Characters who are successful complete actions in the manner described by the player. A successful roll is sacrosanct in Burning Wheel and neither GM nor other players can change the fact that the act was successful. The GM may only embellish or reinforce a successful ability test. . . When the dice are rolled and don’t produce enough successes to meet the obstacle, the character fails. What does this mean? It means the stated intent does not come to pass. . . . When a test is failed, the GM introduces a complication.So, as you can read for yourself, the players, as part of the build and play of their PCs, introduce certain priorities. The GM frames scenes that speak to those player-determined priorities. The players, playing their PCs, are thereby provoked to declare actions for their PCs. These actions are resolved via dice rolls. If the player's roll is a success, the PC succeeds at the declared task, and achieves their intent. If the roll fails, the GM re-frames the scene in a way that (i) means that the intent did not come to pass, and (ii) that provokes the player to a new action declaration, still based on their priorities for their PCs.This back-and-forth between player and GM is what makes the game collaborative. The rise-and-fall of success and failure, all focused around the player's priorities for their PC, is what gives the unfolding events of the game a story-like rhythm (of rising action, crisis, resolution and denouement).The PC-building rules and the setting-building rules for the game provide a lot of support and structure for the players to establish their priorities for their PCs. My own PCs for this system tend to have priorities based around their family relationships, other friendships or rivalries, their social aspirations for themselves or others, and the like.If you look at the descriptions, above, of how BW works, you will see how the GM introduces their ideas.Principally, the GM needs to come up with ideas for how the players' priorities for their PCs are put under pressure. Upthread I linked to <a href="https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/burning-wheel-first-burning-wheel-session.736425/" target="_blank">a BW actual play report</a>: you will see that, in the opening scene of that session, I put pressure on one of the PCs' beliefs - I'm not leaving Hardby without gaining some magical item to use against my brother - by having a peddler offer an angel feather for sale.When, in due course, the player failed a test in relation to the feather, I introduced my own idea: the feather is an angel feather, resistant to fire, but is also cursed. And if you read on through the actual play report, you will see how that curse was interwoven by me into other elements of framing and resolution, involving the PC's player-authored relationship to a cabal of sorcerers. These parts of your post make me think that you don't have much experience with the sort of RPGing that [USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER], [USER=7029413]@CandyLaser[/USER], [USER=85870]@innerdude[/USER] and I are describing. You seem to struggle with the idea of collaboration and building ideas together - the player says something, the GM says something that builds on that, the player responds further, etc - "riffing" on one another's ideas and suggestions to build up a shared imagining of people, places, events etc.You also seem to think that if all the details of a person, place, event etc are not pinned down all at once, then the thing must be "random". But that needn't be the case at all. This is illustrated by the angel feather: at first I introduce the angel feather; then - following a failed test - that it is cursed; then, in a subsequent session, that the curse is related to a mummy, and the looting of a tomb. This sort of development and "snowballing" of ideas and their trajectories is how a RPG can produce some of the structural dynamics of a story - foreshadowing, rising action, etc - even though it is not all authored in advance by a single person.</blockquote>

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