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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7921202" data-attributes="member: 42582">Evard appeared in the fiction because I (playing my character's offsider) successfully conjectured about his tower being nearby (the offsider has a Belief that I'm not going to finish my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse!). But for that, I don't think there would have been a demon summoner.There's little doubt that the GM was going to do something with my PC's family - I have two Relationships, with my offsider and my mother, and the Belief that Harm and infamy will befall Auxol [my family's estate, fallen on hard times] no more! So it would be remiss of him not to apply pressure there.But what form it was going to take - it seems to me far more likely that that was decided either on the spot, or he came up with an idea between sessions - after we had got to Evard's tower but before we looked around it.In any event, it's not GM force. GM force isn't a synonym for GM exercising authority to introduce content. In most more-or-less traditional RPGs (of which BW is one) the GM has an obligation to introduce content all the time. (In a system like Apocalypse World that's practically all that the GM does; in BW the GM also has to declare actions and roll dice for NPCs/creatures.)[USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] has charcterised GM force as Manipulation of the gamestate (typically covert) by a GM which nullifies (or in slightly more benign cases; modifies) player input in order to form or maintain a narrative that conforms to the GM's vision. The example of play I've described doesn't involve any "manipulation of the gamestate", covert or otherwise, that nullifies or modifies player inpute - there's GM narration of consequences that respond to actions declared by me for my character(s, if you include the offsider) and, as per the rules of the game, pay attention to PC Beliefs, Relationships etc.At this point it doesn't change my PC sheet. It changes my character's place in the fiction, and that might in due course change things on my sheet (eg I have the authority to change my character's Beliefs; Relationships can be lost as a consequence of failed action resolution if that would make sense in the fiction). This is not too different from the NIghcrawler arc that I described upthread - the mechanics of action resolution produce the arc; the arc creates a context where it makes sense for the player, given the situation, to change the character (in that case, one of Nightcrawler's Distinctions was changed - I think Devout Catholic became something like The Devil Within).Given the rules that govern a Burning Wheel GM, the unhappy truth also works in much the same way that a "soft move" does in a PbtA game: it's the GM's job to build on it and see how it snowballs. As a player I have strong incentives to engage with it, because engaging my Beliefs (which doesn't necessarily mean sticking to them or pursuing them - it might mean dramatically changing or abandoning them), which in the fiction now means engaging this unwelcome truth, is how I earn the Fate and Persona points I need if my PC is going to succeed at challenging checks.To go back to the issue of GM pre-scripting - as a Burning Wheel GM, there's no need. GM force as [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] characterises it - which I would tend to call "illusionism" - was a technique developed primarily to deliver story in spite of the mechanics/system because the latter, being essentially wargame/exploration rules, wouldn't do it on their own. Burning Wheel has some rules that resemble wargame rules (eg its combat minigames). But it has crucial rules that don't resemble wargame rules - for instance, PC build rules that contain elements like Beliefs and Relationships; and GM-directing rules around how to set up situations and narrate consequences having regard to, and putting pressure, on those things. (Ie no neutral refereeing!)Force would just be a waste of everyone's time.</blockquote>

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