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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7806410" data-attributes="member: 42582">[USER=6779196]@Charlaquin[/USER], the 5e example of play is found in the opening pages of the Basic PDF:[spoiler]Here's the dialogue:Dungeon Master (DM): After passing through the craggy peaks, the road takes a sudden turn to the east and Castle Ravenloft towers before you. Crumbling towers of stone keep a silent watch over the approach. They look like abandoned guardhouses. Beyond these, a wide chasm gapes, disappearing into the deep fog below. A lowered drawbridge spans the chasm, leading to an arched entrance to the castle courtyard. The chains of the drawbridge creak in the wind, their rust-eaten iron straining with the weight. From atop the high strong walls, stone gargoyles stare at you from hollow sockets and grin hideously. A rotting wooden portcullis, green with growth, hangs in the entry tunnel. Beyond this, the main doors of Castle Ravenloft stand open, a rich warm light spilling into the courtyard. Phillip (playing Gareth): I want to look at the gargoyles. I have a feeling they’re not just statues. Amy (playing Riva): The drawbridge looks precarious? I want to see how sturdy it is. Do I think we can cross it, or is it going to collapse under our weight? Dungeon Master (DM): OK, one at a time. Phillip, you’re looking at the gargoyles? Phillip: Yeah. Is there any hint they might be creatures and not decorations? DM: Make an Intelligence check. Phillip: Does my Investigation skill apply? DM: Sure! Phillip (rolling a d20): Ugh. Seven. DM: They look like decorations to you. And Amy, Riva is checking out the drawbridge?About 10 lines later, the following text appears:The DM creates adventures for the characters, who navigate its hazards and decide which paths to explore. The DM might describe the entrance to Castle Ravenloft, and the players decide what they want their adventurers to do. Will they walk across the dangerously weathered drawbridge? Tie themselves together with rope to minimize the chance that someone will fall if the drawbridge gives way? Or cast a spell to carry them over the chasm?[/spoiler]I'll leave it to others to discuss to what extent 5e supports exploratory play when compared to (say) Moldvay Basic. But the dialogue and the further explanatory text refer to navigation of the hazards by the characters played by the players. The example actions are all about gaining information about the situation presented by the GM, where - it seems - the GM presents that information on the basis of the adventure that s/he has created for the characters.The example of play does not incude any conflict or drama, and the further text doesn't mention or point to such things.The AW example of play, which I mentioned by way of contrast, goes for several pages in the middle of the rulebook under the heading "Moves Snowball". It also has a lot of language that board rules do not permit. Here are some choice board-compliant extracts:[spoiler]Here it is: Marie the brainer goes looking for Isle, to visit grief upon her, and finds her eating canned peaches on the roof of the car shed with her brother Mill and her lover Plover (all NPCs). “I read the situation,” her player says. “You do? It’s charged?” I say. “It is now.” “Ahh,” I say. I understand perfectly: the three NPCs don’t realize it, but Marie’s arrival charges the situation. If it were a movie, the sound track would be picking up, getting sinister. She rolls+sharp and hits with a 7–9, so she gets to ask me one question from that move’s list. “Which of my enemies is the biggest threat?” she says. “Plover,” I say. “No doubt. He’s out of his armor, but he has a little gun in his boot and he’s a hard [individual]. Mill’s just 12 and he’s not a violent kid. Isle’s tougher, but not like Plover.” (See me misdirect! I just chose one capriciously, then pointed to fictional details as though they’d made the decision. We’ve never even seen Mill onscreen before, I just now made up that he’s 12 and not violent.) . . . [skip details of partly frying Isle's brain] . . . Plover thinks she’s just leaning her head on his shoulder, but she’s bleeding out her ears and eventually he’ll notice his shirt sticking to his shoulder from her blood. Do you stick around?” I’m telling possible consequences and asking. . . . “I go home, I guess.” “So you’re home an hour later?” See me setting up my future move! I’m thinking offscreen: how long is it going to take Plover to get a crew together? . . . “Having tea?” Ask questions like crazy! “No tea. Pacing. I have my gun and my pain grenade and the door’s triple-locked. I wish Roark were here.” . . . “So, Marie: at home, pacing, armed, locked in, yeah? They arrive suddenly at your door with a solid kick, your whole door rattles. You hear Whackoff’s voice: ‘she’s expecting us I guess.’” I’m announcing future badness. “I go to the peep hole,” she says. “There are three of them?” “Yep,” I say. “Whackoff on your left, Plover and Church Head are doing something on your right, Plover’s back’s to you — and you hear a cough-cough-rrrrar sound and Plover’s at the door with a chainsaw. What do you do?” I’m putting her in a spot. “I read the situation. What’s my best escape route?” She rolls+sharp and . . . misses. “Oh no,” she says. I can make as hard and direct a move as I like. . . . “You’re looking out your (barred, 4th-story) window as though it were an escape route,” I say, “and they don’t chop your door all the way down, just through the top hinge, and then they lean on it to make a 6-inch space. The door’s creaking and snapping at the bottom hinge. And they put a grenade through like this—” I hold up my fist for the grenade and slap it with my other hand, like whacking a croquet ball. “I dive for—” Sorry, I’m still making my hard move. This is all misdirection. “Nope. They cooked it off and it goes off practically at your feet. Let’s see … 4-harm area messy, a grenade. You have armor?” “1-armor.” “Oh yes, your armored corset. Good! You take 3-harm.”The following bit of GM-oriented rules text explains the meaning of misdirection as it is used in this example:Make your move, but misdirect. Of course the real reason why you choose a move exists in the real world. Somebody has her character go someplace new, somebody misses a roll, somebody hits a roll that calls for you to answer, everybody’s looking to you to say something, so you choose a move to make. Real-world reasons. However, misdirect: pretend that you’re making your move for reasons entirely within the game’s fiction instead.[/spoiler]I think the following quote from Campbell highlights the key point of contrast (as I see it) between the two examples/instructions:Other points of contrast are (1) that the AW approach is far more player-and-character-centric, with the MC (referee/GM) responding to and following the players' leads in a way that isn't evident in the D&D example, and (2) that as part of (1) the GM is authoring more fiction spontaneously than the further explanatory text in the D&D rules appears to contemplate. (This is a feature of misdirection.)These are all techniques that, at one-and-the-same-time, reduce the element of exploration while increasing the element of drama.</blockquote>

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