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Dealing with agency and retcon (in semi sandbox)
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9070599" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I don't know what you're talking about. Burning Wheel has clearly stated principles for the GM, and for the player(s). I was following the latter set of principles. The GM was following the former.</p><p></p><p>I declared an action - I (as Thurgon) am looking out for Friedrich poling his raft down the river, or am looking out for a member of my family. That action was resolved, as the rules indicate, via a Circles check. I've deliberately built a character with relative strong Circles (affiliations with my knightly order, with my family, and with the nobility; and a reputation as last knight of the Iron Tower) and so I'm rolling a fairly healthy dice pool. And the action declarations aren't particular outrageous - we're at the bank of the river where Friedrich poles his raft, and we're entering the territory of Auxol where Thurgon's family lives. So as the play report set out, the obstacles are relatively low. Hence my checks succeed.</p><p></p><p>To me, your complaint seems analogous to complaining about a D&D player with a reasonably good attack bonus talking about how they rolled to hit and succeeded having an "alter reality" power to oblige the GM to narrate dead goblins.</p><p></p><p>I don't know what <em>other</em> point you think you are making "beyond a single game's rules".</p><p></p><p>No, I've not said that at all. To repost:</p><p></p><p>And in elaboration of the first bit of advice, about how to run a railroad:</p><p>But if someone <em>wants</em> to play a game with high player agency, rather than a railroad, then Burning Wheel is an obvious choice of system.</p><p></p><p>I have no real idea what you're talking about. When I GMed a 4e D&D game for 7 or 8 years, we used the rules of the game as set out in its rulebooks, and when it came to adjudicating skill challenges I also took advice from the resolution frameworks they are obviously inspired by - scene resolution in Maelstrom Storytelling, extended conflict resolution in HeroWars/Quest, and intent-and-task resolution in Burning Wheel.</p><p></p><p>Skill challenges are a dice-based resolution framework, just like Circles (and just about everything else) in Burning Wheel.</p><p></p><p>I'm sure that's true, but you've always made it very clear that you prefer to run railroads to high player agency games.</p><p></p><p>Because upthread [USER=6879661]@TheSword[/USER] posited that a high player agency RPG can't have mysteries. I posted a counter-example.</p><p></p><p>I tend to regard it as a sign of low player agency RPGing that the highest stakes thing the participants can think of is death and healing.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 9070599, member: 42582"] I don't know what you're talking about. Burning Wheel has clearly stated principles for the GM, and for the player(s). I was following the latter set of principles. The GM was following the former. I declared an action - I (as Thurgon) am looking out for Friedrich poling his raft down the river, or am looking out for a member of my family. That action was resolved, as the rules indicate, via a Circles check. I've deliberately built a character with relative strong Circles (affiliations with my knightly order, with my family, and with the nobility; and a reputation as last knight of the Iron Tower) and so I'm rolling a fairly healthy dice pool. And the action declarations aren't particular outrageous - we're at the bank of the river where Friedrich poles his raft, and we're entering the territory of Auxol where Thurgon's family lives. So as the play report set out, the obstacles are relatively low. Hence my checks succeed. To me, your complaint seems analogous to complaining about a D&D player with a reasonably good attack bonus talking about how they rolled to hit and succeeded having an "alter reality" power to oblige the GM to narrate dead goblins. I don't know what [I]other[/I] point you think you are making "beyond a single game's rules". No, I've not said that at all. To repost: And in elaboration of the first bit of advice, about how to run a railroad: But if someone [I]wants[/I] to play a game with high player agency, rather than a railroad, then Burning Wheel is an obvious choice of system. I have no real idea what you're talking about. When I GMed a 4e D&D game for 7 or 8 years, we used the rules of the game as set out in its rulebooks, and when it came to adjudicating skill challenges I also took advice from the resolution frameworks they are obviously inspired by - scene resolution in Maelstrom Storytelling, extended conflict resolution in HeroWars/Quest, and intent-and-task resolution in Burning Wheel. Skill challenges are a dice-based resolution framework, just like Circles (and just about everything else) in Burning Wheel. I'm sure that's true, but you've always made it very clear that you prefer to run railroads to high player agency games. Because upthread [USER=6879661]@TheSword[/USER] posited that a high player agency RPG can't have mysteries. I posted a counter-example. I tend to regard it as a sign of low player agency RPGing that the highest stakes thing the participants can think of is death and healing. [/QUOTE]
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