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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9239817" data-attributes="member: 42582">Perhaps it depends what one means by "system".By "system", in the context of a RPG, I mean <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/[/url" target="_blank">a means by which in-game events are determined to occur</a>, or to put it in other words, the way that we (the game participants) work out what happens next.In classic D&D, a huge part of the way in which we work out what happens next is by way of map-and-key adjudication. The adventures - the example of play found in the original books; the sample dungeon level with some examples of key and an associated example of play found in Gygax's DMG; the Haunted Keep and the associated examples of play in Moldvay Basic; and then the published examples of dungeons like B2, White Plume Mountain, Ghost Tower of Inverness, etc - demonstrate how map-and-key is done.In post-classic D&D, adventures give us system in a different fashion - they show us how the GM can ensure that a story happens independent of the outcomes of the mechanical processes (mostly though not exclusively combat) defined in the rulebooks. Just as one example, the 3E adventure Bastion of Broken Souls contains advice to the GM on how to keep the story going if the players, via their PCs, eliminate the principal NPC antagonist (this is found in a sidebar headed "The Second String"). That's system being set out in the adventure.To elaborate a bit further: 3E is, at its core, very similar to post-classic AD&D in its approach to PC building and resolution mechanics; thus, 3E adventures can be written essentially the same as DL-ish/post-Hickman AD&D modules. All development of the action - new scenes, the conduct and responses of the antagonists, the way conflicts unfold and resolve - is set out by the module author as something for the GM to narrate, with the role of the players being (basically) to provide the input that will generate the immediate outcomes of particular conflicts (mostly combats, occasionally other physical challenges like climbing a wall or getting through a door or crossing a desert). These modules will all have a weird relationship to information gathering activities, which in AD&D might be reflected via a reaction roll and/or bespoke rumour table, while in 3E might be reflected via Gather Information DCs - if the module is done well, ultimately these will not matter, because the adventure will need to proceed even if the players roll poorly on these info-gathering actions (and see eg the Alexandrian's "three clue rule" and its close cousin "node based design"). The architectonics, though, will be independent of player action declarations and set out by the adventure author as something for the GM to reveal to the players as the adventure is worked through. That's system.On the other hand, as I posted upthread, it is not possible to write an adventure for In A Wicked Age. This impossibility is not a mere curiosity vis-a-vis the system: it reveals some of its profound features. The GM has no unilateral authority over initial set-up, which furthermore is not done as prep but is done by all participants as the first stage of play; and the GM has no unilateral authority over how the characters will initially be disposed to one another, which is a result both of collectively-established initial fictional positions, and of how "best interests", which are authored as part of the first stage of play, and by players as well as the GM.There are a small number of published scenarios for Burning Wheel, and its interesting to see how they circumvent somewhat similar obstacles by relying on pre-gen PCs who have the right Beliefs to engage with the pre-prepared situation. I also have an example of this <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/not-the-iron-dm-tournament.682199/post-8381142" target="_blank">here</a>. But this won't work for In A Wicked Age, because of the different way its set-up works compared to Burning Wheel.An example of a published scenario ostensibly for a particular RPG, but that actually contradicts the system and hence is literally unplayable as written - and its one I've commented on more than once before, in other threads - is Mark Rein-Hagen's A Prodigal Son - in Chains in the Prince Valiant Episode Book:Looking at why this is unplayable - whereas other scenarios that are quite elaborate in the fiction provided, like The Crimson Bull or The Blue Cloak or A Family in Despair, are eminently playable - reveals quite a bit about Prince Valiant's system (including but not limited to its mechanics).</blockquote>

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