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GM fiat - an illustration
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<blockquote data-quote="zakael19" data-source="post: 9625663" data-attributes="member: 7044099"><p>You can prep harsh things, but there's intervening space. When I prep a Threat for Stonetop, it ends in an Impending Doom that is likely "The town of stonetop is razed/conquered/fields corrupted/cistern poisoned/affliction spread throughout leaving all dead/" etc. And then you work backwards to the first signs, say - merchants on the Maker's Roads report Hillfolk gathering in bands, watching them just off in the plans, or something. Probably 4 or so "steps" between "here's a first warning" and "oops all dead" so that the PCs have space to comprehend and choose to take action (whatever that might be). If they dont, and it's time to make a hard move or as the fiction demands - you Advance Towards Impending Doom.</p><p></p><p>I believe Fronts in AW work in a very similar way. Once you've prepped, you're giving yourself permission to make those big (or small! some are close to home, that one guy and his gang that <em>hate your guts</em> and what they'll do to act on that; or a slow growing starvation; or whatever) moves to make the world real & the character's lives not boring.</p><p></p><p>The key is that once you've written in down, you're saying "absent intervening actions, this is going to get worse." And then playing the world with integrity is following through on the badness you've telegraphed.</p><p></p><p>Note that nowhere in there is straight up Fiat, really. The game itself gives guidelines in its core procedures on how to make Threats/Fronts/etc, sets of ideas, principles to run them, directions on how to give the characters the warning of what's coming; or how to make that hard move up front to kick the game off - but always with the option of the players <em>not dealing with it</em> and then things getting worse.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="zakael19, post: 9625663, member: 7044099"] You can prep harsh things, but there's intervening space. When I prep a Threat for Stonetop, it ends in an Impending Doom that is likely "The town of stonetop is razed/conquered/fields corrupted/cistern poisoned/affliction spread throughout leaving all dead/" etc. And then you work backwards to the first signs, say - merchants on the Maker's Roads report Hillfolk gathering in bands, watching them just off in the plans, or something. Probably 4 or so "steps" between "here's a first warning" and "oops all dead" so that the PCs have space to comprehend and choose to take action (whatever that might be). If they dont, and it's time to make a hard move or as the fiction demands - you Advance Towards Impending Doom. I believe Fronts in AW work in a very similar way. Once you've prepped, you're giving yourself permission to make those big (or small! some are close to home, that one guy and his gang that [I]hate your guts[/I] and what they'll do to act on that; or a slow growing starvation; or whatever) moves to make the world real & the character's lives not boring. The key is that once you've written in down, you're saying "absent intervening actions, this is going to get worse." And then playing the world with integrity is following through on the badness you've telegraphed. Note that nowhere in there is straight up Fiat, really. The game itself gives guidelines in its core procedures on how to make Threats/Fronts/etc, sets of ideas, principles to run them, directions on how to give the characters the warning of what's coming; or how to make that hard move up front to kick the game off - but always with the option of the players [I]not dealing with it[/I] and then things getting worse. [/QUOTE]
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