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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9536949" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Because...the act of playing IS the act of telling a story? That's how PbtA games work. Gameplay is protagonism. That's the whole point of the ruleset. It is very, very carefully designed specifically for that purpose. It has been rigorously tested, to ensure that its rules do in fact fulfill that purpose. This is the big reason why the book tells you, straight up, to not break the rules--because doing so is nearly always going to be worse for telling an enjoyable fantastical-adventure story.Maybe the issue is that I haven't (here) spelled out the"you have to do it to do it" and "if you do it, you do it" requirements? That is, in DW, it is against the rules (explicitly!) to do the equivalent of "I roll for Diplomacy to persuade the guard to let us through." (There is no direct equivalent, but the closest match is Parley.) Likewise, it is against the rules to do the things required to trigger a move and then not do that move."You have to do it to do it" means the character must actually do whatever it is the player wants to make happen. If you want to persuade the guard to let you through...you have to actually SAY something. It doesn't have to be a lot, and for uncomfortable players I'm willing to accept a relatively abstract description. But they do in fact have to do something. Only once they've done something, is it permissible to roll for a move."If you do it, you do it" is the other half of the bidirectional. The first is the "only if" part, and this is the "if" part. Now, this does not mean that the DM necessarily needs to ask for a roll, if the fiction says that success is impossible (or, conversely, if it's reasonable for success to be guaranteed). But the move itself must trigger, if the player does what is needed to trigger it.If, and only if, the character performs the triggering action, then the move is invoked.I mean, all you asked for was an example where "excessive" death derailed a story entirely.As for whether it is unrealistic, just ask [USER=29398]@Lanefan[/USER]; he has more than once mentioned that, for his playstyle, it is purely the "group" story that matters, so even if every single character in the group dies (usually serially, not all at once), it's never a problem. So with the slight tweak that it isn't multiple TPKs, but rather full group turnover two or three times, we get an example that at least Lanefan thinks is both realistic and acceptable, but which would be pretty badly story-derailing from my perspective.It might not be absolute, utterly-inarguable definitely derailed story. But there's definitely more than a little bit of "story getting away from us" when you have lots of turnover. I've already had some of that affecting my game, even though no PCs have outright died, because player turnover has led to character disappearance. My new players sometimes feel overwhelmed by the established context of the world. I've been pursuing many different avenues to try to help with that, but it's still an issue. Having it happen with character deaths, rather than players leaving, would only very slightly lessen the issue, since the players would again be re-investing in a new group.Ultimately, most stories are going to face a Ship of Theseus problem if you have a serial breakdown of character-investment. There may not be any specific, single change that suddenly flips the switch from "definitely still the same ship" to "definitely not the same ship", but if anything that just makes the problem more likely to occur. Because it means different players will lose their connection at different times, and it may be very hard to actually get every player as invested as they were before. And if that effect compounds....</blockquote>

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