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<blockquote data-quote="Libramarian" data-source="post: 6097736" data-attributes="member: 6688858">[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] Thanks for sharing this -- you're right, this stuff speaks&nbsp; directly to my concerns&nbsp; about player responsibilities in a&nbsp; non-railroaded story-heavy campaign.The pre-game concept brainstorming I would need more structure and&nbsp;&nbsp; guidance on -- either that, or a game that comes with it built-in&nbsp;&nbsp; (or adventures/scenarios? I've been wondering lately what an adventure&nbsp;&nbsp; optimized for non-railroaded story-heavy play would look like. You and&nbsp;&nbsp; [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] seem to use adventures/APs a lot but with heavy alterations. What&nbsp;&nbsp; would an adventure type product look like if it were optimized for&nbsp; this&nbsp; style of play?)&quot;Make your character's life hard.&quot; &quot;Players in Burning Wheel must use their characters to drive the story&nbsp; &nbsp; forward - to resolve conflicts and create new ones. Players are supposed to push and risk their characters, so the grow and change in unforeseen ways.&quot;This is great -- I think if 4e had explicit player responsibilities like this, I&nbsp;&nbsp; don't know if it would have been more successful (depends how many&nbsp;&nbsp; people actually like and want to use D&amp;D for this style of play,&nbsp;&nbsp; clearly explained), but discussion about it between supporters and&nbsp;&nbsp; detractors would have been much less confused and out of synch. 4e is&nbsp;&nbsp; less hard on characters than earlier editions. Detractors look at this&nbsp;&nbsp; and say &quot;player entitlement&quot; and &quot;tyranny of fun&quot;, supporters say&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;death/disability is not the only way to stimulate the player by&nbsp;&nbsp; challenging their character, challenge them in more story-oriented ways&quot;To me that's not really a persuasive response--fair enough, there are other&nbsp;&nbsp; ways to challenge characters and ways to fail forward, but if it's&nbsp;&nbsp; entirely up to me as the GM to devise these then I can do that in any&nbsp;&nbsp; game, why would I give up my save-or-sucks and save-or-dies? But if the&nbsp;&nbsp; game says it's the players' job to contribute by priming their&nbsp;&nbsp; characters for story pressure and then when it comes to engage it and&nbsp;&nbsp; push the story forward, then it makes sense to me why the game would&nbsp;&nbsp; exclude or de-emphasize character consequences that take away the&nbsp;&nbsp; player's narrative agency. It's not about mollycoddling the players,&nbsp;&nbsp; it's about not taking away their ability to get their characters into&nbsp;&nbsp; trouble. That's the missing piece of that argument for me.When I'm running a classic D&amp;D gamist sandbox/adventuring location&nbsp; with gp=xp sort of thing, I want the full suite of consequences that&nbsp; punish the player as well as the character, because they give the game&nbsp; its enjoyable challenge and tension. There it is the player's job to&nbsp; &quot;win&quot; (in a sense) and I don't expect the players to purposefully get&nbsp; their characters into trouble -- so playing without these consequences&nbsp; feels like playing Jenga where the players take pieces off the top&nbsp; instead of the middle of the tower.This type of story-heavy play that BW seems to be going for where it's&nbsp; really personal and&nbsp; character-centric is more appealing to me than the&nbsp; high fantasy/epic&nbsp; quest style. I find most quests (ie plotted story&nbsp; that doesn't really&nbsp; require much player input or tie into their&nbsp; characters, other than the&nbsp; fact that they're really powerful and&nbsp; heroic) to be cheesy and cliched,&nbsp; and I'm not very good at coming up&nbsp; with anything better. They seem to be&nbsp; a lot of work for only a mild at&nbsp; best dramatic payoff. The most irksome 4e Design &amp;&nbsp; Development&nbsp; article for me is this one by James Wyatt:&nbsp; <a href="https://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/drdd/20071121" target="_blank">https://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/drdd/20071121</a> where he's very presumptive about this being the standard D&amp;D adventure.I&nbsp; know it sounds deflationary to people who are very story-focused but&nbsp; the whole dungeon-crawling for blood, gold and gems thing makes more&nbsp; sense and is more appealing to me when the characters don't have much of&nbsp; an exterior motivation but are just roguish explorers/treasure hunters&nbsp; who do this because it's the only thing they know how to do. My primary&nbsp; influences for D&amp;D are picaresque S&amp;S (Conan, Fafhrd &amp; GM,&nbsp; Cugel) mixed with a little bit of Oregon Trail for the&nbsp; dungeon/wilderness adventures, and my model for town/city adventures is&nbsp; basically spaghetti Western movies mixed with the Grand Theft Auto series of videogames, where the&nbsp; characters raise their social status by undertaking missions for&nbsp; different factions, but as things get more complex the missions start&nbsp; becoming contradictory and the PCs either have to make some enemies or leave town.Character-centric fantasy supers D&amp;D is kind of odd in my view&nbsp; but not totally unappealing...I would give it a try. pemerton you've&nbsp; mentioned before that a major influence for your 4e game is Claremont's&nbsp; X-Men run -- I'm not big into comics so I didn't know what that meant&nbsp; but I brought it up with my friend who is and he said that's the source&nbsp; of most of the storylines used in the early 90's X-Men cartoon, which we&nbsp; both like a lot. We both agreed that those storylines were awesome but&nbsp; we also had a laugh because it's so different from our D&amp;D games,&nbsp; where we don't go into how the PC's know and care about each other much at&nbsp; all, heh. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Libramarian, post: 6097736, member: 6688858"] [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] Thanks for sharing this -- you're right, this stuff speaks directly to my concerns about player responsibilities in a non-railroaded story-heavy campaign. The pre-game concept brainstorming I would need more structure and guidance on -- either that, or a game that comes with it built-in (or adventures/scenarios? I've been wondering lately what an adventure optimized for non-railroaded story-heavy play would look like. You and [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] seem to use adventures/APs a lot but with heavy alterations. What would an adventure type product look like if it were optimized for this style of play?) "Make your character's life hard." "Players in Burning Wheel must use their characters to drive the story forward - to resolve conflicts and create new ones. Players are [I]supposed[/I] to push and risk their characters, so the grow and change in unforeseen ways." This is great -- I think if 4e had explicit player responsibilities like this, I don't know if it would have been more successful (depends how many people actually like and want to use D&D for this style of play, clearly explained), but discussion about it between supporters and detractors would have been much less confused and out of synch. 4e is less hard on characters than earlier editions. Detractors look at this and say "player entitlement" and "tyranny of fun", supporters say "death/disability is not the only way to stimulate the player by challenging their character, challenge them in more story-oriented ways" To me that's not really a persuasive response--fair enough, there are other ways to challenge characters and ways to fail forward, but if it's entirely up to me as the GM to devise these then I can do that in any game, why would I give up my save-or-sucks and save-or-dies? But if the game says it's the players' job to contribute by priming their characters for story pressure and then when it comes to engage it and push the story forward, then it makes sense to me why the game would exclude or de-emphasize character consequences that take away the player's narrative agency. It's not about mollycoddling the players, it's about not taking away their ability to get their characters into trouble. That's the missing piece of that argument for me. When I'm running a classic D&D gamist sandbox/adventuring location with gp=xp sort of thing, I want the full suite of consequences that punish the player as well as the character, because they give the game its enjoyable challenge and tension. There it is the player's job to "win" (in a sense) and I don't expect the players to purposefully get their characters into trouble -- so playing without these consequences feels like playing Jenga where the players take pieces off the top instead of the middle of the tower. This type of story-heavy play that BW seems to be going for where it's really personal and character-centric is more appealing to me than the high fantasy/epic quest style. I find most quests (ie plotted story that doesn't really require much player input or tie into their characters, other than the fact that they're really powerful and heroic) to be cheesy and cliched, and I'm not very good at coming up with anything better. They seem to be a lot of work for only a mild at best dramatic payoff. The most irksome 4e Design & Development article for me is this one by James Wyatt: [URL]https://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/drdd/20071121[/URL] where he's very presumptive about this being the standard D&D adventure. I know it sounds deflationary to people who are very story-focused but the whole dungeon-crawling for blood, gold and gems thing makes more sense and is more appealing to me when the characters don't have much of an exterior motivation but are just roguish explorers/treasure hunters who do this because it's the only thing they know how to do. My primary influences for D&D are picaresque S&S (Conan, Fafhrd & GM, Cugel) mixed with a little bit of Oregon Trail for the dungeon/wilderness adventures, and my model for town/city adventures is basically spaghetti Western movies mixed with the Grand Theft Auto series of videogames, where the characters raise their social status by undertaking missions for different factions, but as things get more complex the missions start becoming contradictory and the PCs either have to make some enemies or leave town. Character-centric fantasy supers D&D is kind of odd in my view but not totally unappealing...I would give it a try. pemerton you've mentioned before that a major influence for your 4e game is Claremont's X-Men run -- I'm not big into comics so I didn't know what that meant but I brought it up with my friend who is and he said that's the source of most of the storylines used in the early 90's X-Men cartoon, which we both like a lot. We both agreed that those storylines were awesome but we also had a laugh because it's so different from our D&D games, where we don't go into how the PC's know and care about each other much at all, heh. :) [/QUOTE]

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