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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5745665" data-attributes="member: 54877">It makes sense, because that is pretty much the way I saw BW initially. However, the BW folks kept saying that it wasn't a Narrative game in the Forge sense, but was a traditional game. So I kept looking, and I think that I finally understood that BW is a game where story emerges from the action traditionally. The story is what happened. This became more clear when I realized that a large part of the BW appeal to me was that it is an aggressively "develop-in-play" game, once play starts. (The huge amount of space for lifepaths can hide this, but the belief and instinct writing should have clued me in.)  Where BW is modern is that every element in it (even those apparently sim-heavy, background-driven lifepaths) is built to fast forward to things that matter to whatever that emerging story is. And if something really matters, the game goes into slow motion while on that thing. This is why some of its elements translate well to 4E, IMHO. (And would even better, if the skill challenges were as mechanically robust as 4E combat, albeit at a lesser scope--the 4E equivalent of BW Versus tests, whereas 4E combat matches the BW in-depth subsystems.) More than most versions of D&D (by RAW, if imperfectly), 4E subtly encourages you to only roll when it matters. Let it Ride translates very well to it, with just a little winking and nudging. Imagine if 4E combat could work for any conflict (social, exploration, whatever), and the skill challenges were more robust but still relatively light. Then if something doesn't matter much, say yes. If it matters some, skill challenge. If it matters a lot, "Combat". <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> I'll grant that beliefs are the most "Story Now" element in BW. But you'll note that the beliefs hold no direct mechanical weight. Rather, it is merely (Hah!) that the beliefs are forced into prominence by the check/artha/advancement system. Contrast this with Riddle of Steel (warning, I only know second-hand), where the spiritual attributes themselves have serious mechanical meaning.</blockquote>

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