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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9852525" data-attributes="member: 42582">Here's a simple example:In Burning Wheel and Torchbearer 2e, if the consequence for a character is death, but the player of that character has a Persona point, then the player can spend the point and declare "I have the will to live". And then the PC doesn't die: rather, they survive but suffer some other transformative consequence (the details are different in the two games, and a bit different also across different editions of Burning Wheel).What this means is that, as a player, choosing to spend your final Persona point on something else is putting your character's life on the line. That is a manipulation of the game mechanics that is also expressive of an ethical choice as the character ("this is worth staking my life on").Here's another example from my group's Rolemaster play, years ago. If a player has their PC choose something that the PC clearly finds traumatic or even just overwhelmingly stressful; or if - via the rules of the game - a PC undergoes an experience like that; then the GM could suggest that that PC would suffer the results of a roll on the Depression Crit table. And we considered it a mark of a good player that the player wouldn't wait for the GM to make the suggestion, but would call for the roll - the player would know that this experience was one that could seriously affect or change their character.That is an example of a player manipulating the mechanics of the game to express something about their character and their character's relationship to what they are doing and undergoing.</blockquote>

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