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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8263712" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Again, a good post, but you're drawing contrasts that are either (a) not correct or (b) less stark than what I'm beholding here.This reads like the misconception that "Story Now" games are "Storytelling" games.  I don't know if you mean it to, but your post reads like The Alexandrian circa 2008-11 (or whenever it was).Your conception of Story Now games in your first paragraph is incorrect and the distinction you use to draw the contrast is also incorrect (in play agenda, in GMing principles, in action resolution, in PC build, and in the integration of all 4).   Yes, We are interested in what the solution the players as author-as-actors come up with means for the fiction.  That much is true.  But the below is also true:* We are interested in whether the players-as-characters can find a way to solve the problem given a set of constraints (what you say we are not interested in in the first paragraph).* Problems aren't just as an impetus for drama or a creative writing prompt for the table.  We aren't just telling a story of slaying a dragon.  We are slaying a dragon...an activity being simulated through the use of rules which emulate the presence of a dragon, the difficulty of slaying it, and the tools one might have in a story about slaying dragons. The GM 'runs' the Dragon, as a means of rendering a distinct entity you are constrained from controlling.What you say we aren't doing in Story Now play and the contrast you use to distinguish it from Pathfinder (Classical Skilled Play) play are neither correct.They're not Storytelling games where we tell a story about defeating obstacles where the GM isn't erecting actual opposition to the players and their characters.  They're not storytelling games and they're certainly not storytelling games as power fantasy (which really looks like the Neotrad label).  Not at all.  Not in conception and not in application.I'm going to summon [USER=1282]@darkbard[/USER] into this conversation because our very last Dungeon World session is the exact anecdotal framework you're engaging with above.  He (a Paladin), his companion (a Wizard), and two Cohorts (darkbard's Paladin Protege and a Frost Giant Refugee of the city the dragon razed) set out to defeat an Ancient Blue Dragon in its lair (the ruins of the aforementioned city).  At any point did you not feel like the game and your characters were hanging in the balance because I was providing an inauthentic challenge/obstacles (to use the parlance above, "that the dragon was just an impetus for drama or a creative writing prompt at the table")?The Dragon (who yet lives) almost killed both Cohorts.  Honestly, it was a razor's edge from a TPK and may have been if the Wizard wouldn't have deployed Protective Counterspell and had it work as well as it did.  And the Paladin struck a MASSIVE blow that forced the creature to retreat.These two GMing principles aren't exclusive (they're integrated within the whole of the game):* I'm a fan of Alastor and Maraqli and Rose and Bjornson.  I'm a fan of their protagonism, of their wins, of their losses (RIP Bjornson who died in this very fight).* But I'm providing authentic pushback.  I'm not pulling punches.  They're not telling a story about how they defeated Avorandox the Ancient Blue Dragon that razed the Frost Giant City and I'm certainly not "enabling that story."  They're fighting for their lives and all they care about via the mechanical architecture of PC build + action resolution mechanics + teamwork against an Ancient Blue Dragon that I'm playing to the hilt...to destroy them (not to shadow box a cool story about Alastor/Maraqli/Rose/Bjornson defeating an Ancient Blue Dragon).  I'm a fan, but I'm honest adversity...like Bryan Cranston "I am the danger" (and honestly...Ancient Blue Dragons in DW are a HELL of a lot scarier than in classic D&D).The same goes with Blades, with My Life with Master, with Mouse Guard, with 4e D&D, with Dogs, (and certainly) with Torchbearer:[MEDIA=youtube]qgWHsit77E4[/MEDIA]</blockquote>

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