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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8013371" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I'm only skimming, but this conversation is diverging wildly onto many different subjects.  I'm going to try to say a few things about two different play priorities and how they can diverge and create tension with respect to agency.Say "Yes" or Roll the Dice and Play to Find OutThese are Vincent Baker's beautiful axioms from Dogs in the Vineyard and Apocalypse World.  They're the pithiest way to cut to the heart of emergent, story now gaming.The ideas are simple.  Don't plan plot.  Create conflict-charged obstacles and situations that provoke the PCs to action (the games' premise).  In the crucible of these conflicts, the players will declare actions for their PCs.  If they're even remotely feasible, either "say yes" or "roll the dice."The games based on these are "challenging" in a great many ways, but they typically aren't challenging in the way that Classic D&D Dungeon Crawling (say, Moldvay or RC or 1e) is challenging.  They definitely have elements of that and some decision-points and some games definitely have tactical and strategic decision-points at their core (Blades, not a derivative but an AW-offshoot, is chock full of them).However, the machinery and the primary ethos is about all the participants at the table finding out what happens when thematically-laden PCs meet thematically-provocative obstacles.  These games are nearly fully player-facing.  As such, one of the primary aims of both the ethos and the mechanics is to create a gaming experience/table situation of diffuse authority.  If the authority becomes too concentrated in one party (say, the GM), one or more aspects of these games' fundamental tenets ('play to find out', for instance) suffers or is rendered untenable.  Consequently, GM latitude becomes constrained in comparison to other games (say, 5e D&D) while players' latitude, agency, and responsibility become proportionately increased.Skilled-play, Challenge-based D&DWhat happens if we adopt Vincent Baker's axioms fully into an old school dungeon crawl game without taking significant, system-spanning (meaning holistic) mechanical measures to ensure the retained coherency (if not primacy) of the primary play priority (like, say, Torchbearer amazingly does)?The game falls apart.You have to have a stocked (denizens, puzzles, treasure, theme) and keyed dungeon with map of sufficient resolution (the architecture and layout needs to be tight with heightened attention to creating navigational decision-points that are compelling and testing...not arbitrary).The codified map + obstacles and the resolution mechanics (Wandering Monster Clock, Exploration Turns and related mechanics, Monster Reaction, etc) are the most fundamental components of play.If they aren't codified and of sufficient resolution and/or the GM fudges things (either with respect to the layout of the dungeon or the resolution mechanics), then the competitive integrity of the primary play priority (testing player skill in overcoming the challenge of the delve) is rendered null.So, porting in the diffuse authority and emergent play of a game like Dogs and AW to Moldvay Basic is completely disastrous (without going to the extreme lengths that Torchbearer goes to)!  Yes, Dogs and AW players have MUCH more authority and related agency...however, that authority/agency creep ported direclty into classic, dungeon-crawl D&D would render play incoherent because you're no longer testing player skill in overcoming the challenge of the delve!Again, games like Torchbearer and Blades have amazingly managed to pull this off (delve/heist games that also manage emergent story now play)...but the design requirements are MASSIVE.  You can't just adlib your way through it mechanically.  So, failing the unbelievable mechanical rigor of those two games, you're better off understanding the focus of your play and the reasoning that your table's authority (and agency by proxy) is either diffuse or concentrated.  Overwhelmingly in the TTRPG world, you can't have your cake and eat it too (except in the most rare cases like TB and Blades)...and if you think you are, you're almost surely fooling yourself because you're running afoul of either emergent story now or testing skilled-play via challenges...or running afoul of both at any given time.</blockquote>

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