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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8435193" data-attributes="member: 42582">Burning Wheel is an interesting one. I think there are goals: both the relatively "high level" and metagame one of having an RPG experience where your PC is put under pressure and you have to push back as a player, bringing both your mechanical resources and the fiction to bear; and the ones established by the fiction and stated in in-fiction terms, which will shape your actual action declarations, like (eg) I will liberate my homeland.I'm not sure there are "win conditions" in the same way White Plume Mountain obviously has those, because achieving those in-fiction goals doesn't necessarily count as a win - the whole design of the game supports pyrrhic victories, a bitter taste in the mouth at getting what you (thought you) wanted, etc - while pursuing those "high level" metagame goals is more like an ongoing process than a concrete moment of attainment.But there are adaptations possible. In the Adventure Burner, which predates Torchbearer (but maybe not Burning THACO), the idea of "micro-dungeoneering" is introduced. In this case players are encouraged to write Beliefs that correspond to win conditions of beating the dungeon (eg I will recover Thelon's Orb). A similar approach to mystery RPGing would probably be possible - I'm sure that Wises and Assess actions could be adapted to that sort of game, with a bit of thought and cleverness.Anyway, I fully agree that trying to differentiate RPGs from other sorts of gameplay by talking about "no goal but fun" as opposed to focusing on the particular processes of play, the expectations of play, etc seems needlessly obscurantist.</blockquote>

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