NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FrogReaver" data-source="post: 8441723" data-attributes="member: 6795602">Let's examine that.D&D by the rules doesn't describe a 'focus of play' and so the GM usually adopts one, though it may be a bit amorphous at times.  But one focus of play the GM could adopt is to focus scenes around PC's player-authored principles.In which case I've got to ask, do you want to compare BW to D&D as a whole or how tables run or can run D&D?  Because the target of your comparison there is going to be very important in terms of what conclusions we can draw.Duel of wits is just a persuasion check.  At the core that's all it is.  If persuasion checks happened anytime the players desired then they would be essentially the same.  But 5e does have one bit of mechanics that's different and that's the mechanic that the GM decides whether to have such a check in the first place.  And yes that's an important addition, but it's still very similar and there's nothing stopping a GM in D&D from saying, I'll have my NPC's be potentially persuadable to any 'good faith', 'genre appropriate' and 'preestablished fiction' appropriate attempt.  Excludes things like using Persuasion to get the King to give non-noble you his crown.Which kind of comes back to the question, are we comparing to D&D as a whole or to a specific instance of D&D play and if a specific instance of D&D play then which specific instance?Sure, I think the backstory first really is a call out to map and key play.  At least that's the platonic ideal of it as presented here.  Maybe we should start here, do you believe any D&D play isn't map and key play?  Because if not that underlying idea is shaping this whole discussion and it needs explicitly talked about if so.And thus the story unfolds.Tirga wants to avenge his brothers death.  He's been searching for information about the killer all his life.  He's turned to adventuring hoping to leverage his associations in that line of work to gain favor with whoever knows or has the power to find out who killed his brother.  So far it's all been dead ends, but there might be a chance now.  Herkes has approached him talking of a brewing faction war and asking for him to aid his faction in a raid on their adversaries supplies.  Tirga sees the opportunity here as an event as world changing as a faction war can loosen the lips of those that hold information in exchange for some services.  He tells Herkes he's willing to help but only for the identity of his brothers killer.  This time Herkes agrees to part with the information after the job is complete.  Tirga goes on the raid has success (probably a whole session goes into planning and executing this raid).  He learns the identity of his brothers killer.  (*made up excerpt for illustration).Hooks as you call them only work if players get what they want out of them.  Hooks drive play toward the player achieving his goals (or at least can).  Whereas you seem to call them hooks as if they are a form of railroading or gentleman's agreement where the goal of your backstory is simply to provide the GM with potential adventuring hooks so that your PC fictionally has a reason to get aboard the railroad (or linear story if we are being nicer to that playstyle).Saying situation vs backstory first explains the differences when it's still in heavy contention that living sandbox play is a hybrid between backstory first and situation first.Are there profound differences of play between story now games?Are there profound differences of play between modules and living sandbox games?If so why doesn't your explanation care about these profound differences?</blockquote>

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