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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9230734" data-attributes="member: 42582">Because failure frequently requires introducing some complication that thwarts the intent. In Apocalypse World this is a hard move. In Torchbearer this is a twist.Sometimes those complications can be derived from prep: see eg Baker's example of the cobblestones, or my example just upthread of the warning device/sigil. But often something new needs to be introduced, like [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER]'s famous gorge. (Narrated in response to a failure on a Nature (?) check in a skill challenge, where - at least as I recall it - the intent of the check was to escape on horseback.)Whereas if prep is doing it's job, then success will typically be connected to the prep, as per my example of The Blue Cloak. Here's another example, from AW p 121:When a player’s character opens her brain to the world’s psychic maelstrom, for instance, the rules might tell you to reveal something interesting. Something interesting? Look to your fronts: Joe’s Girl has joined the water cult, I’ll bet they didn’t know that. So say that, and of course say it according to the principles. Maybe “deep under the brain-howling, you come to hear … is it chanting? A list of people’s names, chanted over and over by a hundred subliminal voices. ‘Tum Tum … Gnarly … Fleece … Lala … Forner … Joe’s Girl … Shan …’” (Player: “wait, Joe’s Girl? [Hell's bells].”)If success is mostly also being narrated via improvisation, then the prep has perhaps turned out to be of little worth?There's no reason why they can't, although personally that strikes me as a rather uninteresting way to approach the game. Like, neither in real life nor in the fiction I'm familiar with do magistrates and detectives and charismatic law-enforcers spend much of their time listening at random doors.Listening at random doors is a D&D thing, because in dungeon play, it is one canonical method for provoking the GM to reveal information. But in DitV, the GM is actively revealing the town in play. So what happens if a player has their PC listen at a random door? The answer is found on pp 138-9 of the rulebook:If nothing’s at stake, say yes to the players, whatever they’re doing. Just plain go along with them. If they ask for information, give it to them. If they have their characters go somewhere, they’re there. If they want it, it’s theirs. Sooner or later - sooner, because your town’s pregnant with crisis - they’ll have their characters do something that someone else won’t like. Bang! Something’s at stake. Launch the conflict and roll the dice. . . . The PCs arrive in town. I have someone meet them. They ask how things are going. The person says that, well, things are going okay, mostly. The PCs say, “mostly?” And I’m like “uh oh. They’re going to figure out what’s wrong in the town! Better stonewall. Poker face: on!” And then I’m like “wait a sec. I want them to figure out what’s wrong in the town. In fact, I want to show them what’s wrong! Otherwise they’ll wander around waiting for me to drop them a clue, I’ll have my dumb poker face on, and we’ll be bored stupid the whole evening.” So instead of having the NPC say “oh no, I meant that things are going just fine, and I shut up now,” I have the NPC launch into his or her tirade. “Things are awful! This person’s sleeping with this other person not with me, they murdered the schoolteacher, blood pours down the meeting house walls every night!”The GM frames the PCs (and thereby the players) into some or other conflict that will generate interesting play.</blockquote>

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