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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9514078" data-attributes="member: 71699">I like your thought here. The way I was defining stakes is that they areconsequences we care about that we agree to involve in success and failure (per my <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/suggestions-for-a-what-are-rpgs-how-to-play-rpgs-resources.707940/post-9512428" target="_blank">#38</a>)leaning into the voluntary nature of play. I didn't mean to limit that by who proposed them, but I can see that I moved away from use of the term in other games, which I took as justified by the context (i.e. TTRPG rather than Poker.)Accepted - in relation to your example at top - that games can have outcomes that are not playful. Joining play is itself not always voluntary (is it then "play"). Seeing as I'm only addressing voluntary play with playful outcomes, I will set this aside. We can return to it if it proves to matter to the sort of play under discussion.AW's use of "stakes" has influenced my adoption of the word. Referring to Trollbabe, which is where Baker picked up the term fromThe Stakes of an adventure are the GM’s big decision during preparation. The key to good Stakes is that they must be interesting to players, not just to characters. The GM’s job is not to enforce “hooks" into an adventure, but to engage players’ interest in the issues it represents. Such things involve passions – overwhelming drives, ambitions, and interpersonal conflicts, which have escalated to the level of community threats. People get all bent out of shape over many things, but they boil down into various permutations of property, family, and romance – which in practice become community issues of theft, fraud, feud, andmurder. Stakes that include conflicts about these things among several NPCs are quickly understood and quickly judged by players. (Emphasis mine.) Baker wrote thatWrite a question or two about the fate of the threat, if you’re interested enough in it to wonder how it will turn out. These are based very closely on stakes in Ron Edwards’ game TrollbabeYou can see that "stakes" in these uses is not a wager put forward by players, although it must be interesting to them.So I've defined "stakes" as consequences players care about that they agree to, which I mean to chime with the use in Trollbabe and AW. In the context of discussion with [USER=9053]@SteveC[/USER] I focused on the part stakes could play in calling for a roll, but generallyStakes may be picked by GM They might not be fully defined up front They might be consequences for someone or something other than a player character They might something unwelcome to everyone at the table They might not be something we are rolling for. I'm proposing that "stakes" are always accepted by players: perhaps because they are of interest to them, and perhaps too due to their agreement to put the rules in force for themselves at the outset and their continuation of that agreement moment by moment. I seem to diverge from Trollbabe and AW, in that I suggest that there are instances in play when players pick stakes as well as opt into them.The general direction of my argument is to propose that stakes are a ludic concept of particular meaning and importance to TTRPG. They playfully elevate the relationship of the people at the table with what is going on in their fiction.</blockquote>

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