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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8628517" data-attributes="member: 42582">In my list, I presented some as questions - ie things the player brought into play - and some as statements - ie things that were revealed as a result of play.As a player (cf GM) of FRPGs, which I am only occasionally, there are three moments that are really stuck in my mind. They all come from Burning Wheel play, and just a couple of sessions:Aramina wanting to explore Evard's tower, and Thurgon persuading her to first repair his armour. My memory for the mechanics is a bit hazy - I think it was a duel of wits, with the GM scripting for Aramina - but the situation has remained with me. As <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/judgement-calls-vs-railroading.531049/page-86#post-7131014" target="_blank">I posted back when the play took place</a>, it's not quite Vermeer: the RPG, but the (non-romantic) intimacy of the moment has stuck with me. It was made possible by some mechanical elements (rules for armour damage, and rules for the Mending skill, and neither of them too complicated in their operationalisation), by some subtle interplay of Beliefs (Thurgon: Aramina will need my protection; Aramina: I don't need Thurgon's pity), by the fact that the principles that govern framing and conflict resolution mean there is no overwhelming gameplay imperative that the armour must be repaired (contrast the crises in D&D play when PCs have to turn up to the ball unarmoured!).Thurgon and Aramina, returning to Thurgon's ancestral estate Auxol, meeting Thurgon's brother Rufus. And the resulting exchange, in which the Rufus's shame at his failings, and resulting bitterness towards Thurgon and Aramina, emerged powerfully over a series of successful and failed checks. The GM did a terrific job of framing, but the system also came through. (As it always does: Luke Crane is a genius!)Thurgon's mother Xanthippe berating him for having been away so long, and forbidding him to leave again. The GM wanted a Duel of Wits. Thurgon prayed instead, and I put everything into the dice pool, and got lucky on the roll, and it was like a Gandalf-liberates-Theoden moment as the years fell from Xanthippe's shoulders and she realised that she and Thurgon must liberate Auxol together. I hate to think what would have happened if Thurgon had duelled and lost. Would he have sunk as low as Rufus? (I think I may have had to shift to Aramina as main character for a while.)I've talked about GMing AD&D story now, but we never had moments like the ones I've described: the system can't generate them. We came close in some of our RM play, with one player and that one PC in particular. But BW does it more effortlessly.</blockquote>

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