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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8647982" data-attributes="member: 6696971">All of this talk about “a safe” had me thinking about a recent Stonetop session with the PCs Cullen (Judge) and Dap (Lightbringer) played by [USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER] and [USER=16814]@Ovinomancer[/USER] respectively.They were trying to resolve a Threat that had manifested several sessions back (and was nearing its final box toward Impending Doom). Some fiction that emerged from a prior Gordin’s Delve Adventure + an Opportunity result on Seasons Change (the gang is exiled from the dangerous Gordin’s Delve) + a divination by Dap + a Perilous Journey finds the PCs and the Gordin’s Delve exiled gang they’re looking for (their leader in particular and his inherited amulet) as the thralls of an Invasion of the Bodysnatcher’s type leviathan from the depths of the reservoir; all connected to it by long tendrils.The leader can’t be found at the campsite. Things get dangerous pretty quickly and Dap and Grunhilda (one of three Stonetop guards they Requisitioned for the journey) look through the campsight for Jollum (a Seek Insight move). They locate a large, posh tent with tendrils going into it but happens to have the leather flaps closed and tied from inside.Of course Jollum is in there but it’s not about whether Jollum is in there or not. It’s about what else is in there and how the nature of the situation in the tent challenges Dap’s Instinct (Hope), Cullen’s Instinct (Harmony), their need to get their requisitioned Stonetop residents (the guards) out of imminent danger, the need to resolve the Threat (the point of tracking down the gang in the first place), and the need to secure assets to improve Stonetop’s disposition (figuring out their already challenged Loadout in the interim).And then Dap goes and makes an extremely intense move in the tent (carefully saving their enemy by making a move to extract the tendrils from him without killing him and then “hooking himself up to the kaiju and having a therapy session; “drifting the kaiju” as [USER=16814]@Ovinomancer[/USER] put it”).In a traditional D&D game exempt from Story Now designs, this is likely how the scene ends up:100 Gold CoinsAmulet retrievedGang left to die as thralls of leviathanOr gang killed and leviathan killedThis is how that scene ended up:No Gold for StonetopA cursed infant taken onA very troubled gang youth taken onThe befriending of a forlorn kaiju (he just wanted a friend <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="🙁" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" title="Slightly frowning face    :slight_frown:" data-shortname=":slight_frown:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" />) that will require Season-spanning upkeepA secured amuletA dangerous gang left alive after parley with leadership and them being saved from the leviathan (a gang that will want revenge on the troubled youth - a result of a move made in the camp - who “turned colors” and is now a Stonetopper).[HR][/HR]A game with Gamism as its play-directing priority neither has the constituent elements of the fiction introduced this way (and for these purposes) nor does it EVER resolve this way!In either an HCS or a Process Sim game, the way and reason for the constituent elements of the shared imagined space are brought about is entirely different (and it’s different for each of them relative to each other) + the players’ orientation to play (and content generation and “stance”). And the process of play itself and the orientation to the play by the participants is entirely different. In HCS, it’s possible that the scene resolves this way (but the means to get their, the orientation to the play, and the experience of the participants will be wholly different). In play directed by Process Sim-priorities? No way no how does this scene emerge, unfold, or resolve this way (and the orientation to the play is wholly different).The orientation of play (and the participants) to generating and resolving the “the contents of the safe” is deeply different in Story Now vs Gamism vs  High Concept Sim vs Process Sim. Some of that is technical (eg task vs conflict resolution) and some of that is principles/best practices of play and some of that is authority distribution and some of that is incentive structures but ALL OF IT is the integrated superstructure of system and the attendant orientation to/procedures for generating content and resolving it.</blockquote>

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