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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6366750" data-attributes="member: 4937">No, Exploder couldn't be more right.  He has clearly understood DW on a deep level.  His objective analysis is spot on.  You don't have to agree with his subjective opinion that this is "bad", and in point of fact I don't, but the objective part of his analysis that DW prioritized the rules over the fiction and makes the fiction serve the rules is exactly right.  And his statement that DW primarily has the players interact with the rules rather than the fiction is also exactly right.This is obvious if you've read the rules of DW.   Are you sure you've read the rules of DW?In traditional RPGs the goal is to create rules that adjudicate the outcome of player propositions in a way that is 'naturalistic'.   Fail forward therefore, if it occurs, occurs not because the rules demand it, but because the setting demands it.  For example, it might be the case that the players are trying to escape down a corridor and are blocked by an obstacle, and if they fail their fortune roll to remove the obstacle and they are being pursued and the pursuit is a certain distance away that the players will then be caught by the pursuit slowly because they can't change the game state (the obstacle) fast enough.  But the rules certainly don't demand that if the game state is unchanged that the narrative changes in some way.  Complications don't have to happen.  In DW and other 'new school' RPGs, the rules are intended to adjudicate the outcome of propositions in a way that is 'dramatic' rather than 'natural'.   Thus, the rules may actually demand that complications occur whenever the game state fails to change.  For example, it might be the case that the players are trying to escape down a corridor and are blocked by an obstacle, and if they fail their fortune roll to remove the obstacle then they are being pursued and pursuit is a certain distance away because they failed the roll and not because it was a prior state of the fiction.   This is a subtle but very important distinction.   In the first example the drama is relative to the time and space established by the fiction, and the rules look first to this prior existing myth.   In the second example, the time and space within the fiction is relative to the drama, and the fiction looks first to the outcome of the dramatic fortune roll.   ExploderWizard finds that 'bad', and you can argue that he's wrong about that, but if you argue that he's dead wrong about the priorities and purpose then you are the one that is dead wrong.Consider further his contention, "What happens in the game world is largely a result of players interacting with the rules structure instead of the setting."  If he is in fact wrong about that, why do you think that the DW rules in virtually every example of play go to the extraordinary length of providing an example of the GM misinterpreting what 'move' the game intends to relate to every individual fictional proposition, have the GM be corrected in the example, and then correctly applying the right move for each fictional proposition.   I certainly can't think of any other rules set that has gone to this extraordinary of length.  (In fact, it's so repetitive in their examples that it became for me a source of humor that the fictional GMs self-deprecating statements in each example could never quite turn from me laughing at the writer to laughing with the rules writer.)   DW goes to extraordinary lengths to ensure that every possible player proposition can be pigeon holed into a narrow mechanical proposition in an effort to ensure that no possible fictional proposition can't be resolved as a narrow rules interaction.   And it goes to extraordinary lengths to ensure that the GM 'gets' which 'move' is intended for any particular sort of proposition.   Moreover, it defines 'What you can do' very narrowly in terms of the unique mechanical propositions that you can make - your own personal set of moves.   This is unequivocally ensuring that anything that happens within the fiction is the product of the players interacting with a rules structure and that nothing can be said about the fiction that can't be narrowly interpreted mechanically.  The moves structure is built around always knowing what rules apply to every fictional proposition.  That's it's goal of the design.  That why they did it and that why they care so much to teach how to get this mapping right, and why they are willing in all their examples of play to demonstrate stopping play and prioritizing the move over the fiction in order to get the rules interaction right.  The rules repeatedly say, that if the GM doesn't 'get' what move you were trying to trigger from your fictional proposition, stop him OOC immediately and restate your intention as a mechanical move.   Interaction with the mechanics is prioritized over interaction with the fiction in every single freaking example and yet somehow you don't get this and feel the need to tell ExploderWizard he's absolutely wrong and he needs to go read the rules?  Who is not familiar with the rules again?Now, I don't necessarily feel this arrangement is bad.   In a year or two, when one of my girls is ready, I'm considering giving DW rules to her as an option for when she's ready to GM her own games because its a great introductory system because it demands virtually no on the fly rules smithing by the GM and involves comparatively little GM judgment.   And I love the way the rules and the system seem to be built around teaching the GM how think about running a game in order to achieve a particular result.  There are lots of advice around organizing your thinking as a GM that are just great for a novice GM of any system IMO.  But, the mechanics and the system are definitely organized around the sort of things ExploderWizard describes.</blockquote>

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