Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 9081831" data-attributes="member: 6696971">So here is a Mouse Guard way to look at this and a contrast with that:* The players take on the role of a member of the Mouse Guard (maybe a Patrol Guard, a Captain, or a Tenderpaw).  As the Seasons churn toward the rest and respite of Winter, these Ranger-Knights take on Missions throughout The Territories to keep the 8 communities, the outlying settlements, and the connective, topographical tissue between safe, secure, and infrastructurally/logistically/social-fabric-wise connected.  The dangers to The Territories and what The Guard cares about are Animals, Mice, Weather, Wilderness.This is what is the game is about.  * The players build their member of The Mouse Guard with some combination (depending upon how the lifepath works out) a Hometown, Parents, Senior Artisan, Friend/Ally, Enemy/Rival, Mentor.  They all possess a Nature, Belief, Instinct, and a Mission-specific Goal.Threatening and invoking and citing these things as nexus of conflict is what the game is about.  [HR][/HR]An alternative to this model is:* The PCs aren't attached to a premise that propels every moment of play.* The PCs don't possess a home, people, a nature/belief/creed/motivation that propels every moment of play.* The setting has lots and lots and lots and lots of people and places with motivations (some discrete, some interconnected, many of low stakes/magnitude, some of high stakes/magnitude in terms of consequences).* Its the job of the players, through their PCs, to explore that setting, find those peoples and places with motivations (that aren't natively PC-centered).  Its the job of the GM to play those peoples and places with motivations, dropping hooks, relating relevant exposition when prompted, bread-crumbing intrigues/mysteries.  Now, the players further job is to "get in on the action," onboarding and furthering setting goals they like and defying setting goals they don't like. This is the propulsive fuel for play.[HR][/HR]I mean those are pretty different, right (in both orientation of the participants and the process of the play)?  In the first, its the GM's job to "get in on the action" with "the action" being defined by the intersection of the bolded stuff at the top.  In the second, its the player's job to do the "getting in on the action" with the action being the bolded stuff in the 3rd bullet point.TLDR:  The big differences are in (i) "where is the site (system, GM, players) of the say on what is the action" and (ii) "whose job is it to get in on the action of the party that decided (i)?"</blockquote>

Verification