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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8410403" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'll chalk this one up to there's no accounting for taste, if that's OK with you!There's a lot here!Starting with the mechanics not simulating the world - they don't (in, say, the RQ or RM sense) but also they do. Why is there a custom move when we try to shortcut through Dremmer's territory? Why do we have a move for acting under fire but not for climbing up a scree slope - so the latter may just trigger GM narration unless it also, for some other reason in the fiction, counts as acting under fire? These are all used to establish the setting.Look at Classic Traveller, and reword the mechanics a bit. When you try a non-ordinary manoeuvre in a vacc-suit, throw 10+ (+4 per level of vacc suit expertise). If you fail, the referee will tell you what sort of trouble you're in. Throw 7+ to remedy the situation (-4 if no vacc suit expertise; +2 per level of vacc suit expertise). If you fail, the referee will tell you the consequence - and you won't like it!Likewise When you try to make contact for the purposes of obtaining information, hiring persons, purchasing contraband or stolen goods, etc, make a throw dictated by the referee (eg the name of an official willing to issue licenses without hassle = 5+, the location of high quality guns at a low price = 9+; -5 if no Streetwise expertise; +1 per level of Streetwise expertise). Close-knit sub-cultures (such as some portions of the lower classes, and trade groups such as workers, the underworld, etc) generally reject contact with strangers or unknown elements; if you fail, the referee will tell you how they have rejected you.When you pilot your air/raft in a chase, throw 5+ (+1 per level of air/raft expertise); if you fail, the referee will tell you what mishap ensues. When you jump out of a starsystem in your starship, make a throw [actual number required varies a bit between 1977 and 1981 versions) to avoid drive failure.I hope that gives the idea. I remember back in the 80s reading stuff in White Dwarf critiquing the lack of a general resolution framework in Traveller, and offering suggestions to make it more like RQ or RM (which do have such a framework). But looking at it now, and having played quite a bit of it (using the 1977 chassis) over the past few years, I see the various baroque subsystems as a strength: each is a little PbtA-style move that focuses on some bit of the action that matters for science fiction adventure in the far future. It's not as elegant as PbtA - it doesn't exploit the 2d6 maths in the same way, and tends to lack the two steps forward/one step back aspect of the PbtA 7-9 results - but I think it's there in a proto-form. And is (in my view) very playable in that sort of fashion.Trying to pick up on some of your other points:The integration of combat and non-combat is found in earlier systems too: Prince Valiant to a significant extent; Maelstrom Storytelling; HeroWars/Quest; as an option in Burning Wheel (using intent and task, or Bloody Versus); and of course in Baker's earlier games like DitV and In A Wicked Age. I think the PbtA innovation in this respect is taking that approach out of the scene-framed context that looms large in those other systems, and instead locating it in an if you do it, you do it framework.On prep: I think Burning Wheel is a low-prep game (unless you count "burning" NPCs and monsters; but it has no prep of plot or even events really) that strongly rewards play in its prescribed low-prep way, and it predates AW. Prince Valiant doesn't promote itself as low-prep, but can be run like that. And so can Classic Traveller, especially taking advantage of its content-generation tools (random patron encounters, random worlds, etc). In A Wicked Age doesn't require prep beyond a "game setup" phase (that is much quicker than what I understand Fate's to be!). I tend to see this as an area where AW is at the lower end of innovation, personally.What I see as perhaps the greatest, or at least culturally most important, innovation in AW is so clearly stating the principles that are meant to govern the GM's role. That the GM will announce future badness or misdirect by not speaking the name of the move they make is not new, from the point of view of technique. But spelling it out is a new thing.Burning Wheel is very clear, by the standards of a RPG text, on how it is to be run. But its advice to the GM on how to narrate consequences of failure doesn't really go beyond focus on the intent rather than the task. (The Adventure Burner goes further.) Baker, on the other hand, really drills down into significant varieties of GM-fiction-introduction. One consequence in BW might be taking away their stuff (losing gear, having tools break, etc is clearly a part of the game), but Luke Crane doesn't actually come out and give you this thought-out list of consequences you might narrate on a failure.Like I said upthread, I'm in no way wanting to deny the brilliance of AW as a game or Baker as a designer.</blockquote>

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