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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8415668" data-attributes="member: 42582">This post is prompted mostly by [USER=6915329]@Faolyn[/USER]'s posts.My views on AW are probably a bit idiosyncratic. They are not shaped primarily by comparison to 3E or 5e D&D. They are shaped by comparison to scene-framing games like Burning Wheel, 4e D&D and Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic; to high-sim "task resolution" games like Rolemaster; and to Classic Traveller, which has one foot in the RM high-sim camp but also has a lot of discrete subsystems which (roughly, and as per my post upthread) take the form if you try this thing, then make this throw to succeed or else the referee will tell you what bad thing happens.I've also read a lot of Vincent Baker's design thoughts on his blog, and I think a fair bit of those thoughts is reflected in AW's design.<a href="http://www.lumpley.com/hardcore.html" target="_blank">To quote Baker</a>,Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players and GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it.The essence of the player role in a RPG, since the hobby's invention, is that the player takes on the role of an imagined person in a fictional situation, and says what it is that their character does. More formally, that is action declaration. The essence of the GM role is to describe that fictional situation - to provide both background and also more immediate framing. And once a player declares an action for their character, we then need a way to work out what happens next.What makes AW distinct, as a RPG, is how it tells the participants how to do these things. For many action declarations, the GM just says what happens next. In doing so, the GM should be guided by the game's agenda and principles. So suppose a player says I leave home and walk across the compound to see if Isle is hanging around (a bit like Marie the Brainer in the "Moves Snowball" example of play). In that example (p 152), the GM tells Marie's player that she finds Isle with Plover and Mill (all NPCs): Baker doesn't tell us what GM move this is, but we can identify it as offering an opportunity. But the GM isn't obliged to make that move. Instead, for instance, the GM could announce offscreen badness:You stroll over to the car shed where you know Isle hangs out, but the shed's been broken into and the car's not there. Isle's not there either: you can see her cap lying in the dust on the ground; and the tyre marks look like someone drove out of there in a hurry!In some ways, this is like GMing the introductory or framing parts of a D&D module. But not identical: the principles, and the GM moves used in accordance with them, will tend to drive towards conflict more quickly, and harder, than D&D by default. Less exploration, more drama.And some action declarations are player-side moves. The basic rule here is that, if you do it, you do it (pp 12, 152; the flip side is to do it, (you have to) do it). Now the next sentence cannot be emphasised enough, and [USER=6915329]@Faolyn[/USER] provides the full answer to your question about how read a (charged) situation compares to making an Insight check in D&D: because the game is super-tight and super-coherent in its design, the "free narration" parts of play - like the examples above - will naturally lead to players making these action declarations. And when they do, then the dice have to be rolled. And the outcome of the roll tells us who gets to add the next bit to the fiction, and how.For instance, in my example the situation is charged because that's what the GM has narrated: the shed's broken into, the car's missing, it looks like Isle's been taken to. If the player has their PC look around the shed, trying to work out what's gone on and what's happened to Isle, they are reading a charged situation and have to make a throw. And if they succeed, they get to ask questions which oblige the GM to introduce more elements of background and framing. As the rulebooks says (p 199),As MC, sometimes you’ll already know the answers to these and sometimes you won’t. Either way, you do have to commit to the answers when you give them.It doesn't matter to the dynamic of the game whether the GM has already made something up (Dremmer's gang broke in and stole the car and kidnapped Isle!) or is making it up now. The GM will always say what their prep demands and what the principles demand (p 109) and the principles will point towards things to say even if there is no prep (it took me only a minute or so to think up my variant on the Isle scenario). And because the GM will always say what honesty demands (p 109), further narration will snowball off those initial answers. And because after every move the GM asks, "What do you do now?" (p 116), the player will declare more actions for their PC and the cycle of creating the fiction will continue.And suppose the attempt to read a charged situation fails: then the GM can make as hard and direct a move as they like. And the principles govern here, too. Let's respond with f*****y - "As you step into the shed, you're struck from behind and fall unconscious. When you wake up, you're lying tied up in the boot of a car. You can hear Dremmer talking outside and above you." Ie, the GM has captured someone.If the prep has been light, then the difference between passing and failing on that read a sitch check could be more than just a sore head! The framing is different. The likely action declarations are different. But the backstory might be pretty different too: to me, that failure result looks more likely than the success result to be leading to a revelation that Isle conspired with Dremmer to capture the PC.I think looking at this system starting from the premise but why can I only use Insight if the situation is charged is getting things backwards: that's already assuming that every action declaration is the same as a prompt to the GM to introduce new framing or reveal new backstory. The distinctive character, and brilliance, of AW is that it's not. I hope this post has helped explain that in a bit more detail.</blockquote>

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