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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 8417741" data-attributes="member: 85870">Heh, I'm chuckling at myself now, because much like the other participants in the conversation, I'm trying to figure out how to actually explain the principles of play in a way that makes sense without just saying, "Play the game and find out." So I mentioned playing Ironsworn solo earlier, because it's a great way to demonstrate the overall principles when playing PbtA with a group or when you're the GM. So let's take your scenario you proposed earlier: So imagine you're playing Ironsworn solo. So you're both the player and GM and the same time . . . but you're playing in a principled manner, and you're using the Ironsworn "Oracles" tables to guide decision points that are uncertain, helping you discover what's happening in the game world right along with your character. So think for a minute about how you would run a mystery like this. The existence of a situation around "one or more people have died, likely murdered", wouldn't have been preconceived in anything but the most general terms by you, the player/GM beforehand. Why would you even bother coming up with an elaborate plot your character is going to uncover when playing solo, when the "GM half" of your mind already knows exactly what happened and who's responsible? Answer is, you wouldn't. It would be boring. More likely, in Ironsworn, the situation you describe would have arisen as one of many possibilities from a failed roll, or a partial success roll with complications. In the moment, you'd be thinking of complications, obstacles that might arise from the current fictional situation. You made a move earlier, and are adhering to the consequences described. So maybe you or the Oracle tables present a situationally relevant complication that is now in front of you and your character --- "Some people have died, and it's entirely possible they've been murdered." Cool, awesome! Something to explore. But the underlying context cannot be pre-authored ahead of time for it to be meaningful to you in play. It can't pre-exist as a GM-authored situation for it to be fun.  Okay, so, next your character goes out and looks for information. Along the way you invoke moves specific to your search, in the appropriate contexts. As a result of the success/partial success with complication/failure, you in the very moment of resolving those moves create contextually appropriate, relevant clues --- oral histories provided by witnesses, blood samples, tattered piece of a cloak, footprints, whatever.But since you are literally authoring this simultaneously as you are playing, the discoveries follow from the context, the fiction, the moves being invoked, and the principles of play associated with those moves individually and the general ethos/spirit of Ironsworn generally. And depending on how a set of moves play out, some of the relevant context from earlier moves only becomes fully clear as you progress. Hmmm, why was there a set of hoofprints next to the river, but no sign of tack or offal anywhere? Hmmm, does that mean maybe a local was involved? Ah, that would explain why someone at the stable was so anxious to get me away from there yesterday morning. What was his name? Oh yeah, it was Gregor, right? (And maybe right up until that very moment, there was no character named Gregor in the town, manning the stables, but because it now fits the other moves and clues, it is now part of the fiction).  These are things that arise through your own authoring experience, as you explore the situation and come to conclusions---with the help of the Oracles---that are fully grounded in the fiction, your character's situation, and how those situations apply to your character's understanding of the world.Now, if that doesn't sound like a satisfying way to run a mystery scenario, fair enough. If you don't think you and your players are disciplined enough or creative enough or fair-minded enough to really let the story emerge this way, hey, it's understandable. It takes a very firm mindset (especially in solo play) to not just author immediate solutions for your character to get everything (s)he wants, when (s)he wants it. So, now imagine needing to apply that same level of principled play to a GM-led scenario. The only difference when you switch from Ironsworn solo play to GM-led play is that the GM can, at their discretion, occasionally set up some additional flavor, context, and obstacles in the moment during play that should resonate with the players, rather than wholly relying on the Oracles tables.But this in no way should assume that the GM is creating huge swaths of backstory (more on that below). Again, it's less about the mechanics and more about the principles involved. For social encounters In PbtA, 1) the level of stakes must rise to being worthy of a check even being made at all, and 2) there are constraints imposed on the GM when you get certain levels of success in your move checks. The GM MUST provide a certain quality of information / interaction / context / value. If (s)he does not provide the appropriate quality of response based on your check, (s)he is violating the principles of the game. In a very real way, if the GM is behaving against these principles, by rules as written (s)he is sabotaging the game.I don't think that ethos exists at all in D&D. In D&D, it's technically impossible for the GM to do so. GMs are welcome to provide as little or as much information as they desire on any successful information gathering check. Well, no. But yes. But no. But yes, mostly . . . . In Ironsworn, the whole "what's going on" isn't really authored beforehand. The whole point is that the GM hasn't even bothered to create most of this backstory beforehand, because the game neither requires it, nor even wants it in the first place.If there's any "hidden GM backstory" involved at all, it should be largely sweeping generalities, with a few "fronts" that are currently in play that may impact what happens to the characters. The goal is that the GM and players should in 90%+ of cases collaborate on key backstory elements, especially in areas that are germaine to the character's goals and drives.Again, it's a flipping of the script from traditional D&D / other "trad" games. The goal is to explore what really matters to the character, in this moment, in this context, right now. Backstory only becomes important as it intersects with that principle of play. Until then, it should be left in the shadows, vague and unseen, until such point in time that a critical moment, a critical decision, brings it into the light --- at which point the players and GM work together to hammer down its importance, relevance, and adjacency to the action happening right now.Hopefully you can see, if this is the assumed play model, that creating huge swaths of detailed backstory beforehand is not helpful. Backstory elements should remain fluid as long as possible---but once they are nailed down, they are nailed down. They are now just as much a part of the fictional framing as anything else.When I ran Ironsworn with a group, my basic premise was that the PCs were living out their own version of the Vinland Saga in Guy Gavriel Kay's "alternate historical world" of his novels The Last Light of the Sun and The Lions of Al-Rassan. But that was really just to give enough color and baseline "grounding" into what kind of world it was. At no point did I expect any of the characters to have any notion or conception of the events of the novels, nor would they have any interaction with any of the places or characters within the novels. Other than that basic background, all I set up was a couple of key fronts, an inciting incident, and detailed maybe 5 or 6 NPCs that lived in the immediate dwelling where the game started. That's it.</blockquote>

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