Torchbearer 2nd ed: first impressions

[clearstream]

How is this different from what @pemerton is saying? Only play can or will determine what becomes canonical fiction, and that can only, definitionally by the laws of temporal mechanics, be something that occurred in the past.

What version of fictional positioning it is tested against seems to be where we don't agree.

I say that by the laws of temporal physics it can only occur in the present. It is tested, yes? We agree that. When is it tested? Now.

I say that only the present version of the fictional position is available to be tested against.

That is what is meant, only further play resolves it. Thus whatever we are thinking is the situation NOW is simply a hypothesis about the shared fiction, not established (again said establishment may be trivial, so the distinction is not always very important). In many game systems, like TB2, the importance of the distinction is pretty large, as only the use of specific mechanics and interaction with specific cues can resolve it.

Language to describe time is notoriously confusing. Suppose that when 20:00 was now, D made a declaration. That's D's hypothesis. Here at 20:05 we test our beliefs about fictional positioning. Beliefs we can only have now i.e. given our present cognitive states.

I think it is determined by querying those states, and using the process of play to resolve these hypotheses and prove them true or false. Again, some will be relatively uncontroversial. Everyone may clearly understand they are in a hallway, and that the walls cannot be passed through or over, but I would say this is so BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN RESOLVED ALREADY. Now, in solo play the mechanisms of such resolution may be substantively different from say TB2, where you have a GM. OK, but I think the player still constructs some idea (hypothesis) about what the fiction will be/is and then tests it somehow. If no such test exists, whatsoever, then I'm not sure where the GAME part of an RPG would reside...

Supposing all involved collectively forgot there was a wall, not a door at the end of a hall (and we're not using a drawn map.) When they say they go through the door now, what happens?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Supposing all involved collectively forgot there was a wall, not a door at the end of a hall (and we're not using a drawn map.) When they say they go through the door now, what happens?

Look, obviously the participants can agree on any alteration to the fiction they want, even to things that have been causally established, that is become canonical. Obviously this will create an incoherent narrative in those cases, but otherwise it is just an agreement to make a change. I don't think whether is is due to 'forgetting' or some other process really matters. In that case the FICTIONAL PAST is now "there has always been a door here", though obviously the IRL trajectory of the fiction's history includes a retcon. Honestly, when we are talking about the past state of the fiction, what is 'past'?

I mean, remember the classic Sci-Fi story about the guy who invents the time machine, and the then the spy shows up and tells him "You fool, what have you done, the past starts an INFINITESSIMAL instant before 'now', you have just abolished the very concept of secrets!" (IE I can simply use the machine to look at a 'past time' 1 nanosecond ago). Likewise, much of the time our testing of fiction will happen very quickly upon its first arrival in play. To argue about 'now' vs 'a microscopic instant ago' is to split hairs pointlessly.

 

[clearstream]

Look, obviously the participants can agree on any alteration to the fiction they want, even to things that have been causally established, that is become canonical. Obviously this will create an incoherent narrative in those cases, but otherwise it is just an agreement to make a change. I don't think whether is is due to 'forgetting' or some other process really matters. In that case the FICTIONAL PAST is now "there has always been a door here", though obviously the IRL trajectory of the fiction's history includes a retcon. Honestly, when we are talking about the past state of the fiction, what is 'past'?

I'm not suggesting a retcon or disingenous "forgetting". Rather I am outlining a thought experiment to help see that it is player cognitive states now that are used to judge fictional position (to agree or deny the hypothesis). People are occasionally forgetful. Someone says something like - "Wasn't there a door there?" - and everyone may nod even if as it happens, half an hour ago, it had been established there were only walls. We forgot, or perhaps we didn't care, or maybe it suited us. In the case of genuine forgetting, the narration will continue coherently for those involved. (Given we genuinely forgot, we're not in possession of any conflicting facts to produce a sense of incoherence.)

I mean, remember the classic Sci-Fi story about the guy who invents the time machine, and the then the spy shows up and tells him "You fool, what have you done, the past starts an INFINITESSIMAL instant before 'now', you have just abolished the very concept of secrets!" (IE I can simply use the machine to look at a 'past time' 1 nanosecond ago). Likewise, much of the time our testing of fiction will happen very quickly upon its first arrival in play. To argue about 'now' vs 'a microscopic instant ago' is to split hairs pointlessly.

I won't adress the question of whether arguing about now vs a microscopic instant ago would be splitting hairs, because that isn't what I've been arguing. To tie this back to what I was arguing, I proposed two descriptions of events. I'll update the second as follows. I've flipped the arrows to make it clearer that I agree the declarations are tests against fictional positioning at that moment.

We have a pursuit fictional position which we know (have agreed) to be containing gnolls, a shadowy tunnel, H at its mouth, a crossbow.

1. Pursuit fictional position <- ambush declaration
2. Ambush fictional position <- test = tie FitM + tied fictional position
3. Tie <- spending fate declaration
4. Fate = tie FitM <- fateful fictional position
5. Fateful fictional position + tie <- trait-against-self declaration
6. No one calls bull
7. T-A-S = tie breaks against H, H gains two checks, outcome fictional position

At 1. the ambush declaration is validated in a fictional position evaluated at that time (the pursuit fictional position.)
At 2. the fictional position has been agreed to contain an H intent on ambush, and this drives a test, which results in a tie (case of FitM.) Here I am suggesting that it is either unavoidable or very likely that - were a hypothesis put to players - their evaluations would be influenced by the tie. I observe folk narrating that sort of thing during play sessions. There is a noticeable difference versus narration around wide disparities in number of successes. The SIS changes.
At 3. I believe that spending fate isn't subject to validation by the group. (Happy to be corrected if mistaken.)
At 4. The trait against self declaration has to be validated by the group (per Reaching) so there is a test at this time of fictional positioning. My intuition is that it will be normal for the tied roll to be a factor in grasping how things stand beyond its provision of a system state that permits or prompts the declaration (i.e. how things stand in the fiction.) Folk will be considering the use of Cunning in light of the tie. They'll think about what D says: does it make sense where things are tight? It seems unavoidable and in fact desirable to me that the tied roll can influence their grasp of the fictional position. I also suspect that for some groups, sometimes, the "denied" fate itself will inform their sense of the fiction. (Hence fateful fictional position, to leave the door open to that possibility.)

So that is what was at issue. I picture that the time between 2. and 5. will be minutes or certainly no less than seconds. Anything much over 1/5th of a second is long enough for cognition to accurately respond to information.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm not suggesting a retcon or disingenous "forgetting". Rather I am outlining a thought experiment to help see that it is player cognitive states now that are used to judge fictional position (to agree or deny the hypothesis). People are occasionally forgetful. Someone says something like - "Wasn't there a door there?" - and everyone may nod even if as it happens, half an hour ago, it had been established there were only walls. We forgot, or perhaps we didn't care, or maybe it suited us. In the case of genuine forgetting, the narration will continue coherently for those involved. (Given we genuinely forgot, we're not in possession of any conflicting facts to produce a sense of incoherence.)


I won't adress the question of whether arguing about now vs a microscopic instant ago would be splitting hairs, because that isn't what I've been arguing. To tie this back to what I was arguing, I proposed two descriptions of events. I'll update the second as follows. I've flipped the arrows to make it clearer that I agree the declarations are tests against fictional positioning at that moment.

We have a pursuit fictional position which we know (have agreed) to be containing gnolls, a shadowy tunnel, H at its mouth, a crossbow.

1. Pursuit fictional position <- ambush declaration
2. Ambush fictional position <- test = tie FitM + tied fictional position
3. Tie <- spending fate declaration
4. Fate = tie FitM <- fateful fictional position
5. Fateful fictional position + tie <- trait-against-self declaration
6. No one calls bull
7. T-A-S = tie breaks against H, H gains two checks, outcome fictional position

At 1. the ambush declaration is validated in a fictional position evaluated at that time (the pursuit fictional position.)
At 2. the fictional position has been agreed to contain an H intent on ambush, and this drives a test, which results in a tie (case of FitM.) Here I am suggesting that it is either unavoidable or very likely that - were a hypothesis put to players - their evaluations would be influenced by the tie. I observe folk narrating that sort of thing during play sessions. There is a noticeable difference versus narration around wide disparities in number of successes. The SIS changes.
At 3. I believe that spending fate isn't subject to validation by the group. (Happy to be corrected if mistaken.)
At 4. The trait against self declaration has to be validated by the group (per Reaching) so there is a test at this time of fictional positioning. My intuition is that it will be normal for the tied roll to be a factor in grasping how things stand beyond its provision of a system state that permits or prompts the declaration (i.e. how things stand in the fiction.) Folk will be considering the use of Cunning in light of the tie. They'll think about what D says: does it make sense where things are tight? It seems unavoidable and in fact desirable to me that the tied roll can influence their grasp of the fictional position. I also suspect that for some groups, sometimes, the "denied" fate itself will inform their sense of the fiction. (Hence fateful fictional position, to leave the door open to that possibility.)

So that is what was at issue. I picture that the time between 2. and 5. will be minutes or certainly no less than seconds. Anything much over 1/5th of a second is long enough for cognition to accurately respond to information.

I still think the point is valid, that we cannot say what, exactly the fiction was at time X until AFTER we test what happened at time X, that's all we are saying. H is at the mouth of the cave, can he stop the gnolls? We don't know if the conditions prevailing at that moment actually allow for that possibility or not until we test it, in the process of which we create a new fictional position located at time X+N (where N is probably at least related to the mechanics, but may also relate to other things like what action was taken).

 

[pemerton]

I'm not suggesting a retcon or disingenous "forgetting". Rather I am outlining a thought experiment to help see that it is player cognitive states now that are used to judge fictional position (to agree or deny the hypothesis). People are occasionally forgetful. Someone says something like - "Wasn't there a door there?" - and everyone may nod even if as it happens, half an hour ago, it had been established there were only walls. We forgot, or perhaps we didn't care, or maybe it suited us. In the case of genuine forgetting, the narration will continue coherently for those involved. (Given we genuinely forgot, we're not in possession of any conflicting facts to produce a sense of incoherence.)

In these sorts of cases, or Baker's imagined example of the smelly chamberlain, there can be uncertainty over the fiction.

For instance, what happens if everyone "remembers" the door and then, an hour later, someone turns up an old map in their notes from a month ago that reveals actually the door was in another room that everyone had forgotten about? At some tables, the map prevails and we have to retcon the last hour of play. At some tables, the last hour of play prevails - it turns out the map was wrong (all along! even though it was "correct" - ie conformed to what everyone was agreeing vis-a-vis the fiction) when drawn a month ago). At some tables, it's the GM's job to reconcile all this, a bit like an old Marvel letters page "no prize" - the GM makes up some secret background fiction that explains why the door disappeared, and perhaps even explains why all the PCs forgot about it (I'm actually doing something similar to this in my current 4e game, though it's a carried item rather than a door, and the failure of record keeping is not on a map but on a PC equipment list).

At some tables, maybe the argument over the door is enough to break the group up, just like one of the possible outcomes of the smelly chamberlain.

But nothing like this is going on in the example of play in the Scholar's Guide.

What version of fictional positioning it is tested against seems to be where we don't agree.

I say that by the laws of temporal physics it can only occur in the present. It is tested, yes? We agree that. When is it tested? Now.

I say that only the present version of the fictional position is available to be tested against.

Here is what Baker has in mind (at least as it seems to me, and I think also to @AbdulAlhzared):

* Dro has a conception of the fictional situation - Harguld in the cave mouth, crossbow ready to shoot; Gnolls are closing in.

* Thor has a conception of the fictional situation, presumably similar - and adds to it: A Gnoll scout emerges from the shadows down the tunnel! Is Thor correct about the fictional position, that it permits a Gnoll scout to emerge like that? Thor can't be certain until he posits it and finds out - as Baker says 'When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not." What if the PCs had earlier generated some sort of Magelight effect that made it impossible for there to be shadows, but Thor had forgotten it? Or what if Thor remembered it, but thought that the pillars in the area would create shadows despite the bright light? Also relevant here is Thor's authority, as GM, which is typically high when it comes to framing the arrival of NPCs like the Gnoll.

* Dro accepts Thor's suggestion - thus retroactively confirming that Thor was correct about the fiction - and adds some more fiction - Harguld shoots! ("I put a bolt in his face!") Players have a high degree of authority over fiction about what their PCs are doing, but is there some other element of the shared fiction that's relevant here? When Thor progresses to action resolution, calling for a Fighter test, Thor reveals that he accepts Dro's understanding of his fictional position. Again, we see the "retroactivity" that Baker refers to - Dro can only know what moves are open to him, in virtue of the shared fiction, after he declares a move and no one objects that he's got the fiction wrong.

* Dice are rolled, and tied, and Dro decides that Harguld waited too long. Is this consistent with his fictional position, or is it reaching? Dro only finds out that it is permitted, ie that it is not reaching, after declaring it, when no one objects. So now the fiction includes not only Harguld, and a Gnoll, and a crossbow shot, but the Gnoll having got close to Harguld because Harguld, trying to be cunning, waited too long.

* Thor, using his authority to decide what happens on a failed check by a player, authors yet more fiction: the Gnoll is driven back by Harguld's shot, but Harguld feels fear. Notice that Thor is once again learning, after making the suggestion about what the fiction should contain, whether or not others accept it as consistent with the shared fiction. What would have happened if, rather than fear, Thor had suggested sick as the condition, or injured? Maybe Dro would have protested, and Thor would have had to backtrack? I can see angry (because of Harguld's frustration at having misjudged things), or even exhausted (from holding the crossbow, poised to shoot, as the Gnoll slowly slinked closer and closer before its final rush). I can't really see hungry and thirsty but Dro mightn't protest because it's a light consequence.​

As I posted upthread, I think this is all fairly clear. I don't think it needs any departure from Baker's framework. Nor any account of what fictional position is beyond what Baker says: the fiction-derived/determined component of the set of legitimate moves open to a RPG participant.

 

[pemerton]

tied fictional position

This is not a "fictional position". It's a mechanical state of affairs. See further below in this post.

fateful fictional position

This is not a "fictional position". It's a mechanical state of affairs.

spending fate isn't subject to validation by the group.

It also isn't changing anything about the fiction.

outcome fictional position

This is not a "fictional position". It's a mechanical state of affairs. The fictional position hasn't changed since Dro declared I put a bolt in his face!

Following the use of the trait, Dro adds to the fiction - ie that Harguld waited too long before taking his shot.

The fact that Harguld waited is now part of Dro's fictional position - and, as per my post just upthread - it informs Thor's establishing of a consequence (ie afraid is OK, sick probably isn't).

the fictional position has been agreed to contain an H intent on ambush, and this drives a test

No. Dro adds - or, rather, suggests an addition - to the fiction that Harguld shoots at the Gnoll. Thor has three options in response to that: (1) reject the suggested addition to the fiction, but for the reasons I posted just upthread it's not surprising that Dro's action declaration is accepted; (2) treat the action declaration as a "good idea" and narrate something that follows; (3) call for a test. Thor calls for test.

There's no evidence that Harguld is intent on an ambush - as far as I know, the Gnolls know he's there - only that he is intent on shooting at approaching Gnolls from his position in the cave mouth. But in any event it is the action declaration that leads to Thor calling for a test.

Here I am suggesting that it is either unavoidable or very likely that - were a hypothesis put to players - their evaluations would be influenced by the tie. I observe folk narrating that sort of thing during play sessions. There is a noticeable difference versus narration around wide disparities in number of successes. The SIS changes.

I have no knowledge of how your group plays Torchbearer beyond your posts.

Canonically, though, a tie does not generate new fiction. As we see in this case! (And I assume that Thor and Luke intend their example of play to illustrate the canonical game procedures.) Upthread (post 204) I already said a bit about the difference, in this respect, between a tie in BW and a tie in Torchbearer.

The trait against self declaration has to be validated by the group (per Reaching) so there is a test at this time of fictional positioning. My intuition is that it will be normal for the tied roll to be a factor in grasping how things stand beyond its provision of a system state that permits or prompts the declaration (i.e. how things stand in the fiction.) Folk will be considering the use of Cunning in light of the tie. They'll think about what D says: does it make sense where things are tight?

In Torchbearer, the GM should only call for a test if things are tight.

Suppose, instead of using the trait to break a tie, Dro had used the trait in advance of rolling the dice, to give himself a -1D penalty? He could have narrated it exactly the same way, and there is no reason to think it would be any more (or less) of a reach.

 

[clearstream]

I have no knowledge of how your group plays Torchbearer beyond your posts.

Likewise! Maybe it will help if we clarify the experiences informing our arguments?

I gather you play with family members and a university or peer group. Based on the titles you reference, I assume you have decades of TTRPG experience. My grasp of how you play is that you don't allow mechanical cues to influence your fiction, except where the game designers have dictated that unequivocally in writing. (I've worded that strongly only in the hope that it will be easier for you to clarify.) Funnily enough, you often cite titles that chimed now or in the past with my own tastes.

I play with family members, a peer group (formerly a university group, now more often work colleagues), and in the last few years folk I connect with on discord or VTT. Like you I have decades of TTRPG experience. My work has kept me in close connection with games and gamers. I have also been involved with research on play and cognition over several years. One caveat is that the overwhelming majority of folk I have played with have been committed gamers: more steeped in gaming than average. (Average for players broadly I mean, not average for these boards.) I and the folk I have played with do allow mechanical cues to influence our fiction, while also aiming to take advantage of the game as designed.

Broadly, I view games as tools. As I've said elsewhere, I share Aareth's intuition that they amount to mechanisms. Tools have expected uses that they are shaped for, but a tool's use is ultimately settled by its user.

 

[Manbearcat]

As one of the few gamers of Torchbearer on this website, I've been vaguely following along. Let me just offer the following to the conversation.

@clearstream , I get why you're keen on including participant cognitive states to the fictional positioning of any given instance of play. I do. So let me unpack that:

1) Any imagined space, definitionally (because, despite it being communicated, it is imagined and therefore prone to a number of biases), must include the cognitive state (and its attendant variability) of the person imagining it. If you're sad, inattentive, distracted, excited, etc, this is going to perturb your personal imagined space (with respect to what it might be otherwise in a different cognitive state). Even if just subtly.

2) This subtle (or greater) perturbance of cognitive state will necessarily perturb your actual decision-space or at least your perception of it.

3) When you extend this to multiple participants at any given table (say 1 GM and 3 players), their individual imagined spaces is not just apt to have some drift from one imagining to the next, its a surety.

4) Consequently, the shared imagined space of the table will be a somewhat (or greater) volatile place. So the individual decision-space in which they perform their OODA (observe > orient > decide > act) will be somewhat (or greater) at odds with each other. One person might perceive a move that another has not been able to access because of their particular cognitive state (and its downstream effect on their individual imagined space). And vice versa and on and on.


So I get it.

BUT...

This formulation is not useful to conversation for a number of reasons. The most important is that it just bakes in a level of variability...and not just variability, but a series of unknowns...that effectively makes conversation on the subject intractable.

Further, every human endeavor is prone to this error at both the individual level and then proliferated at the collective level. So its just pointless to get bogged down in this. We communicate our best to clarify and shore up our shared imagined space such that we're as close as humanly possible to being on the same page so that we're making action declarations that sensibly address the present situation at hand in the fiction. We just have to take that for granted in these conversations.

So I not only don't see the usefulness of bringing in cognitive states (even though it is obviously a parameter here) to the discussion on shared imagined space (and related fictional positioning and decision-space), I contend that it is fundamentally a conversation-killer (and decreases the prospect of us accumulating further/better knowledge on the play of Torchbearer). We won't get anywhere haggling over this inherent fallibility of human operating systems + communication. Can we just assume that humans do their best to align individual imagined spaces within the limits of their cognitive capacities/communication apparatus and move on? On to actual functional conversation about how to best play Torchbearer 2e and what that play looks like?

 

[clearstream]

As one of the few gamers of Torchbearer on this website, I've been vaguely following along. Let me just offer the following to the conversation.

@clearstream , I get why you're keen on including participant cognitive states to the fictional positioning of any given instance of play. I do. So let me unpack that:

1) Any imagined space, definitionally (because, despite it being communicated, it is imagined and therefore prone to a number of biases), must include the cognitive state (and its attendant variability) of the person imagining it. If you're sad, inattentive, distracted, excited, etc, this is going to perturb your personal imagined space (with respect to what it might be otherwise in a different cognitive state). Even if just subtly.

2) This subtle (or greater) perturbance of cognitive state will necessarily perturb your actual decision-space or at least your perception of it.

3) When you extend this to multiple participants at any given table (say 1 GM and 3 players), their individual imagined spaces is not just apt to have some drift from one imagining to the next, its a surety.

4) Consequently, the shared imagined space of the table will be a somewhat (or greater) volatile place. So the individual decision-space in which they perform their OODA (observe > orient > decide > act) will be somewhat (or greater) at odds with each other. One person might perceive a move that another has not been able to access because of their particular cognitive state (and its downstream effect on their individual imagined space). And vice versa and on and on.


So I get it.

BUT...

This formulation is not useful to conversation for a number of reasons. The most important is that it just bakes in a level of variability...and not just variability, but a series of unknowns...that effectively makes conversation on the subject intractable.

Further, every human endeavor is prone to this error at both the individual level and then proliferated at the collective level. So its just pointless to get bogged down in this. We communicate our best to clarify and shore up our shared imagined space such that we're as close as humanly possible to being on the same page so that we're making action declarations that sensibly address the present situation at hand in the fiction. We just have to take that for granted in these conversations.

So I not only don't see the usefulness of bringing in cognitive states (even though it is obviously a parameter here) to the discussion on shared imagined space (and related fictional positioning and decision-space), I contend that it is fundamentally a conversation-killer (and decreases the prospect of us accumulating further/better knowledge on the play of Torchbearer). We won't get anywhere haggling over this inherent fallibility of human operating systems + communication. Can we just assume that humans do their best to align individual imagined spaces within the limits of their cognitive capacities/communication apparatus and move on? On to actual functional conversation about how to best play Torchbearer 2e and what that play looks like?

I agree with what you say. You make important and valuable points. I would not pursuse the argument were it over noise, rather than signal.

As to signal, the Reaching rule forces a querying of the fictional position at a moment when players have knowledge of the tie. What they are picturing about the tie can reasonably be predicted to influence their judgement of whatever D declares for using H's Cunning trait against H. That's important because it implies we should be sensitive to system influences on fictional positioning all along the flow, not just at the end when final results are in. It casts doubt on FitM which should make proponents desire a more robust investigation of its assumptions.

From the point of view of game design, it suggests (or reconfirms) that the method can matter along with the result. From the point of view of the putative schism between system and fiction, it suggests that the two are more closely correlated on an ongoing basis than might be felt from a superficial look at Baker's model (or in some of the ways that it might be grasped.)

For Torchbearer, it would legitimate a player turning down a declaration from D that paid no heed to the tie - in which things came down more than usually close to the wire. D's declaration actually makes use of the tie to sell itself to us: the fiction D proposes is one in which the tie matters. I really don't follow how folk can overlook that.

Bottom line I hear you as to avoiding noise and focusing on signal. Hopefully above I have outlined some aspects of what I see as signal.

 

[Manbearcat]

I agree with what you say. You make important and valuable points. I would not pursuse the argument were it over noise, rather than signal.

As to signal, the Reaching rule forces a querying of the fictional position at a moment when players have knowledge of the tie. What they are picturing about the tie can reasonably be predicted to influence their judgement of whatever D declares for using H's Cunning trait against H. That's important because it implies we should be sensitive to system influences on fictional positioning all along the flow, not just at the end when final results are in. It casts doubt on FitM which should make proponents desire a more robust investigation of its assumptions.

From the point of view of game design, it suggests (or reconfirms) that the method can matter along with the result. From the point of view of the putative schism between system and fiction, it suggests that the two are more closely correlated on an ongoing basis than might be felt from a superficial look at Baker's model (or in some of the ways that it might be grasped.)

For Torchbearer, it would legitimate a player turning down a declaration from D that paid no heed to the tie - in which things came down more than usually close to the wire. D's declaration actually makes use of the tie to sell itself to us: the fiction D proposes is one in which the tie matters. I really don't follow how folk can overlook that.

Bottom line I hear you as to avoiding noise and focusing on signal. Hopefully above I have outlined some aspects of what I see as signal.

This is much more focused than what I was addressing in my post above (about generally belaboring the impact of cognitive states on TTRPGing and how they intersect with OODA Loop which intersects with the shared imagined space).

My thoughts on this specific issue is:

* Breaking a tie in Torchbearer by bringing in a Trait isn't Fortune in the Beginning/Middle/End. Its not Fortune Resolution at all (its not employing dice, cards, et al; unpredictable, non-behavioral elements). So there is no FitM investigation that needs to be undertaken here. Same thing goes with Acting Within/Outside of Nature.

* Its principled, Diceless Resolution or Drama Resolution or Consensus Resolution. And its really not that opaque. Its pretty clear when its Reaching. Are you in Kill Conflict? Is that a party? No? Ok, you can't employ Merrymaking to Act Within Nature or to Help. Does the situation have something about trees, stars, or ancient memories that can be tapped for weal or woe? Great, use First Born. Yes, it is related to fictional positioning but no its not Fortune Resolution.


I've run dozens and dozens and dozens of games that entail descriptor-based currency where you marshal resources based on the intersection of system-based principles and/or social contract. I've also run dozens of games with descriptor-based xp triggers and how they work within the architecture play. Its an interesting conversation and I've had dozens upon dozens of them. The most recent one I've had is when Delight xp trigger is triggered in Stonetop (for my 2nd Stonetop game I'm GMing); like all others it should be when it causes legitimate mischief/conflict - soft move - that requires either (a) a move be made to avoid a hard move follow-up or (b) triggers a hard move that you voluntarily take on the chin or (c) triggers a Grim Portent tick for a Threat or (d) initiates a new Threat). Are you willingly or accidentally violating norms/customs/boundaries/laws/rights to sate your curiosity/exalt in your delight? Are you inviting into your domain an entity that wishes to prey upon your Instincts to entice you toward a fell end? If so...we have some badness to resolve and your Delight Instinct triggers. This is a way for players to dictate the trajectory of play and earn xp for their trouble. Its a carrot/stick combo that players similar to Acting Outside of Nature or using Traits against yourself to earn Checks or Fighting for Your Belief in a situation that leads to an extremely dangerous Kill Conflict for a downstream Fate Point.

Resolving these things at the table is not difficult (particularly when the principles/best practice of play are clear and the descriptors are possessed of thematic heft or in clarity in instruction). I think in all of the games I've run with these things, I've probably run into actual table disputes of any consequences to handling time/hard feelings it was way inside a handful of times (so inconsequential that I can barely even recall any offhand). And that is GMing thousands of hours worth of play that involved employing descriptor-based currency contingent upon a relevant match with fictional positioning.

Where are all of these dastardly, insincere players that ENWorld GMs goes on and on and on and on and on about! Its like their Game Theoretical Model of what actually happens in the wild is instructed from an alternate reality (certainly alternate than the one I've experienced)! @niklinna , @kenada , and @AbdulAlhazred (the 3 players in one of my TB2 games) don't match that profile and our play thus far hasn't been saddled with descriptor-based hardship! And while I've known AA for a long while on the boards, I've only recently become friends with niklinna and kenada so they've very little reason to not treat me and our play as disposable (except for the typical reason of being a decent, honest person who appreciates integrity of play and enjoys a fun game...which is pretty much my experience with players except for an extremely small minority!).


EDIT - One final thought on playing with integrity. I have to winder if all of this ENWorld hostility to players and extreme wariness of players playing without integrity/cheating is because the bulk of folks here have internalized such an extremely adversarial model of GM vs players that they don't understand an alternative one. An alternative model where everyone is playing with integrity and players police themselves against any possible integrity-impugning play.

In my experience in these sorts of games (and everyone I've GMed for on here can chime in on this; which is a decent chunk of folks)? I have to actually insert a perspective that affords leniency which my players won't give themselves! The overwhelming bulk of my actual mediation in our play is to relax players from their self-policing impulse!