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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8594588" data-attributes="member: 42582">As I understand it, "fateful F" is an assertion, or perhaps a posit, that the use of a Fate point to apply Deeper Understanding so as to reroll a wyrm/traitor is a component of, or a contributor to, fictional positioning. I'm not sure what the capital "F" adds to the underscore in your notation system.As I see it, rerolling a wyrm by spending a Fate point to use Deeper Understanding is no different from using a Trait to buff. [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER] has posted a very detailed parsing, not far upthread, of one instance of what the fiction looks like at the moment when all these decisions are made. The question of whether the character's Wise bears upon the situation at stake is no different, in how it is posed and answered, from the question of whether the character's Trait bears upon the situation. The player says "Ah hah!" but it can hardly be the character saying that, or at least not at that moment within the fiction - when Dro rolls the dice for Fighter that means that, in the fiction, Harguld is shooting his crossbow, and Harguld can hardly wait to see whether or not the shot lands true and, if it doesn't, retrospectively apply some deeper insight!As AbdulAlhazred has spelled out in detail, it's FitM resolution and Dro is reasoning about boxes - what sorts of resources does he want to spend to improve his fictional position (eg by rerolling wyrms, or open-ending sixes, in pursuit of success) and/or what sorts of burden on his fictional position is he willing to endure now (eg by spending a trait to break a tie in the gnolls' favour) in order to get resources that will be helpful down the track (checks that can be spent in camp phase or at the start of town phase)? Once that decision about cues/boxes has been made, he then introduces some fiction (about how his Wise helped his shot; about how his tendency towards Cunning tripped him up on this occasion) which adds colour, but has no consequences for resolution - all those consequences follow from the mechanical choices. If Dro can't think of any such fiction, then he's not allowed to do his stuff with the boxes - thus we could say that creativity and imagination act as a constraint on mechanical exploitation of resources, which seems a reasonable enough way to design a RPG; but that doesn't change the fact that it is boxes to boxes, followed by boxes to clouds (just as Vincent's example of answering and then narrating in In A Wicked Age, as per my post to which you replied).************************************It's interesting to compare this with the decision to FoRK a skill in Burning Wheel. The following example is given on p 40 of Revised:Rich's Orc Great One is laying waste to his inferiors with his Axe skill. Rich wants to fight dirty, so he adds in a die from his Brawling skill - he describes his Orc throwing elbows and knees and generally being a bastard.When I first read this, I was puzzled - why wouldn't a player FoRK every plausible skill every time? The answer, I later worked out, lies in the advancement rules.The same thing - puzzlement and realisation - occurred when I read (p 30) that "A player may lobby for one +1D advantage per test. In order to gain this advantage, he must state how and why he deserves such a boon in one clear sentence". Why does a player not want every advantage die they can get? Because advancement requires that some tests be against an obstacle that is larger than the dice pool!So players have a mechanical incentive to toggle these bonus dice - from FoRKS, from lobbying for advantage - based on their preferences around succeeding on tests (and thus improving their immediate fictional position) versus earning the tests (Routine, Difficult and Challenging) that they need to advance their PCs' skills and attributes. And the result is the same FitM structure as in Torchbearer - the GM narrates a situation, the player decides their basic intent and approach, additional colour is introduced in the course of lobbying for advantage and FoRKing in skills (there's a nice worked example in the Adventure Builder, pp 245-7; in the Codex it's at pp 109-11).The difference between BW and Torchbearer is that the colour used to support FoRKing and advantage dice in BW can be drawn on by the GM in the narration of consequences. This is part of "intent and task", and it helps give that colour "life" in the fiction.Torchbearer doesn't use "intent and task", and I don't think that the colour that is introduced during the FitM process is as apt to take on life in this way. Admittedly, though, my experience with Torchbearer is less than with Burning Wheel.</blockquote>

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