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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8774136" data-attributes="member: 42582">Cool!My reflex response is to think of this as a variant of A. Maybe it sits between A and B? I think some Burning Wheel play would be like this. Probably also some Apocalypse World play. (Just trying to think of illustrations/examples; not intending to be exhaustive.)This seems less A-ish, because it's not putting the principal responsibility for kickers on the players. It seems like an iterative variant on B. It's another approach I think would fit well with Burning Wheel. Maybe also some supers RPGing? A version of this, I think, which I also feel is maybe distinct from A and from B, is In A Wicked Age. The first step is to choose one of the four Oracles, which are tables of little events or personalities or places linked (very loosely) by an overaching theme (Blood & Sex, God-Kings of War, The Unquiet Past, A Nest of Vipers). Then four playing cards are dealt, which select four entries from the chosen Oracle. Then we go around the table, identifying characters who are implicit or explicit in the selected entries. Then the players choose one each to be their PCs, and the GM gets the rest as NPCs. The final step is to choose "Best Interests" for each character, with the GM going first for one of their NPCs, under the instruction to choose a Best Interest that will bring the NPC into conflict with one (or more) PCs.So between the scenario/situation generation procedure, and the way it feeds into these characters with their conflicting Best Interests, the upshot is interrelated characters ready to spring into action both with and against one another.I don't think this is compatible with A and B - those need motivated, situated PCs. I agree it's highly compatible with D. I might once have doubted whether it can work with C - how do "empty vessel" PCs impose their evaluations on a situation? - but I think that Agon shows that this is possible.I would see this as a distinct approach. I think [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] has also posted about it. My gut feeling is that it's hard to pull off - though I am trying a version of it with my Torchbearer adventure design! But my feeling is that, at least for me, there would be standing temptation to drift towards B, using the GM-side prep as more like a list of suggestions or aides-memoire, rather than sticking to the prep as constraint in the manner of D. Torchbearer is probably a good system for me in this respect, as it has some nice tools - the interplay of prepared scenario and improvised twist - to try and balance the B vs D tensions.</blockquote>

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