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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8862869" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, the other half of it is that the player's have to own the intent! I don't think it is true that the GM necessarily decides what the protagonists want, but the GM decides ENTIRELY what it is possible for them to achieve, and thus aspire to. This creates the most classic of all conflicts that exist at the table in neo-trad play, which is a player with an independent agenda vs a GM with a fixed idea of what the world holds and what can happen in it (and often, but not always, a pretty fixed idea of the trajectory of play overall).This was played out in a CLASSIC fashion in the first full 5e campaign I played in. My character was pretty much built with an agenda. It was a pretty general and rather flexible one, he was just very ambitious and wanted to rule his own kingdom (or whatever, barony, etc.). Instead of trying to fight out a war, or battle of intrigue, with people in the established kingdom, he just went to the frontier and figured out how to construct his own place. The GM was pretty OK with this, but at a certain point she wanted to run an adventure, so all the PCs were transported off (by some GM fiat handwavy thing) to another land where we spent several weeks or a couple months, I forget exactly, doing this completely unrelated activity. When we came back, eventually, the GM decreed that 6 years had passed and all the land I had claimed and my castle was now owned by someone else! Blah, I think that was pretty much the last we played of THAT campaign. I never did figure out what exactly the point of that was, or why it was serving the agenda, etc. Nothing in 5e, however, really addresses the structure of play in a way that would make it make better sense. I mean, contrast what would happen in DW. A doom supplied by a front could CERTAINLY threaten the character's land in some fashion. Failing to deal with it COULD lead to the loss of his property. No way, no how could it happen within the bounds of the agenda and principles of play of DW through such an arbitrary and unaddressable process. In fact the whole POINT of play would be to find out (at least for that aspect of the campaign) how the character dealt with such a threat to his ambitions. It might involve asking questions about what he was willing to sacrifice, or what moral compromises he might make in order to succeed, or whatever. ANY principled play of DW would lead to that, IMHO! I mean, assuming it went in that direction at all, most DW GMs would probably assume once I won the castle that was that and the various choices and whatever would play out on the next stage, say building the wilderness trading route that was supposed to make the thing economically viable.</blockquote>

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