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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8237961" data-attributes="member: 6696971">One quick (lol?) thought.One of the huge differences between (say) Dungeon World/Blades “Sandbox Story Now” play and Trad Sandbox play is the systematized avenues for player aggression to advocate for their PCs (and through that advocation, wrest control of play trajectory).Just briefly upthread I was talking about how the players felt ( [USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER] and [USER=6993955]@Fenris-77[/USER] ) as the mystery of the slayings in Barrowcleft unfolded via their Score. I did this because I wanted to discuss player feel and mysteries as that was topical at that moment (due to incredulity at both of those things in a Blades game).However, perhaps more interesting than how they felt is how I (the GM) felt and why.I felt:Curious - Fenriswas running a kill pool and prop bet game back at “home base” (a casino). I was curious at how he would do this (it was mechanized via a Clock, but how would HE do it). He made and buffed and Asset during downtime (a Runner/Spy) to go into the haunted ward > recon > deliver intel to the other PC (the siege squad) > come back to the casino and report). This recon > intel loop was the primary facilitator for this portion of play. It was effectively “comms”.I was curious at how much hawkeye would press his luck and express his background/Vice with the dangerous, but provocative situations/complications of (sidetracking and therefore Score-threatening) of interest.I was curious myself as to “what happened in Barrowcleft”. As the Score progressed and more and more fiction had to be created (via framing > declared actions > action resolution > fallout loop), which was bound by prior fiction, a picture began accreting around a culprit and a story. At a point it become clear to us what happened.Constrained and Obliged but (simultaneously) Liberated - The machinery of play is laid bare and we discussed and agreed prior how the Kill Pool Win Con and the Barrowcleft Investigation Win Con would be achieved. Then there are all of the player-facing mechanics and all of the various mechanical and integrated points of pressure and incentive structures that I can use to create difficult decision-points for players.For instance, I’m very confident that if a put a “Candy Red Button” Devil’s Bargain in front of Hawkeye out in the field...he’s VERY apt to push it (capture the ghost of an old friend who did a turn in Ironhook Prison with him). He wants the xp, for Bavkgroubd/Vice, he wants the extra 1D for action resolution, he wants the ability to unlock a potential Downtime Project via this trapped ghost. I feel liberated...empowered. If he even rolls a 4/5 (Success with Complication), the Complication is going to have big time (possibly snowballing) fallout.But he got a 6. So now I’m obliged to turn this potential powderkeg of a scene into a decisive win for Team PC.Same thing with the Ghost Ball and the poltergeist later. Same thing with the killer’s scarf in the field with a pack of ghosts bearing down on the “field unit.”Every Win by them and move toward the Win Con, I’m obliged to reframe things toward the Score Win.When the Lamblacks and Red Sashes (sworn enemies) are in the thick of a supernatural cluster-eff at one of the ground zero sites of death (and therefore hauntings), I don’t get to leverage secret backstory/offscreen to just decide what is happening. 3 Fortune Rolls are made based on the Tiers of the two Gangs and the Scale/Magnitude of the Ghost Threat (which outranks them both) and the results are binding (they tick Faction Clocks and they impose a certain type of new gamestate/trajectory of fiction).I don’t get to “say no” based on setting/genre extrapolation and I don’t get to change Team Monster HPs or fudge my own dice rolls (figuratively in both cases) if events unfold way x vs way y.Surprised -Surprised they won. This was a brutal Score. The analog to D&D would be a hugely Up-CR and Up-Encounter Budget Combat.But due to extremely savvy play by the two players and some luck (extraordinarily good dice rolls in action resolution), they won out (and just barely).Surprised that they decided to turn over all of the Coin for the Payoff in exchange for a big Faction bump with the Dimmer Sisters (making them actually the face of “uncovering the plot”). This loss of Coin gives them a new ally and saves them from the Faction hit (which would have put them At War with The Crows).Surprised that the antagonists turned out to be the Crows and one of the heads of The Ministry (who manages labor unions/grievances) and now the PCs have an Entanglement with this powerful figure in The Ministry who wanted his role (whether that was incompetent or corrupt beaurocrat ) in the cluster-eff completely below board do it would quietly go away.Not now though as the PCs secured Union Meeting notes and a journalist is about to publish a huge story on The Ministry’s role in this (unless the PCs do something about it...depends on if they want that kind of heat).[HR][/HR]The constituent parts and the integrated whole of this sort of GM orientation doesn’t exist in Trad Sandboxing.The way a GM’s orientation and the “feels” (certainly the way I feel when I run a Hexcrawl or Sandbox) are just extremely different (polar opposites in many ways).</blockquote>

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