Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8238877" data-attributes="member: 42582">Thanks both for these posts.To try and add something about the relationship between in-fiction situation (including character, both PC and NPC) and technique: the player has made a move - trying to proceed past Sir Lionheart after the latter refuses to joust with a mere squire - that demands some sort of response. The response has to come from me as GM - in AW terms, this is one of those moments where everyone looks at the GM to see what comes next. And given the set-up in the scene, the response in the fiction has to come from Sir Lionheart.One obvious possibility, and I assume the one [USER=6698278]@Emerikol[/USER] has in mind, is for Sir Lionheart to just yell at the squire, or perhaps punch him or cut him down. But there are complexities: Sir Lionheart has already refused to joust him, so does drawing swords go against that? Or if rather than a duel Sir Lionheart just cuts him down, I know from the scenario description that he will regret this afterwards, because it is dishonourable. The player hasn't read that description, but has a sense of Sir Lionheart's personality - it's a fairly clear genre trope - and is playing into that.A different possible circuit breaker is that Sir Lionheart knights the squire so he is eligible to be fought as an equal.In the context of adjudicating the action in the course of the session, these possibilities are implicit. I think they're implicit for the player. They go through my mind fairly quickly. And then the question becomes, how to decide what happens? Which of the conceived-of possibilities is the "real" one?My understanding of sandbox play in the classic sense, as being articulated in this thread, is that the GM is entitled and even expected to extrapolate from the notes about Sir Lionheart, the broader understanding of the setting (in this case, faux-historical mediaeval) and a feeling about "what makes sense". A reaction roll or CHA check or similar mechanic might be called for if the GM is not sure, but if the GM can make a decision without calling for a check that is permitted and even desirable.In the sort of play Prince Valiant is designed for, and especially in my case drawing also on the influence of more recent RPGs that have been inspired (in part) by Prince Valiant but state some of the relevant GMing principles more clearly, the GM is not expected to decide. The GM is expected to call for a check. There are various ways for setting difficulty. But on option is an opposed check - in this case Presence vs Presence. (Note how in the passage I quoted upthread replying to [USER=6701124]@Cadence[/USER], for a different but related possibility the scenario does not use an opposed check but sets a Difficulty of 2. I can't now recall if I was remembering that passage when I set out adjudication for this action. But given the PC in question an opposed Presence check - the PCs 4 dice vs Sir Lionheart's 3 dice - was harder than a Fellowship check (7 dice for this PC, maybe only 6 at that point) vs a difficulty of 2 and perhaps also harder than Courtesie (I think at that time probably 5 dice) vs that difficulty. I could of course have called for a higher difficulty. But in the heat of play I went for an opposed check, which is well within the "permissibility" limits for the system.And the job of the check is not just to determine what happens next, but to do so in a way that will answer that question from the point of view of the dramatic needs of the PC. Does s/he get what s/he wants? On this occasion the player rolled well, and so the answer was yes!(And [USER=6816042]@Arilyn[/USER], I've got nothing to add to the rest of your post which I fully agree with.)</blockquote>

Verification