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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7372563" data-attributes="member: 82106">I just found the example to be rather contrived. I mean, players don't normally behave that way, certainly not to such an extreme degree that its impossible to engage in some sort of player-centered kind of play.Well, as far as I can tell, that specific belief was secondary to the more general belief about the brother. It doesn't even make sense by itself. So I would call it 'subsidiary'. If you think about it, this specific belief "I will get something to help my brother before leaving the town" is more about a statement of determination, of an URGENT desire vs the overall "I will save my brother" belief being potentially more long-range. Failure to achieve the immediate goal doesn't invalidate the long-range goal, and its easy to imagine that the character would prioritize the longer-range goal over the shorter (though this might be subject to how the player wants to portray his character, maybe he's so impulsive and fixated on immediate goals that he WOULD damage his own chances for a quick fix). Thus I, as a GM, would play it as the one belief is subsidiary and secondary to the other, and a 'quest' to satisfy this subsidiary goal may be less urgent and something of a side show, although its quite easy to see it as a critical first step as well. As it turned out it was a distraction and actually helped lead to (in the narrative at least) the eventual failure of the main task.In my mind this was and is part and parcel of one discussion. There is a natural evolution of 'spotlight', it naturally emerges from Story Now play; at least in a D&D-like game. I think it would! First of all there's a scene in which the characters are camping and the crebain (birds) fly overhead, and then they enter into a debate in which the 3 choices are discussed. First they reject Moria, and then the Gap of Rohan, and then choose Caradharas as their first choice. Clearly their attempt to cross the pass results in a failure, which would be mechanical in most game systems. The result is they wind up back near where they began, and then wolves attack them. At this point they become convinced there's only one remaining choice, Moria. This would be handled quite naturally in my own game. The debate itself might be handled as a challenge in which different options can be elicited, thus producing the pass as a best choice. Another SC results in failure to cross the pass, and play continues with finding the gates and having an encounter (the successful opening of the West Gate could be taken as a skill check during the encounter with the Watcher, or simply as the inevitable consequence of choosing this path and given the composition of the party).The events following this, in Moria, would likely represent a whole other challenge, presumably being a partial failure. Some of the party emerge largely unscathed, Gandalf is lost. It all seems relatively straightforward. I mean, is it a perfectly likely Story Now narrative? Hard to say really, but in at least some aspects it could certainly arise out of that style of play.</blockquote>

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