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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9841553" data-attributes="member: 42582">No worries, and thanks!Well, what you described was more specific than "adding to the setting" - you said " the GM said: 'It is a two-day trip underground to the petrified forest. Describe to me what the journey is like and what you encounter.'" This is the players describing setting, and events, in a way that is pretty disconnected from particular actions that they're declaring. And as I read it, it didn't seem to be connected to their PCs' prior knowledge of the area.As [USER=7044099]@zakael19[/USER] posted, it seems to be mostly about the players contributing colour.So, here is a bit from another actual play post that I linked to upthread; the system being played is Burning Wheel:The GM's job here is to "facilitate", by framing the scenes and narrating consequences of failure. The obstacles  (difficulty numbers) are determined by the system (there are long lists of tasks and difficulties for the various skills). And what structures play, fundamentally, is the Beliefs, Instincts and similar elements of the PCs: these guide the GM in their framing and their consequence narration.Also important, and building on this, is that failure is primarily about failure of intent, not necessarily failure of task. So when Thoth's player fails on Aura-Reading, it's not the case that he reads no aura. Rather, the GM narrates that the aura he reads is not the one he was hoping for (even in death, the corpse is Stubborn). When I, playing Aedhros, fail my roll to Sing, it's not the case that Aedhros sings out of tune; rather, his singing has the opposite to desired effect: rather than helping him centre himself, the GM narrates a guard coming to hassle him, which only draws him back into the sordid world of Thoth from which he is hoping to free himself and Alicia. And then I declare a Circles test, which is - mechanically - an attempt to reframe the situation, by brining in an Elven NPC who will stick up for Aedhros. But this fails too, and so the GM doubles down and brings in another guard. And Aedhros bribes them, once again being dragged back into the sordid world of Thoth. And then he ambushes the guard George and takes him back to Thoth.I don't think this is just the same as D&D run and played at a good table. I've approximated to this sort of play using AD&D (back in the late 1980s) and using Rolemaster (through the 90s and the first decade of this century). But their tools are not as good. They don't integrate Beliefs and similar elements into PC build; they don't have an analogue to Circles; they default to failure on a roll equals failure at the task; etc. I have a pretty good sense of the extent to which they can be drifted towards this sort of player-driven play, but I would never try and do it these days: because Burning Wheel does it straightforwardly, right out of the box, with no problems of mechanic or technique.</blockquote>

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