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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 9077136" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Yes, its 4 AM and I have absolutely no business being up or posting. I'm going to go with a different tact here.  Forget Mouse Guard for the moment.  I'm hoping this might do some work to clarify some of the aspects of our exchange (and the differences between what we're describing) because it will bear a resemblance to a sandbox game while simultaneously pointing to some pretty significant differences.This is the very first Faction/Setting Clock in the last Blades in the Dark game:[ATTACH=full]290960[/ATTACH]WHY WAS THIS FACTION CLOCK IN PLAY? Because the players chose key advances in their building of their Crew that brought them positive faction with The Red Sashes (TRS) and negative faction with The Lampblacks.  This connecting to these factions via Crew build signals that the players want early play to be about the default BitD milieu of these two gangs at war:[ATTACH=full]290961[/ATTACH]This is out in the open.  This isn't secret backstory.  This is "table-facing."  And the Crew and PC creation process establish early threats, potential alliances, friends, contacts, rivals, lair (among other things).  Early play engages these choices and things snowball and branch out as players use the Info Gathering/Free Play phase to develop a prospective Score > Score phase to resolve the Score and change the situation > Payoff & Downtime to earn Coin, accrue Heat, deal with Entanglements, Recover, Train, Indulge Vice, Acquire Assets, perform Longterm Projects.The PCs and Crew don't just have Downtime.  The Factions and Setting components that they (the players) bring on-screen via their build choices and actions undertaken during the other phases of play also have Downtime.  And its my job as GM to (a) give expression to this within the imagined space of play (Mylera Klev is demanding further alliance in the war against The Lampblacks...pick a side damnit) and (b) mechanize that using the rules of play (6 tick clock, 2d6 because TRS is Tier 2, usage of The Faction system and the threat of the hardship of At War status looming, inevitable situation framing + consequence-space + Devil's Bargains being impacted by the player decisions and resolution with this).[HR][/HR]This feeds into decision-points > which feeds into resolution > which feeds into changed gamestate, changed setting, new situations > loop back to decision-points.  More conflicts with more Factions spreading like wildfire.  Setting changes like Forgotten Goddesses being summoned back into this broken world leading to heresies and inquisitions.  And all of it out-in-the-open.  All of it systematized via a transparent, stable, encoded for all to see game engine.  By the time things are done a year later, you have a Duskvol that is profoundly different than when it started along with profoundly changed Crew and PCs which shape all of that action, all of that change.My job (as GM) is to follow their lead, bring Duskvol and the game's engine to life via the process of that lead-following meeting the deployment of my own creative capacities while relentlessly following the agenda, adhering without fail to the principles, rules, and application of (again; out-in-the-open) system.* I don't get to deviate from their lead and introduce whatever crap I want to (such as situation-framing that is unresponsive to players or introducing Setting or Faction Clocks that have nothing to do with play-to-date or are secret backstory that I shouldn't be employing in the first place)* I don't get to have an off-week to bring sterile, conflict-neutral situation framing or boring Devil's Bargains or fictionally-feckless, mechanically-toothless consequences to their actions or to idly stand by and watch them free play affectation and performative color and goal-less wandering and setting-touring.  I have to bring "lead-following antagonism"...hard...and correct...every session.  Players say "punch me here please;"  I punch them there.  We find out how they handle the punch and what their swingback does.* I don't get to deviate from the codified agenda and principles at any moment.* I don't get to suspend rules, structure, or the application of system (for any purpose, especially for the purpose of some kind of story imperatives that I shouldn't have in the first place).* I don't get to hide stuff.  Its all out there.If all of that sounds like your game...well, then you're running a sandbox that is very much like Blades in the Dark.  If not, then whatever differences you see when contrasted with the above should hopefully be clear.</blockquote>

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