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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8653778" data-attributes="member: 42582">Whether or not the difference is subtle - personally I don't think it is, as to me the difference  between playing (say) Burning Wheel and (say) 2nd ed AD&D is a very apparent one - it is profound.In [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER]'s first structure, step 1 is the GM describing the environment. And step 3 is the GM describing how the environment changes. To get from 1 to 3, the GM "incorporates" (for lack of a better word) the players' action declarations for their PCs (step 2) into the environment (established at step 1), and thereby reasons out how the environment changes (step 3).In [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER]'s second structure, step 1 is the GM responding to something player-authored (a PC's interest) so as to trigger a response from that player via an action declaration for their PC (step 2). And then the system (what [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] calls "mechanics and principles") determines the parameters within the fallout from that response is narrated, and by whom. (This is where a good chunk of the difference between systems like Dogs in the Vineyard, Sorcerer, Apocalypse World, Burning Wheel and Hero Wars is found.)The second structure does not require any reasoning about the imagined environment. Whereas this is fundamental to the first structure.The first structure does not require any reasoning about player-authored PC interests. But this is fundamental to the second structure.But there is an asymmetry between structures, because the first structure locates the reasoning about environment as a precursor to step 3; whereas in the second structure the reasoning about PC interests is a precursor to step 1, whereas it may or may not figure in step 3 depending on the details of the system.You can design a scenario or adventure for the first structure without knowing anything about the PCs who are to engage in it. Whereas that's obviously a big challenge for the second structure. (The only second-structure RPG I know of that has really tackled this challenge in a large scale way is Prince Valiant. It's not entirely successful, but it does a reasonable job. It works because many Prince Valiant PCs have very similar interests, being knights errant in an Arthurian vein.)The concept of "fallout" has no particular work to do in the first structure. The first structure works fine if the primary focus of play is essentially procedural - who pokes which bit of the world to find out what happens next. (Which I think is fairly close to [USER=5142]@Aldarc[/USER]'s notion of "interactivity".) Whereas the concept of "fallout" is fundamental to the second structure: the consequences of action resolution, established at step 3, have to change or at least bear upon the PC's interests. This is what keeps the game in motion, and generates material to allow new iterations of step 1. (Just as, in the first structure, it is changes to the environment that allow new iterations of step 1.)There are further differences too, but the ones I've outlined are some of the more significant ones.</blockquote>

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