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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8660007" data-attributes="member: 42582">Building on [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER]'s post just upthread, Edwards says the following:In Simulationist play, morality cannot be imposed by the player or, except as the representative of the imagined world, by the GM. Theme is already part of the cosmos; it's not produced by metagame decisions. Morality, when it's involved, is "how it is" in the game-world, and even its shifts occur along defined, engine-driven parameters. The GM and players buy into this framework in order to play at all. The point is that one can care about and enjoy complex issues, changing protagonists, and themes in both sorts of play, Narrativism and Simulationism. The difference lies in the point and contributions of literal instances of play; its operation and social feedback. . . . Therefore, when you-as-player get proactive about an emotional thematic issue, poof, you're out of Sim. Whereas enjoying the in-game system activity of a thematic issue is perfectly do-able in Sim, without that proactivity being necessary.This is why Pendragon is good for simulationist play - the thematic stuff is all built into the virtue and passion stats and associated mechanics - whereas Prince Valiant is good for (rather  light-hearted) narrativist play - many of the situations are the same as they would be in Pendragon, but it is the players who have to "get proactive" and decide whether they want their PCs to be Galahad types or cowardly varlets or something else. And the system won't judge those choices - only the other players will!This also relates to <a href="http://lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/marginalia/3777" target="_blank">something I quoted from Edwards</a> upthread (or in one of the parallel threads):The design decisions I've made with my current project are so not-RPG, but at the same time so dismissive of what's ordinarily called "consensual storytelling," that I cannot even begin to discuss it on-line. I can see the influences of Universalis, The Mountain Witch, and My Life with Master, but I cannot articulate the way that I have abandoned the player-character, yet preserved the moral responsibility of decision-making during play.That idea of "moral responsibility of decision-making" is the other side of the coin of "getting proactive". There's no scope to say "the system made me do it" or "my alignment made me do it" or "I was just playing my belief".And we can make the point concrete by contrasting Burning Wheel with Fate:* In Fate, you earn Fate Points for accepting a compel (ie go along with a proposed complication that reflects your character's aspect(s)), or for having an aspect that is attached to your character invoked against you (ie someone complicates your PC's life by reference to something that pertains to your PC). * In Burning Wheel, you earn a Fate point for manifesting a Belief in play, you earn a Persona point (a bigger fate point) for closing off a Belief in play, you earn a Persona point for Embodiment (defined as roleplay that captures the mood of the table and drives play forward), and you earn a Persona point for Mouldbreaker (defined as vivid roleplaying the making of a decision where the imperative of the situation conflicts with a Belief).The logic of Fate is to drive play towards reinforcement of the character. The system makes that happen. The player is responsible for their PC build, but the system tells them what decisions are reasonable ones, once the play gets going.Whereas Burning Wheel puts the need to choose squarely in front of the player. You can't just say "I was playing my Belief" - why didn't you shoot for Mouldbreaker? That's what makes it narrativist and not sim.</blockquote>

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