You're doing what? Surprising the DM

[Celebrim]

What I find entertaining about the discussion is that I've gamed many years with a player far more likely to mean "My character delusionally believes he is the rightful King of all the Land, and no amount of reality will shake that ludicrous delusion" than "No, really, my character really IS the rightful heir to the throne".

Which indicates to me that what he would want from a game is probably more Don Quixote than Morte D'Arthur, and which just proves that it isn't obvious what a belief like, "I am the rightful king of the land." actually creates in the game. A GM may think he's acting in the player's interest, may actually be responding to beliefs, but still might put the player into situations where he feels the obstacles to the character's success are also undesirable obstacles to the player's success. Now possibly all of this can be addressed by working out between the player and the GM a backstory, the player hooks, and so forth. But all of that works quite fine and well without Beliefs and did for decades before beliefs where added, and still doesn't prevent the possibility that a player wants X and doesn't feel he's getting it fast enough. Any time you have a player with the table agenda of 'Empowerment', or really any agenda, there is the potential for table conflict because of disagreements about how the agenda is being met.

And the important thing for me is that these conflicts are non-trivial to resolve. The example of a belief involving resurrecting a dead wife can run into problems either way - either not addressing the implied goal ('I want my dead wife back') fast enough so that the player is frustrated or addressing it too fast so that achieving it is anticlimatic and unsatisfying. The reality is that there can be times when players want things that they don't really want. A player with a narrative goal wants to get to the climax of the story, but they also need to have the story unfold in a way that the climax is satisfying. Real stories have to develop; they need rising tension and action. A player with an empowerment agenda wants to feel cool, mighty, impose their will and do things that they couldn't do in real life, but there also has to be enough opposition to them that they don't feel its too easy, the conquest too trivial, and that they are being given their victories by the GM rather than earning them. So while there has been a lot of discussion of artful GMing, I don't think nearly enough attention has been placed on being an Artful Player. How does a player recognize when their agenda has become disfunctional rather than functional? How does a player act proactively to heighten their interest in the current scene, without coming into conflict with the GM or other players who may have other interests? How does a player recognize when a GM is acting on their behalf because there is some relevant and interesting reveal which, if revealed now would spoil the story, and when the GM has wandered from thier interests? How do we go about communicating this without doing a lot of negative emotions that (hopefully) nobody enjoys or ruining other participants fun? It's simply not the case that all the burden here is on the GM, and that there is a trivial solution in the GM bowing to a player's immediate wishes.

 

[JamesonCourage]

This confuses me. The reason it's not of interest is because it isn't relevant.

If you're using "relevant" (as in "relevant to the PC's goals") and "interesting (as in "interesting to the players") interchangeably, then it's no wonder we're having this miscommunication. I think myself, and maybe three or more other posters, have been using those words as separate terms with different applied meanings.

But, you said "it's not interesting because it isn't relevant" (excuse my minor paraphrasing). If what you mean is the desert is not "relevant to the PC's goals" and therefore is not "interesting to the players", then my response is what it's been for the past few pages: that depends entirely on context, since the siege can be made irrelevant, and the desert can be made relevant. As always, play what you like

 

[chaochou]

For example, is a scene in which the character is in a bar and the patrons of the bar hail the new king (the fraud, the usurper in the characters eyes) and heartily toast to his health, and then become upset with the character if he doesn't praise the current ruler by name and join in the celebration not addressing the character's belief and framing a scene that is about the character's belief?

This is exactly what you deny beliefs do. So now you've do a total reversal to entirely agree with everything I've posted and still try and claim I'm wrong. Hurrah!

And yet, that's what Beliefs do. They give the players the means to say what matters, now, here, this session, and nothing in BW says the GM can say otherwise.

There's so much wrong with that I don't know where to start

And in an continued effort to try to prove I'm so wrong you cite an example of play where the player's belief is the absolute central driver to everything that's happening in play. Which is what I said beliefs did and which you categorically denied.

Beliefs are the player saying what matters. Playing what matters is what the game is all about. Hence playing beliefs is what the game is all about.

"Stating a belief for a peasant that 'I'm the true king of this land' does not make it factual in the game.", that means that the player can't really say what the game is about.

And to prove it, oh, you've created an example of play where a challenge to the player's belief is the central idea to the entire scene.

Your example of play is, funnily, in complete accordance with everything I've said and which you've attempted to reject. Congratulations.

If your belief is, "I'm the true king of this land.", and the GM's belief is, "That's ridiculous.", you may find the game playing out more like Don Quixote when what you really wanted was Morte D'Arthur

And we're back to the hall of mirrors. If the GMs reaction is 'That's ridiculous' then their prejudices and assumptions are what's distorting the game.

Burning Wheel says 'Say yes or roll the dice' remember? Where's my dice roll to be king? And until I've made my dice roll, how can anyone at the table say I'm not?

 

[Celebrim]

This is exactly what you deny beliefs do.

Except, I've just set up the opening scene of Don Quixote.

So now you've do a total reversal to entirely agree with everything I've posted and still try and claim I'm wrong. Hurrah!

Maybe you should stop assuming that you are outsmarting me or something. I haven't reversed my position on anything. I repeat, I haven't reversed my position on anything. You didn't 'get me'. You aren't 'catching me in a contridiction'. I didn't 'fall into to your trap'. This whole jump out of the box and yell 'gotcha thing' is getting really old. But if you really want to play that game, we'll have to take it elsewhere. Because before I can really get my weapons even honed, the mods are going to yell at me about it.

And in an continued effort to try to prove I'm so wrong you cite an example of play where the player's belief is the absolute central driver to everything that's happening in play. Which is what I said beliefs did and which you categorically denied.

I just set up the scene where the DM thinks the belief is ridiculous and exherted his authority to create it, the same scene that pemerton says is 'doing it wrong', and the same scene you continue to ridicule me for as an example of me 'not getting it'.

Maybe I'm not the one that doesn't get it.

Take my advice and just answer my questions next time instead of trying to make me look bad.

And to prove it, oh, you've created an example of play where a challenge to the player's belief is the central idea to the entire scene.

No, to prove "That's ridiculous!" wasn't doing it wrong, I've set up the opening scene of Don Quixote. The belief is central to the idea of the entire scene, but that doesn't really mean much, because the PC is about to get tossed out into the sewage in the street as a figure of comic fun and tilting at windmills may not be what he thought we was signing up for.

And we're back to the hall of mirrors. If the GMs reaction is 'That's ridiculous' then their prejudices and assumptions are what's distorting the game.

Yep, you are really pulling one on that dumb old Celebrim. Doesn't take much of a mind to bowl that one over. His intellect is as keen as a rusty sword, and his perception is as clouded as a fun house mirror.

Burning Wheel says 'Say yes or roll the dice' remember? Where's my dice roll to be king? And until I've made my dice roll, how can anyone at the table say I'm not?

Your profound understanding of mechanics leaves me in awe.

 

[N'raac]

Which indicates to me that what he would want from a game is probably more Don Quixote than Morte D'Arthur, and which just proves that it isn't obvious what a belief like, "I am the rightful king of the land." actually creates in the game. A GM may think he's acting in the player's interest, may actually be responding to beliefs, but still might put the player into situations where he feels the obstacles to the character's success are also undesirable obstacles to the player's success. Now possibly all of this can be addressed by working out between the player and the GM a backstory, the player hooks, and so forth. But all of that works quite fine and well without Beliefs and did for decades before beliefs where added, and still doesn't prevent the possibility that a player wants X and doesn't feel he's getting it fast enough. Any time you have a player with the table agenda of 'Empowerment', or really any agenda, there is the potential for table conflict because of disagreements about how the agenda is being met.

All 100% true. The problem, to me, lies in shorthanding the character into a quick statement - if one of us thinks "believes he is the rightful king of the land" means "he is the One True King, and his story arc should be about proving his legitimacy and winning the throne" and the other means "he has unshakeable delusions of grandeur" and juxtaposition of his unflagging belief against the harsh reality should lead to comic results", then we are heaed for disaster. If the backstory provided sufficient detail one way or the other, we would either have the ability to deliver what the player wants, or discuss whether his character is a poor fit for this game.

And that is before we get into the timing, possible competing beliefs and potentially one or more players who are resistant to any scene not dealing with their character's beliefs. That is, we spend time on The King and not the dead wife, or vice versa, and the other player is disinterested because this is not the next scene for his goal, and his interest lies solely in dealing with the next steps for his goal.

Burning Wheel says 'Say yes or roll the dice' remember? Where's my dice roll to be king? And until I've made my dice roll, how can anyone at the table say I'm not?

Easily. I don't believe you. I consider your claim misguided at best and outright false at worse. Perhaps my character is "Loyal to the Reigning Monarch". One of us is going to be unhapy - either the monarch to whom I am loyal is not the rightful king, or you aren't. Where's MY dice roll to be correct that my King's claim is the legitimate one?

 

[Manbearcat]

A couple thoughts right quick.

On inherent relevance as complication

I think the best way to consider the comparative "relevance as complication" of "the desert" and "the siege", with respect to whatever thematic content is waiting in "the city", is to contrast their identity without "the city". "The desert" is still "the desert" without "the city". Conversely, "the siege" is dependent upon "the city" for its very existence. Without "the city", "the siege" would cease to exist. As such, its relevance as complication to whatever content the PCs wish to engage in within the city, given its state as married to or progeny of "the city" (however you'd like to put it), is inevitable/intrinsic...eg it has no autonomy external to "the city." It is naturally endowed with relevance while "the desert's" identity is autonomous and, as such, its relevance requires the GM to endow it with such.

That isn't to say that it can't have relevance and that it won't be "fun" (for some groups/playstyles). Its just to say that "fun" and "inherent relevance as complication" are different things. And PCs can reason this out and recognize it before engaging. Hence, Hussar summoning his centipede to hedge risk that the GM will not properly load the desert with "inherent relevance as complication" while being, presumably, ready and willing to engage with "the siege" due to its "inherent relevance as complication."


On inherent relevance of journey to theme

Saving Private Ryan was about:

- When are the needs of the one (Private Ryan's mother who had already lost 4 sons) greater than the needs of the many (the sacrifice of the Rangers' lives for Ryan's safe return and also with respect to compromising the overall mission of WWII)?

- At what point (if ever) is the mission irrevocably fubar (eg the sacrifice of the Rangers' as men and as war assets for one man's safe return...for the solace of his mother...becomes incomprehensible or too great a cost to sensibly endure)?

- Can you ever possibly live up to their collective noble sacrifice and "earn it"?


Journey in Saving Private Ryan is absolutely mandatory for the establishment of the emotional weight of each of those themes. Without each of their stories being given exposition and without each of their sacrifices played out before us, the weightiness of the themes considered is rendered impotent. If we transition from the recognition of the mother's lost sons to the reading of Abraham Lincoln's letter to a bereaved mother during the American Civil War straight to finding Private Ryan and defending the bridge...we're left uninvested and unmoved...and thus ill-equipped to fully consider the thematic material as posed.

The same goes for the thematic material in 3:10 to Yuma and plenty of other movies with similar thematic material. The journey itself is imperative for establishment of thematic material.


Now consider John Adams or Band of Brothers. Each of those episodes has very specific, self-contained, thematic material that it focuses on and that it challenges and conveys masterfully; sans journey or any material not intimately bound to it by 1st order effect. You can watch each of those episodes, with no experience with the other episodes, and absorb the take-away. Specifically John Adam's acceptance of the case to defend the British troops and their Captain after the Boston Massacre...regardless of the price to his law practice, the potential danger to he and his family and, ultimately, his upward mobility; and he was a man of no small vanity.

- Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

- It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, "whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection."

- The law no passion can disturb. <snip> On the one hand it is inexorable to the cries and lamentations of the prisoners; on the other it is deaf, deaf as an adder, to the clamors of the populace.

He believed those things, had them tested, and unrelentingly advocated for them and stood by them in his defense of the contingent of British troops, despite unimaginable pressure (on all fronts) to not take the case.

 

[Nagol]

Not to mention The Odyssey. The PC just wanted to get home but the rat-bastard DM gods just wouldn't let it go...

 

[pemerton]

When the player sits down at the table and says (implicitly or explicitly), "I'll play by these rules", her or she enters into an agreement - a social contract with the GM and other players. That social contract is the source of the obligation.

I think "social contract" is a helpful place to start. But I don't think it is the necessary end point.

For instance, in the gambling analogy, the losing gambler has an obvious incentive at that point to try to renegotiate the contract; and the house has a comparably strong incentive to refuse. This reflects the fact that, at least in part, the two parties have opposed interests.

The social contract is different, though. It's not clear that the interest of the participants in an RPG are opposed in quite the same way. So it's not clear that renegotiating the social contract in response to actual events in play is necessarily a problem. At least arguably, in some RPGs (like AD&D, with its sprawling and ambiguous ruleset) it's actually a necessity!

The GM would still be free to say, "You encounter nothing of interest in crossing the desert," of course.

But, interestingly, it now comes out that really, there is something interesting in the desert - an NPC that is apparently supposed to help frame the issues the party is going to encounter in the city! Several times now, I raised the issue of dismissing scenes out of hand - "How do you *know* there's nothing relevant to your city jaunt in the desert?" And lo and behold there apparently *WAS* something! Go figure!

If I was the GM in question, and knew that [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] had no interest in the desert crossing, there are at least two options I can think of: have the NPC turn up, wandering prophet-style out of the desert, as the PCs are mounting their centipede; or have the NPC meet them in the city.

I think this is the sort of responsiveness to manifested player preferences that Hussar is advocating. It's certainly the sort of responsiveness that I prefer.

Typically when there is nothing at stake and "take 10" would be adequate to ride the chosen mount successfully. Which is when the rules explicitly say "no need to roll". Celebrim agre with that 60+ pages ago, and I don't recall anyone disagreeing. Where the disagreement seems to lie is the belief that, even if Take 10 will not succeed, we shoul just handwave that and let them "take 12" or "take 20" or "take 24" or whatever they need to handwave the issue.

Part of Hussar's point is that, if the only upshot of the riding will be a few falls dealing a bit of subdual damage or minor scrapes that can all be trivially healed by the PCs' daily allotment of cure spells, why go through the details?

3E in this respect contrasts with Rolemaster, which has a crit system, and thereby puts on pressure to resolve all this stuff in full, precisely because you can't be confident that the damage will all be minor and easily healable.

Few characters haul siege gear around. As for the spells, why run though a bombardmnet, then? It seems they can just skip the siege, so why not do so?

Maybe they can. My point is only that there's no reason at all to think that D&D PCs of about 3rd level and up can't sneak through a siege that, from the point of view of a city's NPC population, is a serious thing.

To repeat, The players' goals are to play a fun RPG which involves pursuit of, and engagement with, their PCs' goals. One such goal is within the city. To get to the city, the PC's must get past the desert and the siege. Both are obstacles to achieving the PC's' goals. Either can be an obstacle to achieving the players' goals, or a means to achieving them.

But only the siege, as an obstacle, is also itself about the goal - on topic, as it were. And the desert can't be a means to achieving the PC goals in and of itself (unless the PCs have some very powerful Animate Desert magic).

"Interest" and Relevant" being used as synonyms is pretty much completely wrong. Let us assume the PC's must get from the Inn to the Church to further their goals. The city is a maze of winding streets, so the GM narrates eight hours of players trying to navigate the streets. Relevant? Sure - we're pursuing our goals. Interesting? I suspect not.

And not remotely relevant. The players aren't interested in the details of the city's urban geography.

Perhaps the players and GM get side tracked into xtensive role playing with fellow travellers at the Inn. Nothing related to their goals comes up, but everyone had a terrific time. Interesting? Sure seems that way. Relevant? Not so much.

Of course relevant! If the players are doing it with enthusiasm, that's overwhelmingly sufficient evidence that it's relevant to their goals for play.

Demanding it be skipped fom the outset because it cannot possibly be relevant or interesting seems much less reasonable.

To you. To me it seems completely reasonable.

Hence Hussar's point (and mine) that differences of playstyle, and hence criteria of good GMing, really do differ among fantasy RPGers, and even among D&D players.

If the players cannot have fun unless and until they are pursuing their PC's goals in the city, then neither the desert crossing no the siege engages with the players' goals either, because they are not within the city, despite being about getting to, and into, the city.

And on a point related to differences of playstyle, rather than telling those with different preferences from yours what they should or shouldn't, or will or won't, enjoy, wouldn't it make more sense to try and get inside their heads?

The siege is part of the city. That's what distinguishes it from the desert. And when I say "part of the city" I don't mean literally, geographically, a part of the city. I mean that to engage the siege is to engage the city. Narratively, it is a part of the city.

 

[pemerton]

I think it would have surprised the designers and fans of narrative play 10 years ago that the whole purpose of their games was to improve pacing

That's not what I said. You might be misconstruing what it is that is happening "now".

"Story now" is about authorship now, and also emotional responses to authorship now. As an item in a theory, the idea of narrativism is a direct response to mid-to-late-80s, through 90s, railroading and GM-driven play in pursuit of story (the D&D poster children for such play would be Dragonlance and Dead Gods, I think). It's an attempt to set up an RPG experience in which both the players are genuine co-authors, and the experience of play produces emotional experiences comparable to those elicited via storytelling. (Classic gamist play of the White Plume Mountain variety has the first of these - genuine co-authorship by the players - but the second, if it occurs at all, is something of a side effect rather than the main goal of play.)

No one is denying that Dragonlance has an epic (if somewhat hackneyed) storyline. The goal of narrativist RPGs isn't to improve on Dragonlance as plot. It's to improve on Dragonlance as play experience - for instance, by removing the GM's role as determiner of who the enemy is and who the friends.

Because of my own experiences and inclinations in RPGing, I actually regard this as a key litmus test: if the GM has already decided where my PC's loyalties have to lie for the game to work, the game has failed my personal criteria of playability. (CoC one shots are an exception here, but they make no pretences to player authorship.)

Suppose the player in BW offers - purely for color - not to balance on the rail, but to balance on the mists rising out of the chasm, and caper across them. Is that 'pure color' by the same standard you are applying to balancing on the rail, and do you rule on it in the same way?

You can see the answer to this in my exchange with chaochou about GM permissions and genre credibility.

In "core setting" BW, it would depend on what spells and items the player had access to. But if the player has access to Witch Flight, then why not? (The Magic Burner has some discussion of how to apply basic BW principles to its otherwise rather baroque magic system.)

This is true only because the GM has decided nothing is at stake. It's quite easy to imagine that important beliefs are at stake if the player character topples into the chasm!

This is the fundamental point at issue. It's the player who has decided nothing is at stake, in virtue of the particular Beliefs, Traits and Instincts that s/he (Rich, in this case) has written into his/her PC.

If the GM has misjudged that, the player will let him/her know! Per BW core rulebook,

Use the mechanics! Players are expected to call for a Duel of Wits . . . or to demand the Range and Cover rules in a shooting match with a Dark Elf assassin. Don't wait for the GM to invoke a rule - invoke the damn thing yourself and get the story moving!​

If Rich thought Pete was glossing over something important, he could have called for a test. The Adventure Burner has some discussion, beyond the core rulebook, of how to resolve disagreements between player and GM about whether or not a Belief is in play, has been resolved and hence needs replacing, etc.

I'm not missing that at all. What I'm seeing is that this is so broadly and loosely defined, and the GM so powerful and essential, that it isn't the system that causes this to happen, but the GM.

And the players - for instance, by calling for tests. By introducing key background elements (via Relationships, Circles, Wises, etc). By declaring actions for their PCs that relatee to those background elements that they have introduced.

And as with so many things in the 'system matters' model, the same GM can leverage almost any system to produce the same results simply by thinking about the system in the same way, and having players with the same agenda of play.

I know from experience that it's actually quite hard to get BW-style play out of Rolemaster, although not impossible. It's a lot easier to do so out of 4e, but there are also differences.

For instance, and relating to a point that chaochou made in the BW thread, a player of a 1st level 4e PC needs the GM to do work that a player in BW doesn't. The BW player can introduce antagonists for his/her PC via the PC build rules, the Circle rules etc, and thereby pursue his/her player's Beliefs by direct action declarations, requiring the GM to respond. Whereas in 4e, while the player can introduce cosmological antagonists (eg Orcus, by building a Raven Queen worshipping PC), s/he can't introduce 1st level agents of those antagonists, and lacks the ingame resource to tackle the cosmological antagonists themselves. (Of course, it would be different if the game started at Epic tier.)

So it's not clear to me that it is really the 'beliefs' that are achieving this in any functional sense. And what is really achieving what you claim is achieved is much less well described and nebulous and seems to come down to 'they talk about it'.

<snip>

This whole 'Belief' system is extremely weak in addressing player narrative empowerment. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest it does nothing to address that, and what really addresses that isn't the system but the OOC talk about the system that consitutes prep.

Beliefs are a formal flag. There's been quite a bit of discussion, in this thread, by me and [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] and others, about informal flag techniques.

The contribution of Beliefs to player "empowerment" is precisely this formal flag dimension. That operates in conjunction with an unequivocal statement to GMs to follow the players' formal flags in framing situations.

As you note, BW doesn't rely just on Beliefs. It also relies on shared construction of backstory, which also has both formal (Relationships, Circles, Wises) and informal (brainstorming at the start of a campaign, as per the stuff I posted in the OP of the BW thread) dimensions.

a GM that regularly uses handwave technique to skip over things that matter, significant player choices, and conflicts is doing it wrong. Thus, in the same sense there can be disagreement over what matters and when "Say yes" is warranted.

Yes. Chaochou and I are having a discussion about this very issue, around the notion of "GM permissions".

But a clear sign that saying yes is warranted is that no Belief, Instinct or Trait is in play. Or, in a group that uses informal flags, that the players' informal flags are saying "not relevant".

Associated with this are GMing techniques for weaving together various elements to ensure relevance. Chaochou gave an example upthread: if the players want to visit the barber shop, and the GM wants to set up something involving the street, then the GM can frame the barber shop so that it invites the players to engage with the street. In the desert NPC case, the GM can set things up so the players are invited to move from the city to the desert, or perhaps straight to the NPC while leaving the desert out of it (eg by relocating the NPC).

And also note, that there can be player motive to skip over things that enliven traits, beliefs, and instincts in order to obtain metagoals like security, empowerment, and 'victory'. How should a GM handle a player who says a scene that clearly relates to his beliefs, doesn't relate to his beliefs and thus should be said yes to it.

That depends. [MENTION=6688858]Libramarian[/MENTION] and I discussed this on the BW thread - in fact, it was in response to a discussion with Libramarian about this sort of issue that I started the BW thread.

The answer in buy-the-book BW is that the GM's job is to call the player out and get them either to engage, or to rewrite their Beliefs, Instincts etc. Conversely, if the players want to play a "safe" game (and Libramarian thinks that 4e, at least on its face, is a safe game) then maybe BW isn't the system for them, given that many of its quirks are designed to push the players away from "safety".

But it's very clear that, in buy-the-book BW, plonking the PCs down in an irrelevant desert is not how the GM is meant to call the players out. Looking over their Relationships and Beliefs, and having some antagonist there turn up and challenge them in some fashion, would be more like it.

I'd also like to point out that there is a potential player complaint that I'm quite sympathetic to that if the game is to be about my beliefs, it's counterintuitive that you 'say yes' to thinks unrelated to them but make it harder to succeed where it really matters to me.

Well, this is the same issue - "safe" vs "risks". BW has a clear agenda. As [MENTION=29358]Crazy[/MENTION]Jerome pointed out in the BW thread, you could play BW safe if you wanted to, but why would you bother? The system won't work at it's best, so why not use a better system.

But note that that is very unlikely to be a player position. Hussar doesn't want to play a game where he finds out if he gets to 'the city'. He wants to get to the city. The game where the player's peasant PC finds out whether or not he is to be king of the land isn't want the player wants. He wants to be the rightful king of the land and play out the story of the conflict inherent in that.

I'm now not sure whether you're talking about the example that chaochou mentioned, or one of your own.

If the player in BW wants to start as the king of the land, s/he has to build such a PC using the relevant Lifepath rules (in fact, by the book you can't start as a king, but only a Prince of the Royal Blood, and that option expressly gives every other participant a veto power). The example Luke Crane gives, of the peasant PC with the Belief "I'm the rightful king of this land", is an example in which the player is precisely inviting the GM to challenge the PC's Belief by setting up situations in which the peasant must fight to establish and prove his/her kingship.

The problem I see with beliefs is that they don't actually inherently address player goals.

No. They state (perhaps better, express) player goals. Play is where those goals are addressed.

Indeed, the most straight forward approach to a belief is to pile on reasons to question or challenge the belief

That's fairly orthodox BW play, yes.

Please show me that "I believe that your character believes he is the rightful king, even though he is not in fact the rightful king and is not recognized by anyone as such." is the failing to create a game that addresses player belief.

Again, that looks pretty orthodox to me. But I don't see any connection to your earlier idea that this is the doing of a GM who finds the players' Belief ridiculous.

Yeah, interesting. In either case, does the GM need to adjudicate?

<snip>

If I'm running the game both 1 & 2 get thrown back out to the floor for more discussion, concensus, enthusing, kibitzing and elaboration from everyone.

Do you think the distinction is important to your play, or to describe your play to others?

More important than for you, I think. My players, who have fairly traditional experiences and expectations, expect me (as GM) to take the lead role in preserving genre. Particularly in a crunchy system like 4e, which has room for "abuse" or weak spots in the rules, players can have conflicts of interest - is a particular corner case the rules working properly, or an exploit that needs to be reined in? (In a game like MHRP, say, I think this sort of issue is much less likely to arise, because of its more abstract, smooth and uniform resolution mechanics.)

I wouldn't say that I sort these things out in a dictatorial way, but it's not strict democracy either. The players look to me for leadership/guidance on these things, and I provide it. Sometimes when I'm not sure, or can see that something might be contentious, or be put under pressure later on in play, I'll throw it back to the group to try and establish a deeper consensus.

 

[pemerton]

The problem, to me, lies in shorthanding the character into a quick statement - if one of us thinks "believes he is the rightful king of the land" means "he is the One True King, and his story arc should be about proving his legitimacy and winning the throne" and the other means "he has unshakeable delusions of grandeur" and juxtaposition of his unflagging belief against the harsh reality should lead to comic results", then we are heaed for disaster.

Disaster? Just ask the player for clarification of what s/he intended by his/her Belief!

Also, as a side note, and alluding back to an earlier, semi-rhetorical question from [MENTION=6682826]CH[/MENTION]aocou, PCs in BW don't have "story arcs".

Perhaps my character is "Loyal to the Reigning Monarch". One of us is going to be unhapy - either the monarch to whom I am loyal is not the rightful king, or you aren't. Where's MY dice roll to be correct that my King's claim is the legitimate one?

Then the two of your roll dice against one another! That's the whole point!

(And in fact the episoe of play we've just preluded is the same as that in The Sword, the introductory BW scenario discussed upthread, except that in that scenario the conflicting Beliefs aren't about rightful kingship but rather rightful ownership of the sword.)

In one of the RM campaigns I GMed, one of the players had the (informally flagged) goal for his PC "I will rule the wizards by Vecna's side". Another player's goal for his PC was "Vecna will never conquer the empire". How were these resolved? The first PC stood by while allies of Vecna sacrificed the second PC to their dark gods - then struck a deal with those same Vecna-ites in which he sold out his home city in exchange for political privilege.

There's no predetermined story arc here. There are PCs with goals, and players advocating for those PCs, and play. After play has happened, we know what the story of each PC was.

I think the best way to consider the comparative "relevance as complication" of "the desert" and "the siege", with respect to whatever thematic content is waiting in "the city", is to contrast their identity without "the city". "The desert" is still "the desert" without "the city". Conversely, "the siege" is dependent upon "the city" for its very existence. Without "the city", "the siege" would cease to exist.

Yes. As I put it upthread, the relationship between siege and city is an internal one - an essential constituent element of the siege.

I'm puzzled by the fact that some posters seem to find this puzzling!