You're doing what? Surprising the DM

[Nagol]

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.

<snip>

That may be true or it may not. The PCs would never know about the desert and certainly never encounter it save for the city. Does the desert exist except as a danger zone surrounding the PC goal? I suggest in narrative style play the answer is no.

 

[JamesonCourage]

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!

What puzzles me is that the siege does not relate to the PC goal inside the city. It affects the city, but the goal of the players is not "interact with the city", it's "interact with the goal." The siege is a complication on the way to that goal in the same respect that the desert is one, the difference is proximity (what I've called "backdrop).

In your last couple posts, it looks like you've rather subtly changed the goal to "interact with the city" as compared to "interact with the goal inside the city (inside the desert)" (the goal being a temple, or whatever). The temple can certainly exist without the city; the city can exist without the siege, or without the desert.

The fact that the siege cannot exist without the city is a feature of the siege, not the city, and while it can very well have an affect on the city, engagement with the city is still essentially a tangent to the players' goal (interact with the temple). The siege might be a welcome complication, but it also might be entirely irrelevant (or relevant) or uninteresting (or interesting). The desert might be a welcome complication (and relevant or irrelevant / interesting or uninteresting). The city might be a welcome complication (and relevant or irrelevant / interesting or uninteresting).

I'm not confused or puzzled about how the siege is connected to the city. That's very obvious to me. I'm confused as to how it's inherently more relevant or interesting than any other complication. And proximity is about all I'm getting here, and even that leads me to question "if the temple being in the city makes a siege an interesting and relevant complication, why is it when the temple is in the desert it's not also an interesting and relevant complication?"

But, you say it's not proximity, and I believe you. I just can't parse the difference, still. And I think that between me, Celebrim, Nagol, and N'raac, we've got some decent mental firepower on our side. I'm not telling you that I think you should play differently, I'm telling you that I can't "get inside your head", or see what logic you're using. And that's why I'm still engaging in this conversation. As always, play what you like

 

[Hussar]

/snip

Basically some people just want a cheat code to get through a particularly crappy part of the game so they can go on and do other stuff that they are interested enough in that they don't want to use a cheat code because it's something they want to engage in.

Swimming upthread - many you guys are busy.

This I completely agree with and characterizes my point nicely. I KNOW it's a cheat code. I KNOW the characters don't have the in-game resources. And, normally, I would play through things. But, in this one case, I don't want to because it's freaking boring to me. So, can I please use a cheat code right now and move on?

 

[Hussar]

Bingo. After a period interacting with recruits (or slogging through the desert) and having nothing interesting come of it, I can see the request to move this stale scene along. Demanding it be skipped fom the outset because it cannot possibly be relevant or interesting seems much less reasonable. Now, in fairness, Hussar has commented on the contrived placement of such important personages, and I would expect the same response here. But really, a lot of source material events are pretty contrived. Just the fact that the PC's, and no one else, answer the call for adventurers that brings the party together seems pretty contrived.

That has all sorts of play presumptions that don't exist in my game.

The PC's are the only ones to answer the call? Really? There are no competing adventuring groups in your world? Sorry, I don't play that way. I play with a group template where the group has a reason for adventuring together at the outset and have goals which, while they might compete for time, are never contradictory. Like I said, I like a much more focused game. There's a reason I have no problems running evil campaigns - when you have group templates, evil campaigns work fine.

 

[Hussar]

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

Think of it this way though. You want The Odyssey and I want The Illiad. If you force me to play out traveling to Troy over the sea, with hours and hours of encounters/scenarios filling up each session before we ever arrive at Troy, do you really think I'm going to be a happy player?

I'd point out that they did skip over most of the sea journey in the Illiad.

 

[Hussar]

That may be true or it may not. The PCs would never know about the desert and certainly never encounter it save for the city. Does the desert exist except as a danger zone surrounding the PC goal? I suggest in narrative style play the answer is no.

True. The players would never encounter the city save for the city. And, given the proper resources, the players would never encounter the desert AT ALL. And you don't mind that. You have no problems with the group skipping the complication so long as they have the proper in-game resources to do so. Even if most of the group wanted to interact with the desert and the wizard just teleported them into the city anyway, you'd have no problems (after all, the wizard forcing the group to interact with the lost tower a few pages back was fine).

That's the primary difference here. It has nothing whatsoever to do with how interesting the desert is or not. The desert could be the most wonderful or the worst scenario ever written and it doesn't matter. The only issue is, does the group have the proper in-game resources, yes or no.

In my games, I don't force that much attention to the rules. I have no problems setting aside the rules of the game in order to make sure that everyone at the table is enjoying the game. Strict adherence to the rules is not my primary criteria. If ignoring the rules would result in one of the players not hating and totally disengaging from the game, then I will ignore the rules every single time, regardless of the rest of the group. Because I know that the rest of the group will enjoy the next thing anyway.

I don't care about losing single scenarios. It doesn't matter to me.

 

[Manbearcat]

In my games, I don't force that much attention to the rules. I have no problems setting aside the rules of the game in order to make sure that everyone at the table is enjoying the game. Strict adherence to the rules is not my primary criteria. If ignoring the rules would result in one of the players not hating and totally disengaging from the game, then I will ignore the rules every single time, regardless of the rest of the group. Because I know that the rest of the group will enjoy the next thing anyway.

I don't care about losing single scenarios. It doesn't matter to me.

Now this I can comment on as there is enough here to take in and consider the implications on any game. Explicit, coordinated playstyle preferences and social contract can overcome the issue it creates but the issue is created nonetheless.

There was a thread a bit ago about how to deal with the mechanical "issues" and accompanying genre trope of "stealth ganking" of sentries/guards in 4e. Balesir and myself (and I think Obryn?) were ruminating on our various means. One idea was to "minionize" sentries/guards on successful Stealth checks. However, my issue with this approach is that it subverts PC build choices for Strikers generally and Lurker-based Strikers specifically. If you spend PC build resources (perhaps a considerable number) to attain considerable stealth-triggered nova capacity, such that "stealth ganking" is your shtick, this approach produces the same "niche invasion" issues that 3e, Scroll-scrying, Generalist Wizards have regarding Rogues (divinations, charms, alter self, invisibility, knock, etc). However, with that approach, the scope is even greater as suddenly, your niche is invaded by everyone who can pass a stealth check and "press an attack button" and worse still, you've spent build resources and invested in a thematic archetype that has now been rendered obsolete.

The same thing happens with any PC build resource that you've invested in (whether it be a Ranger Favored Enemy that never manifests in play [due to lack of coordination or gratuitous, antagonistic GMing], or a Mariner Theme in a game that never makes it to a coast/body of water, or a Distinction/Aspect/Belief that is never tested or given content through which it can propagate your ethos/archetype, provide mechanical benefit and impose on the narrative, or Peerless Exploration/Teleport/Phantom Steed/any "Queue Transition Scene" ability that is irrelevant because "Queue Transition Scene" is a button that anyone at the table can press without investment of PC build resources.

Nullification of PC build (and thematic archetype) utility and significance and "niche invasion" is problematic. If the GM or group is going to subvert the system/rules and the invested PC build resources that interface with them and facilitate archetype, then the proliferating issues would have to be addressed at the technique/social accord level; eg, don't play a lurker-focused striker (don't invest in Queue Transition Scene abilities) because "stealth ganking" (Queue Transition Scene) is a universal button that anyone can push.

The more prolific the ability and the more embedded it is in the fundamental design framework of the system, the more problematic it will be. Queue Transition Scene button for everyone isn't much of an issue in 4e because its primarily a scene based game with an extremely remote number of resources centered around that. 3e? Not so much. Well, 3e with no Wizards, Sorcerers, Druids, Clerics would work out ok.

 

[Celebrim]

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.

Depending on who you have as a DM, you are perfectly in your rights to join the Dragon Armies. Indeed, the temptation of joining the Dragon Armies is present in the story as written, at least for some of the 'stock' characters. The problem with modules is that there simply isn't room in them to provide guidance to the DM for what to do when the players are off the path. But you can play the DL AP in the same way you play any other series of modules, and the DM can treat them like any other sort of source material to elaborate upon. I never run a prepared module without 10-20 hours of prep to flesh it out, integrate it with the world, and generally change it to suit me. I've have heard tales of fabulous DL campaigns with fully empowered players, running characters of their own and taking the campaign in directions the writers could never have imagined. Taken as a whole, the modules represent a huge amount of scenarios, locations, and adventures to draw from. The average campaign may start more or less predictably, but eventually who knows where it will go.

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.

My own campaign, revolving around the cryptic 'Esoteric Order of the Golden Globe' would pass your litmus test. The villains are meant to be at least somewhat sympathetic. Depending the mix of players and characters, it's not entirely certain whether the players would end up working against or for the EOotGG. This current party, featuring as it does a priestess of the Sun Deity and a Champion of Aravar the Traveller, is pretty much fixed by its 'beliefs' in the role of foil of the cult and I don't expect that to change. But with a different composition and different players with different beliefs, and I'm not sure that they wouldn't eventually end up siding with the cult. Both are interesting, and since the general outline of the campaign as I've plotted it consists essentially of races to obtain various dingus's, whether the party is trying to get the dingus to use it or to destroy it doesn't upset me. Of course, as I was explaining to one of my players after the last session, lots of things haven't gone as I thought they would and they were never really locked into a plot in the first place. But, I'm usually pretty good at knowing where to poke to push the players along and this particular party at least has several players that prefer to be reactive rather than proactive.

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.

In other words, whether or not this is color or a test depends to a certain extent on whether it is reasonable for the character to accomplish given the character's resources? Or in other words, in 3e terms, can you accomplish this by taking 10? (or by taking 1 or 0!) This kinda gets to the heart of one my objections to handwaving the hiring process or hand waving the travel across the Abyss. I'm quite glad to handwave them if the PC resources or such that the process has a trivially easy outcome. I hesitate to handwave something if it doesn't. I might still handwave it, but the fact that the PC's face hardship, danger, and difficulty is a mark against handwaving them. That is rather independent of whether I am going to make the scenes therein relevant to player goals. We may presume that I know how to 'challenge beliefs' as BW calls it. The choice isn't between handwave and something irrelevant and uninteresting, but between something relevant and interesting and handwave. If I'm going to have a journey across the Abyss, it's going to be meaningful.

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.

You keep saying things like that, and maybe I'm not clear on how BW works. Is the expectation that at the beginning of each session the group will outline the agenda of play, se out the scenes that are going to occur and then signal whether something is at stake in each one? How does the player decide nothing is at stake? All I see is the player can signal the sort of things that they want to be at stake in a not particularly descriptive manner, and its up to the DM to interpret - hopefully with the players help - what sort of things relate to those stakes.

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!​

Again, that's strikes me as an interpretation by you. What you claim to find in the text, I'm not seeing as being clearly there. I don't at all deny that the player should be proactive as part of being an artful player, but I don't see what you quote as empowering the player to declare stakes or to scene frame. All I see is the player being called upon to make propositions and frame those propositions within the rules.

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.

I have no real experience with either of these game systems. My experience is with D&D 1e-3e, Chill 2e, CoC, Gamma World 2e, Star Wars 1e, GURPS, Exalted, VtM, a bit of Boot Hill, and a bit of Paranoia (and one session of Rifts, which was more than enough). I tend to approach them all more or less the same way, which means I decided really quickly that I could be a player in Paranoia but I couldn't run it (too impartial, too serious when in GM mode).

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.)

I'm not sure I really believe that. I suppose that is true if the GM is really a worshipper of the text and hidebound to it, but I've always looked at the text more as guidelines than rules and the players wishes as weighing at least as much as the rules. I expect GMs to be creative and flexible. If I do have some opponents picked out, I may signal the players what sort of things to expect so that they can decide how they relate to it. And regardless of what the players choose, I'm going to riff on it and improvise - not during the session - but between them and prior to play (like a musician practices a peice in order to be able to seem to play it effortlessly). And if players lose characters in play, they often build to the setting, establishing characters whose beliefs compel them into the drama in a way the player finds interesting.

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.

Well, in point of fact, that does happen in the scenario that Hussar wanted to skip. Again, the scenario is written more weakly than I think it should be, with less clear motivation for good players than evil ones, less satisfactory possible endings for good players than evil ones, and less challenging of beliefs for good players than evil ones than it could have, and more tedium than strictly speaking it needs... but, it isn't so inartfully written as all of that. If the party is all evil, it's actually a really interesting module with just a little bit of polishing. The Abysmal journey, if it is irrelevant, is no less irrelevant than the first destination within that Abyssmal plain/plane (the Cathedral, with Hussar remembers as 'the city'). If the party is all good, a bit more work is required to provide scenes that reward those beliefs and make it a bit less of a railroad, but I think it could be done and the central idea is pretty novel. Honestly, as a Binder, Hussar's character - if he had any beliefs at all - was quite possibly tailor made for this module. I believe by dropping out, he missed what could have been a true moment of shining awesomeness in his RPG career.

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.

The connection is a GM that finds the player's stated belief ridiculous is likely to stage the scenes that challenge that belief in a way that make the character a comic and ridiculous figure, even if the GM is not being intentially vindictive. Some players may really enjoy that, but some may not. A truly great player might even find a way to display his nobility in such a way that those that ridicule him are made to look vulgar, and he kingly even in his humiliation. But often I think based on experience that level of depth is going to be beyond the player, and what you'll end up with is a player frustrated despite the GM following the letter of the BW rules and guidelines. And often based on my experience with GMs, the GM may feel he's being perfectly reasonable. After all, it's not like the players lifepath says he really is the king, and its a ridiculous thing to believe that you are the king when all the evidence suggests otherwise. And besides, GMs are prone to looking askance at any player who tries to use backstory to draw more than they think is their due worth of spotlight.

 

[pemerton]

That has all sorts of play presumptions that don't exist in my game.

Agreed.

The PC's are the only ones to answer the call? Really? There are no competing adventuring groups in your world? Sorry, I don't play that way. I play with a group template where the group has a reason for adventuring together at the outset and have goals which, while they might compete for time, are never contradictory. Like I said, I like a much more focused game.

My games tend to be focused on big cosmological or world-historical issues, with local events being important, but important as reflections/expressions of the cosmological transformations.

There aren't "competing adventuring groups" in the sort of game I run. But the PCs haven't "answered the call" either. They are the ones with the cosmological connections, who get swept up in these grand matters. Their opponents end up being gods, demons, archliches etc, not mere mortals!

So my game is different from yours in detail - but the same insofar as it departs from [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION]'s assumptions!

There's a reason I have no problems running evil campaigns - when you have group templates, evil campaigns work fine.

Party cohesion in my games tends to be understood flexibly and informally, although some of the PCs may be more tightly connected (eg in my previous RM campaign, two of the PCs were cousins within a down-on-it-luck samurai family, and a third a recruit into their clan from a merchant family hoping to raise their status).

Intra-party conflict has been an element in my games in the past, and I expect it to be an increasing element in my 4e game as the game moves into Epic tier. I have some ideas on how to handle it, but to some extent have to wait and see (I'm not 100% sure 4e is as robust in this respect as I would like!).

In my games, I don't force that much attention to the rules.

<snip>

If ignoring the rules would result in one of the players not hating and totally disengaging from the game, then I will ignore the rules every single time, regardless of the rest of the group. Because I know that the rest of the group will enjoy the next thing anyway.

For mostly irrational reasons I tend to be a bit more of a stickler for the rules, but that is why I like a ruleset that itself works in a way that fits with "say yes". (4e does; Rolemaster doesn't really.)

But the second part of what I've quoted I think can't be overemphasised, and is highly relevant to this whole discussion. One of the overtones has been that, by skipping the desert, the players are getting something for nothing. They're cheating. But this makes no sense to me! The game will keep going; it's not going to come to a sudden end. And the GM will keep coming up with new challenges and complications, no less difficult and taxing than the desert. Within the context of the game the players get no advantage by skipping the desert; it simply changes the fictional context within which they confront challenges, from an uninteresting to an interesting one.

Given this, why waste play time on boring stuff? Cut to the interesting stuff!

There was a thread a bit ago about how to deal with the mechanical "issues" and accompanying genre trope of "stealth ganking" of sentries/guards in 4e. Balesir and myself (and I think Obryn?) were ruminating on our various means. One idea was to "minionize" sentries/guards on successful Stealth checks. However, my issue with this approach is that it subverts PC build choices for Strikers generally and Lurker-based Strikers specifically.

<snip>

The same thing happens with any PC build resource that you've invested in

<snip>

Nullification of PC build (and thematic archetype) utility and significance and "niche invasion" is problematic.

<snip>

The more prolific the ability and the more embedded it is in the fundamental design framework of the system, the more problematic it will be. Queue Transition Scene button for everyone isn't much of an issue in 4e because its primarily a scene based game with an extremely remote number of resources centered around that. 3e? Not so much. Well, 3e with no Wizards, Sorcerers, Druids, Clerics would work out ok.

HeroQuest revised discusses the version of this issue that arises within its mechanical framework, which is uniform action resolution within a context of free-descriptor PC building.

The scene: a rock needs to be moved. PC1: has an excellent rating in "Strong". PC2: has the same rating in "Pulls loads like a drafhorse". PC3: has the same rating in "able to heave and carry rocks like Obelix the Gaul". What to do to ensure niche protection?

The HQrev solution is to impose a -6 penalty (on a d20 check) to PC1 - whose ability is the most generically applicalbe - and a -3 penalty to PC2, whose ability is less generic but still more widely applicable than PC3's.

In a session in which PC1 was the only one present, however, no penalty would apply. In a game involving only PC1 and PC3, the full -6 penalty would only apply. In a game involving only PC1 and PC2, or PC2 and PC3, the GM would have to adjudicate between a -3 or -6 penalty to the first-named PC, based on a contextual judgement as to the niche-stealing tendencies of the broader descriptor.

I'm personally a big fan of making these niche-protection decisions on a contextual, party specific basis rather than trying to capture all of them in the rules. (And if known tendencies and preferences trigger build choices downstream, as in your lurker-ganker example, c'est la vie. No single RPG table can be all things to all people!)

 

[pemerton]

What puzzles me is that the siege does not relate to the PC goal inside the city. It affects the city, but the goal of the players is not "interact with the city", it's "interact with the goal."

No. Upthread I suggested that you were conflating ingame and metagame. You rejected that suggestion, but I feel that in the bit I've quoted you are doing the same thing again.

The PCs' goal is to interact with something in the city (the so-called MacGuffin).

The players goal is to have a fun session while engaging with their PCs' goal.

From the point of view of the PCs, the siege is simply an annoying obstacle, as you say no different from the desert.

But from the point of view of the players, the siege is an interesting avenue to their goal of having a fun session while engaging with their PCs' goal. It's a player resource. Just to give another example that I don't recall seeing yet in the thread, it gives them the opportunity to pass off their acquisition of the MacGuffin (assuming that's what's going on here) as a piece of random wartime looting.

If your point, and/or [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION]'s, is that it can sometimes require deft GM judgement and real-time adjustments to properly deploy the distinction between "irrelevant distraction" and "interesting complication which the players can leverage as a resource", then yes, it can. That's why Eero Tuovinen, in describing the standard model of narrativist RPGing, talks about sheer GMing experience as being something which helps with determining what complications to put in the way of the players.

Sometimes I don't know if a complication is going to work until I try it in play. But if it's clear that it's falling flat, I don't stick to my guns come-what-may. I certainly don't wait for the players to activate the so-called "nuclear option", or hope that if I persist the players will come to see that it really is worthwhile after all! I take proactive steps to get things back on track. That's what Hussar's GM didn't do, in either case.

My own campaign, revolving around the cryptic 'Esoteric Order of the Golden Globe' would pass your litmus test. The villains are meant to be at least somewhat sympathetic.

<snip>

with a different composition and different players with different beliefs, and I'm not sure that they wouldn't eventually end up siding with the cult.

OK, though I'm not sure what to make of your use of the word "villain". This relates to our "poof, you're out of sim" exchange uphread.

The key for me is not that the players can play "evil" PCs, or align with the "evil" forces in the gameworld. That's completely compatible with sim play.

It's that what counts as evil, or as villainy, is itself up for grabs. I think it's in this thread that I mentioned the BW aesthetic as having existentialist or Nietzschean dimensions. This current point of discussion is an elaboration or amplification of that idea.

It's hard to come up with non-contentious illustrations, of course, but here's an attempt that draws on two RPG-ish action/adventure films. The movie Star Wars, in its account of Han Solo's joining with the rebels in the climax of the film, is (in my view) not an attempt to express or interrogate any significant moral or political problem. That there is a "right" way of doing things, of expressing the values of loyalty and justice in this case and that they are the only governing values, is taken utterly for granted. The film is fun, of course, but at least in this sequence sheds no light on any moral matter and makes no commentary on any interesting issue.

Contrast the climax to the film Hero, in which one of the protagonists allows himself to be killed by his beloved in order to try a prove, at one and the same time, both a point about political justice and loyalty (to the goal of peace via political unification) and interpersonal justice and loyalty (by refusing to fight his beloved). Her response is to then kill herself, by hugging him and thereby impaling herself on the same sword. This makes a further point about interpersonal justice and loyalty.

Whether or not one agrees with the views apparently conveyed by this climax (and they are subtle, so there is plenty of room for reasonable disagreement over what they might be), I think that it is obviously trying to engage the audience in reflection on what loyalty and justice demand of us. Part of the point of the confronting climax is to force such reflection. This is very different from Star Wars - obviously so, in my view. Star Wars, in the Han Solo "redemption" sequence, is not trying to force reflection. In fact, if the audience does not bring a presupposed notion of the requirements of loyalty and justice to the scene, it may well fall flat.

Narrativist play is, among other things, about letting the players do the "Hero" thing - of making a commentary, be it good or bad, moving or perhaps bathetic, about some theme or value or ideal. (Ron Edwards tends to focus on moral ideals in his express definition, but that is too narrow by the lights of his own elaboration and examples: The Dying Earth, for instance, is correctly classified by him as a narrativist-oreinted game, but in my view it's not about moral commentary but aesthetic commentary.)

Hence the importance of avoiding Star Wars-style prejudgement or presupposition, in narrativist play. Describing a certain group in your campaign world as "villains" hints to me of prejudgement, but perhaps you are simply meaning something like "recurring enemies of the current PCs".

In other words, whether or not this is color or a test depends to a certain extent on whether it is reasonable for the character to accomplish given the character's resources? Or in other words, in 3e terms, can you accomplish this by taking 10? (or by taking 1 or 0!)

It is not really analogoue to take 10, no. Take 10 is about average performances without pressure. Whereas the idea in "say yes" - which is not so well elaborated in BW as in other games (esp HeroQuest revised and to a lesser extent MHRP), but is at least present in incipient form in a passage of the Adventure Burner that I didn't quote - is a "genre credibility test". So in 3E terms the nearest analogue would be taking 20 (and assuming max damage if we're talking about a combat) but without understanding this taking 20 as corresponding to retries within the fiction (which is the orthodox understanding of taking 20 in 3E).

It's not "can this person do this on a good day with a bit of luck"? It's "would it violate genere credibility for this to be free narrated"? As the current exchange between [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] and me indicates, there can be table differences over who has primary responsibility for applying the test. The texts of HQrev and MHRP both locate the responsibility in the GM, but clearly as chaochou has indicated it can be thrown back to group consensus. (Though as I replied, in a crunchy system like 4e or BW this may sometimes lead players into conflicts of interest).

This kinda gets to the heart of one my objections to handwaving the hiring process or hand waving the travel across the Abyss. I'm quite glad to handwave them if the PC resources or such that the process has a trivially easy outcome. I hesitate to handwave something if it doesn't. I might still handwave it, but the fact that the PC's face hardship, danger, and difficulty is a mark against handwaving them.

This preference/inclination is why [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and I are seeing your GMing inclinations as primarily, perhaps fudamentally, simulationist. Your criterion for "saying yes"/"handwaving"/"free narration" is about ingame causal relationships and possibilities. You are assessing the risk of hardship, danger and difficulty by reference to the ingame causal likelihoods as revealed by the game mechanics and their interactions with the PCs' established resources. (At least this is how I read what I have just quoted. Perhaps I've misread, but it seems pretty clear to me.)

That is rather independent of whether I am going to make the scenes therein relevant to player goals.

As is often the case, much depends on the details of play and context.

Upthread, for instance, [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION] suggested that if the desert is going to be handwaved, it may as well be a pleasant meadow. My reply is that sometimes we want a desert as colour, but don't want to muck around with all the mechanical resolution that a desert could entail, because the desert is not the point: it's a backdrop to something else. Now here are 3 options: (1) include the backdrop that we all want; (2) include play focused only on what we're all interested in; (3) resolve, in mechanical detail, all actions that, by the lights of the game's action resolution mechanics, have a chance of failure that is procedurally consequential (eg risk of death or injury, noticeable resource depletion, etc).

How do different games and styles deliver on these options? As [MENTION=6688858]Libramarian[/MENTION] and I discussed on another fairly recent thread, very trad dungeon-crawling D&D delivers on all 3, by including as backdrop only whacky underworlds or mad wildernesses where every path the PCs might take will deliver over-the-top Gygaxian action.

But loosen up your constraints on backdrop - eg allow deserts, or oceans, or cities - and the pressures change. You can only get all 3, at that point, if (2) - the things we're all interested in as a focus of play - is expanded to encompass any procedural challenge the PCs might confront. As best I understand [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION]'s position in this thread, it is that this understanding of (2) is the default way of playing D&D, or perhaps all RPGs, and is perhaps (? I'm less confident here in interpreting N'raac's posts) the only tenable way of RPGing.
[MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION]'s idea of "meaningful choices" defined in more-or-less procedural terms also seems to take a similar view of (2).

"Say yes" play becomes relevant when (1) - the backdrop - is loosened up, so the gameworld is not gerrymandered into "adventureland" in trad dungeon crawling fashion, while (2) is narrowed, so that "the things we're all interested in as the focus of play" is not just "whatever happens, as determined by action resolution procedures appied and adjudicated by the GM", but something much more specific. "Say yes" reconciles the latent tension between (1) and (2) by providing a methodology for dispensing with (3). (On its own it's probably not enough. For instance, BW combines it with "Let it Ride" and "Intent and Task"; 4e is a bit different from BW, but has very scene-focused resolution and consequence mechanics. RM is unhelpful for this approach because even if the GM wants to say yes, the resolution and consequence mechanics keep telling you "You can't just say yes, because that would not pay sufficient regard to all the mechancial consequences that are flowing from that previous episode of resolution".)

You keep saying things like that, and maybe I'm not clear on how BW works. Is the expectation that at the beginning of each session the group will outline the agenda of play, se out the scenes that are going to occur and then signal whether something is at stake in each one?

No. The expectation is that, at the beginning of each session the players will have set Beliefs for their players, coordinating with one another (eg creating possibilities of riffing off one another's beliefs for synergy or conflict) and with the GM (at a minimum, the GM needs to know what the Beliefs are).

The players will then declare actions in pursuit of their Beliefs. Of course this depends upon appropriate positioning within the fiction (eg I can't set out to kill my nemesis if I don't know where my nemesis is), but the set-up and PC gen stages of the (pre-)game will have taken care of this (eg my nemesis will be named as one of my Relationships). The players also have resources to further establish that positioning (eg Circles for bringing desired NPCs into play; Wises for bringing desired backstory facts into play).

In response to this, the GM will narrate complications, following the adage of "going where the action is". The GM will also narrate colour, as part of the general function of preserving immersion and shared pleasure in the fantasy genre. So if the players declare "We're off to the lost tomb to kill my nemesis the lich king and recover my comrade's stolen heirloom", the GM might narrate some colour ("You enter the mountains and cross a bridge over a chasm; you know you're close now, as this is clearly the notorious Bridge That May Be Traversed But Once."). And a player might even riff on that colour ("I don't pay any heed to those old fables! My Legolas-clone dances along the bridge railings in his typical carefree fashion.").

And then we get to the real action - the Lost Tomb. And that's where mechanically driven, dice-rolling play happens.

Of course, it might play out differently. Maybe the GM decides that the lich king will sally forth and fight the PCs at the bridge - wielding the treasured heirloom against the PCs! At that point the bridge and chasm aren't just colour any more, and the dice will come out - apart from anything else, it would be almost mandatory in that scene for the heirloom to be at risk of falling down the chasm! And how can we tell? Because now Beliefs - about defeating the lich king, about recovering the heirloom - have been directly put into play.

How does the player decide nothing is at stake? All I see is the player can signal the sort of things that they want to be at stake in a not particularly descriptive manner, and its up to the DM to interpret - hopefully with the players help - what sort of things relate to those stakes.

The player's decision happens prior to the scene framing. (BW players may rewrite Beliefs and Instincts freely, but the GM is expressly empowered by the rules to defer such changes if they seem an attempt to leverage an advantage in a scene, or to squib from a confrontation that the GM has just framed.)

If the GM isn't certain what would count, or what the player has in mind, s/he is expected to ask - and, if it would be helpful, to work with the player to increase the Belief's focus, its synergies (if the player is aiming for some), its conflicts (if the player is aiming for some), etc. There's no intention that the GM be working blind - the whole point is for everyone to be on the same page, so that the sorts of experiences [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] is complaining about (desert crossing, job interviews) can be avoided.

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!

​

Again, that's strikes me as an interpretation by you. What you claim to find in the text, I'm not seeing as being clearly there.​

What can I say? The intention of the text strikes me as crystal clear. BW - and not just the core book, but the whole 5 books taken together (Core, Character Burner, Monster Burner, Magic Burner, Adventure Burner), are among the clearest and most coherent RPG books I've ever read. I only wish WotC could write rules and advice with half the clarity of intention and purpose.

So suppose, at the Brige That May Be Traversed But Once, the GM narrates a snivelling, toll collecting Keeper. The GM intends this to be just a colour encounter - playing the Keeper for a couple of minutes will allow a bit of build up of what is coming, let the players get revved up for taking on the tomb and the lich king, etc. The GM's thought is that if one of the players declares an attack against the Keeper the GM will just say yes. It's all just intended as colour.

But then one of the players takes it differently. "I've heard rumours of the toll collector - it's said that he knows the secret path into the inner tomb." And then calls for a test of Folklore, or Tomb-wise, or Bridge-wise, or Toll-wise, or some other relevant skill to see if this is true. The GM sets a DC, the player rolls. Suddenly we've moved from mere colour to sustantive resolution. (The Adventure Burner discusses in detail how player and GM are to negotiate which skill is tested, and how the GM is to set DCs.)

Suppose the player succeeds on that check. The rumour the PC has heard is true. "Now," says the player, "I'm going to wrest that secret out of him! Keeper, tell me your secret and I'll spare your life! Otherwise it's forfeit, and may the lich king claim your worthless soul!" And we're into a Duel of Wits, and/or a melee if either player or GM escalates in such a fashion.

And so on.

Now if the GM likes the idea of the Keeper knowing a secret entrance, s/he could just say yes. But better would be to require the check, and then - if the check fails - to trade on intent rather than task. (This advice is in the core rulebook, and also the Adventure Burner.) So the PC succeeds at the task - s/he recollects a true bit of folklore - but fails on hhis/her intent, because it doesn't work quite as desired. Perhaps the GM narrates "Yes, you've heard such stories - they say that the Keeper does know a secret entrance, but that it can only be whispered in the silent tongue of the dead, and heard by those as deaf as the long-departed." Now the PC (and the player) has a choice - is he prepared to deafen himself in order to learn the secret way in?

(The example in the Adventure Burner is actually tighter than mine. The player tests Trial by combat-Wise to establish the truth of the proposition that, prior to his PC's friend and enemy duelling, each will drink a cup of wine as custom demands; his purpose is to lace his enemy's cup with poison. On a failure the GM narrates "Yes, each drinks a cup of win - the cup handed him by his opponent!" Now the PC (and player) has to respond to a fairly drastic complication, namely, that his friend is being handed poisoned wine to drink. I welcome any advice on how to tighten my complication above, given that I quite like The Bridge That May Be Traversed But Once and its Keeper and toll collector, and might use them in my own game!)

I'm not sure I really believe that. I suppose that is true if the GM is really a worshipper of the text and hidebound to it, but I've always looked at the text more as guidelines than rules and the players wishes as weighing at least as much as the rules. I expect GMs to be creative and flexible.

Sure, so do I.

My point is that, in BW, I can bring the lich king into being as my nemesis by purchasing an appropriate Relationship and writing an appropriate Belief. And then I can set off to confront the lich king - whose geographic location wthin the setting will have been established as part of prep.

Whereas, in 4e, I can make Orcus my nemesis by building my PC as a paladin of the Raven Queen, but there is no mechanical device whereby I can bring 1st level Orcus cultists into being - I am dependent upon the GM exercising his/her authority over backstory in that respect - and nor is there any mechanical device whereby I can set off to confront Orcus, given that 1st level PCs can't, in 4e, travel to the Abyss under their own steam.

This is just one respect in which the different approaches to scaling across the two games (BW none, 4e lots) has an impact on the viable approaches to play that they support.

Well, in point of fact, that does happen in the scenario that Hussar wanted to skip.

I didn't get the sense that, in their arrival in the wasteland, the PCs were confronted by a friend/nemesis. It seemed to me that they had to first engage the desert - and in a more than hand-waved fashion - for that to take place. At least as Hussar's GM was running the scenario.

a GM that finds the player's stated belief ridiculous is likely to stage the scenes that challenge that belief in a way that make the character a comic and ridiculous figure, even if the GM is not being intentially vindictive. Some players may really enjoy that, but some may not. A truly great player might even find a way to display his nobility in such a way that those that ridicule him are made to look vulgar, and he kingly even in his humiliation. But often I think based on experience that level of depth is going to be beyond the player, and what you'll end up with is a player frustrated despite the GM following the letter of the BW rules and guidelines.

I find the example a bit odd - how can a GM, before play has even commenced, find a PC a figure of tragic comedy rather than noble potential? But in any event the whole point of pre-play discussion and coordination is to make sure that everyone is on the same page.

As I posted upthread, a BW GM who started framing scenes for the peasant-who-would-be-king player, whilst having the attitude that the Belief is ridiculous, would be wasting everyone's time.

(In The Dying Earth it might of course be a completely different matter, but The Dying Earth has a very different sensibility from BW. BW takes its fantasy pretty seriously. It's motto is "Fight for what you believe", not "Laugh at yourself for what you believe".)​