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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6103874" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I'm reluctant to even bother here as there has been an absurd amount of words already sacrificed on the alter of attempted clarity such that any further bloodshed seems pointless.  But I guess here I go anyway.I like running exploration challenges.  I know how to make them work and I know what is necessary to make them provocative and relevant with respect to my table's creative agenda.  Stakes were brought up before and its poignant that there are two creative agendas/approaches at tension here:1)  Serial, exploratory play that respects (as much as possible) granular accounting for time.  The stakes here are not expressly (sometimes they may...but its not mandated) about continuity with (a) what just occurred, (b) what is happening right now, (c) what is on the line and (d) what is clearly and transparently necessary to resolve the rising conflict.  The stakes here are pretty much about maintaining the sense of wonderment of being an adventurer exploring a setting; the scenery, the dangers, the depth and breadth of a given source material, and the twists and turns that may or may not be coherent with respect to the rising conflict at the center of the adventure.  That open world, serial exploration agenda is aided by coherency with respect for that accounting of time...and it needs some incoherency with respect to focus on the rising conflict of the moment (some "other stuff going on" while the PCs chase their quest) to reinforce the backdrop of a "living, breathing world."  A desert trek is warranted because (a) its there, (b) causal logic says you need to get across to continue onward, (c) some fun, interesting, dangerous stuff might happen (that may or may not be relevant to the rising conflict), and (d) these things reinforce the sense of wonderment of exploring "a living, breathing world."  That is the guiding premise of play.2)  Scene-based play is in many ways the inverse of that creative agenda.  It is an action movie.  It is a comic book.  Here, instant, clear continuity with respect to stakes needs to be established to legitimize a scene's existence.  If it can't pass that litmus test then it gets cut on the editing room floor.  There is no serial exploration of a "living, breathing world" and there is no granular accounting for time.  There is a series of vignettes with a rising conflict that is the tie that binds.  Coherency of theme or stakes within that rising conflict is paramount.  Any exploration "for exploration's sake" does not establish the immersive wonderment inherent to open-world exploration...any "other stuff going on" to establish a "living, breathing world" detracts from the focused pace toward resolution of the rising conflict.  Because immersive wonderment is not the point.  The continuity and progression of rising conflict and its climax is the point.  A desert trek is warranted when it is underwritten by continuity with (a) what just occurred, (b) what is happening right now, (c) what is on the line and (d) its clearly and transparently necessary resolve the rising conflict.  That is the guiding premise of play.1 is just a different game than 2.  The people at table 1 want a different playing experience and should expect the GM and the game's pacing and system impetus (resources and schemes that are in-world/causal logic driven, granular resource accounting, objective DCs for task resolution, "other stuff going on" to simulate "a living, breathing world") to produce that.  Same thing goes for table 2.  Its a bad idea to have those two creative agendas at the same table at the same time.  They do not mix well.  And its a bad idea to try to shoehorn a serial, open-world exploration creative agenda that assumes PCs remain in 1st person actor stance into a system that mechanically supports closed-system, scene-based conflict resolution (with the context of genre logic guiding the way rather than causal logic) and doesn't just assume, but promotes PCs vacillation from actor to author to director stance.  Some games can be drifted, hacked or "forced", primarily because their mechanics are relatively agnostic (they might be simple, versatile, or outright incoherent), but its much more difficult when the mechanics are stridently one or the other.  The same goes for players.  Its simple.  Hussar should be playing in a group filled with folks in the latter camp (and a system that reflects that playstyle).</blockquote>

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