QuoteYes, I'm a bad-wrong thinker.

No, you are just in the wrong thread.

Like, when someone talks about Squad Leader and you ramble on with your Memoir `44 and the merits of card based command control.

As you are quite smart, I could get the feeling you keep on doing this on purpose.

Quote from: David RYeah, I thought it was something like this, blakkie. BW is Burning Wheel, right? This is a whole different kind of play. Would I be wrong in saying that what the player was doing was determining the "stakes" ?

I think I've seen Luke mention there aren't "stakes" in Burning Wheel but I think he's meant that in a more literal sense.  There was something at stake around the a point of contention of what the weather was. When the Elf's player rolled what was at stake was it was either going to be easier than an average night or much harder than an average night for the guards on watch to spot them rowing up in a small boat they had stolen.

But that isn't really the important part. "Stakes" and "story" are total red herring words here.  This could have been a D&D game just as easily.

QuoteI think in more trad play, the meaning of proactive is different. Reading the article in the original post points to something else.

Well you know what. Screw trying to hang a "trad play" label on something because I challenge what "trad play" actually is. Because people have been doing things like this for some time. I know I have. The wheel might be burning, but it's still a freakin' wheel and that was invented before I was born.

In that essay he states "It depends on finding an as-yet unknown resource that the GM must supply."  What I'm saying is that there is a way you can make it easier to have proactive play if you remove that requirement from the GM.  Now I used the Weathersong example above.  But it could just as easily be a Circles rolls to determine the exisitance of an NPC. Or some tool to solve a "problem" that the player just came up with. Because that's what they are doing, right? Saying the world is starting here and I'm going to go change it like this. So the GM has to have poured in a bunch of time to put the tools in place for that?  Some big-ass detailed simulation of a world? Which is what Set is basically talking about....because he is all about world building preparation. It's his main tool, it's the thing he likes, it is how he thinks.

EDIT: Me, I'm all about getting players to do work for me and entertain me.  I still have to put effort into encouraging some players to do this work. Because it isn't natural for everyone but a LOT of players will do it when given some encouragement. Encouragement like not feeling that the world has already been planned out, that they are really just reacting to what GM has planned, that they are just a cog in Fate's wheel.

Settembrini, if one were to design a single page control sheet for each faction in a strategic campaign, what fields do you think would be useful?  I really want to use your approach in my next campaign, but I need to improve my organizational skills and generally smarten up.

Quote from: blakkieEncouragement like not feeling that the world has already been planned out, that they are really just reacting to what GM has planned, that they are just a cog in Fate's wheel.

To be clear though, the world being planned out in no way requires that the GM has a plan for what the characters will do in play.

Indeed, if the GM wants the players to run on the rails, if anything the world requires less planning rather than more.

Quote from: blakkieIn that essay he states "It depends on finding an as-yet unknown resource that the GM must supply."  What I'm saying is that there is a way you can make it easier to have proactive play if you remove that requirement from the GM.

Like I said, you are talking about a different kind of play here. The whole point (I think) of this discussion, is to encourage/discover ways of proactive play within the context of trad GM/Player dynamic.

(It's late, and I have a feelin' this could be one of those occasions where we have a "discussion"...)

Regards,
David R

Quote from: BalbinusIndeed, if the GM wants the players to run on the rails, if anything the world requires less planning rather than more.

Which is why I believe an improv style of play is the best way to encourage proactive play...but this works only for some players.

Regards,
David R

QuoteSettembrini, if one were to design a single page control sheet for each faction in a strategic campaign, what fields do you think would be useful? I really want to use your approach in my next campaign, but I need to improve my organizational skills and generally smarten up.

Wow, this is a nifty idea. I´ll come back to that, now there´s other work to be done.

I´ll be thinking about it and come back tommorrow.

Please feel free to start a new thread on the topic when you get a chance to address my question!

Quote from: David RLike I said, you are talking about a different kind of play here.

But is it different in a way that matters?  In your example you have the players determining a lot of setting details. Sure this is flowing from research they are doing, but they are still interpreting what they read and bringing in what they want.  That doesn't sound particularly "trad", does it?

QuoteThe whole point (I think) of this discussion, is to encourage/discover ways of proactive play within the context of trad GM/Player dynamic.

Well either you've already thrown 'trad' out, or I'm somewhere in 'trad' territory. Or "trad" is just another nigh useless label.

One thing that struck me as odd though in your post.

QuoteSo, the campaign begun with all this stuff going on, and I had yet to introduce any of the main story threads, which I had come up with, and which I intend to weave into the stuff they had given me.

You are still coming up the main story threads. How much of these did you come up with? Isn't this what the players want to come up with?

QuotePlease feel free to start a new thread

Yeah, I´ll do that. This one is going blakkiewards anyways.

OK, see you guys later!

Quote from: blakkieBut is it different in a way that matters?

Yes it is.

QuoteIn your example you have the players determining a lot of setting details. Sure this is flowing from research they are doing, but they are still interpreting what they read and bringing in what they want.  That doesn't sound particularly "trad", does it?

Players helping to create a setting before play has been around for a long time. What makes it trad, is that once the game starts authority rests with me (the GM) and noone else.

QuoteWell either you've already thrown 'trad' out, or I'm somewhere in 'trad' territory. Or "trad" is just another nigh useless label.

Trad is a useful term. Or maybe it's not, but this is a discussion for another time...preferbly when all gamers have turned to dust.

QuoteOne thing that struck me as odd though in your post.

You are still coming up the main story threads. How much of these did you come up with? Isn't this what the players want to come up with?

Which is why I stated that this may not be an example of proactive play. It seems to me, certain elements are...esp when the players set up their beginning scenes with my input, but I don't think it's proactive in the sense of the original essay....

Regards,
David R

Quote from: BalbinusTo be clear though, the world being planned out in no way requires that the GM has a plan for what the characters will do in play.

The GM still has to come up with the tools required.  The GM can actually plan themselves into a corner.  The more you predetermine the less room there is to maneuver to provide those "tools" for the players to implement their plan.

QuoteIndeed, if the GM wants the players to run on the rails, if anything the world requires less planning rather than more.

Well railroading can require less breadth of planning because you simply ignore anything outside the intended path. But the path itself tends to get planned with a good amount of detail.  It actually takes a lot of planning to keep some players on the path without tossing out the game rules, or at least planning which rules to toss out.

But the reverse is certainly not true, that less planning of specifics means railroading.

Quote from: David RYes it is.

Well you'll have to do better to explain how because:

QuotePlayers helping to create a setting before play has been around for a long time. What makes it trad, is that once the game starts authority rests with me (the GM) and noone else.

I'm still talking about the GM as the final guardian of the "setting".  In my example if the Weathersong spell was an alteration magic instead of a divination magic the in character outcome would be very, very similar. What is different is that although the magic is very powerful at the metagame level it is appears to the character in the game world as fairly weak.  It is like having a shmuck character that can perform the actions of world changing god but doesn't know it. He is still a nobody shmuck.

EDIT: Note that if we had been in a place where we had already determined that sort of weather was rare the Ob would have been set much higher. There is also a point at which I and the other players around the table would have been razzing the crap out of him for some weather suggestion. Like rain in the winter at the South Pole or something. Because I, as the GM, still have to approve what the player is rolling for I still am the guardian. I just have this attitude that encourages the player to come up with this ideas but far more often than not running with them. My first instinct is to figure out, if the player hasn't already provided the answer, how to make it work within the tone of game we have all agreed upon.

You are hung up on a temporal situation. The players do help define the setting in your case. In mine too. But in my case I did the equivalent of Quatum Mechanics.  I say, ok, we've decided the setting but our view of it is fuzzy in most places.  So as needed we'll use this set of procedures to determine what it is that we have already agreed upon. We have agreed upon whether or not Schrödinger's Cat is dead without knowing if it is dead or not.

Quote from: blakkieWell you'll have to do better to explain

This is the difference:

QuoteOriginally posted by blakkie
Yes, this is different from the idea of the GM as the keeper of all knowledge and secrets and divining and knowledge skills discovering those secrets. The divining and knowledge skills define the secrets. It was a secret, an unknown, that nobody at the table knew prior. And the advantage is nobody needed to know what it was.

In a trad game, the GM is the keeper of knowledge. He knows all. So, the question is (still) how does one, encourage proactive play within this dynamic.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David RIn a trad game, the GM is the keeper of knowledge. He knows all.

Bullshit.  He doesn't know everything. Random encounter tables.  If you like think of this as random encounter tables that have a bit more intellegence and flexibility to them.

QuoteSo, the question is (still) how does one, encourage proactive play within this dynamic.

Well I didn't see that in the OP. Sure the essay is talking about it in that context.  But then you left the reservation yourself.