Quote from: blakkieAt this point I personally would be doing a quick check of the Beliefs to figure out WTF the existance/non-existance of this god damn inn is so important. :ponder: Why does it matter? What conflict does it serve? I ask them why they want an inn? To sleep for the night? Does one of the PCs have a Belief about not roughing it out under the stars or something?

It matters because sleeping in an inn or not sleeping in an inn changes the experience for the characters, regardless of whether a character has a particular hang-up or not.  If you are driving down a secondary highway and decide to start looking for a motel when it gets late, how does your desire to spend the night in a Motel affect whether you find one or not and how might your night change if you do or don't?

Quote from: blakkieSo when it came time to put their ship boarding plan into motion I asked "Where do you get the rowboat from?"  "We steal it." I looked around at the Beliefs and the players. I didn't see any particular tie-in for Beliefs nor did I see any players reaching for dice or expanding on where or how they were stealing the boat. So I made one of those executive GM decisions. They steal a boat. They have a boat! Done and done.

I wouldn't find that very satisfactory as a player, if for no other reason than playing through little details like that is part of what I enjoy about the hobby.  It sounds like these games have no room to stop and smell the roses because smelling roses isn't part of any character's Belief and isn't related to the central conflict of the game.

Quote from: blakkieAfterall the game was about the conflict with Eberhard, Pirate Slaver. They are still doing the sneaky-sneaky rolls anyway but any consequences for failure are going to center around Eberhard. The Beliefs said so!

I thought that you said that "Afterall the PCs are the center of the game, right? Everything is relative to them."  Yet here, it sounds like you are making everything relative to a particular conflict and making that central.

Quote from: John MorrowIt matters because sleeping in an inn or not sleeping in an inn changes the experience for the characters, regardless of whether a character has a particular hang-up or not.  If you are driving down a secondary highway and decide to start looking for a motel when it gets late, how does your desire to spend the night in a Motel affect whether you find one or not and how might your night change if you do or don't?

So the player wanted the "inn experience"? They didn't ask for the "getting the inn is tough experience"? Boom, there the inn is.

Quote from: John MorrowI wouldn't find that very satisfactory as a player, if for no other reason than playing through little details like that is part of what I enjoy about the hobby.  It sounds like these games have no room to stop and smell the roses because smelling roses isn't part of any character's Belief and isn't related to the central conflict of the game.

:rolleyes: What little bits are you playing over now? Do you play out taking a crap? I mean literally, about once per game day everyone at the table goes into detail how their character takes a dump? Of course not (well usually not).

Of course you seem to have missed a really important part -> "nor did I see any players reaching for dice or expanding on where or how they were stealing the boat". There you go, want to smell the roses? Then stick your nose in it.

QuoteI thought that you said that "Afterall the PCs are the center of the game, right? Everything is relative to them."  Yet here, it sounds like you are making everything relative to a particular conflict and making that central.

There is no contradiction in those two statements. Right there on every single character sheet was Eberhard. Eberhard is where the action is because to the PCs [players] Eberhard is the important thing. Of course they were all slightly different conflicts with Eberhard, and the PCs each had their own other conflicts too. The play reflected that.

EDIT: Now if the Dwarf had kept his Belief that got cut and the Dwarf player decided to really hit on that Belief then the path of play could have easily been different.

Quote from: blakkieSo the player wanted the "inn experience"? They didn't ask for the "getting the inn is tough experience"? Boom, there the inn is.

So the players have to enumerate every possible experience that they want in the game?  How about the, "I want to experience, though my character, what life is like in the setting?"

Quote from: blakkie:rolleyes: What little bits are you playing over now? Do you play out taking a crap? I mean literally, about once per game day everyone at the table goes into detail how their character takes a dump? Of course not (well usually not).[/UQOTE]

Fallacy of the excluded middle.  There is a lot of turf between playing out characters relieving themselves and jumping right to the final conflict with the bad guy and nothing else.  

Quote from: blakkieOf course you seem to have missed a really important part -> "nor did I see any players reaching for dice or expanding on where or how they were stealing the boat". There you go, want to smell the roses? Then stick your nose in it.

Do all of your players know that?  Have you asked any if they would have liked to have played through the theft after the fact?

Quote from: blakkieThere is no contradiction in those two statements. Right there on every single character sheet was Eberhard. Eberhard is where the action is because to the PCs [players] Eberhard is the important thing. Of course they were all slightly different conflicts with Eberhard, and the PCs each had their own other conflicts too. The play reflected that.

But if it's not a conflict written down, it gets glossed over?  This isn't sounding very appealing to me.  And, by the way, I'm saying this as a person who primarily thinks of myself as a player, not a GM.

Quote from: John MorrowSo the players have to enumerate every possible experience that they want in the game?  How about the, "I want to experience, though my character, what life is like in the setting?"

"We find an inn and put up for the night."  <---- They just indicated thet expect an inn to be there. Setting defined!

QuoteFallacy of the excluded middle.

Indeed! :rolleyes:

QuoteThere is a lot of turf between playing out characters relieving themselves and jumping right to the final conflict with the bad guy and nothing else.

And in this case there seemed to be no interest at the table playing out taking some POS bucket with oars for a joyride.  Not having read the rules yet maybe you don't realise that there the next step up in importance for the theft is only going to be one sneaky-sneaky (Stealth) roll made anyway to cover both the theft of the boat and infiltrating the ship?

QuoteDo all of your players know that?

If they read the rules, sure. Role Of The Players, item #4. "Use the mechanics!" You want something? Don't wait for me to offer it. And yes, I do beat this drum constantly. And highlight and reward proactive play. And yes, it works. Even with the most quiet, shy player I have ever met.  This of course ties in with #4 on the GM list of duties "engage and challenge".

Now did I beat on that drum hard enough during this particular  demo to completely drive that home? Unfortunately I didn't have time to debrief afterward so I'm not sure of that. But there were no sad or confused faces when they got the boat. *shrug* Off to attempt to board the ship they went. Forward to adventure! one might say.

Of course this was a one-off session and we were also working in set amount of time smaller than you typically get at a Con. So yes, I was pushing the pace a bit because of that. Work with what you've got. *shrug*

QuoteDo all of your players know that?  Have you asked any if they would have liked to have played through the theft after the fact?

Heady thought, huh? Having all the people at the table deciding together what is important enough to roll for instead of some damn designer ((who I keep getting told isn't suppose to be there at the table strip-searching you. :rimshot:  ))

QuoteBut if it's not a conflict written down, it gets glossed over?

Didn't we just dicuss above that it is not necessarily so?

Besides if it is something comes up that is obviously setting impacting that hadn't been already determined you (as a group) figure it out. For example sometime after we started and when the PCs scouting the boat I realised we hadn't set the naval tech level for the setting. So I asked what people at the table thought of that? I didn't leave it that openended, I started running through specific questions. We settled on coast-hugging ships with poor sail power tech relying most on oars. We figured this played well with our past recasting of Eberhard from pirate to pirate-slaver.

Maybe that's the issue here, you are talking more about a larger definition of the setting and game tone? That's there on the GM and player lists too. But I think that is something BW could use more of. Something akin to a parred down version of the World Burner from BE (just an example off the top of my head) that provides more structure to catch more of these questions up front. Like the questionaires you find sprinkled throughout the books for various things.  There is a really small version of setting determination in the appendix with the GM and player roles, but it only covers a few key mechanics things like resource cycle (how ofte you pay your cost of living) and how powerful Faith magic is.

You did get confused by my reference to "history" books. I was refering to a tome that was history to the setting, not history to us.

For a variety of reasons, I'm not sure it's going to be fruitful to continue discussing this.  That said, you've said some things that make me interested in the system and some things that make me uninterested in the system but I'm probably more inclined to think about getting it and looking it over, for no other reason than to understand what it's doing and why.

Quote from: John MorrowFor a variety of reasons, I'm not sure it's going to be fruitful to continue discussing this.

Primarily because you are just thinking it too hard?  It is just "...a pretty good list of what [Balbinus] consider to be the key elements of GMing..." provided in a ready-made, handy form tuned more to proactive play than not. It neither guarantees success nor failure. It just gives a better shot at it.

Quote from: blakkiePrimarily because you are just thinking it too hard?

No, primarily because it will wind up becoming a much broader stylistic discussion that is beyond the scope of this thread.  Clearly, you want something very different out of your games than I do.  As such, some of what you consider good advice is not good advice in my experience, and vice versa but we're going around in circles discussing why.