thread: 2009-06-07 : Concrete Examples of Arrows
On 2009-06-09, Callan wrote:
I'm not sure whether it matters or whether it's a quibble (and I'd normally just not note it), but I'm not sure...
"Fictional cause: a character does something that counts as a tactical move."
Well, within whatever fiction imagined...there isn't any sort of tactical move that it would 'count as'. A tactical move is just a game procedure term and also a narrational prompt for players. What actually is narrated and what that inspires in listeners imaginations is just whatever happens to be inspired. I'm looking at it from a very outside perspective, in saying that. Outside the activity, looking in, I mean. But it might not matter...
On the burning wheel,
"It's clear that the relationship in the game between the players and the GM is such that..."
It's not really clear? I mean, upon reading the text a player might say "Whoa, by working slow I'm apparently allowing what now?"
Is it stating a rule? Or is it saying what the player allows - and given allowing is a choice, the book can't say for the player that he is allowing anything. It really does seem to be refering to some prior agreement that doesn't necersarily/most likely doesn't exist.
For myself, if I were playing and hadn't read this text and it's shown to me after me narrating going slow, I might very well go along with the general idea so as to be supportive of the game the GM/someone I care for to some degree, wants to play. But if I'm shown this after my narration, even if I go with it whole heartedly, then it's clear when I was narrating I was in no way allowing anything like what the text talks about. At all. You can't say you agreed to something in the past you didn't actually agree to - you can only agree right now, in this moment, surely? But the text is trying to tell the GM I was allowing stuff when I narrated, when I did not allow it (I agreed/allowed it, afterward, with a smile indeed - but that was after, not during)...this text doesn't make sense?
"For both of them: don't think of the GM's authority, think of the GM's responsibilities."
Well, my own philisophical default is that he starts out with no responsibilities, at all. A blank slate. Then he gains responsiblities if they are explicity stated to him and he agrees to them.
But one thing he can decide to do, in his responbilityless decision, is, perhaps because it's fun, is to decide to use his decision to facilitate judgment and oversight. Doing this stuff not because he's responsible, but because it's a bit of fun to do. The text can even point this usage out, so he doesn't have to stumble across/invent the idea latter.
Is my philisophical default simply at odds with this rule? It might be and that might be the issue here. But I'm pretty sure my default can still achieve the goal the rule is aiming for, anyway. Perhaps it's the default I'm bringing to the rule that causes me to not understand it?
