Hi,

Initial note: I didn't want to de rail Rustin's thread so I started this one.

After reading the link that Rustin posted on this reply a couple of doubts about stake setting have became to creep up on me, and since I'm going to start playing TSoY with a group that has never seen this kind of gaming before (the GM has seen a bit but there is still a lot of doubts on this mind), and altough I have and have GMed a short TSoY game before there are some core ideias I want to make clear to my self in order to explain them better to my group.

So I'm going to use an example and hope you guys can help me figure out how exactly stakes/intent works out. It's also likely that after that I'll have some questions on authority distribution around the table on TSoY, but I'll get to that later.

Example:
A character with Key Of The Mission: Dethrone the King, arrives at a huge party and his imidiate wish is to embarass the king before the whole court by slapping him and we go to IIEE.

Intention - Can/should the player say that he is going to slap the king or just that he is going to embarass him? is the saying "I slap him" already pre-narration (we are still to see if he'll slap him or no) or should it be "I try to slap him"?

Is it also at this point we discuss goals (I'll goals instead of stakes, as refered by Ron on the post at Story Game)? and if so how important is the fact that the player has already decided his course of action (violence) to decide on goals? for instance if we have just discussed that his going to embarace the king the goals for the scene could be "If you win the you get to embarece him before the court, otherwise you get embarassed", but if we've discussed the course then it could be "(...), otherwise you go to prison".

I think this is the main problem that will arise, to decide how large the goals should be, if the player didn't want to embarace but rather destabilize the Kings power base I'm pretty sure that the goal "if win: I bring down the Kingdom" is pretty non-sensible, but "if win: you get the attention and favour of and already existing group who wants do bring down the Kingdom" is much more sensible. However does the description of any of these goals counts has pre-narration or that just happens if you describe exactly how the king is embarassed by saying how he and the other people at the party react or by saying how the group approaches him in after the fact?

Initiation - The player says he's going to slap the king, picks up his Fighting Dice and rolls.

Execution - Math ensues.

Effect - Ok so now we (the book says the players and the GM, so I'll assume that hasn't changed) get to describe exactly how the character slaps him (hand, glove, lamb chop, etc.) or how he doesn't even get there and is immediately arrested, and how the king and the rest of the court react to that by adding a lot of colour to what the initial goals were "embarasse him or go to prison".

His this anywhere near right?

Tell me if there are some ass assumptions or misreading of rules.

Thanks for your help,

Diogo Curado

Diogo,

Thanks for your question. The reason it may seem vague is that it is: the game doesn't tell you the size of conflicts you can have, or how you should phrase things, because the author - me - doesn't that that's a game's business. Your group has a play-style different from any other group in the world, and you should follow it. In some groups, "I slap the King" is as big as it gets, and in others "I destabilize the kingdom" is fine.

I do have some notes, though.

All stated actions in the game must be actual actions your character takes. There's no "I make the King feel bad." You can kick the King's shin. steal his wife and children, and sit in his chair, though. Because social actions are allowed, you can convince him of things, inspire him, or counsel him, but those are all actions you still take.

If you feel confused on the outcome of an action, scale back. This "I embarrass the King" vs "I destablize the region" things: they work, sure, but they'd be more fun as adventures of their own. Try "I slap the King" or "I overpower the King in conversation" first.

How you phrase things is up to you. The IIEE stuff is just there to remind you that when you say, "I slap the King," that's not yet set in stone. At any point, someone can say, "Let's go to the dice," and your last action can be reversed. I find it way more fun and engaging to state what you are doing, not what you might do.

A practical way of checking for pre-narration: Pre-narration happened when someone goes into BDtP and you have the feeling that you need to reel back a substantial part of the in-game actions to be able to do so. So just ask yourself how the situation at hand could lead to BDtP, and you'll feel up to the barrier of pre-narration quite easily with some practice.

Thank you both for your answers, I'll make a point of writing and showing that BDtP way of looking at things to the other players.

About this:

Clinton R. Nixon wrote: All stated actions in the game must be actual actions your character takes.

TSoY is quite flexible regarding authority questions. You can do classic GM-Player split, or soften it up when discussing stakes and effect to any degree the group is comfortable with. Same is true for scene framing. The rules only explicitly state the GM is framing the starting scene(s), but do not say how further scenes are handled. Players are responsible for getting their own XP and for starting BDtP – most other stuff is variable, IMHO.

If I understood things right (Clinton, please correct me if I am wrong) Goals, Stakes, Intentions are used slightly different in simple conflicts and BDtP. In simple conflicts, there is no explicit intent, only what you do. In BDtP, Intentions are what it is about, but they do not necessarily govern every single action that happens during BDtP.