OK, but it isn't like there's SETUP that is pushing things into a certain path. We really don't know, when we play, what is going to happen, AT ALL. We know there are certain elements, and we do make up things that happen (the GM particularly).
So, like the other day when we played, Yorath failed a check for something. I forget what it was, but we were out on a mission to lay our fallen comrade to rest. Back in town we'd left Unirra the special child with Branwyn the Ranger (who's now a retired PC, being disabled). The GM decided that the consequences of Yorath's failure were that a threat would emerge to attack Unirra and Branwyn. Yorath and Vahid had also left some of their followers to ensure nothing like this happened, so that played out as a scene without any PCs directly present.
I don't see where we made up the direction of things, certainly not collaboratively. It was more like possible threats to Unirra were already hinted at simply by her nature (established by the GM and some dice rolls a couple sessions ago). So, the GM making that hard move was pretty much the rock bouncing in a certain direction due to the randomly generated shape of the terrain, along with a dose of GM fiat that was HIGHLY constrained by principles and practices. The GM needed to make whatever happened 'follow from the fiction', it needed to be 'interesting', and it needed to be fairly coherent with the current story. The fact that our PCs were present at Branwyn's Hut in proxy (our followers) made it an excellent choice. Our followers were threatened, and potentially an all ready hinted at and partially materialized threat to Stonetop was involved.
This reminded me a bit of my Burning Wheel game:
Alicia and Aedhros had burgled the office of a petty harbour official, had been pursued by guards, and had defeated the guards. Especially from Alicia's perspective - of collecting enough money to buy her own ship - things were looking good. Then Alicia cast a Persuade spell to stop Aedhros murdering one of the defeated guards with his meteoric steel long knife Heart-seeker. But she failed her casting, and also suffered terrible Tax from the casting - a Mortal Wound resulting from the magical energy she conjured up.
Aedhros - whose bitterness and Spite are the result of having failed to prevent his spouse from dying - was determined not to have another person die under his care, especially when he was being observed by his father-in-law (the NPC Thurandril, Elven ambassador to the port town, who Aedhrose blames for his spouse's death, and who had come down to the docks on his own business). So Aedhros did the only thing he could think of - as someone whose Circles include the Path of Spite, and who has a reputation as ill-favoured for himself and others, he looked to see if a bloodletting or surgical necromancer or similar ill-omened type might be nearby the scene!
But my Circles check failed: and so no friendly bloodletter appeared, but rather the Death Artist Thoth. Thoth took Alicia into his workroom, through the secret entrance that leads onto the docks; and Aedhros had no choice but to go with him. And so the game suddenly pivoted from being one about Alicia and Aedhros scrabbling about on the docks, to Aedhros serving as Igor to Thoth (who also serves as a substitute PC for Alicia's player, while Alicia slowly recovers from her Mortal Wound).
The sequence of events here is:
*A failed check in the burglary attempt had the consequence that someone might have noticed when the petty official tried to escape through a back door that Aedhros and Alicia didn't know about (in AW terms, a soft move);
*Another failed check in the burglary attempt had the consequence that guards turned up through that back door (in AW terms, a hard move);
*A series of checks and player decisions resulted in the PCs being pursued by those guards out of the building and onto the docks, and then defeating the guards in melee (primarily due to Alicia's efforts) with Thurandril looking on - a GM decision in response to a failed check (by me for Aedhros) was that Thurandril had come upon this altercation while going about his business;
*As Aedhros's player, I decided that he tried to run a guard through with Heart-seeker (as per his Instinct to Always repay hurt with hurt);
*Alicia's player decided to try and stop this with a Persuade spell (last time Aedhros attempted cold-blooded murder, Alicia successfully stopped him in this fashion);
*Alicia's player failed both the casting roll and the roll to resist Tax, with the mechanically-determined result that Alicia suffered a Mortal Wound;
*As Aedhros's player, I attempted but failed Song of Soothing to stop the injury progressing to death - another mechanically-determined consequence;
*As Aedhros's player, I declared and rolled the Circles check for a helpful blood-letting necromancer type to turn up, and so the GM narrated Thoth instead (in AW terms, a soft move);
*And events suddenly turn in a completely different direction, as Alicia is taken by Thoth into his Death Art workshop, and from my point of view Aedhros has no choice but to go with them (in AW terms, I can't see any viable way to resist the impetus of the GM's soft move, and so it comes home as something harder).
As far as "writers' room" goes, there was discussion of consequences at two or three points that I recall:
*At the point where Thurandril came onto the scene, it is likely (though my memory is uncertain) that, as the GM was thinking about how to narrate the result of the failed test, I reminded him of Aedhros's Relationship with Thurandril;
*At the point where Alicia's casting failed, Alicia's player rolled on the Wheel of Magic to determine the results of failure, and we had to interpret the result of a fire effect created nearby: we decided that the out-of-control magic caused the Golden Sow - the vessel on which the two PCs had arrived in Hardby, and still docked in the harbour - to catch fire;
*At the point where my Circles roll failed, we discussed exactly what sort of unsavoury person hostile to Aedhros might turn up when his hope to have a blood-letting necromancer turn up is dashed - it was the GM who decided on Thoth (whose core Belief is "Cometh the corpse, cometh Thoth").
This seems to me to be in the same general ballpark as what
@niklinna has mentioned in the context of the BitD Devil's Bargain - thinking about the PC, and their current circumstance, to identify a suitable consequence for failure. (Though unlike the Devil's Bargain, we are talking about consequences for failed dice rolls.)
But the sequence of events, and the radical change in the direction of play, was not authored in a writers' room. It was driven by the interplay between (
i) declared actions, and (
ii) mechanical and narrated results, with the narration (
iii) building on both immediate situation and established character elements. No one knew that it was coming.
I think it also illustrates how, in Burning Wheel, even when a character is losing - as Alicia and Aedhros were in what I described - they still remain central to the fiction. It is the Golden Sow - the ship that Aedhros and Alicia were hoping to rob, and that perhaps she might have tried to make her own - that has caught fire. The encounter with Thoth confirms Aedhros's Reputation as
Ill-fated for himself and others, which I had used to add an additional die to my Circles check. Thurandril observing Aedrhos's failure drives home their hostile relationship, and speaks directly to Aedhros's Beliefs that
I will avenge the death of my spouse and that
Thurandril will admit that I am right.
It's more character-based and less setting-based than the Stonetop events, but I still think some underlying similarities are pretty evident. And they seem to me to obviously differ from other ways of establishing and evolving the fiction in RPGing.
