This post stood out to me, because I don't really disagree with any of it, but it's just feels completely sideways to me. The analysis isn't wrong, but it doesn't feel relevant. I wanted to break it down and run through why it feels so off.
This isn't, in my understanding, a function of the GM. It actually can't be, unless you conflate several different GM roles that I would view as being professionally firewalled. Setting up all of the pieces and then moving the ones you're supposed to control are separate jobs that simply reside in the same person. Situation is the result of chains of actions from the PCs and those NPCs. Setting up an interesting board for all of those actions to happen on is fairly difficult, and the sort of thing GMing advice is theoretically supposed to teach you how to do, plus ideally you want a series of tools to let you try and evaluate likely outcomes (things like CR in a combat focused game, or even things like a faction-specific list of goals). The actual progress of what does happen is down to system though, it's a result of player choices being fed through mechanics to see the results, which, assuming sufficient GM honesty, sufficiently detailed rules and sufficiently engaged players, should allow players to push an agenda into the situation.
But a system like the move system that PbtAs use does this SUPER SUPER WELL. Sure, you can get any level of quality of play out of 5e's resolution system, but you are going to have to put a lot of work into it to get that. With AW it 'just happens'. There's no wasting time with gauging difficulty and this and that, say your action, GM says "OK, that's move X", 2d6 + STAT, 6-, 7-9, 10+ bing bang badda boom! Things roll fast and because every move is either introducing some player desired advancement of the fiction, and/or some new, potentially problematic, factor there's very little chance of things 'squibbing'. Yes, theoretically in 5e if the GM is very assiduous in culling checks (no, that's got uninteresting failure conditions, nothing is at stake, etc.) you might get some of that momentum, but a lot of the system text assumes differently, and so does the culture. PbtA also has no 'firewalling' of GM roles. The GM (in AW/DW at least) is a 'Fan of the Characters' and has an explicit job to create tension and adversity, but also to reward success. I mean, AW is a bit of an "you are all doomed in the long run" sort of a game, but DW definitely allows for 'winning through', and despite some people claiming otherwise there IS such a thing as 'skilled play'. Subsystems exist to help drive things, adding obstacles (no more light!) etc.
Conflict resolution is disempowering to the player; they can't influence what is "framed," and they get so little say in the resolution, because it's always down to one test. You don't have a lot of agency to affect the outcome, and the situation is so transient before the next concern occurs. My sense in those games is that the player isn't supposed to care; you aren't supposed to want any given outcome or drive to any result, the "drive like a stolen car" concept. Instead, you're there to engage with the premise, the real act of agency was agreeing to play a game about X in the first place.
Ehhhhh, not quite. I mean, sure you are encouraged play kind of fast and loose, but that doesn't mean you don't play to win. You play your character authentically, and the PCs sure don't want to go down, do they? Or if so only for a good cause (to them). I would say, from recent Stonetop play it is more like a '4 check thing'. If I roll 6- 4x in a row, I'm probably pretty darn screwed, maybe dead. In recent play I had one PC fail around 4 checks and visit Death's Door. I had another character get to a point where he was about to be obliterated after 3 or 4 bad rolls, and then I pulled out a boxcars and saved my ass. Note: BOTH of those characters were taking risks! Either of them could have played it safer and probably the same sequence of checks would have resulted in a lesser predicament.
I personally don't know how to do gameplay under those conditions. The act of playing a game necessitates a goal, and a goal necessitates tools to try and achieve it. I'm lacking both; I can't really control what happens, but that should be alright because I shouldn't really care what happens. It's an actively hard perspective for me to try and adopt, even when I think the tool is useful. Subjectively, I've always felt like things happen too "fast" in that kind of environment, and flounder around for mechanics to go interact with things.
I think it is a misunderstanding. I don't feel like my play is any less goal-directed in DW/Stonetop than in B/X D&D way back in the day. You take whatever risks you care to take, and then see what fate dishes up. Generally you have something you are wanting to achieve, and a plan, and resources, and you see what happens. Certainly PbtA's mechanics are no more swingy and arbitrary than those of B/X!
This point feels like an inversion. Task resolution allows you to go and hunt down a premise you care about. Players can want things, and use the means of resolution to go get them. You're describing an outcome of the mechanic as if it's the intent, when the design goal is orthogonal.
I don't understand how conflict resolution doesn't do this. I am not even of the opinion that resolution and premise are that tied together. I thought all
@Campbell was saying is that task resolution allows for some 'outside focus' on non-premise things. I kind of get where he's coming from but honestly I think there's plenty of ways to 'drift' if that's what the table wants.
This relentless focus on "what is it about?" is the thing that always feels so weird in these conversations. That just isn't a first order priority; it's about whatever happens, we can talk about what it turned out to be about when we're done doing the thing, the important thing is making sure that the player's decisions have an impact on that.
So, where we all (IMHO) came to our preferences is in terms of wanting to stop faffing around. I found there was so much faffing around in most D&D play, and then play would lurch off in a direction of the GM's choosing and leave all my character's concerns and values on the table. Like, sure, some digressions are OK, and in a DW game, for example, you probably go chase off after some other PC's concern at some point that only tangentially interests you. Still, the whole process is about 'zero faff'. Move forward, keep the situation evolving, keep the momentum of play, and really engage with the premise, and frame it in relation to the characters, and do that all the time!