Aaron Griffin Okay, some thoughts on how I got to that place:

* There is literally no mechanical anything to Montsegur 1244. So scenes are worked out entirely socially. You can’t blame the dice. You don’t have mechanical uncertainty letting you off the hook. I’m not saying freeform induces bleed, but I’m saying traditional mechanical procedures (probably) inhibit it because of the imposed mechanisms. I’m willing to be proven wrong on that. I probably will be.

* The game is framed for maximum emotional manipulation. It’s structured around acts, and slow-but-continuous investment. The first act is just kind of open-ended playing: here’s Phillipa, she hates her mom (why?) and gets along with her sister (why?) and is pregnant. Then the second act, the fictional screws are tightened a bit: you make scenes about what it’s like to live under siege, and how the characters react to that pressure. And the third act is all about whether you’ll capitulate and convert to Catholicism, run away, or burn for your Cathar beliefs/identity.

So it’s not wiiiiide open. You don’t frame scenes where you charge madly down the mountain and defeat the besiegers against all odds. The game doesn’t care about that. It cares about characters under pressure.

* There are constant ongoing social cues from the players egging on the drama and tragedy. “Wow, heavy!” is an emo high-five and I think taken as a yes more such dark so drama.

I speculate — and JFC this is only a speculation, put away the hatchets — that settling on a stance in a game like this probably happens at the crossroads of emotional safety and creative curiosity. I was cool with wading into unsafe waters and I was curious about how that’d feel (so, no, I wouldn’t have X-carded myself out of that).

OTOH it definitely felt like the investment snuck up on me. I’m a dad, I love my kid, putting kids in actual peril is dicey but fictionally killing them for the feels (which, let’s be honest, I did all convention long) moved me to a new space.

So, man, I don’t know what to tell you. I think you can strive toward deep investment if the whole table is on board. Consequently I think when GMs try to do it on their own, that can slide into deeply shitty territory. Subject matter matters. System, or the lack thereof, matters.