Paul Beakley I think we’re saying something close to in the same region as each other.

For me PtbA games, when they’re “good PtbA games” and working well with the group, circle around the same magic center of “work with stupid tropes, but then question those tropes” that Burning Wheel does. There’s a lot of fight for it, and justify it, and be ready to deal with it if it goes wrong that comes out of a lot of narrativist thought. (Both from the Forge, but also a lot of it pre-Forge. Notably Luke did that stuff with BW before the Forge, so, you know…)

So the “creative investment” in those kind of games comes from putting forward a statement, having that statement challenged, and then rolling with the result and seeing where it goes. It’s all about testing, conflict, and the potential that your character (and possibly you as a player) are wrong.

Where as in FATE, it’s less about that and more about the moment when you’re watching Lord of the Rings and Gandalf comes back as Gandalf the White and you’re like “ZOMG SO AWESOME” despite the fact you knew he was going to come back and despite the fact that it’s not really a question of his beliefs or actions — it’s just proof that the guy who was right was always right and being excited that the thing we all love turned out to be true.

These things build emotional investment in different people in different ways.

I’m… well you know me. I’m not good at celebration. I’m good at breaking ideas. Give me an idea, even an idea I like or support ethically, and I can break it in 10 minutes. And I build engagement through processes like that: conflicting, at risk, breaking, engagement in direct headbutting. So give me PtbA, or Burning Wheel, and fuck yea — I will break shit and celebrate it’s destruction. I will fight for it and high five if my particular character wins or loses because it’s about the struggle.

Or, you know, there are days where I want that. And other days where I want to be all like “I am Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die” and not then die in a pool of blood while the guy that killed my dad pees on me.

And it’s that feeling, that Princess Bride celebration, that I see happening when folks I know play FATE and love it play. It builds emotional engagement through a more communal celebration, less about challenge and more about joint triumph. In most FATE games (not all!) it’s not really a question of if you’ll win — it’s a question of when you’ll win and which of your awesome things will help you win. It’s not about if Gandalf was a fucking moron to fight a demon he knew he could not beat, it’s not about if Inigo’s drive for vengeance is ultimately life-defeating and negative. It’s about getting your emotional charge when things we thought were true are proved out to be true.

So me? I’m bad at that. But that doesn’t mean that’s bad.