Cycles-RPG

As I promised, first post about the play testing we had. First post about philosophy.
Cross posted : here

I have been away from this board for quite some time, but here is an issue I think this community is best suited for to help me. It is kind of a follow up of this thread I wrote here some two years ago.

But first the context :
I'm back play testing Avalanche after a long break (at least from a public point of view), and we engaged in a Burning Wheel tryout. And well, things didn't go exactly as planned.
We're happy with the play testing but some major issues, some we didn't expect, came in. Turning this "one AP post about BW" into a whole chunk of posts. This is the first one.

Now, to really understand the context, I have to explain that I was DMing the game, with two experienced players and three new players to this hobby. Also, this was our first experience with BW ; playing out with the "simple rules". We were aiming at a "one session" game ; at least, that was the deal with the new players. Good news, this turned out to be a three sessions game so far, at their request. Which I think is a good sign.
Let's put a couple of things aside for the benefit of this conversation :
- We had a real problem with the character creation. This was more of a strategic nature, not related to BW itself. I admit it, we should have done all the PCs together.
- For the first two sessions, we came up with a problem of "driving the group together" as they didn't have a common goal. This was related to the above, but also to the nature of Avalanche (I'll talk about it below), and the misuse of BIT from our part (I won't talk about it here).
- We were playing Avalanche for the first time in a context of "anchored" characters. Those PCs weren't going to explore the world. And BW really helps in this context by providing tools (character creation and BIT).

The purpose
JoyWriter at the forge, came to me with this comment, which is la raison d'être of this post. And yeah, we are talking about a game here. So, here's the quote :
If that's not clear, it's the difference between a game that fails if you do not seize the moment and the themes/conflicts of the setting, and one that slowly shifts you into the centre of them whether your character goes gladly or not. There's obviously a trade-off in terms of philosophical perspective, similar to the risk of death in other types of game; do we allow the risk of pointlessness so as to represent existential reality (as is often done with death) and the associated fear and drama, or do we soften it because we're more interested in what happens when people are fulfilled and dynamised? Is it more interesting whether we avoid loss and meaninglessness, or how we avoid it?

So, based on that, let's talk about purpose in rpg, depending on systems, settings and plots.
The default purpose
Let's take d20 or its "software" version WoW : what's the purpose of those games ? Get money, get power, kill monsters. I'm not saying you can't have a more personal purpose like, living up in a group, take part in "higher picture" stuff, but I'm saying d20 won't help you with that.

A personal purpose
Anything that goes from "avenging my sister" to "inquiring about the thieves guild" ; a reason for your PC to live. A purpose. Your own. TSOY helps a lot here, but I think BW is much more personal. In fact, I can't see how you can create a "default" character in BW. And beside character creation, BW surely helps you to drive your character toward that purpose.

Questioning your purpose
And that's a "touchy" one. Having a purpose is one thing ; questioning it is another. Am I doing the right thing ? Is that really what matters most ? To me, to the others ? Now, I believe that to be able to question your purposes, stuff must happen in the world. Stuff that do not concern you immediately. A war must have started, a catastrophe must have happened, a conspiracy must be going on.
BW (as for TSOY) really helps managing the impact of changing purpose (changing BIT or keys), but, I think, a setting, another product can really help you propose other things to the players ; help you see them questioning their purpose.

Another important thing to me : to arise this question, the "other stuff" must be highly coherent and time dependent. The existentialist question is first and foremost one about time.

We're still talking about a game, right ?
But is that something you want in a rpg ? I mean, that is something Avalanche can help you do, but would anyone do that ? To be able to question a purpose, someone must somehow stop, take a good look around. It takes time. Time you will not spend on your current purpose.
Thu, a question (JoyWriter's one) : in a game of rpg, are you best to keep your players "on track" driven and occupied by their current purposes or do you change the rhythm of the game, the pace, as to allow "space" to question the purposes of the group ?

And, we might even go as far as asking "why one is the best ?". To that, I'd say I don't know. This is a judgment's call.