This sounds like the concepts of “Fortune at the End” and “Fortune in the Middle” that were part of the Forge discussions. Fortune at the End is what you might expect from decades in the hobby: Describe what you do, tally the modifiers, and roll to see if you succeed or fail. This usually involves specific actions: I wanna hit him with my sword. Fortune in the Middle calls for modulation after the roll was made, in specified action and/or mechanically. FitM often involves broader conflicts: I wanna beat him in a sword fight. Here’s a link that goes into a bit more detail: http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=442.0
To give a more contemporary example, Powered by the Apocalypse uses Fortune in the Middle. You set your character in motion with fictional description. If that triggers a move, the establishment of fiction is guided and constrained by the rules and usually a dice roll and – often – choices made after those dice are rolled. Then chunk of fiction effected by the roll is established according to those constraints – we more find out what has happened rather than what does happen.
For instance, in Masks (a PbtA game) the move, “Directly Engage a Threat,” (triggered when your teen hero comes to blows with a villain) you roll and add your modifier, and if you do okay, you both trade blows. So, we describe how you’re both wearing each other down – wailing on each other with mighty punches, or martial arts moves, or laser blasts, or whatever. But, you get to pick one item from a list, which includes resisting or avoiding their blows; if you pick that, you get to describe how you’re blocking their punches, dodging their bullets, or slipping between their laser blasts, whatever. You might not choose that option. You might do really well and choose two options from the list, so you might slip their laser blasts and take something away from them – their gun, maybe? Now you get to describe a disarm. After that stuff has all been described, we go back to describing stuff normally.
I haven’t heard of a game that uses “Fortune at the Beginning” or full “Roll then go,” as you’ve put it.
This sounds like the concepts of “Fortune at the End” and “Fortune in the Middle” that were part of the Forge discussions. Fortune at the End is what you might expect from decades in the hobby: Describe what you do, tally the modifiers, and roll to see if you succeed or fail. This usually involves specific actions: I wanna hit him with my sword. Fortune in the Middle calls for modulation after the roll was made, in specified action and/or mechanically. FitM often involves broader conflicts: I wanna beat him in a sword fight. Here’s a link that goes into a bit more detail: http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=442.0
To give a more contemporary example, Powered by the Apocalypse uses Fortune in the Middle. You set your character in motion with fictional description. If that triggers a move, the establishment of fiction is guided and constrained by the rules and usually a dice roll and – often – choices made after those dice are rolled. Then chunk of fiction effected by the roll is established according to those constraints – we more find out what has happened rather than what does happen.
For instance, in Masks (a PbtA game) the move, “Directly Engage a Threat,” (triggered when your teen hero comes to blows with a villain) you roll and add your modifier, and if you do okay, you both trade blows. So, we describe how you’re both wearing each other down – wailing on each other with mighty punches, or martial arts moves, or laser blasts, or whatever. But, you get to pick one item from a list, which includes resisting or avoiding their blows; if you pick that, you get to describe how you’re blocking their punches, dodging their bullets, or slipping between their laser blasts, whatever. You might not choose that option. You might do really well and choose two options from the list, so you might slip their laser blasts and take something away from them – their gun, maybe? Now you get to describe a disarm. After that stuff has all been described, we go back to describing stuff normally.
I haven’t heard of a game that uses “Fortune at the Beginning” or full “Roll then go,” as you’ve put it.