Utsukushi:
The OP's concept really isn't system dependent - like, at all. It's more a campaign concept than anything. He's just talking about having the characters set lofty goals, and building both the campaign and significant elements of the world around those goals. There are systems that encourage that more than others - especially the idea of building the world around player statements - but you can do it anywhere.
I kind of disagree with the thrust of this sentiment. I really feel like system influences behavior in pretty profound ways. For instance, in D&D (any edition), almost all of your statistics are attached to combat in some way. Becoming the greatest blacksmith or diplomat in the land just means leveling up in traditional adventures until you have max ranks in Craft or Diplomacy. The systems surrounding these skills (and their related ambitions) are almost nonexistent. The only really supported way to dramatize becoming the greatest blacksmith in the land is to go out on a D&D style adventure to find some kind of rare ore or something. Smithing, as an ambition, doesn't interact with the system in any meaningful way.
In Burning Wheel, the FoRK system, the Resource system, the Circles system, the default Fail-Forward mechanics, and the systems of Artha and Beliefs all build around and reinforce chasing your goals, whatever those goals may be. The system is about
wanting things, whatever those things may be, and then trying to achieve those things.
For instance, a Blacksmith can try to exercise his skills, and in the very act of exercising those skills, he becomes better. A Blacksmith can pursue his Belief that He Must Become The Best, and in doing so, earn Artha that he can spend to make those critical rolls to prove he is the best, or eventually even become a supernaturally good blacksmith if he commits enough Artha to being the best. He can try to find teachers, patrons, and suppliers and accidentally find rivals, tax collectors and thieves, creating interpersonal drama that's
centered around his pursuit of excellence. He can even find insight and success taking a breather and helping someone else with their goals, building up new and valuable FoRK skills and acquiring Resources.
All of that comes built-in with Burning Wheel. That constant churn of goal -> pursuit -> complication -> transformation forms the game's core engine. The GM's planning even has ever-changing, transformative plot hooks built into every character's sheet via Beliefs and Instincts. Burning Wheel's core task resolution
is very light, but the systems that surround it (FoRK's, Circles, Resources, Artha, Fail-Forward, Wises) allow the players and the GM to inflect those relatively simple rolls with meaningful consequences and results.
Other games simply don't have that. Characters are typically built around a character's current or past identity and capabilities, rather than their ambitions and hopes for the future. Most systems that focus on lightweight universal task resolution don't have enough "junk in the trunk" to make those tasks you just resolved feel weighty and meaningful. (Nothing quite like taxing that last Resources die.)
Absent those types of systems, you're cutting against the grain. A system implicitly encourages behavior by how it treats the players and their characters, and different systems provide different incentives. FATE encourages you to play up your aspects at every opportunity to get more Fate points. D&D encourages you to go out and fight monsters to get more XP to advance. World of Darkness encourages you to pander to your GM's sense of dramatics for roleplaying awards.
The reason that people keep bringing up Burning Wheel as it relates to the OP is that Burning Wheel's incentive structure is perfectly aligned with the campaign's goals. It encourages you to use the skills you want to improve at every opportunity, even if you might fail, because that's the only way that those skills grow and change. It encourages you to endure setbacks like injuries and complications, because stronger opposition means a chance to improve skills that struggle to find challenges and continue to improve.
But most of all, it encourages you to not only chase your goals, but to explore those goals' meanings, their effects on others around you, and even their effects on yourself. At its root and core, Burning Wheel encourages you to play a character who wants something, and who works and struggles to achieve that something. It even (perhaps
especially) encourages you to question your character's goals, and change them if the character changes. I don't think there's any other game that is as focused and concentrated on
character goals (rather than campaign goals or just genre simulation) as Burning Wheel.
This message was last edited by the user at 17:00, Wed 19 Sept 2018.