I think the topic says it all. Thoughts and insight to a new gm (and others who are just starting out).

I'm new to BC as well, however my understanding (admittedly only on a first read through), or more accurately, my impression. Is that its merely away of arranging an adventure in conjunction with the players. BC seems to be more sand boxed focused (even more than RT) so getting the players together to come up with a Compact and decide exactly what they want to achieve and how they plan to do it puts them in the drivers seat and its the DMs job to try and accommodate, problematise and generally react to what the Warband does.

A compact is a more player driven adventure, whereas a normal adventure relies more heavily on a DM to create the adventure for the players.

DW

Compacts are a GM tool to get the players to figure out what they want to do with an adventure seed.

They go like this:

1) Players get an adventure seed (aka a hook, or a plot). They decide they want to follow that seed.

2) Player enter a compact, in which they tell the GM what their goals are. The Primary Goal, several Secondary goals they expect to have to do to accomplish the primary goal and an individual goal for each character.

3) The GM then crafts a story around the plot hook + primary goal, either creating ways to fulfill the secondary goals or ways to keep them from being fulfilled.

4) Play continues. Players are either successful or not. They earn Infamy (with bonuses) or not. They definitely earn Corruption.

5) See 1.

It's a very, very nice system from a GM standpoint.

Everything important already said, I only like to add the following:

If you have an "adventure" based on the PC immediately reacting to an occuring situation (i.e: a sudden Inquisition rate, attack of a rival, an upcoming storm, sudden attack of Slavers on them/theri resources) where they had no chance of ahead planning a compact is not suiting.

Gregorius21778 said:

Ahh, but here's the trick. Your Players could decide to very, very quickly come to a compact accord as they're dealing with the situation. The group I'm playing in did just that with Broken Chains, and we've still got 2 Secondaries up in the air that we'll determine if and when they are needed.

It also functions as a group binding mechanism.

By creating a compact the group are setting group goals for the group, investing them with the sense of group. The foucs is on what the group acheives, and fostering the group identity. This is a psychological trick that will hopefully increase the likleyhood of them working as said graoup, and not a buch of chaotic individuals out to kill each other.

The bane of 'villain' orientated gaming is that it can quickly turn into a kill fest with the lame excuse "but I'm a bad guy', it's what I do". My group are expereinced roleplayers that know they need to be a group, and so work together. But for a new GM with a new group it can be a simply trick to help bring the disparate parties together and into a group.

What my players did at the start of their heretical path to awesomeness was that they signed The Compact of Compacts, where they each promised to not lie/cheat/kill/keep secrets from/steal from each other. So every time someone decides to do something bad from the point of view of the others they almost immediately remind him of the compact. The primary goal of this compact is to "Achieve Greatness" and of course failing to help achieve this goal wouldn't be a good thing for anyone included in it

After that they have formed a compact before taking on a bigger/more important undertaking. Not everything requires a compact to be made, because making one for going to the grocery store tends to bog down the playing experience, but when the players finally finish a grandscale compact it is going to be a great feeling of success.