OK, I don't think this fits in the anyway thread, but I find I need to type it up, so - this shabby corner of the web is where it gets put. This thead reminded me of the old "when push comes to shove" idea of identifying G, N or S play (one method among many, sometimes praised, sometimes denigrated). If I come into play of Doomed Pilgrim with goals of both "doom that pilgrim" and "make it interesting," that might become a push-comes-to-shove determinant. That is, I might (or not - not is perhaps more likely) find I could no longer do something that I find interesting that also doomed the pilgrim.
If I chose to doom him anyway, maybe (given a bunch of other stuff) that'd be a G decision. If I didn't, maybe it'd be a (again, with a bunch of givens) N decision.
Now, one way to make this go away: if we stipulate that since the rule says doom that pilgrim, you've already agreed to always find that interesting. So stop yer bellyachin', already!
I don't think I buy that stipulation. I say "I don't think" because I haven't entirely convinced myself yet, but - here's what I'm thinking. The very fact that you often can get both your pursuit of doom and another goal invites the attempt, and what one finds interesting (or whatever type of "other goal" you have) may well be - or even become, through play - a stronger influence on behaviour than "merely" following a rule. Especially when that rule is attempting to dictate a choice driven by "what I'm thinking/feeling about an imagined situation right now". Perhaps this is a way in which RPG play is unlike chess play. The goal "doom the imaginary pilgrim" is perhaps not, in fact, the same kind of thing as "checkmate the other player." Because of the primacy of imaginary content (what the words about a doomed pilgrim represent matters, that this piece is a "rook" doesn't really) over an actual thing (the words themselves, or a chess piece on a board)? Or another way of thinking about it, harking back to the anyway thread: once you throw such powerful forces as moral/passionate elements/conflicts into the mix (esp in the mix of RULES), you lose the ability to absolutely prevent them from becoming the goal of play. Chess minimizes (to just about 0) this by NOT including them in the mix, except insofar as humans can't help but include them some.
OK, that last paragraph is messy - my thinking on that part right now is messy. But my suspicion about the stipulation - that's very real, and I think a good read on where the problem lies. There may be ways to allay that suspicion, or perhaps not.
