I love the conflict system because I hate it when I’m playing it. There’s this three (or more way) decision split. Do we play the action that I think is best for right now, do we play what I’m best at, or do we play to beat what we think the GM is going to play? It can be agonizing (in a good way), but in MG there are only four choices so there’s not too much analysis paralysis. Also, you could even have a situation where a Belief or something drives you to do something that fits none of the above options, but will help you get rewards, so you do it anyway.
I like the conflict system because I find it encourages creativity and actually does give players more freedom.
In many non-BW games, you make an attack by saying “I hit him” or you might embellish this somewhat by saying, “I do a backflip off the wall and hit him as I fly past.” Then you roll your dice and maybe you get him, maybe not. Actually, you should say, “I take a swing at him,” (since you haven’t clocked him yet, technically).
In BW, you define a strategy, Attack, Defense, Feint, Maneuver, roll, figure out the result, and then interpret it. So the details come at the end there, which I find pretty neat because you can shape your description a lot more logically - you’re not coming up with a John Woo worthy move first and then risking the whiff factor.
I noticed this in my first game of MG. Once we knew the outcome of the action the descriptions just flowed, even with multiple players on a team. I would say, “OK, well, your Attack knocked that Raven from 8 Dispo to 1, tell me how you did it.” The players really ran with it, describing how their characters ran in, zigging and zagging, jumping up and jabbing their spears into the raven and so forth. Each player on a team got to say what they did that matched up to the outcome of the roll. And if they lost it, then as the GM I got to have fun doing the same.
I mean, within the broad description of the actions in BW games, you can narrate doing a lot of things. So I don’t find it limiting or confining at all.