D&D General How much control do DMs need?

[AbdulAlhazred]

In the 2nd ed copy I have, threats runs from page 109 to page 125 and explains how to prep threats, listing examples. It's definitely prep. There's even a threat map placing for instance a certain village south. There's a focus on stakes, questions and impulses. I find these words (at the end of the section) quite important



@Imaro the prep for a game like AW (I've only played DW just to be clear) is different from traditional D&D, but not that different from other modes that D&D is played in. It's quite like some modes. Again, there's definitely prep. That bare fact is right. It's only very limitedly map-and-key (there is a radial map and some threats are keyed to directions).

In DW there is no 'map and key' of any kind. I mean, its not excluded as a possibility, but it isn't a specific thing. There are fronts, which include threats, and which are made manifest in play through dooms, which are GM soft moves. So, basically the fronts give you something to say when there's a point in play where the narrative has reached an inflection point and there's a need for something new. They can also serve as a kind of 'news from home' kind of thing where the PCs may be ignoring a front entirely and they would perhaps hear about a doom. It might even have some effect on their situation, though if the players have chosen not to get involved it probably won't rise to the level of a serious problem for them.

There can also be threats that are not really associated with any fronts, those are likely to be located on a map, or simply show up as GM moves when it would be appropriate. That would likely be where any 'keyed' things would be located, but AFAIK this is a very typically small fraction of content. I guess it could loom larger in some games.

 

[Umbran]

The entirety of D&D rules answer a completely meaningless question: can a character do [X] successfully. It automates a completely trivial process: I can just, y'know, decide. Or flip a coin. Nothing of matter will really change if I do.

Well, it is a hobby entertainment. It is us pretending to be elves. Nothing of matter to the whole exercise, really. Same for any RPG - the overall point isn't D&D specific. Holds for any game, really.

The only thing at the table that really matters are the people. The players, human beings, matter. The rules are there because they often help those people have a better time than always, "I just decide" will produce.

 

[Imaro]

In DW there is no 'map and key' of any kind. I mean, its not excluded as a possibility, but it isn't a specific thing. There are fronts, which include threats, and which are made manifest in play through dooms, which are GM soft moves. So, basically the fronts give you something to say when there's a point in play where the narrative has reached an inflection point and there's a need for something new. They can also serve as a kind of 'news from home' kind of thing where the PCs may be ignoring a front entirely and they would perhaps hear about a doom. It might even have some effect on their situation, though if the players have chosen not to get involved it probably won't rise to the level of a serious problem for them.

There can also be threats that are not really associated with any fronts, those are likely to be located on a map, or simply show up as GM moves when it would be appropriate. That would likely be where any 'keyed' things would be located, but AFAIK this is a very typically small fraction of content. I guess it could loom larger in some games.

This still sounds like prep... just different prep from D&D.

 

[Umbran]

If the players roll up a couple of Humans, a Dwarf, an Elf and a Hobbit for their starting characters I need to be able to pull out a map and show each player where - or at least what region or realm - their character is most likely from, based on its species and culture. Otherwise, I simply haven't done my job.

Unless it is an explicit part of the table agreement that you do so, I disagree. And this certainly doesn't generalize.

I'm running a game right now, in which the PCs are removed from their original plane of existence in the very first part of the adventure, and the campaign is very likely to end when they go home. The players are free to have whatever concept of their homes they wish, and base their actions upon those origins. But those origins are only the subject of internal motivations. I, as GM, see no cause to insert myself into those motivations, and any map I made of their origins would not be relevant to the current events around the PCs.

I have maps of where the are, and where they may be going. Where they have been is much less my concern.

 

[loverdrive]

What are you using Photoshop for such that you are doing the vast majority of the work?

...I'm an artist? Anything of meaning that comes into creating a piece is coming from me, and my skills as an artist. If I switch from Photoshop to another program, my art would be pretty much the same — it doesn't really matter. Similarly, it doesn't matter if my ma boots up Photoshop or Procreate or MS Paint — she is not an artist.

You don't gaze upon a painting and think "geez, Photoshop is such a great tool!". You think "damn, [X] is such a wonderful artist!".

And, again, Photoshop is actually a complex masterpiece of engineering. Things that it automates aren't trivial.

...unlike a book that answers the most trivial and boring question possible.

 

[Clint_L]

But seriously, when you say "we decided", what does that mean specifically? The group as a whole worked out the result of each action? One particular person (the person to your left, for example) got to decide? One person suggested an outcome and if somebody said, "Cool!" that clinched it? We demand details!

As DM of the campaign, it was a scenario chosen from a number of breadcrumbs. The party was doing a favour for a powerful mage, in exchange for payment and future consideration. A friend of his had a very valuable piece of jewellery stolen from her hotel, and it was their job to recover it. Beforehand, I created cards for a number of locations, objects, and NPCs that could come into play, in addition to whatever we invented on the night. At the start of the game each of us drew an NPC, object, and location that we would try to work into the story when it made sense. Note that these cards just described the character, location, or object; it was up to us to decide how they were involved with the stolen tiara, if at all.

Per Fiasco, the game was divided into two acts of four scenes, one for each each player. For each scene, the player can choose to establish it, or finish it, and the other players collaboratively take on the other half. As DM, I took the first scene and chose to establish it, using it to get the party to the location of the job. Then we took turns. At the mid-point, we drew some more cards to add a complication to the story.

So all I knew going in was the object that had been stolen, and who it was allegedly stolen from. Everything else - why it was stolen, who stole it, where it could be found - was determined through the game. As it turned out, there was a cult operating under the hotel who needed the stolen tiara as part of a ritual to complete the transformation of a Drider; several of the hotel guests were Drow who were trying to revive the religion of their banished Goddess Llolth. We were barely able to foil the plot at the last moment, though a valuable ally perished along the way, and the tiara was lost. So kind of a failure as far as the original mission went, but a super fun game.

None of that existed prior to the game. The Drow agents, various other complications, including an angry monkey familiar that caused all kinds of problems, an affair between our orc/elf barbarian and the orc chef at the hotel, three drunk women on a staggette who turned out to be assassins, a drug-dealing concierge (the monkey's master) and his manipulative mother, the secret chamber beneath the hotel, the demonic plot...all of that came from the group of us together, with me having no more say than anyone else.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This still sounds like prep... just different prep from D&D.

Not really, I mean, yes, DW calls it 'prep', but you would probably do the vast majority of it once, after the first session, and never again. It is NOT the preparation of a setting in which the action takes place, nor of deciding any of the parameters that would be set in a classic/trad/neo-trad/whatever D&D game. So its like using the word 'vehicle', yes horse buggies and porches are both vehicles, but that doesn't get you a whole lot...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

As DM of the campaign, it was a scenario chosen from a number of breadcrumbs. The party was doing a favour for a powerful mage, in exchange for payment and future consideration. A friend of his had a very valuable piece of jewellery stolen from her hotel, and it was their job to recover it. Beforehand, I created cards for a number of locations, objects, and NPCs that could come into play, in addition to whatever we invented on the night. At the start of the game each of us drew an NPC, object, and location that we would try to work into the story when it made sense. Note that these cards just described the character, location, or object; it was up to us to decide how they were involved with the stolen tiara, if at all.

Per Fiasco, the game was divided into two acts of four scenes, one for each each player. For each scene, the player can choose to establish it, or finish it, and the other players collaboratively take on the other half. As DM, I took the first scene and chose to establish it, using it to get the party to the location of the job. Then we took turns. At the mid-point, we drew some more cards to add a complication to the story.

So all I knew going in was the object that had been stolen, and who it was allegedly stolen from. Everything else - why it was stolen, who stole it, where it could be found - was determined through the game. As it turned out, there was a cult operating under the hotel who needed the stolen tiara as part of a ritual to complete the transformation of a Drider; several of the hotel guests were Drow who were trying to revive the religion of their banished Goddess Llolth. We were barely able to foil the plot at the last moment, though a valuable ally perished along the way, and the tiara was lost. So kind of a failure as far as the original mission went, but a super fun game.

None of that existed prior to the game. The Drow agents, various other complications, including an angry monkey familiar that caused all kinds of problems, an affair between our orc/elf barbarian and the orc chef at the hotel, three drunk women on a staggette who turned out to be assassins, a drug-dealing concierge (the monkey's master) and his manipulative mother, the secret chamber beneath the hotel, the demonic plot...all of that came from the group of us together, with me having no more say than anyone else.

It does sound like a reasonably fun experiment.

 

[niklinna]

As DM of the campaign, it was a scenario chosen from a number of breadcrumbs. The party was doing a favour for a powerful mage, in exchange for payment and future consideration. A friend of his had a very valuable piece of jewellery stolen from her hotel, and it was their job to recover it. Beforehand, I created cards for a number of locations, objects, and NPCs that could come into play, in addition to whatever we invented on the night. At the start of the game each of us drew an NPC, object, and location that we would try to work into the story when it made sense. Note that these cards just described the character, location, or object; it was up to us to decide how they were involved with the stolen tiara, if at all.

Per Fiasco, the game was divided into two acts of four scenes, one for each each player. For each scene, the player can choose to establish it, or finish it, and the other players collaboratively take on the other half. As DM, I took the first scene and chose to establish it, using it to get the party to the location of the job. Then we took turns. At the mid-point, we drew some more cards to add a complication to the story.

So all I knew going in was the object that had been stolen, and who it was allegedly stolen from. Everything else - why it was stolen, who stole it, where it could be found - was determined through the game. As it turned out, there was a cult operating under the hotel who needed the stolen tiara as part of a ritual to complete the transformation of a Drider; several of the hotel guests were Drow who were trying to revive the religion of their banished Goddess Llolth. We were barely able to foil the plot at the last moment, though a valuable ally perished along the way, and the tiara was lost. So kind of a failure as far as the original mission went, but a super fun game.

None of that existed prior to the game. The Drow agents, various other complications, including an angry monkey familiar that caused all kinds of problems, an affair between our orc/elf barbarian and the orc chef at the hotel, three drunk women on a staggette who turned out to be assassins, a drug-dealing concierge (the monkey's master) and his manipulative mother, the secret chamber beneath the hotel, the demonic plot...all of that came from the group of us together, with me having no more say than anyone else.

That's pretty rad.

 

[niklinna]

Not really, I mean, yes, DW calls it 'prep', but you would probably do the vast majority of it once, after the first session, and never again. It is NOT the preparation of a setting in which the action takes place, nor of deciding any of the parameters that would be set in a classic/trad/neo-trad/whatever D&D game. So its like using the word 'vehicle', yes horse buggies and porches are both vehicles, but that doesn't get you a whole lot...

I thought a porch was where you sat and played the banjo on a lazy afternoon.