D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[Lanefan]

I've taken the liberty of resequencing a few of the below quotes, to batch some related bits together.

Some of the player moves in DW explicitly limit my behavior. I must truthfully answer any question asked with Discern Realities (which is why it has a defined, narrow list of questions!) If someone rolls Spout Lore (essentially, a "knowledge check"), then I must give an answer that is both interesting and useful when they roll 10+ full success, but I only need to make it interesting ("it's on [the PCs] to make it useful") for a 7-9 partial success. Some of the player moves explicitly empower me, e.g. to continue with Spout Lore, I am empowered to then ask how the character came to know whatever answer I just gave them, and the player must now answer truthfully as well. Obeying these moves, without just deciding not to because I feel like it, is thus openly and explicitly part of play; the players can see that my behavior as GM is bounded too.

OK, this seems fine; but as this is in theory a low- or no-prep system how can you be and remain consistent in your answers over the long run without doing a huge amount of work both during sessions (note-taking) and between sessions (record-keeping)? I mean, I don't always remember what I told them three weeks ago, never mind ten years; and I'm an awful on-the-fly note-taker.

Wouldn't prepping a lot of this ahead of time just be easier?

Some of these are empowering, e.g. Think Offscreen Too is an explicit instruction to include dangers, problems, and events which will only be revealed when the players discover them.

As for hard and soft moves, soft is the default state, and something must happen for a hard move to apply: the players fail a roll, make a decision that ignores a threat, or take a risk knowing that there may be costs, or something similar. I no longer remember your specific intended example of a move that is "too hard," but the Principles and Agendas guide here. Always, with everything you do, you must Play To Find Out What Happens. "Rocks fall, everyone dies" is not playing to find out what happens; it is simply fiat declaring what happens. This is thus forbidden by that Agenda. Likewise, most other forms of doing something fundamentally and permanently ending something (a life, a story, a goal, an item, whatever) are "too hard" to be casually dropped whenever you feel like it: doing so runs afoul of the Agenda mentioned, as well as a few of the Principles (certainly "begin and end with the fiction" and "make a move that follows," among others.)

Likewise, moves that are too soft will fail to actually drive the story forward. Things will just sit in ambiguous "something is about to happen" land. The impending threats need to be actual threats, the opportunities-with-cost equally real in both what they make possible and what cost they will exact if taken. There is certainly a curve of learning how to provide exciting and open-ended challenges. I myself only recently realized that I've been handling monster attacks poorly, making it basically "an attack is incoming that you obviously have to dodge! What do you do?" And of course the players' answer is "I dodge." I'm having to train myself to start thinking before the attack actually rolls out, making soft moves earlier in the process so there is greater tension and more opportunity for difficult decisions and open-ended outcomes. But I realized this...by going back and rereading the book! Turns out it had had the guidance I needed all along, I just forgot it.

Something I keep coming back to here is that "begin and end with the fiction" is a pretty strong guideline, especially when paired with "draw maps, leave blanks." That is, the former says (more or less) "only do things that are well-rooted in the world and understandable through said world." The latter says (more or less), "don't prepare more of the world than you need, and intentionally leave parts of it undefined so they can be discovered later." Together, they actually put some limits on the GM's ability to just enter whatever they want into fhe fiction. There will always be some things the players don't know, that's why you are reminded to "think offscreen too," but that Principle has a shadow in how it is phrased* that must be remembered too: you should usually be thinking on-screen, but sometimes supplement that by thinking offscreen.

There's a couple of IMO important elements missing there.

First, while "begin and end with the fiction" is excellent advice in itself, it seems to assume the players/PCs will always know about whatever fiction you're beginning and ending with. In other words, there's no hidden surprises for the PCs that they won't be warned about in some manner ahead of time as a soft move. That seems a bit unrealistic, particularly when combined with...

Second, the other missing element is time. Does the fiction you're beginning with have to be relatively recent (as in, the players/PCs remember it), or can it be something long forgotten that's only just now coming home to roost? Or, flipped around, does the end-fiction have to follow from the begin-fiction right away or can it wait for a few days-months-years? When you present a threat as a soft move and it somehow gets turned into a hard move, does that hard move need to happen right now or can it be saved up for (maybe much) later?

Both of these play into "think offscreen too". Revenge is a dish best served cold, remember.

This all comes back to my sniper-on-the-rooftop example from (was it this thread? I forget now); where a PC leaves an inn and gets shot by a sniper they had no idea was there, this being a hard move carried forward from some long-forgotten soft move or other event in the campaign's past.

 

[Lanefan]

In addition to what @EzekielRaiden said, I would note that Dungeon World is more interested in player character dramatic consequences than in player-side skill. There are GM guidelines in either Dungeon World or Stonetop or even both that says that the GM's agenda does not include testing the players' skills. This is not to say that there is no risk-mitigation in the game, but the game also wants forward momentum and players to make tough choices. Often the best way to mitigate risks is to avoid triggering rolls through your actions in the fiction in the first place.

Perhaps, though in-character risk mitigation would seem to make sense from the character's point of view.

It sounds like in your perfect would, the GM would be AI.

The referee side of it, perhaps. AI can't do the narration, flavour, and character-play yet; nor can it do on-the-fly rulings or build open-ended anything (it, and any CRPG, is always limited by its programming), and so I'll stick with human DM's for the time being.

Principia Apocrypha (2018) by Ben Milton, Steven Lumpkin, and David Perry. This has definitely been discussed in threads you have made contributions, and I have also already linked to this in the thread already.

Thanks.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The genre is similar, but I don't see how DW is modeled after D&D otherwise.

And what is sacrificed in DW to "solve" these problems is more than I'm willing to pay.

The designers explicitly said that that's what it is. I no longer have the original source I would have quoted, where they expressly said that Dungeon World was built to capture the way they remember playing D&D in the days of 1e and Basic. But we need look no further than the Influences in Appendix 1 of the book:

If we have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. Hill giants and stone giants mostly, but some frost giants and even a fire giant one time. That got messy.
By this point it’s probably pretty obvious that Vincent Baker’s Apocalypse World, as well as Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson’s Dungeons and Dragons are the reason we made this game. The Dungeons and Dragons Basic Set, edited by Tom Moldvay, and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons were our references of choice.
[...]
The original idea to mash Apocalypse World and D&D together belongs to our good friend Tony Dowler. He was gracious enough to let us build on his concept and carry it through to the shape you see today.

Dungeon World is very intentionally D&D through the lens of PbtA.

 

[Faolyn]

But you just proved it wrong.

Your fine with making someone eat food they don't like or want, as long as you agree with the food choice. 12 people come over for dinner, one is a vegan, so everyone must eat a vegan meal. But you would not only would you not do it for a food choice you did not agree, but you'd pull out some medical reason too.

...you honestly think "this will make me sick" is a bad reason to not do something?

Holy cow.

OK, I gotta ask? Do you think that people who disagree with you or have different preferences to you are lying? Or just inherently wrong?

 

[Lanefan]

In my experience, this comes down to the cohesiveness and experience of the group.

When I'm running game for newbies, I am happy if they can just come up with some backstory for their characters, and they seem very happy for me to do almost all the narrative lifting.

In my current home campaign, some players really like to build out the world in the context of their character.

I'm talking about things beyond just their own character(s) and into actual world-building - cosmology, geography, cultures, etc.

So last weekend, when one character finally revealed a huge chunk of her backstory it was news to me, even though it involved adding a new location, culture, and antagonist to the campaign. But she did it in a way that invited my collaboration, and it worked into the plot seamlessly, paying off a number of teases that had come before. We loved it.

On the other hand, my spouse barely has backstory for their character, and seldom does much world building beyond adding the occasional NPC encounter when their artificer is looking for parts and scrap. And they are happy with that.

And when the first player above starts narrating all about that location and culture as if she's you-the-DM then boom, you've got two tiers of player: those who co-DM, and those who do not.

And sure, sometimes people are cool with this...or will at least say they are...but any issues that ever do arise are completely avoidable by simply not giving world-building powers to any players unless all the players a) vaguely-equally want them and b) are given equal opportunity to contribute and c) are willing to vaguely-equally make use of that opportunity.

A third player not only does substantial world building, but wants to take the reins for a story arc, as he has done previously (we'll see if it comes to fruition; I am the work-horse of the group, by far).

So, almost a true co-DM. Yeah, I can't get behind DMing in a world/campaign you're also playing in unless it's something oddball e.g. a dream sequence or the party gets blipped to a different world.

 

[Faolyn]

In a perfect world, I'd feel no emotion around their successes and-or failures.

All right, I gotta ask: why is this "perfect" for you? I mean, if you want to have no emotion around their success or failure, why even play the game? What would you even get out of it?

Because this...

In reality, while I don't often cheer when they win (or lament if they lose)* I will cheer when the dice happen to allow someone to pull off some spectacular long-odds move or other.

Sounds like someone who is actually having fun, which IMO is the entire point of playing a role-playing game.

 

[Aldarc]

The referee side of it, perhaps. AI can't do the narration, flavour, and character-play yet; nor can it do on-the-fly rulings or build open-ended anything (it, and any CRPG, is always limited by its programming), and so I'll stick with human DM's for the time being.

Yet being the key word there. But pretty soon you will be out of a job. Program in your GM notes and let the AI do the rest of the work.

But I'm not playing a PbtA game. I've learned enough about it that I wouldn't want to. So I don't see how most of what you're talking about is even relevant. In D&D saying that you should begin and end with the fiction is kind of like saying water is wet. The fiction is everything the DM controls, so of course you begin and end with that.

(1) Water isn't wet, and (2) I don't think that noting that the GM controls all the fiction really groks what "begin and end with the fiction" means.

So all of this has a tendency to just comes off as "My favored game is better."

I don't think that it's so much that "my favored game is better" as it is "here is how this other game deals with this problem" or "here is how this other game has helped me improve how I would approach this in D&D."

If ideas in DW can't apply to D&D, why even bring it into the conversation?

Who said that? I don't think that's true at all nor do I believe that you have demonstrated that some of the ideas from DW are incompatible with D&D. Saying that some ideas are incompatible with your prefered playstyle with D&D is not the same as saying that those ideas are necessarily incompatible with D&D. There are many people, myself included, who have incorporated ideas to D&D, including, for example, that D&D 5e lead designer Mike Mearls had this to say:



Likewise, SlyFlourish (the Lazy DM), who writes books for DMs in 5e D&D, has also been inspired by and utilized ideas from Dungeon World as well.

So I'm not sure what to tell you other than I guess that the ideas from Dungeon World are not nearly as incompatible or non-applicable to D&D as you maybe would like to imagine.

 

[Lanefan]

All right, I gotta ask: why is this "perfect" for you? I mean, if you want to have no emotion around their success or failure, why even play the game? What would you even get out of it?

Entertainment and (sometimes) amusement, which are very often unrelated to their success or failure at any given thing.

I mean, I can be well entertained by a session of in-character RP where they don't even try anything to succeed or fail at.

 

[bloodtide]

Sure, but your description said they had fun with a few easy/ diversionary encounters that essentially lulled them into a false sense of security and then WHAM killer doppelgangers.

And that is all on them.

Regardless. What this actually was, was a really big clash of styles. The group was CLEARLY not prepared (and when things ended did not want) the style you run in. It happens.

Very true.

But I do think it merited a quick talk or two. First to TELL them exactly how you run so they are not surprised. And then a serious talk/lecture on how they are just not working as a team and with the way you run it's GOING to get the PCs killed.

And I have said many times "talk" does not work for me. No matter what I said my game was like, they would have just been like "whatever".

...you honestly think "this will make me sick" is a bad reason to not do something?

I think this is a personal thing. A person does not come over to my house and order me around because they say "that will make me sick".

OK, I gotta ask? Do you think that people who disagree with you or have different preferences to you are lying? Or just inherently wrong?

I do think people lie all the time, even more so to get their way.

I do think it's wrong for one person to force their views on everyone else.

And I sure think it's wrong that some people demand I change everything, and yet they are not only unwilling to change anything, but they will pop out "medical reasons" out of thin air that just happen to agree with everything they demand.

I have a framed Death Star poster that says "that's no moon....." , there is a guy that makes a big deal about it as it's a "Weapon of Mass Destruction". I'm sure you would take it down every time he came over to make him happy. I leave it on the wall.

I go over his house and he has a poster of a criminal hanging on his wall with an explicit quote. But if I was to say that offends me, he would just be "whatever dude".

 

[Clint_L]

Yet being the key word there. But pretty soon you will be out of a job. Program in your GM notes and let the AI do the rest of the work.


(1) Water isn't wet, and (2) I don't think that noting that the GM controls all the fiction really groks what "begin and end with the fiction" means.


I don't think that it's so much that "my favored game is better" as it is "here is how this other game deals with this problem" or "here is how this other game has helped me improve how I would approach this in D&D."


Who said that? I don't think that's true at all nor do I believe that you have demonstrated that some of the ideas from DW are incompatible with D&D. Saying that some ideas are incompatible with your prefered playstyle with D&D is not the same as saying that those ideas are necessarily incompatible with D&D. There are many people, myself included, who have incorporated ideas to D&D, including, for example, that D&D 5e lead designer Mike Mearls had this to say:



Likewise, SlyFlourish (the Lazy DM), who writes books for DMs in 5e D&D, has also been inspired by and utilized ideas from Dungeon World as well.

So I'm not sure what to tell you other than I guess that the ideas from Dungeon World are not nearly as incompatible or non-applicable to D&D as you maybe would like to imagine.

Yeah, I think the DW system for world building is miles better than what the DMG offers, and easily assimilated into D&D. And I love their moves-based system; I want to see if I can hybridize it into D&D, keeping some features of miniatures-based play, but hopefully seeing up combat and making it more narratively interesting.