Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 7572796" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I'm going to talk about this using Dungeon World and I'm going to use the example that was discussed upthread about searching for a hidden door.So here is the sblocked version of a Dungeon World scenario handling a secret door via a Discern Realities move:[sblock]You have to reflect back upon the game's Agenda and the GMing Principles. What applies here is:* Play to find out what happens* Draw maps, leave blanks* Ask questions and use the answers* Begin and end with the fictionSo here is the likely course of events with a Dungeon World GM and a burned out tavern where the players hoping to find survivors or signs of what happened here.1) GM may have a rough idea of maybe 2-3 things that may have happened here but they aren't sure (because they're playing to find out).2) The player says something like "Inns have cellars for dry goods, spirits and the like. Maybe someone hid in there and locked it when whatever went down. I move all of the debris from behind the bar and look for some kind of pull or something on the seared floorboards."3) This is basically an "ask questions and use the answers" moment (but sort of inverted). 4) The GM will not have anything nearing a blueprint (if they have anything at all and aren't just ad-libbing it) of the inn; "leave blanks." 5) "Begin and end with the fiction" comes up here as the GM is using that input from the player and thinking yeah, the "begin with the fiction" proposition of a spirit/dry goods basement behind the bar makes sense in multiple ways. 6) Is something at stake? Yeah. Survivors. The possible answer to whatever happened here (intel). Possible assets (maybe a use of Adventuring Gear/Rations/Poutlice or a Cohort in this group of people since they owe the PCs their lives). So we don't "say yes" we "roll the dice."7) What are we rolling the dice for? To find out if there is this secret door/tavern cellar and what is in there.So, by a collection of proxies, a player is basically being afforded the opportunity to stipulate fiction with a successful Discern Realities move.[/sblock]So let us say the player's Discern Realities move in Dungeon World was a 6-.  How do I not introduce an obstacle that isn't preconceived prior to play?*  The game tells me that it will fight me if I try to conceive plot prior to play.  And its right (due to the brutal transparency and the nature of the mechanics, application of GM Force in PBtA games is exceptionally difficult...and not worth the hassle, in part because...)* The game tells me it will be more fun if I play to find out what happens (and it turns out its correct!)...* The game tells me (a) how to play to find out what happens and (b) how the game will help me to do so (in organizing a low overhead, focused-ethos approach to GMing and in helping to distill my responses to the ongoing play conversation in a hyper-functional and gamestate-coherent way).So the player has failed.  I know I need to:* make a hard move that has immediate consequences or a soft move (which portends immediate negative consequences if not acted upon) if that fits the situation better...* that move needs:1 - follow from the prior fiction2 - to have the context of "be a fan of the characters" (in Dungeon World, this means referencing and testing their specific protagonism)3- to be dangerous and fill the PCs lives with adventureSo back to the fiction.Most times, Discern Realities failure is going to warrant a soft move.  But lets say in the above scenario, I've already made a soft move with the prior description of the scene:"Viscous pink skid-marks on the floor cut a jagged path in the floorboards to the area behind the bar where the ceiling has collapsed as a pair of load-bearing pillars have been upended.  Desperate scratches and a pair of fingernails ripped from their bed accompany the disgusting trail of soupy ichor which appears to be blood and some other, thicker, clear substance."So now there is something...what-we-don't-know-at-this-point...amiss.So maybe one of the characters is a holy warrior with the Alignment statement of "save a lost soul from itself."  Maybe this ruined tavern used to be a way-station for slave-trade and a mother had to watch her child starve to death before she succumbed herself.  Her afterlife wrath ruined this place, and ever since she manifests as an angry poltergeist to murder squatters, bandits, and hapless travelers seeking momentary respite from the elements alike.So when that Discern Realities fails, the poltergeists manifests with all of its wild wrath and someone is taking damage d10 (ignores armor).  Its on!Or it could be any number of other things that does the above 3 things.[HR][/HR]Now Torchbearer (if you're familiar with the video game Darkest Dungeon, it is 100 % inspired by Torchbearer) is a game that entails "The Utility of No" and would handle this entirely differently.  Spending a Turn searching for a secret door means (a) the condition clock ticks and (b) light source(s) tick(s).  Time is the most fundamental resource that must be carefully managed in Torchbearer.  As you spend Turns on actions in the Adventure phase, the gloom slowly threatens to swallow your crew as you tread an inexorable path of weariness/exhaustion/sickness that ends often in death...sometimes in glory.Now, like Moldvay Basic (the game is a love-letter to Moldvay Basic and a mash-up of it and Burning Wheel), there will be a map that is created by the GM (through an inspired codified sequence like Lifepaths in Traveller) and secret doors will be preconcieved.  When a test is made to locate a secret thing, a Scout Test occurs vs an Obstacle rating.  If the player fails (and they can use a Trait against themselves which will earn them a "Check" which helps the group in different phases of the game or helps that character advance), then a Condition is imposed or a Twist (which can be stock or be rolled on...most people either have some flash cards of possible Twists for an area and just blindly draw one or they roll on a Table for the particular area) occurs and a Conflict will likely arise as a result of that Twist.  Like in Dungeon World, these Twists will be themed for (a) the particular dungeon setting and/or (b) to conflict with a character's Nature or Beliefs.</blockquote>

Verification