Daggerheart "Description on Demand" a GM DON'T

[zakael19]

I prefer it because it helps my immersion. Having to ask the DM for every little detail of what my character would be seeing right in front of my eyes is what breaks my imaginative process.

To me, contributing to the fiction is immersion.

Yeah, and there's at least two sides of "paint the scene" (link to the excellent blog about this technique), right? There's "here's a core fact, let's all establish how we know/do a little world building" and then there's "add something to the scene with direct character relevance." The latter is probably what I do more commonly in the course of play, and in Daggerheart - and leans into character experiences and the potential space of their background to give the player time to establish something new and interesting about their character.

DH encourages you to have a relatively concise background and then build your character during play, so leading and curious questions about the characters during the course of scenes helps do that without it being relegated primarily to IC dialogue.

 

[zakael19]

From this very thread I learned that DH encourages DoD, but you can also play without it. That some folks had to learn to like it, and some folks will never like it. Immersion discussion helps me understand both viewpoints on DoD, and I can rest easy knowing that there isnt a singular personal definition with 100% consensus of the entire forum. I understand that has come to mean completely useless around here, but here I am, once again, coming away learning something and taking value in a useless word.

Ok, I'd say it's useless without providing amplification and context. "Play like this breaks my personal immersion because..." "when I'm asked to add details to the world I find myself more immersed in the situation because for me..."

Most of the time we just get the word used with minimal added details like we should all just understand it, or the subjective space the poster is coming from with "Oh I hate this and it would break immersion for me."

As a GM, I am fully engaged and immersed in play when the players are saying cool stuff about the world and their characters that let me imagine a scene with inputs from their perspective. Ongoing IC dialogue with minimal descriptions drops me out of the scene because I start to just see two players talking back and forth. When people talk about how they move, act, emotional context, paint elements of a scene that add life and vibrancy and take things in a new direction, take a baseline prompt and run off with it and then tie other characters in so we have a free wheeling dramatic moment? That's when my imagination is running at full.

And then when players are fully engaged like that, IME they tend to ask interesting questions back at me that spark my input to go to the next height (and in Daggerheart based on its endless poking - to when in doubt do the most dramatic thing), and we get a wonderful creativity spiral.

 

[Vendral]

I have tried Description on Demand from the players in my groups on a number of occasions over the years, and it has never worked.
There was an example of describing a Megacorp lobby in an earlier post. If I had tried to ask my players what they see, assuming they wanted to infiltrate it, it would have been anything from:

• Everyone is out for lunch and whatever they were there for was lying on the reception desk.
• Two unmanned tripods with machine guns that are up for grabs.
• Major re-construction with a lot of workers that they can blend in amongst

and so on, whatever they describe give them a major advantage.

 

[payn]

Ok, I'd say it's useless without providing amplification and context. "Play like this breaks my personal immersion because..." "when I'm asked to add details to the world I find myself more immersed in the situation because for me..."

Most of the time we just get the word used with minimal added details like we should all just understand it.

At a basic level, yeah we kinda do. When someone says, "it breaks immersion" we know instantly the base of the problem. Sure, they probably shouldn't frame it as if immersion itself is broken in general, but its an excellent starting point to understand their disconnect. If the person had to redefine the word immersion in their own words without using the word that would be wasted time, but folks seem a-ok with those extra details in a discussion.

As a GM, I am fully engaged and immersed in play when the players are saying cool stuff about the world and their characters that let me imagine a scene with inputs from their perspective. Ongoing IC dialogue with minimal descriptions drops me out of the scene because I start to just see two players talking back and forth. When people talk about how they move, act, emotional context, paint elements of a scene that add life and vibrancy and take things in a new direction, take a baseline prompt and run off with it and then tie other characters in so we have a free wheeling dramatic moment? That's when my imagination is running at full.

And then when players are fully engaged like that, IME they tend to ask interesting questions back at me that spark my input to go to the next height (and in Daggerheart based on its endless poking - to when in doubt do the most dramatic thing), and we get a wonderful creativity spiral.

If immersion hadnt been brought up, id not got this excellent detailed description of your immersive process with DH.

 

[Emerikol]

Those who like the Daggerheart approach are the ones talking about engagement and not immersion from my perspective on those words. Something can be interesting and engaging but still not immersive. Immersion for me is staying in character as much as possible.

 

[cranberry]

To let the players control the narrative is potentially game breaking.

GM: "you open the door. What do you see"
Player: I see 10 chest filled to the brim with gold pieces and all 7 pieces of the rod of seven parts".

 

[zakael19]

I have tried Description on Demand from the players in my groups on a number of occasions over the years, and it has never worked.
There was an example of describing a Megacorp lobby in an earlier post. If I had tried to ask my players what they see, assuming they wanted to infiltrate it, it would have been anything from:

• Everyone is out for lunch and whatever they were there for was lying on the reception desk.
• Two unmanned tripods with machine guns that are up for grabs.
• Major re-construction with a lot of workers that they can blend in amongst

and so on, whatever they describe give them a major advantage.

Note that this is also generally a fail state in most (but not all, depends on the game) instances of this sort of technique. This is what is generally referred to as "crossing the line" in that you're establishing facts about teh game world that give you a mechanical advantage or otherwise further your character's progress without any uncertainty.

If the GM asked "hey, how you can tell that the guards have been called away" the GM is now a) establishing an opportunity for the players with a subtle nudge, and b) limiting the input to coloring in some lines.

Edit: this is also a reply directly to @cranberry above! That is not at all what Daggerheart wants from play. It wants players to add input that links their characters to the situation, and for the GM to think about what that would mean and pull on the characters during play.

 

[zakael19]

Those who like the Daggerheart approach are the ones talking about engagement and not immersion from my perspective on those words. Something can be interesting and engaging but still not immersive. Immersion for me is staying in character as much as possible.

Right! Immersion for you is that. You want to be immersed in your character without leaving their perspective (although as @TwoSix has noted, he's more immersed in his character when he gets to fill in some of what they see!). I may want to be immersed in the game. Or I dont care about immersion. etc.

This is why "immersion" as a standalone term tends to just add confusion. Like, you're the sort of person who may read through DH and go "this game probably isn't for me unless we're running it far from how the book suggests it wants."

 

[TiQuinn]

To let the players control the narrative is potentially game breaking.

GM: "you open the door. What do you see"
Player: I see 10 chest filled to the brim with gold pieces and all 7 pieces of the rod of seven parts".

I get a Ring of Three Wishes, and on my third wish, I ask for three more wishes.

 

[Emerikol]

To let the players control the narrative is potentially game breaking.

GM: "you open the door. What do you see"
Player: I see 10 chest filled to the brim with gold pieces and all 7 pieces of the rod of seven parts".

This response comes very naturally to those with a gamist mindset. I had the same initial thought. My groups lean heavily into gamism and simulation.