Daggerheart "Description on Demand" a GM DON'T

[Emerikol]

Now, he’s a great player otherwise and a fun guy, so I work with him and try not to push him too much, but if he was any further in that “Alexandrian” direction, I would probably stop inviting him to my games.

I think if he were truly in the Alexandrian direction your game would bother him more and he'd leave of his own accord. Maybe he has some other reason for not doing it himself. Does he have a negative reaction to other people doing it? I know for me even other people doing it would drive me crazy.

 

[Xamnam]

Just to make sure I'm on the right page, PbtA and similar games are designed particularly for players who want to share in the world/scene creation during play and focus on pushing the story and not character advantage?

Not all of them.

Yeah, I really like this blog post by John Harper about "crossing the line", and the difference between asking a player to take ownership of their character and their experiences, versus taking ownership of parts of the world. Of course, there are folks who will love to take control of the world for a moment specifically just to make the story better, and games built for that, but I tend prefer games where that line is pretty sharply delineated.

 

[Epic Meepo]

I deduce it was Colonel Mustard, in South America, with the 12 armies.

Close, but I'm fairly sure it's actually the Top Hat, in the bishop 4 square, with the 12 armies.

 

[darjr]

Yeah, I really like this blog post by John Harper about "crossing the line", and the difference between asking a player to take ownership of their character and their experiences, versus taking ownership of parts of the world. Of course, there are folks who will love to take control of the world for a moment specifically just to make the story better, and games built for that, but I tend prefer games where that line is pretty sharply delineated.

Thank you for the link.

 

[darjr]

I'm still puzzled how we can go from an OP that is talking about a playstyle in Daggerheart, and yet somehow it's still segueing back to Dungeons and Dragons.

It’s also about PBTA and other games. I saw the original post about the technique and DH was just the recent illustration.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Man I will eventually lose interest in a game that doesn’t do this. And I mean that both as a player and a (much more often) GM.

I have exactly one “problem” player in my extended group, and this is one of the issues I have with him, he is resistant to co-authoring the fiction. (He also doesn’t tie himself strongly into the world unless you push him to do so, which drives me batty)

Now, he’s a great player otherwise and a fun guy, so I work with him and try not to push him too much, but if he was any further in that “Alexandrian” direction, I would probably stop inviting him to my games.

My favorite other GM will let us practically build whole nations in his homebrew world, and it’s awesome. My wife and I play two characters from the same mountain range in his main campaign, and we basically formulated the relationship between the Goliath and Gnome and Dwarf populations in the high mountain, how they collectively see the newcomer humans in the lowlands, made the Gnomes of this region basically a mix of Irish and Welsh cultures, while the region is a mix of Celtic and Scandinavian influences, down to having Pictish and Brythonic influenced human clans and Scandinavian Things and an annual Althing where everyone in the North comes together to settle disputes and work out trade and cooperation agreements and all sorts of other things. The back and forth process of developing this place has made all of us care deeply about the land and its people, and dug our roots deep into the soil of this fictional world.

Some people are not good at that stuff. They may enjoying seeing it happen but cannot really partake. May be stop trying to push him and let him do his thing.

 

[zakael19]

Yeah, I really like this blog post by John Harper about "crossing the line", and the difference between asking a player to take ownership of their character and their experiences, versus taking ownership of parts of the world. Of course, there are folks who will love to take control of the world for a moment specifically just to make the story better, and games built for that, but I tend prefer games where that line is pretty sharply delineated.

I’ve alluded to this a few times, but it’s also really important to note that Harper is explicitly talking about the context of designing custom moves for Apocalypse World. There’s lots of games out there with mechanics that “cross the line” and let the players author fiction advantageous to them - Fabula Ultima and uh, FATE? have currencies that permit this.

Crossing the GM/player authority over the world “line” isn’t inherently badwrong, and the guidance in Daggerheart notes that some groups may desire to go for much deeper player control over certain aspects of the fiction - but that’s more on the “far end.”

Edit: in fact a number of the Carved from Brindlewood games off the PBTA tree have direct mechanics that “cross the line” in allowing the players to author fictional answers and then test to see if it’s true, directly giving them mechanical opportunities.

 

[BruceWright]

That said, if I did do this as a GM, my first thought would be "So, a mimic with illusion powers, cool"

this falls fully under Daggerheart’s advice to “Reframe rather than reject” contributions that push beyond the GMs allowances.

 

[TiQuinn]

It’s also about PBTA and other games. I saw the original post about the technique and DH was just the recent illustration.

Sure. But what it hasn't been about was D&D. Like, nobody asked about D&D until someone said "Oh, but in D&D this is terrible..."

Well, fine, sure. But this was never positioned as being for D&D.

 

[zarionofarabel]

I've never played in a game of D&D where I couldn't spot a zero or near zero prepper and inevitably the game went off the rails.

How could a game go "off the rails" if there were no rails in the first place?!? That is a strange statement to say the least.