Daggerheart "Description on Demand" a GM DON'T

[Reynard]

But did you Xander your dungeon?

 

[Kichwas]

What have your experiences been? Do you think it's immersion-breaking?

No.

I think me and Mr Alexander would be like oil and water on this topic.

For me this is immersion building and not doing it just helps me slowly tune out. I'm not there to passively be fed an experience. I'm there to make a story together. Give me some of the authorial control.

And as a GM, I see it as my duty to get players involved and feeling the world, caring for it. Something I wholly create is something they won't care about or feel ownership in. They might as well be watching Netflix at that point. I might as well put Netflix on and as them to give me applause for my efforts at using the remote.

The GMing advice in Daggerheart to just ask my players:

• "What does Rebecca [your PC] know about the Dachshund Gang? Who’s their leader?"

(To use one of Alexander's examples)

Well that advice solved a 40 year old problem for me that kept leading to burnout over and over again because time after time I have tried to get my players to contribute to the story and I never just thought to point blank ask them...

I know, facepalm moment... But I would go over this repeatedly in session 0s and at the beginning and end of sessions, but never in mid session did I respond after they opened a door with "Ok, what do you see in the office?"

And the first time I saw it in play in a Daggerheart game was the exact moment I knew I needed to switch from what I was doing and playing to something else.

Sure I'd already bought Daggerheart by then, I'd already decided I liked it. I already knew I wanted to play it and run it.

But that was the moment I knew I couldn't go back.

I can't look at the section of my bookshelf with D&D, GURPS, Pathfinder, and Hero system books the same way now.

I'm looking to move all that out and replace it with books from Daggerheart, Otherscape, and maybe some good PBtA games once I find them.

But back to point:

• "Robert, tell me what the name of the mountain is."

That's shared worldbuilding right there. That's how you go from "hey guys, heres my 1023 page manifesto on the NobodyCares Isles and the last 73 generations of who begat who because I think Tolkien's Silmarillion was too easy..." to "Ok, its your game as much as it is mine, the lore here - that's your character's story that you contributed. Is it going to win us a prize in literature? No. But it's ours and we can enjoy the WeAllCare Isles together."

• "You open the door and see Madame DuFerber’s bedroom. What does it look like?"

You think I'm going to spend 11 hours working on the design patterns of Madame's lingerie... I'm not a 16 year old boy anymore... So no. But hey... you can always tell us when I ask you what's in her room... and if that matters, then that's where our story is going now.

• Okay, you find some juicy blackmail on Mayor McDonald. What is it that he’s done? What evidence do you find?

This one's just me saying "hey guys, you do realize the last time I tried to write the plot we spent 3 months chasing after some random lady who's name I pulled off a 'fabric patterns' list and then tried to make villain powers out of and the clone of Bob Marley and it all stopped being funny five minutes in... it's your turn. What's the story you actually want us to be doing here?

Yes... that villain, Paisley, was an actual super villain in my final attempt to run Mutants and Masterminds 20 years ago. I still don't know what her powers were and thankfully I managed to avoid having her in a fight longer than the game lived so I never had to figure it out.

If only I'd have just thought to ask my players "What's the name on card you found at the scene and how does it relate to someone you once had to fight". My players back then actually had lists for me. But I thought it was supposed to be only my job to deliver that stuff and never let them break the 4th wall.

"description on demand" is, for me, the "best thing since sliced bread" for tRPGs. Not that I've found a use for sliced bread in a tRPG... yet. But if I can make villain names as bad at Paisley... then just wait till I have to do a game without 'description on demand' and you'll get your sliced bread.

Sure sometimes I'll have a plot that isn't pulled off a random list of fabric patterns and actually works. But even then 'description on demand' is great for filler and bringing that plot closer to the player's imaginations.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

First of all,we should not take anything the Alexandrian writes particularly seriously.

Quite right!

Broken clock etc. but this isn't one of those times.

I remember the first or one of the first times I had a player describe something was probably the early or mid 1990s, it was a Cleric or more likely Speciality Priest in the FR, and I was trying to roll up something (probably treasure or a random encounter), so I just directed the player to describe a chapel of their god that the PCs had just come to was like. I established like where it was, and that it currently didn't have a priest, and then just had them describe specifics, which they didn't even blink at doing. I wasn't even thinking about it, I imagine I got the idea from some DMing book of the early 1990s or something.

I've done it since when appropriate and I didn't even realize it was some "controversial" (lol) thing until like, what maybe 5 years ago? When I guess people who never did it suddenly came across it and some of them got the vapours at the idea (most people who didn't like it were just like "Interesting, but not for me", which is fine).

For me this is immersion building and not doing it just helps me slowly tune out.

I don't personally find I need it as a player but... it can definitely build immersion and connection to the setting/story, especially wielded well by the DM (i.e. not just random big asks).

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I can't believe this is already 21 pages long in one day. Forgive me if I say anything that's already been said:

I guess if players are not comfortable with providing description, it harkens back to the style of D&D/World building where the GM is the gatekeeper of all things. It's their world and they control every detail of it and the player characters live in it.

It seems a bit weird to me to not get to (or not want to)contribute anything to the world - including the things that specifically pertain to my character.

 

[CleverNickName]

It seems a bit weird to me to not get to (or not want to)contribute anything to the world - including the things that specifically pertain to my character.

Imagine telling your DM "No thanks. I'm here to react to the world, not to help create it."

That doesn't sound like my kind of game.

 

[Reynard]

One thing that is important, I think,is that if you ARE going to ask players to define setting elements, you should respect and incorporate those definitions. Again, coming more from an engagement perspective than immersion one,if you want your players engaged in those moments, prove to them that their contributions matter.

 

[Dire Bare]

He was teaching HIS style of play and what works FOR him.

He should call it "Justin Don'ts" then . . .

 

[Reynard]

He should call it "Justin Don'ts" then . . .

Justin Cases?

 

[zakael19]

One thing that is important, I think,is that if you ARE going to ask players to define setting elements, you should respect and incorporate those definitions. Again, coming more from an engagement perspective than immersion one,if you want your players engaged in those moments, prove to them that their contributions matter.

Absofreakinglutely. In the FITD game we just wrapped a couple weeks back, the players ran with this idea of a pre-collapse AI I'd introduced and wound up like jumping through hoops to save it from its facility self-destruct (through to risking the synthetic character's consciousness to act as a bridge to the transcendent plane so it could rematerialize there - and when I asked what it looked like on that plane they came up with this idea of a thing of pure fractal math rotating crystalline). They clearly cared a lot about it, and kept the mentioning the "what happened to that entity of 4d fractals after" as one of their wishes, so of course during the climax when a transcendent creature of void manifest showed up and one character was like "wait, can I ask it what the Grasp has promised it for help?" I was like "it's static like voice in your head says unity with my other half" and one of the players was like "oh f-k, its other half is the AI."

And like I didn't quite know where I was going with that, so yeah of course it's the AI. So now they're gleefully working out how to bridge the two halves of this created entity together to make it whole and end the threat and everybody is on the edge of their seats and like, I didn't really have to do anything.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No.

I think me and Mr Alexander would be like oil and water on this topic.

For me this is immersion building and not doing it just helps me slowly tune out. I'm not there to passively be fed an experience. I'm there to make a story together. Give me some of the authorial control.

And as a GM, I see it as my duty to get players involved and feeling the world, caring for it. Something I wholly create is something they won't care about or feel ownership in. They might as well be watching Netflix at that point. I might as well put Netflix on and as them to give me applause for my efforts at using the remote.

The GMing advice in Daggerheart to just ask my players:

• "What does Rebecca [your PC] know about the Dachshund Gang? Who’s their leader?"

(To use one of Alexander's examples)

Well that advice solved a 40 year old problem for me that kept leading to burnout over and over again because time after time I have tried to get my players to contribute to the story and I never just thought to point blank ask them...

I know, facepalm moment... But I would go over this repeatedly in session 0s and at the beginning and end of sessions, but never in mid session did I respond after they opened a door with "Ok, what do you see in the office?"

And the first time I saw it in play in a Daggerheart game was the exact moment I knew I needed to switch from what I was doing and playing to something else.

Sure I'd already bought Daggerheart by then, I'd already decided I liked it. I already knew I wanted to play it and run it.

But that was the moment I knew I couldn't go back.

I can't look at the section of my bookshelf with D&D, GURPS, Pathfinder, and Hero system books the same way now.

I'm looking to move all that out and replace it with books from Daggerheart, Otherscape, and maybe some good PBtA games once I find them.

But back to point:

• "Robert, tell me what the name of the mountain is."

That's shared worldbuilding right there. That's how you go from "hey guys, heres my 1023 page manifesto on the NobodyCares Isles and the last 73 generations of who begat who because I think Tolkien's Silmarillion was too easy..." to "Ok, its your game as much as it is mine, the lore here - that's your character's story that you contributed. Is it going to win us a prize in literature? No. But it's ours and we can enjoy the WeAllCare Isles together."

• "You open the door and see Madame DuFerber’s bedroom. What does it look like?"

You think I'm going to spend 11 hours working on the design patterns of Madame's lingerie... I'm not a 16 year old boy anymore... So no. But hey... you can always tell us when I ask you what's in her room... and if that matters, then that's where our story is going now.

• Okay, you find some juicy blackmail on Mayor McDonald. What is it that he’s done? What evidence do you find?

This one's just me saying "hey guys, you do realize the last time I tried to write the plot we spent 3 months chasing after some random lady who's name I pulled off a 'fabric patterns' list and then tried to make villain powers out of and the clone of Bob Marley and it all stopped being funny five minutes in... it's your turn. What's the story you actually want us to be doing here?

Yes... that villain, Paisley, was an actual super villain in my final attempt to run Mutants and Masterminds 20 years ago. I still don't know what her powers were and thankfully I managed to avoid having her in a fight longer than the game lived so I never had to figure it out.

If only I'd have just thought to ask my players "What's the name on card you found at the scene and how does it relate to someone you once had to fight". My players back then actually had lists for me. But I thought it was supposed to be only my job to deliver that stuff and never let them break the 4th wall.

"description on demand" is, for me, the "best thing since sliced bread" for tRPGs. Not that I've found a use for sliced bread in a tRPG... yet. But if I can make villain names as bad at Paisley... then just wait till I have to do a game without 'description on demand' and you'll get your sliced bread.

Sure sometimes I'll have a plot that isn't pulled off a random list of fabric patterns and actually works. But even then 'description on demand' is great for filler and bringing that plot closer to the player's imaginations.

I would be very interested to know what games you generally run.