Daggerheart "Description on Demand" a GM DON'T

[Kichwas]

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.

That's a good theory but what do you do when you have a whole group going up and one guy insists on dragging them down?

Lets hypothetically overstate the mismatching player here's preference for an example.

No matter how much of a nice guy that one person is, do they get to hold the sway?

If his thing is counter to the enjoyment of their thing - the larger group's interest should win out.

I've voluntarily left groups a number of times when I realized I was the one pulling in the wrong direction. That's the responsible thing to do.

One thing to note about this style is it really needs full group buy in to work at its best. Listen to the Dodoborne podcast I noted a bit ago. Pick any one member of the cast and imagine them not going along and just being a traditional tRPG player and the whole thing falls apart.

In the advice quoted in this thread from DH, the first portion on some basic ways to ask for info from the player would work with partial buy in. But if the group wants to do the 'going further' bit you can't leave anyone out and pull it off.

So at some point the table has to pick a style based on the majority of those present. When that style hasn't been mine, I've politely excused myself so they could fill with someone more to their vibe. That's the right move. The wrong move is making everyone else hold to the wishes of one.

 

[Kichwas]

I think there's apt to be issues when it is just tacked onto an otherwise traditional approach to running the game, and when it is new. When everything in a player's experience is that the GM does not want their input, or will use their input against them, or that they might just do it wrong... yes, it can be a source of anxiety.

Yeah I can see that.

A handy trick Daggerheart does in it's sample adventure is start the questions in some inanely low priority ways.

"What's special about the trees here in Sablewood" is a prompt question for a GM to ask players. It's completely unimportant and just gives a player a moment to wax poetic.

Now that does mean it also fails in a way - it's not important or relevant and so quickly forgettable.

But it's not there for you to use that over and over. It's there to as a 'trust builder' for both new GMs and new players to realize asking these questions with some safety around them will add to the fun and not ruin the game. Once the trust is there you can start handing more consequential prompts over to the players. But you start light.

Things like this are why it's common to see people say that the GMing advice in Daggerheart is some of the best put out to date. They could remove the game from... the game... and just publish what's left as a handbook on how to run narrative games for people who are new to the format but want to try it out. And it would still be a good buy.

Most of us are probably used to the 'GM Guidebook' part of games being useless drivel we buy only because they put the magic item charts or NPC stat blocks in that part, and the advice section was only written to fill page count enough to hit the 'printer's page count margin for a price point...'

But that's not the Daggerheart GM section. They did a better job with that section than they did with the actual game - and that's coming from someone who thinks they did a good job with the game part.

 

[Kichwas]

Well now I know the name of the thing that causes my DM to ask annoying questions like, "You got a critical hit, what fancy extra thing does your attack do?"

One time he asked me to describe how my attack killed a monster and the results caused another player to leave the game. Luckily I don't think he's ever asked anybody to describe a room or a NPC for him.

Funny thing about me and absolutely loving the narrative questions of the "Paint the Scene" style (or the pejorative name Mr Alexander gave it of 'description on demand')...

I absolutely HATE having to do this over kill moves.

It probably needs to go on my list of 'lines and veils', and I've got my reasons and personal history for it.

I'll put my roleplay and my creative energy to other areas, but not there.

 

[BruceWright]

Things like this are why it's common to see people say that the GMing advice in Daggerheart is some of the best put out to date. They could remove the game from... the game... and just publish what's left as a handbook on how to run narrative games for people who are new to the format but want to try it out. And it would still be a good buy.

Agreed. Even if you wind up never running Daggerheart, I think the book is a great book on how to be a GM

 

[BruceWright]

I absolutely HATE having to do this over kill moves.

Me too. One reason is that I’ve had a player suddenly steer the tone of a light hearted adventure into something you’d read in a Stephen King novel. Tone matching wasn’t something this player understood.

The other is… well, “How do you want to do this” is SOMEBODY ELSE’S catchphrase. I don’t do other comedians’ material.

 

[Kichwas]

You've played with much more democratic DMs than I have/am.

My games are like a soccer match. Argue with the ref, even if it's to tell them that you don't want a skill or a special ability being granted (how would they know the gift isn't actually a curse??), and you could get a red card,

Well the GURPS example comes from a table I just got up from and left when he handed me a whole book of power ups.

Months later I ran into another person who'd been a player in that game and learned that GM was still angrily ranting about me.

But yeah. When folks tell me 'this is how it is if you want on this ride', I pull the cord to get off the train.

While I feel your example was over the top for fun effect in our conversation here; if someone actually told me I was getting a disciplinary red card, that'd be the end of me and them knowing each other. After all if we don't match, there are better ways to handle style differences than disrespect. However these days this stuff is normally resolved before or during session 0.

 

[Kichwas]

Specifically why I bought this up is that Daggerheart strongly recommends this style of play as core to the ethos of the game.

Of course DH states that any guidance is at table discretion, optional. There aren’t mechanics that require or enforce its use.

By partial contrast, the new fantasy game Legend in the Mist and its Cyberpunk-Fantasy sister game Otherscape almost do require it.

Those games have no numbers on your character sheet. Just 'tags' which are typically 1-3 word descriptions of "something". Similar to a Daggerheart experience.

You might have a tag like "sheepherder" or "Memories of war" or a weakness tag of "ghosts in the attic" or pretty much anything.

To do anything you've got to narrate out how a pile of your tags applies to the situation. The GM will then agree or not, suggest other tags, hand you some temporary tags or weaknesses, and so on. If you can get the GM to let you use one of your weaknesses you get a penalty but get to note an improvement which is how the 'character development system' of the game works.

And your roll is the number of tags minus the number of weakness plus 2d6 and compared to results that I'm told come from PbtA.

The GM then hand out a consequence and you narrate back and forth to repeat the cycle.

The the Mist engine is essentially 'swimming in the soup' of the 'Paint the Scene' style.

 

[Elvish Lore]

We all said our farewells... and then about 20 minutes later another player posted in the text channel that giving us less loot because of "flavor" was unfair to me. This player did not ask my opinion before posting. I tried explaining that I was fine with it, but the player was convinced the DM would punish flavor descriptions going forward.

I'm going to agree with that player's reaction. I think it's kind of naughty word that the DM punished a description. Great way to rob the players having fun with their descriptions and to make sure your players don't help imagine the fiction at the table.

I don't think I would have quit the game but I would have pushed ahead with descriptions at another time and if the DM pulled that again, I would...um, discussed it with the DM right then and there, trying to make him or her realize that this was dreadful behavior on their part.

 

[Elvish Lore]

The the Mist engine is essentially 'swimming in the soup' of the 'Paint the Scene' style.

I wanted to like Legend in the Mist. I really did... loved the art style and the stated intention of the game.

But the tag system is kind of a mess, inelegant in play, and it feels like they just added in 'narrative' results in a very convoluted method.

But I'll stop threadcapping.

 

[Clint_L]

Specifically why I bought this up is that Daggerheart strongly recommends this style of play as core to the ethos of the game.

Yet, rather oddly, Mercer runs Daggerheart in Age of Umbra almost exactly the same way that he runs D&D and other games, even at times "fixing" player descriptions of their monster kills. The only instance I can recall of players being handed the narrative reains was briefly in episode 7 (I think? - could have been 6 - it's when they are investigating the house with the corpses in the secret room)...and they did nothing that mattered to the story. It was surpisingly lame, given the talent involved.