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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8392296" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I never (or almost never) tell my players the specific numbers, but I give them reasonable qualitative descriptions, e.g. "Your hit lands, but it seems to leave the creature barely affected," or "wow, that was a solid hit! Another one like that and it's a goner!"On the flipside, I try to be pretty transparent with my players about most things. I won't put explicit flags on the moves I make or the like, but I will tell them (usually at the end of session) if I totally improvised stuff or come clean about something if I'm not sure it worked out well. And in the one situation we've had where things almost went truly pear-shaped, I was honest with them (after the fact) that I had intentionally made a fight way too hard to see if I could actually challenge them, and pulled back a bit when I could see that I had finally done so. (They'd steamrolled multiple "this should be just a little too hard" fights, so I was trying to check to see if I even could push them beyond their limits. Turned out I could, but they used a clever strategy that gave me an opening for weakening their opposition in a way that the players could learn about and, potentially, exploit later.)And when it comes to gear and mechanics...I try to preserve surprises when possible. On the flipside, though, I try to reach out and work with players to give them what they want. It helps, of course, that I run Dungeon World, which is light enough that I can basically house-rule invent whatever I want on a moment's notice. But even within that framework, I try very hard to be supportive of anything my players are genuinely enthusiastic about that isn't exploitative or coercive. They know I have their backs. E.g., our party Battlemaster completed his first personal arc by recovering the semi-legendary lost fourth volume of Struggle and Calm by General Khalifa al-Hamdan,. We worked out that that would grant him access to a new Battlemaster Tactic: Hammer and Anvil, which would be of benefit to him when coordinating with allies (essentially, a "set 'em up, knock 'em down" kind of thing.) I've done other, similar things for the other players (except the new person who just joined, since...they just joined, so I haven't had a chance yet!)</blockquote>

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