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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8994982" data-attributes="member: 6790260">It is an absolutely necessary consequence of the question asked. That is, you said, "But...How do you know if the players will or won't dwell on it/bring it up if it's never included because you don't think the players will dwell on it or bring it up." The structure of the question indicates that things are included, or excluded, only by the GM: "if it's never included because you don't." Hence, for something to be included, it must be forethought by the GM, which the players may subsequently run away with (perhaps unexpectedly.)But perhaps I have simply misunderstood your meaning, and the phrase was simply meant to indicate "how does anyone (GM or player) include anything they've never even conceived of," and of course the answer is they can't, no more nor less than is true for "trad" play, it's just that you have (metaphorically) all hands on deck, as opposed to just the GM.They can't. How can you as DM know they will be interested in something you have never conceived of? You can't know that either. Instead, you make use of three things.1. Session Zero. This is where the world gets built, together. For example, I originally ran this game for a different group, and we collaborated to work out what was in it. I was interested in running an Arabian Nights kind of experience, so that was established early. One of my players wanted to play a Grim World playbook I found....iffy, shall we say, so we collaborated to develop an explanation for how someone could survive effectively being addicted to violence without being an ultra dark serial murderer, leading to a fascinating subculture of "hunters in the waste" who track and slay nasty beasts and have a mutual love-hate relationship with the fat cats who own private estates out in the desert.2. "Ask questions and use the answers." This one cuts both ways. I, as GM, constantly ask about a character's history, beliefs, family, skills, etc., and use those answers to build up stuff I never would have thought to make otherwise. Likewise, the players ask me questions, and this leads them to take actions, often ones I never anticipated. I had no idea the "Riddle-Makers," a long-vanished mini-civilization of religious nerds for lack of a better term, would go from "fun background piece" to "core personal motivation for the Bard, adopting them as His People," but that's exactly what happened. Or the time a single "failed" roll resulted in an awesome time-crash adventure full of weird and "wrong" things.3. Solicit feedback outside the game. I almost always ask for feedback from my players about what they like, how they're feeling, whether my offerings worked for them, how they would change things if they could go back, etc. This is, of course, imperfect (I sadly often get nothing more than, summarized, "good session, I had a lot of fun," which is heartening but not very enlightening.) Still, I always strive to listen, and every now and then ask my players to tell me about what kind of adventure they would be excited to have. I prioritize genuine player enthusiasm over nearly everything else, as I have said elsewhere.These three tools have served us well. I am always surprised by exactly how things shake out, and my players often are too. After five years, I have a decent idea what makes the characters tick and how to give them things they will hunger and thirst to play.I...have absolutely no idea where you're getting that or why.In Session Zero, the players (including the GM, who is a player with an asymmetrical role) describe the world together. I brought more than might be typical, because I was building off a previous DW group's game, but we still built the world together. E.g., the party Bard has a well-to-do family now, but when he was a kid, they were immigrants to the big city and barely able to afford food on the table. So Mr. Bard, despite having a decent education and such, grew up a guttersnipe, making friends in low places before his family made it big...and thus allowed him to make friends in high places. This added the "Silver Thread," a Robin Hood-style underworld society geared toward building up the poor and protecting the common folk from exploitation by the rich. (And, of course, making a decent living at it along the way, but the helping people part comes first.) Or our Battle master, who fleshed out the hierarchy within the military and gave us insight into the culture of tactics and warfare in the Tarrakhuna. Etc., etc.This is how the world comes into being. Then, over time, new elements are added, usually when a (literal or metaphorical) "blank" on a "map" needs to be filled in. Sometimes I fill blanks as part of prep. Usually, either I or a player fills them as part of someone asking a question and someone else using the answer.There is no need to have this ridiculous infinite advance knowledge of everything you could ever like or enjoy. There's just the game, the players (including me), and us collectively expandinf what the game contains. We surprise one another by the additions or alterations we make, and in so doing have adventures we often did not expect or even could not have expected. Because every voice at the table enriches the world, not just the GM's, the unexpected is actually much more common than it is in a "trad" game, where it's the DM's world, you just play in it.</blockquote>

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