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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9260083" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Framing a scene does not mean forcing things. It means you establish what is true, and the players' responses are what advance the scene. You never manipulate things so that any particular ending happens.To use a metaphor: GM force is like changing the itinerary of a tour during the tour, so that the group will arrive at one specific destination at a time of your choosing, not earlier nor later, even though that means not letting the guests choose where they wish to go; if done with sufficient skill and subtlety, the guests may not realize they weren't actually choosing their destinations. Framing a scene is like starting a tour by choosing where the tour begins, and then having the guests decide where they wish to explore, so long as their choices are reasonable and consistent with the tour's goals but without any specific destination nor time frame in mind, and giving them more information as they come across sites of interest.Another: GM force is like a chef deciding in advance what meal all guests will eat, but subtly manipulating what menu each person sees to ensure that they eat only the things the chef decided to make for them at each course. Framing a scene is like telling the customer what kind of cuisine you specialize in for a given course, and having the customer build their own personal meal, course-by-course. They don't have total freeform choice, it's not "literally anything goes no matter how ridiculous or impossible." But they also are not being made, whether clumsily or deftly, to eat one specific dish for each course: they eat what they wish to eat, within the limits of what the collective group (chef + restaurant + customers) have established as reasonable and consistent. This "it must be reasonable and consistent" standard, in Dungeon World, is referred to with the term "the fiction," the fictional world-space that the group has learned about through play.I cannot stress enough that there is no "you overly tell the players good nice things constantly." It is quite possible to frame scenes that are quite bad, or that wig the players out. (The Bard from my DW game was very not-okay with the effects the Song of Thorns had on its victims, because IRL the player is a trained physical anthropologist, and thus is very keenly aware of how the Song mutates the bodies of sapient beings.) I am quite happy to tell my players that they're in a bad spot, assuming that doing so is consistent with the GMing rules for DW. (See below for more on this.)If they had truly, conclusively defeated a foe? Absolutely not. For example, the Song of Thorns is dead. It will not come back, unless the players decide they want to for some ungodful reason. (This is so exceedingly unlikely I can say, with reasonable confidence, that it is never going to happen.) They have earned their full and permanent victory, and I refuse to take that away from them, even if there's some theoretical cool story that could result from something like that.If the threat is not conclusively dealt with? Sure, the foe might come back because I feel it's been a reasonable amount of time for them to try again at their evil plans, but note the operative word is TRY, not SUCCEED. That's part of framing a scene, specifically, setting out simple events and the early blush of things, and the players decide what to do. Their decision--including the decision not to do anything, whether consciously or not--decides how that advances. Not me saying that they WILL fight X druid after they finish Y adventure....there is no skipped part. The player doing something IS driving things forward. It's not, as you so blithely put it, that "the player does some random stuff." The player does what makes sense for them, in the context they're facing.I'm not sure I can say it better than the Dungeon World text itself does. This is the introduction to GMing. Note that these passages are not mere advice. These are actually part of the rules for how you do Gamemastering in Dungeon World.[SPOILER="Copied Text"]<h2>How to GM</h2>When you sit down at the table as a GM you do these things:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Describe the situation</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Follow the rules</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Make moves</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Exploit your prep</li> </ul>The players have it easy—they just say what their characters say, think, and do. You have it a bit harder. You have to say everything else. What does that entail?First and foremost, you describe the immediate situation around the players at all times. This is how you start a session, how you get things rolling after a snack break, get back on track after a great joke: tell them what the situation is in concrete terms. Use detail and senses to draw them in. The situation isn’t just an orc charging you, it’s an orc painted in blood swinging a hammer and yelling bloody murder. You can leverage a lack of information, too. The sound of clattering armor and shuffling feet, for instance.The situation around them is rarely “everything’s great, nothing to worry about.” They’re adventurers going on adventures—give them something to react to. When you describe the situation, always end with “What do you do?” Dungeon World is about action and adventure! Portray a situation that demands a response.From the get-go make sure to follow the rules. This means your GM rules, sure, but also keep an eye on the players’ moves. It’s everyone’s responsibility to watch for when a move has been triggered, including you. Stop the players and ask if they mean to trigger the rules when it sounds like that’s what they’re doing.Part of following the rules is making moves. Your moves are different than player moves and we’ll describe them in detail in a bit. Your moves are specific things you can do to change the flow of the game.In all of these things, exploit your prep. At times you’ll know something the players don’t yet know. You can use that knowledge to help you make moves. Maybe the wizard tries to cast a spell and draws unwanted attention. They don’t know that the attention that just fell on them was the ominous gaze of a demon waiting two levels below, but you do.[/SPOILER]For example, consider the bit at the end about "exploit your prep." You have prepared a dungeon, and there happens to be a demon waiting two floors below. You do not prepare "the demon will notice the Wizard and start responding." Instead, as a result of player choices, specifically using the "Cast a Spell" move and getting a partial success, the Wizard has (per the rules) chosen the negative consequence: "You draw unwelcome attention to yourself or put yourself in a spot. The GM will tell you how." My decision to put a demon two floors down in this dungeon is part of framing a scene. That demon becoming interested in the Wizard is the result of the player choosing to do something, and the group following the rules for that choice. What form will the demon's attention take? That's what I will decide, as part of framing the next scene--and the players will need to respond to it in some way, or face the consequences of (knowingly or unknowingly) choosing not to respond.To give a different example: The party Bard has, for various reasons, become a sort of Tiefling++ by absorbing both devilish and demonic power from other people so they would be free of that influence. (He actually hates the source of these powers, but he cares about setting people free far more than he cares about tying himself more closely to Hell.) One of the powers he has acquired as a result of this choice is the ability to teleport short distances, like Nightcrawler does. If he has plenty of time, he can do a teleport no problem. In the heat of battle or otherwise under duress, however, he has to roll. This is the text of the move.[HR][/HR]TeleportationYou can call on your connection to the lower realms to teleport. If you can take your time, it's easy, but it's not without risk if you have to do it in a pinch. It's able to get you to anywhere you can physically see. (Divinations and remote viewing won't help, sorry!)When you pass through the nether realms to teleport, roll +CHA. On a 10+, choose two; on a 7-9, choose one:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">You go exactly where you want to</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Your motion goes unseen in either world</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Your motion is effectively instant</li> </ul>On a miss, you still teleport, but it is seriously disorienting, or even dangerous. The GM will tell you how.[HR][/HR]So, even with a full success, the character takes a little risk: maybe they end up close to where they wanted but not on the spot, or maybe it takes a round or two for them to show up, etc. At one point, in order to catch a bad guy and make sure he didn't get away, the Bard rolled Teleport and chose "you go exactly where you want to" and "your motion is effectively instant"--meaning, accepting the fact that his motion did NOT go unseen in the nether world.This empowered me, as GM, to frame a scene where the consequences of that action played out: basically, a weak devil had caught his scent, and was trying to use it to blackmail him. Thing is...the Bard is simply better at that game than the weak devil was, and genuinely outplayed him, leaving him on the back foot. As a result, the devil later came back, and instead of extortion....he asked to become the Bard's student. Because clearly, the Bard is better at playing Hell's games than even some movers and shakers in the Lowerarchy--so if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. This was a golden opportunity to make the player squirm (since anything to do with Hell does that)....but also an opportunity to dangle the "you could make things better if you just involve yourself a little more...."Whereas, for me, I have everything but the first and last of what you say. I know only the timeline of what has happened (and even then, I don't know all of it--part of playing is us working together to reveal more parts of the mysterious past!), the devious plots that various factions want to pursue, and what events have definitely occurred. I do not have a set future history--only what probably would happen, if the players chose to just pack up and leave. (I have told my players repeatedly that they could choose to do this. It would disappoint me, because that would mean I had failed them as a GM, but I would do it. They have said they appreciate it, but are too invested in what's going on around Al-Rakkah to do that.)Finally, that last sentence is very much not the case. It doesn't require "huge, intelligent, targeted actions." Because adventurers, by just being what they are, tend to gum up the works. That doesn't mean they make things better just by standing around! Certainly not. But they're so nosy and prying, and they never know when to leave well enough alone, and they're so predictably unpredictable, and sweet Architect why can't they just let us scheme in peace!!! IT WOULD HAVE WORKED IF IT WEREN'T FOR THOSE MEDDLING HEROES!!!!...ahem. Sorry, felt I should lighten the mood. The relevant thing here is, if the players bungle their way through stuff, the fiction--the state of the world as it currently exists, whatever we happen to know is true or not true--continues to advance. It may not advance in directions they like (read: if they fail rolls, it'll probably advance in a way they really don't like!), but it advances nonetheless--that's what "fail forward" means, not that the PCs are protected from failure, but rather that failure still pushes the story forward, rather than halting all momentum and leaving us spinning our wheels. Each intervention, each crazy PC plan, each combat--they change the state of the metaphorical game board, adding or removing pieces, forking out vulnerable targets (on either side!), ratcheting up the tension.If the players do all of that with flying colors, awesome! They'll be riding high on the thrill of success, and maybe aiming for even greater victories than they ever expected. If they fumble through it like a drunken bumblebee, also awesome! They'll be flying by the seat of their pants, barely holding on, tense and worried as the difficulties pile up and the rules push them toward a dangerous but inevitable point of no return.</blockquote>

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