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<blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 5315698" data-attributes="member: 99">Coincidentally with this thread I was just reading that part of the DMG2 and coincidentally made this suggestion to our DM on Monday night (the same DM is coincidentally going to be at my house to help me move a refrigerator in about half an hour -- what the hell is going on here!?).This guy is new to DMing even though he's been in our gaming group for about 20 years.&nbsp; He's pretty good at running the game but admitted that he's not good at making up details on the fly.&nbsp; As an example, we found a chest that had some dwarven coins in it and I asked if there were any markings on it that might hint at its origins (because my character is a sort of do-gooder that might want to return the contents to the rightful owners).&nbsp; He struggled a bit with that and then said something like, &quot;Um...it looks like it maybe has the marks of a merchant clan.&quot;&nbsp; Which was a fine answer as far as I was concerned.After the game he gave what I thought was an unnecessary apology for not having a better answer to that question.&nbsp; That's when I told him about the concept of putting it back on the players and how, as far as I was concerned, it was a completely valid approach to shared worldbuilding.&nbsp; I advised that the next time one of us asks, &quot;Are there any markings on the chest that might hint at its origins?&quot; then he should reply, &quot;Yes there are.&nbsp; Why don't you tell us about them?&quot;I find it fairly easy to come up with stuff like that on the fly (my biggest challenge is writing it down quickly enough to remember it later).&nbsp; But I really love being surprised as a GM.&nbsp; So I'm thinking I might try and employ this technique more myself.&nbsp; It gives insight into the players preferences and can move the game in unexpected directions, which I think is fun.I think what I might do is ask the player that prompted the question to give a brief bit of &quot;lore&quot; that their character knows about the situation at hand and then turn to a different player and ask, &quot;Can you tell me one more thing about this?&quot;&nbsp; That spreads the responsibility around and also might puts another players input into the mix.&nbsp; I think it might produce some fun results.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Rel, post: 5315698, member: 99"] Coincidentally with this thread I was just reading that part of the DMG2 and coincidentally made this suggestion to our DM on Monday night (the same DM is coincidentally going to be at my house to help me move a refrigerator in about half an hour -- what the hell is going on here!?). This guy is new to DMing even though he's been in our gaming group for about 20 years. He's pretty good at running the game but admitted that he's not good at making up details on the fly. As an example, we found a chest that had some dwarven coins in it and I asked if there were any markings on it that might hint at its origins (because my character is a sort of do-gooder that might want to return the contents to the rightful owners). He struggled a bit with that and then said something like, "Um...it looks like it maybe has the marks of a merchant clan." Which was a fine answer as far as I was concerned. After the game he gave what I thought was an unnecessary apology for not having a better answer to that question. That's when I told him about the concept of putting it back on the players and how, as far as I was concerned, it was a completely valid approach to shared worldbuilding. I advised that the next time one of us asks, "Are there any markings on the chest that might hint at its origins?" then he should reply, "Yes there are. Why don't you tell us about them?" I find it fairly easy to come up with stuff like that on the fly (my biggest challenge is writing it down quickly enough to remember it later). But I really love being surprised as a GM. So I'm thinking I might try and employ this technique more myself. It gives insight into the players preferences and can move the game in unexpected directions, which I think is fun. I think what I might do is ask the player that prompted the question to give a brief bit of "lore" that their character knows about the situation at hand and then turn to a different player and ask, "Can you tell me one more thing about this?" That spreads the responsibility around and also might puts another players input into the mix. I think it might produce some fun results. [/QUOTE]

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