Striving for brevity where possible.
I've got in mind posts like these:
Not sure why on that first thing. E.g. I did exactly that with "this is a
slave market," despite no prep about that. That the ancient genies enslaved mortals is a long-established fact, but I don't see how this differs from the dwarf-forge example (where rumors of old things hidden out there were already established.) Don't get the second either. Why should a DR roll give literally
all possible information no matter what? The examples of play explicitly flow from
how the characters do their discerning. I feel like you've taken this as an incredibly strident "I'll make sure they stay ignorant
no matter what" when all I meant was "even a full success doesn't necessarily grant them
omniscience." Which kinda characterizes how I've felt about a lot of this stuff, where rather mild statements are read as utterly binding universal principles.
The third is, again, a matter of "it feels
wrong for a successful roll to MAKE a specific person guilty." Now, if they made the discovery
because they observed a smoking-gun clue, then sure, absolutely they would learn that thing. But if it's literally just looking over some evidence, it feels really, really, really, REALLY wrong for "I'm looking for proof of the Countess' guilt, checking her vanity for any suspicious substances, checking the clothes in her wardrobe for stains..." (aka, doing DR stuff) to then ask, "What here is useful or valuable to me?"
and as a result MAKE the Countess the person who was always guilty, simply because that's where the player chose to look. That doesn't mean it's flat-out NOT possible for DR to reveal guilt--it totally is. But it has to reveal guilt
that is actually there. It can't spontaneously
create guilt.
That impression is reinforced by posts that suggest confusion about how these moves work:
I had been working off a mistaken understanding of what "player authorship" meant, given how much stress several posters kept putting on "player authorship" when what was actually meant was (as I would phrase it) "players
prompting DM authorship."
Neither Spout Lore nor Discern Realities requires the player to invent solutions to mysteries or author the existence of Forges. But they can require the GM to narrate backstory in accordance with the constraints imposed by the moves and the broader principles.
I'm fine with doing this, and do it regularly. Again, the heavy stress on "player authorship" is what threw me.
Some of what you have said in your posts, for instance about using a NPC to send the PC to "important" places, suggests that your play is focused on GM-established "quests"/"adventures" rather than playing-to-find-out.
This is...difficult. It's why I keep saying "okay so...does that mean
literally all prep is Force?" Because, frex, the murder caper at the masquerade ball. When the players went to Jinnistan (which I hope you will grant was players prompting for opportunities, in this case to help friends of theirs in need and to gain political clout), I had no specific plans for a murder thing. But as they met with their original target, Sultan Kavur, it occurred to me that my genies are tricksy and manipulative, and it'd be cool to pull a scheme without that scheme hurting the PCs. So I improvised a "here, go help my
brother and then ask to attend this party" thing as a way to show off that conniving streak.
As above, this feels like mountains from molehills. Kafer-Naum was one such "important place" the players went to after consulting an NPC (IIRC, Shen) to find out more about the two cultic factions. It wasn't breadcrumbs due to exhausting local quests, it was a response to players seeking to address a threat. The reason could've been almost anything, e.g. the Druid wanting to check out spirits there, or the Bard wanting to say hi to his Temple Knight brother (something the player wrote as part of his backstory). The Ranger even
sought out Kafer-Naum after returning from his first hiatus due to having found faith (a huge surprise, as the player is a committed atheist).
As a GM, I would expect that a player would take the lead in establishing the sort of information you describe, such as details of their PC's religion or cultural practices
Okay. We did that during Session 0. The players drafted the following origins (excluding some now-absent players): Bard immigrated to Al-Rakkah as a child from some other city and dabbled in Safiqi priest training but (like many formalities) it didn't stick, Bard is just now coming back to the city after years living among the nomads; Ranger is a prominent heir of a nomad clan partly integrated into Al-Rakkah, and he's not so keen on that integration; Druid is the second son of a different tribe's chief, with dad and brother also druids, but after dad died brother became a bit dictatorial so the PC tried to challenge his brother for leadership and got kicked out; (ex-player) Barbarian was from lands far to the East, so we worked out some info about his culture and why he was so far away. Etc.
Being a Druid, in this culture, means being a Kahina (Druids and Shamans being two sides of the same coin), trained in certain traditions. We talked at length before, during, and after Session 0 about things this implies. Likewise for belonging to the nomad tribes, or having Safiqi or Wazir (wizard) training. We built parts of the setting together. I didn't bother perfectly nailing down every tenet of Safiqi faith, for example, but given that the Bard player enthusiastically embraced being a casual practitioner (and partly-trained clergy), that has certain consequences.
If the player invents everything from whole cloth, well, that may be alright. But it's also quite possible for there to be abusive uses of such freedom, the "well my backstory says..." thing. I'm sure you've read the hilarious CoC story about Old Man Henderson, for example. But if the player knowingly ties their character to something another player (including the DM) added to the world, they'd better be ready for moments where they'll hear "you would know X."
I don't understand what you mean by players inventing this stuff unmoored from any fictional tethers an invented for the players' benefit. I think there are at least three ways I don't understand this: (i) What fiction would a player's material be untethered from? Do you mean fiction pre-authored by the GM? (ii) If play is taking place in some pre-established setting, why wouldn't the players have access to the relevant material and be the ones who lead the extrapolation of that material to apply to their PCs? (iii) How does it benefit a player that funerals involve the colour white rather than blue?
i) The GM or other players. Surely you've had games where two players collaborate on a shared backstory element, like attending the same school, growing up as best friends, or being family members? That inherently induces moments where someone else can invent backstory your character would know, but that you didn't generate yourself.
ii) Who said everything is 100% pre-established? I literally said it wasn't such, that some things are intentionally left vague or not explored because perfectly nailing down literally everything would be tedious.
iii) That....wasn't the point. I was just giving an example of "if you grew up in <this culture> you would know <random but relevant fact>." But if you
need it to benefit the player, perhaps they decide to blend into a funeral procession and thus need to get some white duds
stat.
Things being unmoored from fictional tethers is just...if the player says they're from the Shield Dwarf clan, that creates tethers. Either I as DM am allowed to build new stuff about the Shield Dwarf clan, or I'm not. If I'm not, the player now has
carte blanche to make the Shield Dwarf clan whatever they want, whenever they want, which sounds hella abusive to me. If I am allowed, then necessarily things I invent after the game starts can't be something the player knows to begin with, so I have to tell them. If I'm allowed to do so, but am absolutely forbidden to
tell the player any of this, then they can invent whatever they like no matter how it might contradict past experience in play, hence, unmoored.
As I've said, this isn't clear to me. For instance, your reply to
@Nephis -
You had a foundation for there to be hidden things, you had resources you could employ (the books) to reveal information, it was the DM creating a neat opportunity at your prompting rather than you giving yourself an opportunity - doesn't seem to demonstrate a clear understanding of how Spout Lore works, nor the function of
asking questions and building on the answers.
I'm...not sure what my confusion is supposed to
be, so...I can't really respond to this.
Drawing a map and writing a setting history may be compatible with playing to fin out, or it may not be. How is the map being used as an input into framing and into action resolution? How does the setting history relate to the player's orientation of their PCs towards the situations they find themselves in.
My players have responded positively to maps so I'm trying to use them. A player had also given feedback from some random-gen stuff we did a while back, saying he felt there was no tension nor merit to the choices to navigate around, when he knew that whatever we generated would be in whatever direction they travelled. So, with this map, it's...pretty damn abstract (a big circle with loose blob neighborhoods marked on it). It gives loose descriptions like "Palace District" or "Hydroponic Gardens," so that (to address the above feedback) there truly is a real difference between going north vs south or the like, but only at a very high conceptual level. The characters have only gotten a loose idea of what's present in the city, so "their" map identifies all neighborhoods adjacent to one they've been to. Play may reveal new information (like that the right-at-the-gates market square they started in was actually a slave market) or cast new light or a variety of other things, but the map exists so that there actually is a fact of the matter about the result of travelling in various directions. Again, this is like the "murder caper" thing: if there is no fact of the matter about who's guilty, there's no merit in discovering guilt, because it'll be either whoever the players decide is so, or whoever the dice-whims point to. If there is no fact of the matter about where things are located, then there's no merit in choosing north vs south, because things will appear in either the illusionism-based order the DM wants, or whatever the dice happen to produce.
If the GM goes on to describe nothing of consequence or something entirely unrelated it is either because (a) Force via incompetence (the GM just doesn't suss out what is happening here, doesn't clarify, or they just don't know what they should be doing with DR outcomes), (b) Force via prescriptive backstory which shuts down the prospects of wooing this witness (that shouldn't be a thing in DW), or (c) Force because the GM just wants the "find a witness" situation to drag on and fill more play time.
Yeah, I don't do any of these. Always give the benefit of the doubt on moves. Rule of Cool works wonders, but even without that, it's gotta be REAL out there for me to shut down a good-faith action. I don't drag stuff out, but
may exploit 6-s or 7-9s to build tension. Even full success can build tension though, e.g. 10+ Parley still requires making a promise first, and 7-9 "concrete assurance, right now" is especially juicy.
The GM is subordinating the player's tactical move (they're affecting the orientation of things in the imagined space to deploy their auto-1 Hold to intercede) and in its stead supplanting it with an alternative fiction
I'd never deny actions this way, and picking nits (or pixel-b****ing) is rude. Often I swing the other way, giving the player more than expected. It's cheating to take away success earned under rules I agreed to play by. I may work out changes for
future stuff, but that's a separate issue. (E.g. I gave a player a sword enchantment that was too powerful, so we slightly toned it down, together.)
At End of Session, the Paladin's player SHOULD be able to tick their "Alignment xp box" (because they fulfilled it. If they haven't, the GM has intentionally deployed Force or incompetently shut down the player's thematic interests by (OOPS) supplanting it with alternative framing that renders "Endanger yourself to protect those weaker than you" not in-play.
This, however...could be a thing. I take expansive views of alignment, but it doesn't trigger consistently every session. Probably more than half the time. If it's supposed to be every time...then yeah, I'm using Force by incompetence. That's disheartening to admit, but honestly I expect some incompetence on my part.
