Ok, on the first list, I do all 4 things, but it is far from exhaustive. I make rulings, negotiate player disputes, suggests new auxilary game systems, portray unpreped npcs without making any move to mention a few things.
OK? It's not meant to be exhaustive or exclusive.
The only agenda I have is typically to find out what happens. I am not putting any particular effort into portraying a fantastic world or filling the character's life with adventure. However I do have a related agenda of setting up situations where I am genuinely curious what the party might do. This is closely related to play to find out, but distinct from the other two.
I would hope that when you describe your world, you at least try to make the descriptions a
bit interesting and engaging. Unless your
goal is to be as bland as possible.
Next section is the worst.
- I rarely draw maps. If maps it typically is third party adventures, and then I want no blanks, thank you.
They mean world maps, not encounter maps. As in, you don't need to fill in every square inch of your world ahead of time. It's OK if your world is "starting village, forest over there, dungeon over
there."
- I am adressing the players and characters as needed. Some times players has needs that need adressing. Safety concerns are the big obvious one.
Addressing the characters means staying in character and using their names. "Rime, you managed to nimbly leap out of the way of the dragon's breath; what do you do now?" versus "Faolyn, you didn't take any damage because of Evasion; you're next in the initiative order."
- I am actually more into down to earth play. The 3rd level D&D party fighting over the fate of an evil aligned +1 dagger due to it being the only magical weapon in their posession is one of my fondest memories.
Fair enough. I don't know how highly-magical a world DW expects and I tend to prefer lower levels of magic as well.
- I am rarely building on top of existing situations beyond playing out combats. Beyond finding information, the situation will generally simplify as it is beingnplayed out.
If this is in response to "make a move that follows" you do this. Player does X, the NPC or world event does Y in response. Like, the PC threatens so the NPC attacks or backs down, or the PC asks for information and hands over a gold piece so the NPC gives the info or is insulted by the bribe. Or the PC steps on the wrong floor tile and triggers a trap, or the PCs are in a room where there's a lava flow so each turn they take fire damage.
- Then finally one I almost do, except when the monster attacks or uses a special ability or a spell...
- Nope. Never giving life to generic zombie nr.13.
If you follow the link, the move is described thusly: "Monsters are fantastic creatures with their own motivations (simple or complex). Give each monster details that bring it to life: smells, sights, sounds. Give each one enough to make it real, but don’t cry when it gets beat up or overthrown. That’s what player characters do!"
In other words, if your PCs encounter zombies, then don't just say "you see three zombies." Instead, spend a few seconds to talk about the stench of their rotting bodies as they lurch across the floor. Talk about the buzzing of the flies that are attracted to their shambling corpses. Things like that.
- Nope. Absolutely hate coming up with names. If I bother to call the barkeep or the hooded stranger or the guide anything but just that, you know they are important (or come from a prewritten adventure, but even then I typically don't want to try to remember their names. I am bad with names, ok)
There are, fortunately, about eleventy gazillion random fantasy name generators online. I counted.
But anyway, the text specifies NPCs with speaking rolls.
- Asking questions? Sure. What do you do? Tell me and I'll use that to figure out what happens next.
It's exactly this.
- Not having fanboy tendencies. Some PCs are great. Some go on my nerves. I try to treat both fairly, ok?
This isn't fanboying. This is giving the PCs a chance to do cool things. If they do something cool, let them know that was awesome. if the rolls are bad and they get seriously injured, their only weapon breaks, they die, it's OK to say "yeah, that sucks, I'm sorry." But you're not making it easy for them and you're not taking it back.
- I hate destruction. Things could be threatened, but good should prevail. The real world have enough suffering. The things the players hold dearest is safe. There is tension, but carefully controled.
If you're at "think dangerous" here's the actual quote:
"Everything in the world is a target. You’re thinking like an evil overlord: no single life is worth anything and there is nothing sacrosanct. Everything can be put in danger, everything can be destroyed. Nothing you create is ever protected. Whenever your eye falls on something you’ve created, think how it can be put in danger, fall apart or crumble. The world changes. Without the characters’ intervention, it changes for the worse."
If you want good to always prevail, then it will--and the PCs are that force of goodness. If you want a game where life is
usually good, except for the occasional rise of evil things that the PCs put down, that's also OK. Just leave spaces for the PCs to be heroes.
- If I hand out a point of inspiration for a player having made the entire group laught for 1 minute straight, that is fully a practice I embrace.
What this means is that if the PCs do something, then what happens as a result of that should make sense in the fiction of the world.
- Well, I guess I some times track monsters that is not currently seen...
This is mostly for your BBEGs. Unless all your BBEGs have already accomplished all their goals and the PCs are just cleaning up up after them.
The moves section doesn't really cover what I do in situation DW indicates I should do a move. For instance passing turn back to them I guess would be my most common move (nothing happens), and that is not listed.
Because nothing happens isn't acceptable. When the player fails a roll (6 or less) or looks to the GM, the GM makes a move, either soft or hard.
A soft move is "this is a thing that happens" while a hard move is "this is a thing that is happening to you right now."
There are also some moves listed I would generaly not do, like seperate them. Puting character on the spot or actively highlighting a downside or provide a tailored oportunity also all go against the group focused mindset I prefer while running the game.
Putting the character on the spot means giving them a tough choice to make.
Highlighting a downside means things like, a PC has a criminal background and there are a lot of guards around who might recognize him. Or the PC cleric's church may not be too happy if the cleric hasn't been donating enough money to them.
Providing a tailored opportunity means things like, there's a rogue in the party, so sometimes the party will encounter locks to be picked. Or, there's a wizard in the party, so maybe they'll encounter a wizard NPC who can teach the PC a new spell.
So to present this as simply general wisdom condensed into written form seem to not really grasp the width of the medium.
Look, you misunderstood what most of these actually mean, so even though I linked to the site where the list was explained, you don't seem to have actually read it fully.
Which is what I've been saying all along. You do a lot of these things. I'm sure that you have NPCs interact with PCs, that you describe monsters at least a bit, that you at least
occasionally use the PCs' backgrounds, even if those backgrounds are only inferred from their race/class/whatever else combo. I first read about "addressing the characters, not the players" in reading Ravenloft material, so I know it's part of D&D.
But you looked at the list, drew some very incorrect conclusions about what it meant, and decided it wasn't useful.
