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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9116193" data-attributes="member: 6790260">No. You treat it like a transaction; it is not.The player expresses their interest in something, through the structures of the game. In Dungeon World (which I know better than other PbtA games), these structures are (from broadest to narrowest) Alignment, Bonds, class moves, and generic moves. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Each character has an Alignment move which describes a particular but broadly-applicable action reflecting that character's values, and which the player is rewarded for fulfilling, e.g., the two default Paladin Alignment moves are "Lawful: Deny mercy to a criminal or unbeliever" and "Good: Endanger yourself to protect someone weaker than you." </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Bonds are short statements about the attitude, beliefs, goals, etc. that a character has toward something else--another character, an NPC, an organization, a place, an object, etc.--which drive action forward, e.g. the Fighter Bond, "<name> is soft, but I will make them hard like me." Note that these are one-sided; there doesn't need to be a reciprocal relationship, this is how this character views that thing, rather than what each specifically thinks of the other.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Class-specific moves include baseline ones, such as the Paladin move Quest, where the player chooses a goal to pursue (from a handful of prepared goals with fillable blanks, e.g. "Discover the truth of <blank>") and two Boons from a fixed list (e.g. "Senses that pierce lies" or "An unwavering sense of direction to <blank>"), and the GM then responds with the Vows that that Quest will impose, again from a list, e.g. "Honor (forbidden: cowardly tactics and tricks)" and "Piety (required: observance of daily holy services)". </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Generic moves include things like Discern Realities, Spout Lore, Parley, and others. These do not directly state player intention. Instead, they are tools which the players can use while pushing toward whatever target they're aiming at. Discern Realities in particular is very good for players to tell the GM what they care about, as it's specifically a search for information, and the player is rewarded for following up on the information they gather.</li> </ul>From these various sources, plus more general things like...just talking with players, having a Session Zero, etc., the GM can get a pretty solid idea of what situations or topics the players find worthy of interest and engagement. They then take that input, and "frame scenes" (more on this below) where those situations or topics will be relevant, to which the players must respond.As I have phrased this before, the players define their Values, the things they care a lot about, and then seek out Issues, unresolved situations that will put those things to the test. In general, all possible results from those tests are valid. Failure means something bad happened to something you care about, or you were unable to do a thing you really cared about doing, or you chose to abandon something you previously cared a lot about, etc. Full success (since many games of this type allow degrees of success) means you were able to secure the thing you wanted this time, but future issues arise because an adventurer's life is never idle for long. Partial success means you got some of what you wanted but not all of it (so tension still remains), or you got what you wanted but also got something you didn't want (so that unwanted thing must be resolved), or you were only able to get one or two of the multiple things you were hoping to get (e.g., only answering one question, when you hoped to answer three.)Then you are starting off on the wrong foot for understanding this. The difference is significant.Narration means saying what, specifically, happens. You narrate, and whatever you said is simply true--and often, narration specifically means declaring the result of something that was previously in doubt. Framing means setting something up so that something could happen. Framing cannot declare what the final result is, for exactly the same reason that positioning your camera does not determine what the final picture would be, or why putting specific props and scenery on a stage does not make every play performed upon it Macbeth.The two do have similarities. Most narration requires that some framing occurred first. This is not always true--sometimes, there just isn't anything in particular that is "at stake"--but usually something is in question. Narration, however, goes further and actually resolves the situation, declaring what has happened or is happening. This is why I and others say things like how the GM facilitates or enables things to happen, but only rarely (if ever) makes things happen. The Dark Forest and the Ogre that prowls its environs are created by the GM to enable a conflict between a vicious monster and a character, one that follows from the player's declared interests (e.g., perhaps the character wishes to become a hero brave and true). It is the character's choices which determine exactly what form that conflict takes and how the conflict comes to a head; the obvious choice is a physical battle, but it could be a battle of wits, or a sneaking into its lair, or a rallying of the people, or any number of other things. It is the rules, receiving the inputs from both the GM and the player, which resolve that conflict. This then provides the new raw material for the next conflict.No, that's not true at all. Framing often requires creating things. But it, critically, requires never resolving things. That is left to player choices, mechanics, and (for DW) the Agendas and Principles. Framing almost always requires that you do and add things! You just do not do or add things which conclusively fix the endpoint of something. And, extremely importantly, when you do or add things, those things should be consistent with the players' declared interests (which I discussed above).There is no giving up of all power, so this whole line of reasoning is simply incorrect.Certainly you are not doing "traditional" game prep--by which I mean "trad" games. Prepping for Dungeon World is rather different from prepping for some other thing.But you are incorrect when you say these things have no independence from the players. They do! As an example, take DW "Fronts." A "Front" is a medium- to long-term, evolving problem of some kind. Most fronts have at least three components: a "Danger," an "Impending Doom," and one or more "Grim Portents." Dangers are...things that are bad, for lack of a better term. It can be something as simple as a rampaging beast, to something as complex as a world-spanning conspiracy. The "Impending Doom" is whatever bad result the Danger points to, e.g. a rampaging beast might damage cropland or disrupt trade, while a world-spanning conspiracy might be trying to control world governments so they can summon Vgraltha the Soul-Flenser.But things get really interesting with the "Grim Portents." These are bad things which could--indeed, often will--come to pass, unless the characters do something about it. Dungeon World without the players goes to hell in a handbasket (for varying degrees of "hell," depending on the scale of the game.) Remember how I spoke of "Fronts," plural? That's because there's supposed to be more than one of these at a time (you're recommended to start with three campaign-scale Fronts.) So, even if you deal with the Black Dragon Gang trying to take over the city, there's still the eco-terrorist Shadow Druids and the Cult of the Burning Eye with their own nefarious designs. Focusing too much on one front leaves the others exposed--allowed to advance. The world really does continue to spin when the players aren't looking, and their choice not to look is part of the process.Your idea of "most players" is not nearly universal. In fact, I think most players are not like that. Most players do, in fact, desire a genuinely meaningful experience. You keep acting as though the vast majority of players are infantile trolls. This is not true. Unless and until you become willing to see more in players than "infantile troll," you'll never be able to engage with things that require players who are not infantile trolls.Who said anything about having to keep it "simple"? I don't think the focus needs to be that tight, and it definitely doesn't need to be simple. Jinnistani politics in my Dungeon World game are notoriously complicated, and the players have been on the receiving end of that complexity twice now. Both times have made them feel wary, but not cowed--which is precisely how I had hoped they would respond. Noble genies are weird, and dangerous, but they're also alluring and influential. Being on good terms with them is exceedingly useful. Getting on their bad side is exceedingly risky. (They are similar to fey, but more engaged with mortal-world stuff than the fey are usually portrayed to be.)I've got a timeline spanning over three thousand years of formal history (with almost all of the events in that timeline determined as part of Session Zero, or elaborated through play and the players showing what things are of interest to them) and over ten thousand years of deep cosmological time. I, and my players, have developed Jinnistan (and their Genie Rajah forebears who ruled the mortal world), the mysterious El-Adrin, the War in Heaven and how it produced both Devils and Demons (and why all three sides believe they won the war), complex political shenanigans within the main city of Al-Rakkah and between Al-Rakkah and other cities like Al-Maralus, Al-Tusyoun, Shalast-Asmar, the City of Brass, and Mt. Matahat (the latter three being cities in Jinnistan.)If you believe narrative games are confined to such simplistic storytelling, you are simply wrong. I have a player actively trying to reform a thousand-plus-year-old assassin-cult because he knows they have been manipulated, and has seen the way they can stay true to their beliefs without needing to kill people. My players have prompted the existence of a woman who was a succubus, and has since become...something else, because she was redeemed by the power of sincere, full-hearted love. I have complicated an assassination contract with a devil, by having one of the targets be a genuine victim, despite the fact that she has truly killed several people. I have challenged a character's ironclad conviction that his grandfather could never be anything but a slimy businessman, and put a mad dictator into a situation that almost made her sympathetic, while the players' "ally" was revealed to have been manipulating her (and the party!) the entire time, though he did remain true to his word to the players, giving them all the aid he promised. I have featured fanatical defenders of a faith...who genuinely do only target truly awful things and people, absolutely dedicated to their mission of putting down true heretics (NOT non-believers--heretics, people who have betrayed the faith) and Far Realm abominations.All this, in a game you claim must somehow be bound to simplistic black-and-white morality and no-thought storytelling.Because I have confidence that my players are not infantile trolls. They are adults with whom I can have a respectful, adult conversation and get real results.It is unfortunate that you have been saddled with such problematic players. But you need to understand, they are not representative.I...don't understand. That doesn't follow from what was said. At all. Like...not even remotely.</blockquote>

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