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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8346969" data-attributes="member: 42582">I didn't say that. I said that the approach you're describing seems to me to be very traditional, with the GM establishing content in advance and framing scenes based on extrapolation from that content as triggered by players' descriptions of where their PCs go and what their PCs look at.This is the only way I can make sense of your repeated remarks about your authority over content being in-principle unlimited, of your description of the use of "breadcrumbs", of your apparent shock at the notion that one might just frame a scene by asking the players, "OK, so what next?" or saying "OK, is everyone happy if we cut to this now?"It's also the only way I can make sense of the lack of discussion of how action resolution produces constraints on your content authority and is a source of content authority for players.As best I can tell from what you've posted, your player contributions consist in suggesting setting elements which then get incorporated by you into your prep. I don't see you talking about how player preferences shape processes of action resolution or inform your scene framing. Whereas I do see you talking about designing a dungeon (ie undertaking prep) in response to a player idea, which then didn't get taken up because the player didn't go on to engage with that particular bit of content that you had prepared.Let me go back to your post about the dungeon. I don't know all the details of your game, so I'll present a version of that by reference to my own actual play, and the angel feather.As I posted upthread, the player of the sorcerer PC in my first BW game had established, as one of his PC's Beliefs, that I will find the magic items I need to free my brother Joachim from possession by a Balrog (I'm paraphrasing from memory, but it was very much to that effect).So now I have the following two options in front of me:I can start the campaign in a tavern, and write up (in my prep notes) various NPCs who might know the way to find various magic items, so that if the player declares the right actions for his PC, he might trigger me to play those NPCs in such a way that the relevant backstory is communicated, so that eventually he is in a position to declare actions for his PC which might result in his PC acquiring an angel feather.Or I can do what I actually did, which is to start the campaign in a bazaar, where a peddler is selling curiosities of various sorts, and claims to have an angel feather for sale.You are asserting that the second is a railroad and the former is not. I see the situation as exactly the opposite: my framing puts the player immediately into a situation which speaks to the goal he has authored for his PC, and we all start to find out, straight away, what the PC is prepared to do and what consequences will ensue in his quest to free Joachim from possession (and we learn that he will haggle, not kill or steal, for the feather; and that the feather is cursed).Whereas the first approach seems to me a recipe for tedious "hunting for the plot", where the focus of play - perhaps for hours, depending on the details of the prep and the degree to which the players can make sense of the GM's "breadcrumbs" - becomes all this pre-authored fiction which has no intrinsic significance for anyone and is just a vehicle for providing cues that foster new action declarations that eventually result in the actual scene that is of interest and might generate a plot-relevant moment, namely, the opportunity to acquire an angel feather.This is all entirely consistent with what I have posted above and upthread: that your approach to play is very traditional prep, and that the role of authority over the fiction is Edwards's "easiest version".As far as DW is concerned, I can only express my reading of the rules as informed by Apocalypse World and my broader knowledge of Vincent Baker's approach to RPG design. But if a player is trying to Discern Realities, before a check is made I would be asking "So-and-so, what are you curious about here? What are you hoping you might discover?" That is addressing the character, not the player - but is an application of the crucial technique of asking questions and building on the answers. And it is part of adopting a different "version" of the authorship processes: player narrational authority leading to shared content authority leading to either further player narrational authority if the check succeeds, or GM situational authority if the check fails, and the possibility of a plot moment in either case depending exactly on what it is that is revealed.I'm not 100% sure what you've got in mind here - but I think you're talking about whether a 6-down result on Discern Realities might be the cue for the GM to decide, and reveal, that a NPC is a traitor or deceiver. To which I say, absolutely! As to how there is justification for it - that's what making your move but never speaking its name and thinking offscreen are all about: so now that it's revealed that Boromir actually lusts for the ring rather than wanting to help Frodo destroy it, having him follow Frodo up to the top of Amon Sul becomes a moment of separating them. And what does that tell us about the bigger context of Frodo's quest and it's relationship to the glory of Minas Tirith, already flagged by the (up until that moment) largely colour narration of the statutes of the Argonath?This is exactly what RPGing looks like when you depart from the "easiest version" of the allocation of authority: narration and situation become prioritised, content is generated as the imperatives of narration and situation demand it, and plot moments emerge out of the interplay of narration, situation and action resolution.</blockquote>

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