+Sage LaTorra on RPG.net you mentioned running DW in quite an intense way, with a very in-your-face example of an orc mauling a player hiding behind a shield in response to a passive action. That made me sit up and get all excited, because when I ran AW I erred towards the cautious.
Could you say a bit more about running like this? Got any advice?
If anyone else runs aggressive, bite-your-face-off-as-soon-as-look-at-you DW like this, please chime in!
That was actually Adam Koebel, I think.
It’s definitely a matter of setting expectations, especially with the players. I think where Adam’s coming from is that he imagines just cowering behind a shield to not be much against a raging orc berserker. If the players say “but wait, I was behind my shield!” then you talk about it and reconcile the different ways everyone sees the fiction.
Apologies! I read the thread this morning and got confused about who said what.
And there’s nothing wrong with overwriting fiction with reality. While DW’s main focus for play is in doing the opposite, it’s the introduction of reality that spawns further fiction (and awesomeness). Besides, that ore berserker is going to come through that shield, or around it, at some point. This isn’t an 8-bit video game where characters have only one attack based on one dimensions. The best fiction arrives from conflict and danger and pushing that danger onto players so that they react to it. A core ideal of DW is to make players active, not passive.
It was me indeed! I tend to run DW quite hard and fast, often pushing towards hard moves with some considerable alacrity. That said, I’ll allow backtracks or revisions where necessary. If I jump to “The leaps on top of your shield, screeching and hacking at you, take 1d8 damage” and the player says “whoa! hold the phone! I’d use my shield to give me a second to shout a command in my divine voice” I’ll often say “oh, yeah, totally. sure. You can do that.”
I’m aggressive and the world I portray is dangerous and bloody but I’m not, you know, a tyrant. It’s a conversation, and sometimes in a conversation you back up and reiterate or clarify things already said, right?
For me, the “hiding behind a shield” instance indicates a lack of action. You have a shield, of course you’re hiding behind it. That’s what a shield is for. You don’t get to make a move, you get the benefit of your shield and get crashed into and that’s that. If merely hiding behind it was just a preamble to something else, sometimes the consequences being borne up into your face is what gets you there.
It seems to me like the damage is probably coming in all three cases, yeah? The fiction says the orc is battering you, but in two of the cases you also trigger a move. In the first case, there’s just the orc battering you.
Yeah, I think the damage is probably on the way, but you might be able to do something about it, or around it, or despite it. Or you could just stand there like a goon.
Adam Koebel is basically a meanie.
Aren’t all good GMs mean? (I’m a softie, and I consider myself a very average GM.)
None can hold a candle to Adam Koebel.
Use a ten foot pole. The smell doesn’t get to you then.
I consider myself a pretty good GM, and I’m a big softie, too. I think the important thing to remember about DW is that SOMETHING IS ALWAYS HAPPENING! If a player wants to hide behind a shield, he’s basically telling you “make something happen to me, please.” It doesn’t have to be damage, but it’s GOT to be something.
/adds ‘be a big meanie’ to GMs agenda.
Thanks +Adam Koebel! Taking an aggressive, visceral stance with the fiction but being prepared to back things up if people want to clarify their actions sounds like a winner.
There is the notion of Risk/Reward right? If folks want epic stories, things need to be serious. The flawless execution, graceful dance of blades, all enemies falling around you – may sound great onscreen but it doesn’t make the heart pound and the threat real. The reward comes, but it’s getting a cookie without earning it.
In AW (and to some extent DW) bad rolls can be really bad. When you pick up the dice you risk possibly serious harm coming to you and yours. So I try to make sure that you’re rolling for something that matters.
It tends to run things hot, people stay more engaged, and they come out with the stories.
That said, I tend to be a smidge more light-touch at con games (they’re one shots, people may not have their barometer set to more old-school) but my preference (and most of my stories) come from the harder hitting moves style play.
Thing is, that’s just my default mode. The dial has a lot of numbers on it.
I tend to be a softie.
“Set MeanKoebel to 4!”
My name is Kasper, and I am a softie GM. I think that my real “problem” is that I want the players to “win”, but I would feel horrible if any of the PC’s died.
Can we get a focus group for people like me? I really want to be that bad ass GM, with that mean game face. I don’t want people to say that I’m “harsh but fair”, because that is something I hear all too often about “dickhead” GM’s.
I want my players to say that I aim for the uncertain, where everyone is really unsure whether every one is going to survive or not. That I try to put them in dangerous situations without safe guards, that I hold no hand over them if their character’s death is demanded by the fiction. I don’t want them to call me fair. I want them to call me honest.
Literally, I can feel the rush of blood in my veins and the hammering of my heart when I know that any of my players could loose their character if the just get that one more miss. That is something I want everyone at my table to feel.
I’m with you Kasper Brohus. My theory is that I just need to man up and kill a few characters, and after that, killing them will be easy.
Kasper Brohus: I found playing a game like Savage Worlds really turns you into a bad ass GM. That, or something like OSR or Fourthcore. A game where character death is basically a certainty, it’s only a question of time.
Once you’ve killed a couple characters right after the players spent a week making them and sending you backstory and you worked it into the world, when the players show up with their new character and they’re excited and then BAM! A dice explodes, dealing seven wounds and there’s really nothing you can do about it, they’re dead, it says so in the rules…
And since some of those games (especially SW) have the tables turned (the PCs can one-shot the biggest, baddest, meanest NPC villain you’ve ever created with one amazing, lucky-defying roll)…
One or two experiences like that and you just start hitting your players with everything you’ve got.
I’m looking forward to GMing my first DW experience, where fights are less… realistic? And more like the boss fights of every great NES game.