Something that came out of our Roll20 game tonight that I discussed with the GM afterward: when he asked about any feedback I had to improve things, I mentioned a point in the game where my character’s actions led up directly to shifting the spotlight to another character. We then talked about spotlight shifting and how that is something we want to work toward developing more in practice.
Part of that discussion referenced a time in a previous session where another character used Defend to “open up the attacker to an ally” and how that mechanic seemed to invite a player to signal a spotlight shift to another player/character by saying I want you to get involved here – take +1 forward as an incentive.
This then led to my suggesting the GM should consider whether he could learn anything from “popcorn initiative” as it’s used in Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. We thought for the purposes of Dungeon World it might make more sense to have the GM use player actions as a guideline in general for how the flow of spotlight might shift, rather than having players explicitly name who would go next.
But the idea remained. Any thoughts on whether I am hitting an insight here? If so, is there other space within the moves to suggest that you can adopt a sort of popcorn approach to how to let the spotlight get shared?
The biggest thing I can see might be that it would still be up to the GM to pull players in from time to time who might need the help in getting spotlight time, because of table dynamics or other things, but I think there might be something here.
I’ve used that initiative mechanic in other systems before, and it’s always worked wonderfully.
That said, I’m not sure how well it would work in DW, given that it would take most of the GM’s job out of their hands. The basic idea of popcorn initiative works when the GM characters have a turn of their own, but in DW the GM is always doing stuff and the PCs are reacting to it.
I guess what I’m getting at is, I don’t see how the GM can say “What do you do?” if they never get the mic.
Edit: Funky initiative stuff aside, setting one another up to be awesome is good practice in general, I will say that.
Thoughts later.
We should already be looking to player actions when shifting the spotlight, right? Everything they do affects the fiction, and the fiction should naturally respond.
The biggest problem I personally have at the table in terms of spotlight happens with larger groups of 5-7, when 1 or 2 invariably see less action in a given session and it’s hard for me to track that happening during play. I feel like I need some kind of visual flag or something.
But in general I don’t see anything wrong with the players passing the ball, each asking the next “What do you do?” until the GM seizes it on a 6- (or 7-9, some of the time). Might try it next session.
On the DM level, it’s important to have various arcs for various players. When we visit Kurgle’s home town, we know we’ll get a lot of Kurgle action. (On other games, one tries to make sure there’s a problem each week that Kurgle can address, with plenty of door smashing action, or involving the machinations of the Seven Found Tribes).
On the PC level, it takes maturity and experience to say, “Lssandra, this Kobold politics is out of my league. You’re good at this stuff, right? You were first mate on that pirate ship.”
[The really great play is if you know Lssandra is TERRIBLE at this stuff, but that their success or failure will be interesting.]