I really love how flexible the principle of “Ask Questions, Use Answers” is.
The person who is really good at improvising can just hash out the entire setting right at the table.
The person more comfortable with having something prepared, can ask more limited questions that already imply a premise like “Why are you going to see the witch of the Stinking Mire?” or even multiple choice questions like “Which of these things are in your partiescastle? A) A catapult. B) A magic mirror C) A dwarven blacksmith…”
Both of these people are acting perfectly in accordance with the rules and the spirit of Dungeon World and I think that’s a real testament to the game’s design.
I find, too, that questions are incredible scalable. They can be major plot-creating elements like “What is the name of your nemesis and in what single stroke did he wreck your life?” Or they can be character developing like “Druid, tales say you live in a very special home, what is it made of and what creatures live there with you?” Or it can be superficial like “As you enter the dungeon, what do your senses tell you about this place?” So you can literally tune questions up to any style of play along the continuum from emergent story to old school exploration of GM created environments.
I am coming to absolutely love this as I get increasingly comfortable with DW’s improvisational playstyle. It’s so freeing to be able to, when something new comes up, turn to a player and ask them about it instead of having to come up with something on the spot. I’d like to remember to use it in even more situations like Ray Otus suggests; the “what do your senses tell you” example is particularly good.
Christoffer Skuthälla, that’s absolutely fair game, and I’ve done it myself. I don’t always have an answer to Spout Lore or Discern Realities off the top of my head, so I just toss it back to the player.