After I MCing Dungeon World, Worlds in Peril, and The Sprawl, I feel keenly the importance of using Tags as fictional positioning and as an ingredient in MC moves. But sometimes, I forget to use (or don’t know how to use) them and just make a series of dull description. And I realize the story starts to go flat.
I love Tags because they fuse into the fiction seamlessly(which is the main reason why I switched my go-to system from Fate to PbtA. Sometimes, using Aspects feels artificial to me). But unlike Aspects, I find it very easy to forget to use Tags because there is no bonus or penalty to use Tags. They are only for fictional positioning.
So, how can I become proficient in using Tags as a MC? Could you share your tips?
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Same as you, I noticed I didn’t use tags as much as I should. But I remembered AW has the MC move acrivate their stuff’s downside and now whenever the PCs use tagged stuff, be it equipment, gang, whatever, I go for it. I just take the tag as it was an MC move and just tell the PCs what’s happening, as with any other move.
Does that help?
Grégory Pogorzelski Thanks for the tip! I think I need to add the MC move (activate their stuff’s downside) to my MC note. 🙂
I’ve found that I don’t like just having on their own, and wrote an article on a number of them, and what they do: steelsmiter.blogspot.com – Material Sciences in Into the Heart of the Dragon
also, that thing you’re talking about exists in DW: Show a downside to their class, race, or equipment
“Fictional positioning” is the bread-and-butter of PbtA games, is it not? The game is a conversation that builds the fiction, and the mechanics begin and end with just that.
Use the tags to guide the shared story – can there be anything more powerful than that in the end?
Of course, all at the table must remember the tags in play – perhaps that is the challenge? If so, then might the real question be, “How do we keep the active tags in play and at the forefront of our thoughts?” Keep a stack of sticky notes handy to write down the tags and place them in front of the appropriate player? Index cards creased in the middle to stand in front of those to whom they apply? Something else? Just my first thoughts – I may be proposing solutions to the wrong problem, though.