Has there been discussion about the frequency of asking questions to the players (setting aside, “What do you do?”)…

Has there been discussion about the frequency of asking questions to the players (setting aside, “What do you do?”)…

Has there been discussion about the frequency of asking questions to the players (setting aside, “What do you do?”) Have any players experienced question overload?

4 thoughts on “Has there been discussion about the frequency of asking questions to the players (setting aside, “What do you do?”)…”

  1. I think it’s difficult to discuss this in general terms. It comes down to the playing culture at your table and personal preferences of individual players. Some players like to contribute but need some time to come up with answers, others want to contribute only when it’s about their character’ s background, some prefer dealing with an objective world that doesn’t change and (and are irritated when asked a lot) others are happy to shape the world around them in all detail. As Mark Tygart said it’s more a GMing technique about reading the table and catering to what players prefer.

  2. It definitely depends on the group. I love throwing out world-building questions about the nature of magic/races/gods to the players that they concern the most (eg. Ask the elf player about elves). Most people love to talk about their character’s background/past experience since that’s kinda their thing as a player.

    Oddly though, during the few times I’ve participated as a player, there were times where I didn’t really want to commit to an answer about certain things at the time they were asked – not because I couldn’t think of anything but because I wanted to make sure my answer was interesting. One time I was asked pretty specific history about my Assassin character’s Guild super early in the game – I hadn’t thought of the details yet and didn’t want to “canonize” it without a bit more thought. I think that’s fine – if it’s world-building type stuff give time for people to come up with cool stuff if they need it. Everything doesn’t have to be determined right away; the details can emerge over multiple sessions. Also, unless they concern a specific player, you could always open up some questions to the wider group to take the pressure off one person.

  3. Daniel Powell Yes, I think one of the real strengths of Dungeon World is everybody gets the classic Gygax default, letting world building alterations to be added later…

Comments are closed.