Quote from: Exploderwizard;739311It just seems like more effort will be spent by the player trying to guess the right buzzwords to trigger moves then putting "fiction first". That extra layer of translation does not appear to add value to the whole experience.

In my experience it doesn't work like that. The two ways it plays out is as follows



GM: as you run away from the guards, you dash into a courtyard that has a high wall separating it from the streets. What do you do?  

Player: I want to climb that wall to escape the guards.

GM: alright, the guards are closing in, blowing warning whistles and brandishing truncheons. The wall's slick with rain, roll a defy danger+dex.

P: 8.

GM: alright, that's a success with cost or complication. You can scramble up, but it's a high drop to the cobblestone street on the other side. You can either go slow so you don't fall, but the guards are going to see where you scurry off to once they climb the wall, or you can just jump, face injury, but get away clean.

P: screw it, I wanna lose these fools. I'll leap and take my chances.

GM: alright, roll a d6, and subtract your armor.

P: 4. I have leather armor so that's a 3.

GM: ok, the hard cobbles jar your bones and you suffer some minor scrapes and you'll have a wicked bruise on your knee, but you manage to scramble away down a side alley and lose the guards.

Or

GM: as you run away from the guards, you dash into a courtyard that has a high wall separating it from the streets. What do you do?  

P: I want to defy danger to defy the guards!

GM: Cool, how do you intend to do it?

The example continues as above.

Also, npcs and monsters never roll. They merely act when the GM says they do something.

Quote from: Arminius;739307They say what they're doing, the GM decides if it triggers a move and what move, and then tells the player what score (move) on their sheet to roll against.

My point was simply that at some point during a combat, the term "Hack-and-Slash" will be spoken, either by the player or the GM. If the Move had a more generic name, such as "attack" or "fight" then it wouldn't be as jarring. It also means that you can't run the game truly fiction first since game jargon will constantly be spoken.

Quote from: Arminius;739236What he means is that you frame all the resolutions directly in terms of stuff you describe with natural language describing the imaginary stuff.

Because I choose to keep the same setting when I switched my the default fantasy rpg (AD&D 1st -> Fantasy Hero 1st Edition) I was forced to confront this issue early on. I had to define the elements of the Majestic Wilderlands independently of mechanics. Then implement them using the rule system.

I got into a couple of debates (Lord Vreeg, Beniost, Gleichman, etc) where I claim mechanics are relatively unimportant compared to the setting itself. LordVreeg is correct in saying that your setting will eventually conform to the rules you use. My caveat is that only if you use the rules 'as is'.

If instead you take the approach of IMPLEMENTING your setting with a chosen ruleset then the rules will conform to your setting. Of course this means you are effectively adding house rules to alter or add anything that important to your setting that not in the rules.

Which is the primary reason for my Majestic Wilderlands supplement. To implement my Majestic Wilderlands for classic D&D.

Since the late 80s I always used a rule of describe (or roleplay) first and then roll. But it wasn't until I read Matt Finch's Old School Primer that it really jellied in to something I can apply to all system. Before I gravitated to crunch heavy systems like GURPS, Fantasy Hero, and Harnmaster. But since reading the Old School Primer I am comfortable in running my campaigns with just about anything including rule-lite systems like classic D&D, Fudge/Fate, Microlite, etc.

It also solidified the conviction of "fuck story", tabletop RPGs are about the experience of being in an interesting situation, time, or place. Describe how things are as if the player was really there as their characters. Describe what you do as if you really there as the character. Think on setting details as if they were real places bound by the "physics" of the setting.

With tabletop RPGs are creating virtual realities with the power of our imagination and having people experience them with little more than pen, dice, and paper.

As for Dungeon World specifically, whatever make this click for an individual is fine with me. I think the use of "fiction" is inaccurate and confusing but that me.

Quote from: estar;739324Before I gravitated to crunch heavy systems like GURPS, Fantasy Hero, and Harnmaster.

I ran a Fantasy Hero campaign with some total newbs. They described the character they would like to play and I built them using the rules. Their character had no points on it and only the basic stats. For combat, I gave them each special moves (purchased normally) that the player said they wanted to do. One of the players wanted to be Xena (it was the 90s) so I gave her a "spinning kick" whereas another was a samurai so had some special samurai-esque cuts and things. The player then described their actions naturally and, as they did they rolled 3d6. Sometimes they'd try a special move or a skill (that game used a exception based skill system so they only had skills listed that they were good at) but because these things were simply described they could integrate them into their character's actions without really knowing the game rules behind their action.

One thing I did learn is that it's better to have the players roll the dice every time they attempt an action (and have me ignore the roll) than to call for a die roll only on certain occasions. This way the dice rolling was less disruptive to the flow of things.

So the previous play example should go like this:

GM: as you run away from the guards, you dash into a courtyard that has a high wall separating it from the streets. What do you do?

Player: I want to climb that wall to escape the guards. I roll an 8.

GM: The guards are closing in, blowing warning whistles and brandishing truncheons. You can scramble up, but it's a high drop to the cobblestone street on the other side. You can either go slow so you don't fall, but the guards are going to see where you scurry off to once they climb the wall, or you can just jump, face injury, but get away clean.

P: screw it, I wanna lose these fools. I'll leap and take my chances.

GM: [rolls damage] ok, the hard cobbles jar your bones and you suffer some minor scrapes and you'll have a wicked bruise on your knee, but you manage to scramble away down a side alley and lose the guards.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;739316Wait a second....is that really all fiction first is? Just saying what your doing in the game world? If so I dont see the big deal from either side. That is just how i have always approached the game, say what your character is doing (not "i make a diplomacy check"). Are people genuinely not aware RPGS can (and generally have been) played this way?

Yes, that's all it is.  And yes, I imagine there are people who aren't aware that RPGs can be played this way, particularly those weaned on 3e or Pathfinder, where combat is almost entirely quantified and procedural.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;739285So, if a D&D player says,

"Before the guard notices me, I rush past him, draw my dagger and stab the evil Vizier."

A Dungeon World player would have to say,

"I Defy Danger past the guard and Hack-and-Slash the evil Vizier."

Don't think that's quite right.  The DW player will say exactly the same thing the D&D player says, and the GM (generally) will decide if it's hack or slash.

If the Vizier is unarmed or ineffective in combat, maybe the GM just describes him dying, or tell the player to roll damage.  If the Vizier was Inigo Montoya's fencing teacher, then the GM might declare that it's Defy Danger, or just tell the player he's not sure what happened, but now he's lying on the ground, seeing spots and starting to feel all cold.

That's one slightly curious thing about the DW resolution - there's generally no difficulty modifiers, so the GM needs to take difficulty into account in deciding when moves get triggered, and what's at stake for success and failure.

Quote from: Adric;739320In my experience it doesn't work like that. The two ways it plays out is as follows



GM: as you run away from the guards, you dash into a courtyard that has a high wall separating it from the streets. What do you do?  

Player: I want to climb that wall to escape the guards.

GM: alright, the guards are closing in, blowing warning whistles and brandishing truncheons. The wall's slick with rain, roll a defy danger+dex.

P: 8.

GM: alright, that's a success with cost or complication. You can scramble up, but it's a high drop to the cobblestone street on the other side. You can either go slow so you don't fall, but the guards are going to see where you scurry off to once they climb the wall, or you can just jump, face injury, but get away clean.

P: screw it, I wanna lose these fools. I'll leap and take my chances.

GM: alright, roll a d6, and subtract your armor.

P: 4. I have leather armor so that's a 3.

GM: ok, the hard cobbles jar your bones and you suffer some minor scrapes and you'll have a wicked bruise on your knee, but you manage to scramble away down a side alley and lose the guards.

Or

GM: as you run away from the guards, you dash into a courtyard that has a high wall separating it from the streets. What do you do?  

P: I want to defy danger to defy the guards!

GM: Cool, how do you intend to do it?

The example continues as above.

Also, npcs and monsters never roll. They merely act when the GM says they do something.

This is a perfect example of where "fiction first" goes from "rules light" to "narrative control light".

If the player had rolled a 10, the height of the wall doesn't matter, he succeeds.  The character would have climbed the wall, went down the other side, and been gone before the guards saw where he went.  Since the player rolled an 8, only then does the height of the wall present a complication.

The GM is presenting the choice to the player based on knowledge the character does not have, namely that the choice he is making is one made up for drama only because he rolled an 8 instead of a 10.

An in-character perspective way of handing this would be to have the GM tell the player before the roll that the guards are so close, he can't go slowly over the wall if he wants to get away clean.  

In-Character way - The character makes the choice, and the roll dictates the outcome.
"Fiction First" way - The roll dictates that the player (or character) now has to make a choice that did not previously exist.

Cue 50 posts saying how that was a bad example by Adric, they don't play DW that way, etc.

Quote from: Arminius;739307And those of you saying this isn't particularly innovative compared to OD&D are absolutely correct, but the OP is coming from an impoverished RPG history consisting of 3.5e/Pathfinder/4e/Savage Worlds, and not much else.

The poster may come from a impoverished history, but I don't buy this reasoning in general.

I've ran highly detailed and tactical games using the same systems for 34 years now, and throughout I always had players who aren't into the system. I've always handled it in the same way- the players says what they doing in character and I handled the mechanical resolution telling the player what dice to roll if any.

Thus I wouldn't blame Pathfinder or 4E. Instead it would take a group with very narrow experience of player styles to have never played in that manner.

So what I think this concept push is about is running the game such that any other method is rejected. Lite Systems are used so that there's no system mastery, tactics are removed from the mechanical layer so there is no 'game'. Just statement, randomizer (if that), outcome. Maybe a bit of easy resource management.

Quote from: gleichman;739335The poster may come from a impoverished history, but I don't buy this reasoning in general.

I reckon the odd (to us) view goes against what the 3E D&D guys actually wrote in the books, but then that seems to be the case with a lot of 3E culture.

For some reason, some people got into the mindset of, "If there's not a specific mechanic for it, you can't do it. So, think first of which rule you want to use as a player; then you can consider 'fluff' from your character's perspective (if you really want to)."

For some reason, some of the same people actually pay attention when DW says, "There's always a way to handle it, and it's up to the GM to sort that out."

Sure. I'm taking game system and overall history as a proxy for cultural background.

Quote from: Phillip;739338For some reason, some people got into the mindset of, "If there's not a specific mechanic for it, you can't do it. So, think first of which rule you want to use as a player; then you can consider 'fluff' from your character's perspective (if you really want to)."

I don't think it's a mystery why they picked up that mindset.

3E defined and added Feats to the list of character abilities, and a Skill subsystem as well (I remember the early days of 3E when nearly everyone on this site praised this new features. Times change.). Seeing how both Feats and Skills were tied to character generation and advancement, any reasonable player would determine that 'free' Feats and Skills are undesired and should not be allowed. This is especially the case where the Player attempts a 'Feat' they don't have, but another player at the table 'paid' for it on his character.

Looking at this now, I can almost see how 3E could case a disconnect. But even here, one would have to assume that 3E style games is just about the only thing the person in question has ever played.

Quote from: gleichman;739335The poster may come from a impoverished history,

Nah, he comes from troll-land and sock-puppet land.

Archangel Fascist has been banned for being the sock-puppet of all-round arsehole B.T.

Quote from: Adric;739320In my experience it doesn't work like that. The two ways it plays out is as follows



GM: as you run away from the guards, you dash into a courtyard that has a high wall separating it from the streets. What do you do?  

Player: I want to climb that wall to escape the guards.

GM: alright, the guards are closing in, blowing warning whistles and brandishing truncheons. The wall's slick with rain, roll a defy danger+dex.

P: 8.

GM: alright, that's a success with cost or complication. You can scramble up, but it's a high drop to the cobblestone street on the other side. You can either go slow so you don't fall, but the guards are going to see where you scurry off to once they climb the wall, or you can just jump, face injury, but get away clean.

P: screw it, I wanna lose these fools. I'll leap and take my chances.

GM: alright, roll a d6, and subtract your armor.

P: 4. I have leather armor so that's a 3.

GM: ok, the hard cobbles jar your bones and you suffer some minor scrapes and you'll have a wicked bruise on your knee, but you manage to scramble away down a side alley and lose the guards.

Or

GM: as you run away from the guards, you dash into a courtyard that has a high wall separating it from the streets. What do you do?  

P: I want to defy danger to defy the guards!

GM: Cool, how do you intend to do it?

The example continues as above.

Also, npcs and monsters never roll. They merely act when the GM says they do something.

This does nothing to explain what "defy danger" brings to the table other than serving as additional (and extraneous) jargon.

If there were no "moves" then the player would still be describing what he/she wanted to do sans mechanics and the results would be determined by the GM using an assessment of the situation and some mechanic or another.

The "move" is a useless middleman.

To those saying that Dungeon World is just doing what good old OD&D or whatnot has been doing for years - well, yes, of course that's what it's doing.  I don't think it's trying to claim it's being impossibly original or revolutionary in that regard, or that it's impossible to play D&D in a similar manner.  The "fiction first" idea is just a way of reframing and reinforcing that.

Quote from: gleichmanThus I wouldn't blame Pathfinder or 4E. Instead it would take a group with very narrow experience of player styles to have never played in that manner.

It's certainly possible to play Pathfinder or 4E with a "fiction first" mentality i.e. one where the players describe and the GM tells them what to do (description being privileged over die rolls and mechanics).  But one can also slip into a very mechanical style of play in those systems, especially if you're a new player or a new GM, and especially with the dissociated mechanics of 4E.  DW is trying to head off that all-too-common approach.  I don't think it's claiming what it's doing is revolutionary, it's just making eplicit a style of play that, frankly, belongs more to the old school than anything.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;739347This does nothing to explain what "defy danger" brings to the table other than serving as additional (and extraneous) jargon.

If there were no "moves" then the player would still be describing what he/she wanted to do sans mechanics and the results would be determined by the GM using an assessment of the situation and some mechanic or another.

The "move" is a useless middleman.

move or skill name or "thaco" or "to hit matrix"

its just a name that you are less used to than "roll to hit"

Quote from: One Horse Town;739346Nah, he comes from troll-land and sock-puppet land.

Archangel Fascist has been banned for being the sock-puppet of all-round arsehole B.T.

Are you quite sure?