GMing transparency. What are your experiences with varying levels of it?
I think I did this already but I’ve been more deliberate about showing the inner workings recently.
– PbtA: “Make your move but never speak its name.” I break this rule all the time in the first session, especially with new players. I explain that the MC has moves too, and one of them is ____, and I’m doing it now.
– GUMSHOE: Ken and Robin say it’s less tense if you know the difficulty. They are wrong. Even “I only fail on a 1” is tense if the stakes are high enough.
– More generally: I say things like “I’m going to do X, because Y”; “It’d be unfair to force you to make a decision on this little information, so…”
Player reaction is mostly positive. Sometimes they’re a bit “yeah, yeah, whatever, get on with it” but no one seems to actively hate it.
(More detailed explanations of when I don’t do it, etc., removed because that is boring.)
I am a hugggge fan of the move you break lol I don’t let the players know anything; other than how to facilitate their own agency. If I want to educate them on moves I ask questions like crazy, and probably more than any GM I’ve ever met. I am only slightly content to allow everyone to picture the scene their own way, so long as I, or other players paint the scene in broad strokes first. Asking them to do so often makes them remember that it’s everyone’s story. Other than that I think it should be a complete mystery or they can read the book! I only have played PbTA though, not those other systems.
I am a hugggge fan of the move you break lol I don’t let the players know anything; other than how to facilitate their own agency. If I want to educate them on moves I ask questions like crazy, and probably more than any GM I’ve ever met. I am only slightly content to allow everyone to picture the scene their own way, so long as I, or other players paint the scene in broad strokes first. Asking them to do so often makes them remember that it’s everyone’s story. Other than that I think it should be a complete mystery or they can read the book! I only have played PbTA though, not those other systems.
I forgot to clarify, I do that because I myself have a hard time to painting the fiction. So when people use out of fiction jargon and takes me out of what I’m trying to imagine, it’s a disconnect that makes it hard for me to jump back in.
I forgot to clarify, I do that because I myself have a hard time to painting the fiction. So when people use out of fiction jargon and takes me out of what I’m trying to imagine, it’s a disconnect that makes it hard for me to jump back in.
I do usually name the difficulty in GUMSHOE, in most cases anyway and it did not feel less tense for it. The only thing that doesn’t happen anymore is that players do not spend enought points to ever make a difficult challenge and waste them that way. But it is a corner case anyway.
In PbtA I am more conservative but sometimes I have named moves, because the phrasing fit the narration or because I wanted to point out that this is a thing that exists in the game.
I don’t do too much “director’s commentary” and I can see how players prefer to play without it. If you are trying to learn a game it can be pretty interesting or if you have a lot of rules minded people. But usually I only give the information that is needed to know to make decisions.
I can be rather transparent with NPC motivations and things like that. Telling the players what the NPC is feeling or planning. Stuff like that, which is on a different level more transperancy than a lot of GMs use.
I do usually name the difficulty in GUMSHOE, in most cases anyway and it did not feel less tense for it. The only thing that doesn’t happen anymore is that players do not spend enought points to ever make a difficult challenge and waste them that way. But it is a corner case anyway.
In PbtA I am more conservative but sometimes I have named moves, because the phrasing fit the narration or because I wanted to point out that this is a thing that exists in the game.
I don’t do too much “director’s commentary” and I can see how players prefer to play without it. If you are trying to learn a game it can be pretty interesting or if you have a lot of rules minded people. But usually I only give the information that is needed to know to make decisions.
I can be rather transparent with NPC motivations and things like that. Telling the players what the NPC is feeling or planning. Stuff like that, which is on a different level more transperancy than a lot of GMs use.
As a general rule I adhere to the PbtA principle about not speaking the name of moves, but I’m generally happy for other elements of the game to be transparent (probably as artifacts of learning to GM with 4E D&D which worked much better with a high degree of transparency). Some of that is pretty table based though, some people like knowing the difficulty of skill checks and how much health an enemy has and some don’t. I’m happy playing either way really. It also depends how into RPG mechanics the players are – if they are a system wonk like me then I tend to explain cool stuff to them, but if they are more casual I don’t bother.
It also depends on the game system too. When I play Fate or Mouse Guard I always give out the difficulty of a test because players are either entitled to, or need, that information to play effectively. D100 games have that sort of stuff built in too. So I don’t think being open about difficulty is detrimental.
In terms of speaking move names in PbtA games, the issue is that I think (for players) it can make the MC’s role appear more mechanical and detract from the flow of events. A strength of PbtA is the way that the fiction flows, and stopping to explain MC moves tends to interrupt that and make it lose the feel of being organic.
Perhaps there is a meaningful difference between transparency of the factors which influence success or failure and transparency in the mechanisms by which success or failure are interpreted, which is important to some people?
As a general rule I adhere to the PbtA principle about not speaking the name of moves, but I’m generally happy for other elements of the game to be transparent (probably as artifacts of learning to GM with 4E D&D which worked much better with a high degree of transparency). Some of that is pretty table based though, some people like knowing the difficulty of skill checks and how much health an enemy has and some don’t. I’m happy playing either way really. It also depends how into RPG mechanics the players are – if they are a system wonk like me then I tend to explain cool stuff to them, but if they are more casual I don’t bother.
It also depends on the game system too. When I play Fate or Mouse Guard I always give out the difficulty of a test because players are either entitled to, or need, that information to play effectively. D100 games have that sort of stuff built in too. So I don’t think being open about difficulty is detrimental.
In terms of speaking move names in PbtA games, the issue is that I think (for players) it can make the MC’s role appear more mechanical and detract from the flow of events. A strength of PbtA is the way that the fiction flows, and stopping to explain MC moves tends to interrupt that and make it lose the feel of being organic.
Perhaps there is a meaningful difference between transparency of the factors which influence success or failure and transparency in the mechanisms by which success or failure are interpreted, which is important to some people?
One of the deleted caveats: in GUMSHOE, I tell players the difficulty only if they take time to size up the situation first. In practice, this means the one they don’t know is Hit Threshold, and I’m happy with that because HT is useful information — if you spend 3 points of Shooting and miss (i.e. equivalent to an investigative spend), you just learnt something very important. And if you hit, you hit, so it’s win-win.
One of the deleted caveats: in GUMSHOE, I tell players the difficulty only if they take time to size up the situation first. In practice, this means the one they don’t know is Hit Threshold, and I’m happy with that because HT is useful information — if you spend 3 points of Shooting and miss (i.e. equivalent to an investigative spend), you just learnt something very important. And if you hit, you hit, so it’s win-win.
Coincidentally enough, The Adventuring Party podcast this week is on this very topic: http://theadventuringparty.libsyn.com/wisdom-august-2016-player-knowledge
Coincidentally enough, The Adventuring Party podcast this week is on this very topic: http://theadventuringparty.libsyn.com/wisdom-august-2016-player-knowledge
I tend to be very open about the mechanics when I GM.
1) I like the players to know what I’m doing and to help me spot any mistakes.
2) If I’m teaching the system, I can use my turns as example turns.
3) As a player I like knowing, so as a GM I tell.
4) Something about being honest with the players, even though I don’t fudge results.
I tend to be very open about the mechanics when I GM.
1) I like the players to know what I’m doing and to help me spot any mistakes.
2) If I’m teaching the system, I can use my turns as example turns.
3) As a player I like knowing, so as a GM I tell.
4) Something about being honest with the players, even though I don’t fudge results.
In my regular groups, we slip pretty easily between character knowledge and player knowledge, and we’re pretty good at keeping our RP within the boundaries of what the characters actually know. One of the ways we do this is by referring to the player by their real name if we are discussing out-of-character knowledge, and then going back to their character’s name when we’re in the fiction again. It’s very effective, and a lot of us just do it naturally at this point. That sort of play culture goes hand-in-hand with being transparent about things. The only sorts of things I keep close to my chest are big reveals, or elements I want to milk for dramatic tension.
In my regular groups, we slip pretty easily between character knowledge and player knowledge, and we’re pretty good at keeping our RP within the boundaries of what the characters actually know. One of the ways we do this is by referring to the player by their real name if we are discussing out-of-character knowledge, and then going back to their character’s name when we’re in the fiction again. It’s very effective, and a lot of us just do it naturally at this point. That sort of play culture goes hand-in-hand with being transparent about things. The only sorts of things I keep close to my chest are big reveals, or elements I want to milk for dramatic tension.
With players that enjoy mechanics, mentioning the moves you are doing and being up front about difficulties is probably a good thing. It is an easy way to prevent players from feeling like the game is just GMs Story Time, and that their choices and rolls make a difference.
With players that enjoy mechanics, mentioning the moves you are doing and being up front about difficulties is probably a good thing. It is an easy way to prevent players from feeling like the game is just GMs Story Time, and that their choices and rolls make a difference.