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.)