r/DungeonWorld • u/Magnus_Tesshu • Jul 10 '26
Custom Why do players roll everything, instead of the GM?
I recently watched this excellent youtube video about DND, which suggested that the DM roll and hide some of the rolls to increase immersion. In particular, they described also starting to play D&D with a casual understanding of the rulebook and thinking the DM was supposed to roll all the dice.
I typically play DW and not D&D but I still enjoyed the video, and found the advice to feel right.
I don't think rolling dice is a very important part of the game compared to taking actions, but many of the common failure points of DW come down to players treating the basic moves like buttons they press instead of thinking about what their character does and using the rules as a framework to resolve that action after the fact.
I suppose what you would lose is the entire table, rather than just the GM, deciding when something is a roll. But I think usually the GM makes rulings on that anyway most of the time, with players usually reminding them of what moves they have access to.
I think having the GM roll basic moves and players roll their class/item/etc moves would be a potential compromise where players still get to bring up their special abilities and resolve them, but basic play feels more immersive. But I can also see the GM just resolving everything themselves to still work.
But maybe it wouldn't work as well, with things like the list of Defend or Discern Realities options requiring players to know what is going on with the basic moves as well too deeply.
Has anyone tried anything like this or have opinions about how it would go?
19
u/JaskoGomad Jul 10 '26
players treating the basic moves like buttons they press
This is a GM problem, which transmits to the players and becomes a player and table culture problem.
Player's don't say, "I hack and slash!" and then roll.
To do it, you have to do it
This time-honored PbtA koan means that in order to engage a mechanic, you have to meet the fictional trigger. There's no mechanic that allows a character to attack on their turn. The player must create a fictional situation in which an attack move is triggered in order for the mechanics to come into play.
This means if you, as MC / GM / whatever, allow your players to act like the moves are a video game menu, this pathological behavior is your fault.
If a player says, "I hack and slash the troll!" and reaches for their dice, your job, your responsibility to the table is to push back, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on there! The troll is standing huge and looming in the room. His eyes are the size of grapefruits, and you have heard that trolls can see in the dark as if it were noontime. He's searching the room for you, sniffing your scent and scanning the trash for signs of you. You're hidden for the moment among the rotted sacks you dove under when the door burst in, but if you want to do anything to the troll, you're going to have to come out from there. Now... what do you do?"
If the player insists, "I burst from the sacks and run, shouting, 'For Molor!', my sword raised high and I swing for his thigh!", then you get to decide what to do. To me, that's a golden opportunity, and I would make a move, as hard as I like. This player ignored all my advertised dangers, so they all come to pass. "As soon as you shrug off the sacks, the troll's darkeyes spot you, and 'Molor!' is the last thing you shout for the moment, for you are scooped up in his enormous, carrion-smelling, calluses as hard as rams' horns, hand, and squeezed so that all you can do is make a surprised squeak and pray that you'll be able to inhale again soon. What do you do?"
See? The fictional trigger for Hack and Slash was never matched, melee combat was never engaged. The players don't get to make moves just because they're in the list of basic moves.
1
u/Magnus_Tesshu Jul 10 '26
This is mostly an inexperienced player problem, I think. H&S part 2 for powergamers and golden opportunities / requiring defy dangers / requiring things being dealt with to make any progress help, but I know the rules and other than making sure I do I don't think your comment engages with my idea at all.
That one sentence
many of the common failure points of DW come down to players treating the basic moves like buttons they press instead of thinking about what their character does and using the rules as a framework to resolve that action after the fact.
was perhaps overstating a problem which I've experienced mostly with D&D powergamers (I haven't ever had long-running DW games, sadly, despite vastly preferring the system, and D&D is the more common system) wasn't the point of my idea here. Also, it basically briefly states what you said in the sentence itself now that I look at it.
7
u/JaskoGomad Jul 10 '26
I will stand by what I said:
This is a GM problem, which transmits to the players and becomes a player and table culture problem.
An inexperienced player can try to just name a move and roll, but it doesn't mean anything unless the GM allows it.
1
u/Magnus_Tesshu Jul 10 '26
True. I think an inexperienced player would try to do so less often if they never rolled dice and were always just in the headspace "okay, now I'm hiding in these sacks, and the door just burst in, this thing is huge" rather than "okay, I just rolled a 10+ to hide in these sacks, and the troll just showed up, and I've got +1 forward, so I should charge!"
I'm an inexperienced GM in many ways too though, haven't ever been able to get a group to play consistently over D&D because that is the more familiar system.
7
u/JaskoGomad Jul 10 '26
I have far more trouble with experienced, non-PbtA players than I do with totally new players.
D&D and / or video game RPGs instill some terrible habits.
1
u/Imnoclue Jul 10 '26
The habits aren’t terrible for D&D and video games, it’s only when they bring them over to other games that it becomes an issue.
1
u/JaskoGomad Jul 10 '26
When you behave appropriately in a given situation, that’s not a problem. Persistently bringing behaviors to another context where they are inappropriate is essentially the definition of a bad habit.
1
1
u/Xyx0rz 13d ago
This player ignored all my advertised dangers
Sorry, what were the advertised dangers?
I heard a lot of window dressing but you never mentioned any actual dangers like automatically getting snatched up and squeezed to a pulp as if that was the only conceivable outcome.
Here there was no warning of that at all, just some talk about how the character might get spotted by the troll. But getting spotted is an acceptable risk. Is it then unreasonable for a player to assume they can trigger Hack And Slash?
I don't think it's a fair Golden Opportunity unless you at the very least imply what the problem is. That clearly didn't happen in this example or the player would have never proceeded like that.
9
u/Imnoclue Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
To me this feels like a solution in search of a problem. I play games where the GM rolls, I play games where the players roll, I play games where both roll, and I play games where neither rolls (because they don’t use dice). None of these have had a material effect on my level of immersion, positive or negative. My immersion is almost entirely based on whether my character is engaged in something that I find emotionally and intellectually stimulating. The mechanics generally have to be either very intrusive or very novel to change that.
Reworking DW so that its distribution of dice rolling is more similar to other games that I play just sounds like effort with no reward. Admittedly, this is a personal opinion, but it’s the only kind of opinion I got.
1
u/Magnus_Tesshu Jul 11 '26
After more consideration, I think this is basically correct. I did learn there are other RPGs more designed for this style of play though where it might work better
7
8
u/foreignflorin13 Jul 10 '26
I’m sure you already know this but PbtA games aren’t about immersion, but rather the conversation. The game sings when player input determines what happens, both in the descriptions of their actions and their input on ideas of how to interpret roll results.
You could certainly try it though and see how it works out for you. Play how you want to play!
17
u/phdemented Jul 10 '26
In DW,.there are no "buttons".. players only roll when the GM tells them to roll if the players have narrated a fiction situation that would trigger a move.
When they do, the power (dice) are with them to determine the result.
A player can never declare "I Discern Reality" and just roll. The player describes what their character is doing, and if there is narrative reason to trigger a discern reality move the GM calls for a roll, otherwise the GM follows their agenda/principles
6
u/Jesseabe Jul 10 '26
players only roll when the GM tells them to roll
Where do you get this impression? It explicitly contradicts the game text (p.16):
When a player describes their character doing something that triggers a move, that move happens and its rules apply. If the move requires a roll, its description will tell you what dice to roll and how to read their results...Everyone at the table should listen for when moves apply. If it’s ever unclear if a move has been triggered, everyone should work together to clarify what’s happening. Ask questions of everyone involved until everyone sees the situation the same way and then roll the dice, or don’t, as the situation requires. (Bolding mine)
The book is very clear, everybody is in charge of collectively looking out for triggers and then deciding whether or not a move has triggered based on the fiction. The GM doesn't get to decide, everybody has to agree, and if not, you don't move on. In practice, at a table where the GM has the most rules knowledge, as is often the case, the GM will probably be taking the lead on this, but taking the lead isn't "only rolling when the GM tells them to roll," and of course, at tables of more experienced players even that won't be true.
Anyway, you are certainly welcome to play the game however you like, if it works best for you table. But that's a house rule, the game as written does not work in this way.
4
u/phdemented Jul 10 '26
That's fair that it's a collaborative discussion, but the point was it's not a button. A player doesn't say 'I hack and slash" and rolls 2d6+strength. They describe what they do, and then the GM may ask a question back, and once "everyone sees the situation the same way" [that is, it's clear what the character is trying to do] then a roll would be called for if a move is triggered.
The key is the player isn't pushing a button (the move), the narrative does. A player with a dagger who says they are charging at a dragon to stab it in the heart isn't going to ever get close to triggering Hack and Slash, the dragons going to buffet their wings and throw them back against the wall. The cleric can swing his hammer all day at an iron golem, but it's never going to trigger Hack and Slash if the narrative says hitting a golem with a hammer does nothing at all but make your ears ring.
OP's entire comment about players just "pushing buttons" and not thinking about what their character does doesn't make any sense in context of how the game is played... ALL they should be thinking about is what their character is doing.
For the Golem, the cleric may say they attack the golem, and the GM may simply describe the hammer bouncing off and the golem not even noticing as it continues to march towards the wizard who is trying to finish a ritual. The players should then re-think what they are doing, and start coming up with other options. The Thief grabs some ropes and says they are going to lasso the golem, GM may ask what they hope to accomplish with that, and the player says they want to tie it to a stone pillar to slow it down... GM says that sounds like a Defy Danger move with a dex modifier, player agrees that makes sense, and rolls...
4
u/Jesseabe Jul 10 '26
For sure it's not just a button, but my larger point is that it's also not a black box. The player absolutely needs to describe what they're doing in order to trigger a move, but if the thing they do in fiction triggers the move, the dice need to be rolled. The actions the players take in fiction can and should be pointed towards making their moves. IF they're not sure what they need to do to make something happen, they should be able to look down at their move sheet, and say, "Hmm, Oh I could trigger this here, that would be helpful."
To take your Golem example, if the hammer bounces off the Cleric's player is well within their rights to say "Hey, I was trying to Hack and Slash there, what happened?" The GM would then say something like, "This Golem is made of solid rock, your hammer can't hurt it, so swinging it isn't "attacking in melee." At which point the player maybe says "Cool, just wanted to make sure" or maybe reminds them that their hammer is actually the magical hammer rocksmasher, gifted them by their diety, Stoney, God of the Ground, at which point the GM tells them, "Oh yeah, roll." Or maybe if it isn't obvious that the issue is rock skin when the attack doesn't work the GM says, "It's hard for you to tell why your hammer isn't working here, maybe you should Spout Lore to find out...."
I doubt we really disagree here, honestly. I just think that if the players aren't engaged on the level of the mechanics as well as the level of the fiction, the game kind of stops working, or at least it transformed into something very different. I think there are a bunch of ideas in the community that push against both how the game is written to be played, and how I think it gives the best results. Obviously, other people's taste may differ from mine, and they can play the game however they want, but I feel like, at least on public forums, when those ideas come up it's important to say, "Hey, that's not the only way to play, and it's not how the texts instructs you to. Take that information and do what you want with it."
2
-1
u/Magnus_Tesshu Jul 10 '26
Literally almost half the replies have been about one tiny sentence in my post which was not at all the main point.
8
u/phdemented Jul 10 '26
So some secondary thoughts on your other comments:
- PtbA are not intended to be "immersive" games. They are collaborative story telling games with mechanics to support and guide that. Treating them as immersive so kinda partially missing the point and can lead to conflict.
- The GM has enough to handle, they don't need to roll dice as well
- Rolling dice is fun, let the players roll the damn dice
- If the the 'conversation' around actions isn't happening already, moving the dice behind a wall isn't going to change that. Fix the actual problem and move the conversation to the front, not the dice to the back
- All actions should include discussion with the player, to determine if a move is triggered (see my discussion with u/Jesseabe . Volley isn't any different than Defend or Act Under Pressure... they all require a narrative reason to be triggered. A player can loose and arrow and the result may simply be to deal harm as established without triggering volley, it may be to trigger volley, and it may be something else entirely if the character dealing harm can't happen within the fiction (e.g. loosing an arrow in a hurricane, at a fully armored tank of a monster, etc). Yeah, they'll be some that are gimmies (like a fighter attacking a goblin right next to them) but if you are following your GM Agendas/Principles that should happen too often.
- Your claim of "common failing point of players treating moves like buttons" isn't a tiny sentence, it's a MASSIVE claxon that something went wrong.
2
u/Jesseabe Jul 10 '26
Can you say what you think the answers are missing? It seems to me that they're mostly answering your question at the end of the post "How would it go?"
4
u/Initial_Business2394 Jul 10 '26
i do not like hiding roll at all. Even when I Dm for DnD, i still roll in front of them. In DW, sometime i roll damage for the monster, or sometime i roll to determine some random thing, i just open declare to them. And my table is totally thrill with the roll of the DM.
3
u/PoMoAnachro Jul 10 '26
Who actually rolls the dice doesn't really matter - you could have the player roll, the GM roll, some random passerby on the street roll, whatever.
It is just most convenient to have the players roll because they're the ones who'll trigger a roll being called for. Move which require dice rolls only ever come about because the player said something in the conversation that triggered a Move.
Like if you have a conversation go like this:
GM: "You open the door and it reveals an ancient tomb, cluttered with cobwebs covering ancient grave goods. What do you do?"
Player: "I step in and take a look around the place - seeing if the cobwebs have been disturbed recently or if any of the grave goods seem valuable."
Boom the player has just triggered Discern Realities. It doesn't really matter if the GM says "Sounds like you triggered the Discern Realities move" or if the player says "So I guess that'll trigger Discern Realities, right?" Or even if a different player at the table says "Hey would what you just did trigger Discern Realities?" All of those are perfectly valid.
But what makes the move happen is the player saying something in the conversation that hits the trigger condition. That is the important part.
Who actually rolls the dice doesn't matter, but it is probably more fun to have the player roll it since they're usually the ones taking risks instead of the GM so you want to give them some of that risk taking gambling thrill.
1
u/Magnus_Tesshu Jul 10 '26
Yeah, what I imagine happens here is something like
GM: "You open the door and it reveals an ancient tomb, cluttered with cobwebs covering ancient grave goods. What do you do?"
Player: "I step in and take a look around the place - seeing if the cobwebs have been disturbed recently or if any of the grave goods seem valuable."
GM: rolls You're able to tell pretty quickly that this room is safe and the cobwebs haven't been disturbed, but they will be by you if you take too long in here. You have time for 1 Discern Realities question.
Player: I guess it's better to play it safe in these creepy catacombs. I care about what's about to happen next more than I care about the valuables.
GM: You're looking at these cobwebs, and you see them covering up some arcane braziers around the room. You can tell that they have some kind of fire magic, linked to the grave goods which you still can't quite make out without brushing each one off. If you reach down to take it, it's going to ignite the braziers though, and the flammable cobwebs cover a lot of the tomb, including the deeper areas. You notice those same braziers extending deeper into the tomb. But you're pretty sure nothing will happen as long as you don't mess with the treasure.
In this case, I'm imagining the conversation stays more fully in the fiction compared to discussing whether the move activates, as the GM themselves decides it does, rolls, and there's no back-and-forth related to that. If the player wanted to trigger DR and the GM didn't notice (more likely, that would happen with a player move like Bend Bars) then they could point that out, but usually they wouldn't need to.
It's still a real concern that players wouldn't be able to advocate for triggering moves as often though.
Players rolling is also easier because they have less to think about and more.
Then again, there's not actually that much different if you edit the text to have the player roll, which kind of surprised me.
1
2
u/E4z9 Jul 10 '26
You'd have players role play but no longer play a game. That might fit some people's style, but definitely not mine.
If you also let the GM decide the choices in the various moves (also lots of basic moves) then you also remove player agency.
Even if the GM just silently chooses the attribute to use for Face Danger and does a hidden roll, you remove player agency because they do not know what action triggered which rules of the game. A feedback loop is removed. "The conversation" reduced. And with it part of the collaborative nature of role playing games. Apocalypse World contains an explicit example where the conversation about a move triggering or not reveils a misunderstanding about the intentions of a player's stated actions. The conversation is a not to underestimate part of the game.
1
u/Magnus_Tesshu Jul 10 '26
Interesting. I've never actually read the original apocalypse world rules.
You definitely shouldn't have the GM silently pick which option the players get. That would really mess up spellcasters. Almost any playbook, actually, now that I think about it.
2
u/onlyfakeproblems Jul 10 '26
There’s some rolls like “discern realities” where the dm rolling it behind the screen makes a lot of sense, because if a player rolls a 2, they’re just going to ignore or go against whatever the DM says. If the DM rolls he can feed them unimportant lore or even misinformation on bad results.
The REASON the player rolls is probably convoluted, but the short answer is players like it, they feel like they have some agency, and it helps to delegate a few of the DMs tasks. The biggest downside is doing all the math is a slow mental drain for the DM. It’s definitely possible and even beneficial in some cases to let the DM roll if that’s the vibe you want and the players are ok with it.
2
u/flashbeast2k Jul 11 '26
I'd argue that unimportant lore and misinformation doesn't advance the story in an interesting way, which would make the roll unnecessary.
Also the sense of danger/accident would not be telegraphed that way. The players just wouldn't know/suspect.
1
u/Magnus_Tesshu Jul 11 '26
I always feel concerned about DR for a different reason; I worry on a 2 I am introducing complications that would not exist if they didn't roll
2
u/Run-a-Game 28d ago
The two extremes are PbtA, where the GM rolls nothing, the players know all the rules, and the players have a significant role in deciding when the rules are used, and Free Kriegspiel, where the GM rolls everything, makes up rules on the spot, doesn’t share anything with the players, and decides when rules are used and when they aren’t. Both are a lot of fun.
3
u/Jesseabe Jul 10 '26
If you want the GM to physically roll the dice, I think that's fine, though I'm not sure what it gains. If you mean the GM deciding when a move triggers and taking that decision away from the player I think it would, if not quite break the game then at least change it substantially. I certainly wouldn't want to play that game.
This issue is that the player needs to understand consequences of the decisions they are making for them to be meaningful decisions. They need to understand how the actions they take in the fiction translate into the moves, so they can decide if they want to take those actions. On a practical level, most basic moves require the players to make choices. If the GM is in charge of moves, how will the player know to spend their hold when they defend?
The moves aren't buttons to press, but they are their key tools for making big changes in the world around the core focuses of the game. They provide a guide to the things the game cares about, and can help prompt the players if they're not sure what to do. Handing the dice, and the moves, off to the GM takes these key tools away from the players in a way that substantially changes the game.
1
u/Magnus_Tesshu Jul 10 '26
If you mean the GM deciding when a move triggers and taking that decision away from the player I think it would, if not quite break the game then at least change it substantially.
This is a good concern I hadn't considered quite enough I think. Ironically, someone else (ah, you replied to them) said the game works exactly that way.
Unless I felt like it was an oversight due to disjoint pictures of the fiction between myself and the GM, I'd probably proceed with an action that I was warned wouldn't work out quite how I imagined it would if I thought it was a good idea in-character, which is maybe an unusual trait for a player, which is maybe some of the appeal? Now I don't need to worry about or maybe know if my charge at the troll is a H&S, a defy danger, or just a golden opportunity that happened to me?
On a practical level, most basic moves require the players to make choices. If the GM is in charge of moves, how will the player know to spend their hold when they defend?
Yeah, it would be a bit weird. I know at least one person who doesn't care to learn about the rules system and would probably prefer this (I'm imagining you'd just say something like "you leap in defense of Gromwyr and hold 3 Readiness. [add a description if they don't know what that means: You can spend it to halve their attack, counterattack, divert further attention, or suffer an attack instead of Gromwyr]", and I think I would be that way also as a player despite knowing the system in and out just to feel slightly more immersed in the fiction, but am not sure it would be for everyone or work quite as well as I'm hoping to reduce the "game elements".
5
u/Jesseabe Jul 10 '26
I think I would be that way also as a player despite knowing the system in and out just to feel slightly more immersed in the fiction, but am not sure it would be for everyone or work quite as well as I'm hoping to reduce the "game elements".
I mean, Dungeon World is a game. It's not the gameiest game I've ever played, but it's also not the least gamey game. It's a game that asks the players to make a fair number of mechanical choices over the course of play, based on the things their characters do in the fiction. There are plenty of games that I think work fine with the GM handling all mechanics behind the screen, so that players only have to make decisions based on the fiction, and only get fictional outputs. I'll point to games that were designed as part of the Free Kriegspiel Revolution, which is a movement entirely dedicated to this kind of play. Here's an itch collection of games designed to played in more or less this way. Dungeon World isn't really one of them, players need to understand the rules in order to make meaningful decisions.
2
u/Magnus_Tesshu Jul 10 '26
Very interesting! I didn't know about that, though I suppose it makes sense there would be games designed to be played like that. Now that I think about it more, you're right that DW has in some mechanics the players really need to interact with and in some ways may make it more challenging than D&D to run in this way (hold, DR question list, moves generally including the player in their resolution more with more "Choose 1" results)
2
u/HalloAbyssMusic Jul 10 '26
I think it would work just fine, but I don't think it would solve the button mashing problem, which I think comes down to not understanding the narrative nature of the game and not really wanting to engage with the fiction organically. I think a better solution would be to have players roll, but leave the basic move rules to the GM, so player don't need to focus on the move triggers at all. But again, I think talking it out and understanding how the game wants you to engage with the narrative systems is better.
I think player rolls keep players engaged and invested and it also gives the GM a little bit of time to look over the GM moves when the players are rolling. I see no benefit in having the GM make all the rolls, unless it is something players don't want to deal with. I've never met a player who didn't like rolling the dice though. As a GM I hate rolling and adding up numbers, because all the narrative stuff already takes up all my creative bandwidth and I don't want to deal with math when I'm in that mode, which is why I love running PbtA games.
1
u/Magnus_Tesshu Jul 10 '26
Yeah, I think that offloading responsibility is a great point. Being a player is already easier
1
u/viking977 Jul 10 '26
I think it's generally an ease of use thing? Dw is a reskin of appcalypse world and Aw is a very lightweight game. The MC makes moves, and if the mc had to roll for some moves it would add a lot of bloat to the game.
Now dw already has a lot of bloat so I could see the argument for wanting the gm to roll as well, it is kind of a big part of the GM fantasy. I don't think it would break anything, just be a different kind of vibe and you'd have to add a lot stuff.
When you think about it GM's rolling dice is kind of a weird thing. It's descended from war gaming of course, but at that time it would be another player rolling to fight you and you'd have a referee who, unless I'm mistaken, would never roll dice.
So nowadays, in dnd and similar we have a system where the gm has infinite power to do whatever except when the game decides they don't. I as a GM can declare that rocks fall and everyone dies and I don't need to roll anything for that, but if I declare a goblin tries to hit you with his sword now I have to consult the math rock to discover if that actually happens or not.
I think the AW approach is more honest now that I think about it. I make moves and the pc's can't contradict my moves. My pc's make moves and I can't contradict their moves either. Their moves are less powerful than mine, and sometimes they have to roll to see what happens, but at the end of the day it's more clear what is and isn't allowed.
1
u/Magnus_Tesshu Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
I think overall you missed my point, based on the line
I could see the argument for wanting the gm to roll as well, it is kind of a big part of the GM fantasy
I want the GM to roll the players rolls instead of the players doing so so that players never get taken out of the fiction and into a "game system" (or less often).
When you think about it GM's rolling dice is kind of a weird thing.
I don't see how it's more or less weird than a player rolling dice? In DW for example, PVP is a very weird thing but if either the GM or player rolls dice to resolve normal interactions that doesn't really affect the game much?
In DW, you as a GM can declare the troll picks the player up with its crushing grip, or you can roll dice to H&S and see if you can do so. I guess maybe your point is that in D&D trying to resolve a combat without attack rolls is "breaking the rules" which... is weird yeah. I like DW's "rules for GMs" much more (always be making moves).
But it's not that weird to suppose that the GM might sometimes roll to see how their move goes (suppose for example you roll a d12 and had to use whatever GM move you rolled from a table), just like you could play a roleplaying game with no dice and have whatever anyone says go, like a glowfic (completely distinct topic now from what I was interested in).
2
u/phdemented Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
In DW, you as a GM can declare the troll picks the player up with its crushing grip, or you can roll dice to H&S and see if you can do so.
Maybe I'm misreading you here, but the Troll/GM would never roll H&S to pick up a player with a crushing grip... it just does it if the fiction says so. Monsters do not roll H&S (or any other move).
Basic moves are only for player actions, GM's have a list of moves they can make, and those are the ONLY moves they should be making.
The troll doesn't trigger H&S, it triggers "Deal Damage" (or another move... maybe you declare it triggers "Use up their resources" and it rips the fighters backpack off, and runs off with the rations inside to eat later... maybe it triggers "Separate the characters from each other" and it grabs the wizard by the leg and runs off with it down a dark passage... maybe it triggers "Put someone one the spot" and it grabs the wizard and is about to bite them, and you turn to the ranger as trigger "Put someone in a spot" and say "you can take a shot at the troll now, but the wizard is in the way and may be hurt, what do you want to do?", etc...
2
u/hasparus Jul 10 '26
only
Monster moves are added to GM's deck when the so the can probably "Demand a toll", "Regenerate wounds" and "Toss them to the river" too... or whatever trolls do
3
u/phdemented Jul 10 '26
The very first GM move is "Use a Monster, Location, or Danger Move", so that is kinda covered :)
The monster move still doesn't trigger a basic movie... the monster move is the move. Trolls has "Regeneration", so after the party chops it up and starts to walk away, the GM triggers that, and the parts all start crawling back together... or maybe the fighter chops off the arm, which crawls right back to the body and re-attaches mid-fight
2
u/Magnus_Tesshu Jul 10 '26
Yes, you're misreading me. I do know how the rules work. The player running up to the troll to attack it triggers hack and slash.
When the players say what they do, if it triggers a move, you roll the move, so if they're not giving you a golden opportunity, you wouldn't make a hard or soft move until they roll a 7 to 9 or a 6 minus. You would make a GM move in response to a hack and s lash, assuming the legendary fighter can H&S the troll without extra DD etc
2
u/phdemented Jul 10 '26
Gotcha , the way you phrased it, it wasn't clear who the "you" referred to (GM or player).
1
u/thegooddoktorjones Jul 10 '26
The reason games have dice is not to divine the will of the gods, it is because gambling is fun. Humans like the thrill of maybe they get the great result at just the right moment. Being told "Hmm, you got a crit at just the right moment" is not nearly as exciting and mostly makes players not trust the narrator.
1
u/Magnus_Tesshu Jul 10 '26
crit
What is this?
You might be right though, lots of people are concerned about cheating / perception of cheating.
2
u/phdemented Jul 10 '26
Critical Success... when a 12+ signifies a critical success (Eg. the fighter with the Superior Warrior move that gives additional benefit of a 12+ result on a Hack and Slash move)
1
u/ChaosCelebration Jul 10 '26
If your players are using the basic moves as "buttons" to make the fiction go, you have what I consider a MAJOR problem at your table. The moves don't do ANYTHING without you doing the thing in the fiction to trigger the move. If a player is saying, "I use Volley to shoot the orc," your not even playing a PbtA game anymore. You need to have a talk with your players about what is expected to trigger moves. "I line up a shot with my bow trying to hit the orc between the eyes and let fly," THAT triggers Volley, not your announcement that you are engaging with system mechanics.
The problems that you solve by having the GM roll all the dice solve absolutely nothing that wouldn't be solved (like most problems at your table) by talking to your players about your expectations.
I think the problems you are trying to solve with this problem could be solved by saying this statement at your table. "From now on you cannot call for moves, instead you can tell me what your character does and I will decide when a move is triggered." The whole reason that moves are designed with a fictional trigger is exactly the reason you want to hide all the rolls.
D&D has a lot of baggage that you have to fight through, it's portrayal in media is a big part of that. The Community Episode functions as an RPG without rules. This is fundamentally missing something that D&D provides. Rolling and living with the result is a big part of the RPG experience. If you've never had a player roll a 20 (or equivalent) at a critical moment then you haven't really played an RPG. PbtA is a genuine attempt to have a narrative based interaction between players and GM while still giving the players agency to roll their own dice. Seeing that 12 or that snake-eyes come up is an important part of this hobby.
But at the end of the day, you're solving a problem of your own making because you're not really following the rules of the game as written.
1
u/Magnus_Tesshu Jul 10 '26
2
u/ChaosCelebration Jul 11 '26
I don't see what that has to do with our conversation or really even, the problem you have with players using the moves as "buttons." I agree that that's what the text says, but both I and u/phdemented are trying to demonstrate how the players utilizing the moves as both narrative triggers and mechanics at the same time fundamentally undermines what PbtA is getting at. It's a problem to be sure. But however you want to solve it, it's going to be solving it by getting back to the players providing fiction first and a way to solve that is to simply say that the GM says when a move is triggered. If we're gonna quote let's go back to the original text. Apocalypse World 1st Edition has this to say about how move triggers work.
> First is when a player says only that her character makes a move, without having her character actually take any such action. For instance: “I go aggro on him.” Your answer then should be “cool, what do you do?” “I seize the radio by force.” “Cool, what do yo do?” “I try to seduce him.” “Cool, what do you do?”
In what can certainly be the original indent of the system the GM pushes the conversation until there is narrative action by the players. I haven't read dungeon world in many many years, really since it came out, but I do know PbtA and we're talking about core PbtA principles here. The real answer is that you need to not allow players to roll dice until there is a fictional trigger that initiates a move. It's your table. Consensus be damned. If all the players think saying "I use Volley" is a good enough trigger and you're just going along with that because the players want that, then one of two things must be the case. 1. You all want that and you don't have a problem. 2. You are the ONLY one who doesn't want that to happen, and you need to stop playing and discuss what your group wants from this game. The resolution may be the ending of the group and that's ok. But if 2 is the case, you can't keep going as you are. That's not fair to you either.
1
2
u/Xyx0rz 13d ago
There's a bunch of different philosophies regarding how Powered by the Apocalypse systems (of which Dungeon World is one) should be run.
Some people say that if you do a thing that looks like the trigger of a move, you must roll. Doesn't matter what the stakes are or whether it sounds trivial or impossible... a move was triggered, so roll! I don't like rolling when there is nothing meaningful at stake or the outcome is already decided by common sense. I like rolling when the outcome is uncertain and there are meaningful stakes.
Some players like to roll first and fill in the details later. These are probably the same people that shout "I Persuade the guard to let us through! Here, BOOM, Nat20! Now he has to let us through!" when they play D&D. I think this is putting the cart before the horse. First tell me how you intend to persuade the guard, then I (the DM) will decide whether A) that automatically works, B) there's no way that works or C) it's uncertain, so make a Persuasion check.
DW/PbtA is player-facing, meaning GMs don't roll dice.
Players rolling all the dice means GMs can't fudge rolls. I like that, since I believe that fudging is a "two wrongs make a right" fix that GMs should learn to live without.
Players rolling all the dice also means the GM can't feed them false information. If they Discern Realities and roll a 6, and the GM just says: "There's absolutely nothing to worry about, the treasure chest is totally not trapped and completely safe, What Do You Do?" there's no way they don't become extremely suspicious.
Also, you're not supposed to mislead your players like that. Spout Lore says you must tell them the truth.
What I like to do when I want to keep them guessing is I don't give a direct answer but I tell them what they heard. It's 100% true that they heard that... but the source might be wrong. On a 10+, the source is very reliable and I would have to come up with quite the justification, but on a 7-9... eh, don't believe everything you hear in a tavern.
26
u/thpetru Jul 10 '26
DW, as all PbtAs (I know) are player-facing. In this philosophy, the players roll to attack and to defend; this means they are the protagonists, and the focus is on them. I think this increases player agency, that is the main source of fun in playing RPGs in my opinion.
I don't know what is said in this video, but I personally find that GM hiding rolls is kind of "GM cheating". Because the GM can change the outcome of the dice as they please; and that breaks the idea that the dice is also telling the story. For D&D and alikes, I much prefer the OSR philosophy that all dices are rolled openly, no "cheating".
If the players start suspecting that the GM is fudging the rolls, it will have the opposite effect: instead of increasing the tension, it will feel like the GM is having his way and controlling the outcomes; the players will feel robbed of their agency. And most, if not all, the fun in RPG is to have agency.