thread: 2011-02-21 : Into the Unknown?
On 2011-02-24, David Berg wrote:
Vincent, here's my take:
Con players who listen to my intro spiel and form a vision of what "Can you solve the problem? Can you learn the secrets?" means in this context absolutely do get that from play. (A few folks have offered to playtest further; I just haven't had a usable document for them.) Bwian and Josh are both correct about vital parts of that—the emphasis on experience, the option to engineer solutions that surprise the GM.
But! As you've said, this thread is about design! Is all that good stuff actually designed into the game? I think much of it is, but much of it is also my GMing. So I've been trying to bake what I do as GM into new design features. This is confounding me, because it's hard for me to identify, of all the things I do, which are the most crucial? I don't want to give 100 pages of advice, I want to give 2 pages of bullet points!
Maybe even something like Apocalypse World's MC chapter, though I'm not sure.
So, can you show me a way forward in that direction?
More what we do right now:
"As GM, you'll see the players combine magical items and effects in ways that you've anticipated, and ways that you haven't. As always, do 'what would happen', based on your knowledge of the magical principles* involved. If the players honestly think a certain result is 'what would happen', unless you have conclusive knowledge otherwise, go with it. For fuzzy cases, the rule of thumb is that magical items do interact; 'nothing happens' should only result when nothing else could make sense."
*some defined by the game
That's something I've always had in my head, but this is my first time writing it down.
Another what we do right now:
"When you (GM) go through the pre-game options with the players, clarify that favoring 'puzzles' will 'make them earn it' more (your character's only as smart as you are!), whereas favoring 'right place, right time' will mean the way forward is more obvious."
This is actually something I've done in every Delve con game I've run.
