Discern Realities: make the question part of the trigger?

I'm thinking about making this change to Discern Realities in Stonetop and Homebrew World.

DISCERN REALITIES
When you closely study a situation or person, you can ask the GM one of the following:

• What happened here recently?
• What is about to happen?
• What (else) should I be on the lookout for?
• What here is (most) useful or valuable to me?
• Who or what is really in control here?
• What here is not what it appears to be?

If the answer isn't obvious, roll +WIS: on a 7+, the GM will answer honestly; on a 10+, you can also ask two more questions and get honest answers; either way, you gain advantage on the next move you make while acting on the GM's answer(s).  

Basically: 

• Asking one of the questions becomes part of the trigger
• The GM has an "out" to skip the roll if they think the answer is obvious

Asking a Question Before Rolling

The idea of "make the player ask before rolling" has been in the back of my mind for a long time. I haven't really done anything with it because I've never really felt like there was a problem with how the move triggered in actual play.   

But in response to my last post on Discern Realities, about triggering the move vs. just asking for details, Hobbes (who was a player in my Stonetop game for like 2 years) commented:

I'll be honest, as a player the line between "just describing stuff" and Discern Realities always seemed a little fuzzy. I can't come up with any specific examples off the top of my head, but there were definitely some times where I *felt* like a question I'd asked should have triggered DR but I got an answer "for free" (no roll). ...

I'm still not quite sure where the line is for DR. "Anything valuable?" sounds like literally one of the DR questions, and if the trigger is "player takes an action" then the "I drop a coin into the hole, do I hear it hit" would be a DR move. I'M BEING PEDANTIC AND I KNOW IT but honestly this is an interesting distinction.

And, in the G+ comments, Dirk Detweiler Leichty said something smart:

As much as possible I like to stick to telling them whatever is available to their senses, and if they have further questions, telling them the requirements ("you can't tell from here, you'd have to reach in and feel around," or maybe, "you remember something about this from your training but you'd have to spout lore.") 

This is the central loop of exploration play for me lately. ... 

Discern realities interrupts this loop and asks you to work backwards from the answer to decide what happened in the fiction. 

Discern realities gets triggered mainly when the players give up on exploring the space and want to skip to the answer. That's fine with me, I'm not here to enforce some particular level of difficulty, but it is essentially a cheat on what I consider to be the main game here (you get what you want by exploring and interacting with an imagined space.) Sometimes its fun to play with cheats, it lets you focus on other parts of play, like story, etc. 

By default though, I'm going to try to keep to the basic loop, and encourage players to find the answers by interacting with the fiction, not with the answer-button on their character sheet. I let the players be in charge of when they want to skip to the answer. If I wanted to skip to the answer, I'd just tell them.

(emphasis mine)

I don't know that I'd go so far as to call Discern Realities a "cheat," but I totally get what he's talking about it. If you and your players are interested in exploring the fictional space, especially one that has tangibility (i.e. you've prepped it out and committed to it, with maps and notes, or at least a clear mental image), then there's a lot of fun in that core exploratory loop that Dirk describes. OSR-style play is largely based on it.

The core insight of Dirk's comment, I think, is that the players should ultimately be in charge of when they engage Discern Realities, of when they skip the exploration loop and jump straight to insight.  Not every player enjoys the exploratory loop, or is good at it, or just wants to do it right now.

So, a good way to distinguish between "just asking for more details" and "exploring your environment" and "triggering Discern Realities" would simply be to make the player ask one of the questions in order to trigger the move. If they closely study the situation but opt not to ask one of those questions, then the move doesn't fire. They're just looking to the GM to see what happens, so the GM describes the situation and makes a move. If they do ask a question, the move proceeds.

This does make the trigger a little meta-level, because it involves the player doing something instead of the character. But it's something that represents the character's internal monologue, right? You're just announcing to the table what the character is trying to figure out. So I don't think it's too jarring.

There are other benefits of making the player ask a question before rolling, beyond making the trigger clear:

• It can help inform the fiction that goes into the trigger, and whether you should tell them the requirements to answer their question. "I'm looking carefully at these jars and such on the shelves... what here is useful or valuable to me?"  "Well, they're a bunch of unlabeled clay jars. You'll have to open them up and investigate if you want to figure that out."
• It can give you something more to work with when they roll a 6-. Like, if I know you were trying to figure out who is in charge here, I might use that as a prompt me to answer the question by having them captured and taken before Prince Jagoff! Or if they study the floor and ask what they should be on the lookout for, and I know there are pressure plate traps, I might answer their question by putting them in a spot. "Well, you know you need to be on the lookout for pressure plates, because you just stepped on one, there's a click underfoot what do you do?"

"If the answer isn't obvious..."

The second part of the change ("If the answer isn't obvious...") was prompted by this conversation with Ben M. He's asking:

GMs, a player triggers Discern Realities and rolls a 7+ when examining a location (say) which in your mind was unimportant or incidental. How do you tend to answer their questions?  Turn the location into an interesting or significant one through your answers, or give answers like "nothing much is about to happen"?

The latter puts less pressure on you but risks devaluing the risk the player took of making the move in the first place (they may have missed the roll and allowed you to make a hard move). So I often feel pressure to do the former. 

And then later, after a number of people suggest that he just say "it's not interesting" before the player rolls, he (correctly, I think) says:

[T]he trigger for DR is explicitly "closely study a situation or person" and honouring the trigger text precisely has served me well on other moves. So I wouldn't want to decide that it didn't in a situation.

And later:

I get what people are saying but "someone examined it, therefore it's significant" doesn't sit well with me.  My players aren't always (or often!) asking because they wish or think that, say, the pigpen should be significant - they're just making sure they didn't miss something.

And finally:

DW teaches us to be very particular about the wording of moves.  DR is triggered "when you closely study a situation or person" which means that a player deciding to closely examine something makes it a thing, even if they don't want it to be.  If the trigger wording wasn't totally under their control (they just say "I'm examining X") then it would be possible for the GM to justify why the move didn't trigger (say the trigger included some allusion to the significance of the thing).   

Compare this with Defy Danger ("when you act despite an imminent threat").  The player performs some action and the GM has input into whether this triggers DD because they can rule that there is "no imminent threat".  In the case of DR it doesn't seem to me, written the way it is, that the GM can't rule at all.  And once the move is triggered the player is risking a hard move, so it's hardly fair for the GM to make a habit of saying "yeah you hit your DR but there's really nothing to tell".

Which got me thinking about the revision I've made to Parley, which goes "When you press or entice an NPC, say what you want them to do (or not do). If they have reason to resist, roll +CHA..."

I've found that little check ("if they have reason to resist") to be useful in play.  When the Would-be Hero goes up to the NPC she previously wronged and, hat in hand, asks humbly for his advice, I don't need her to roll. I don't see any reason why he wouldn't take that opportunity to give her an earful. But when the Heavy tries to convince the pompous, privileged town marshal to work together with Hillfolk refugees and their leader, that check makes me go "yeah, his ego and stubbornness are going to make him resist," and that informs the results of the roll.

So... same thing should work here, right?  If a player studies a situation closely, asks a question, and I think the answer is obvious (or I want the answer to be obvious), then I just answer it. Otherwise, we clarify how they're doing it (if necessary) and roll.

What would this look like in play?

(This is all done using mechanics from Homebrew World.)

The wizard, ranger, and fighter are at the entrance to the Secret Crypts of the Titch. I've got this map, but haven't keyed it or anything. It's the first session; I'm winging it.  

By Dyson Logos. Original here.

I've asked the ranger what sort of beasts they need to watch out of in these vast woods, and he's like "razor bats." I was like "cool" and looking at that map, the first room totally looks like a place that a bunch of bats would nest in. 

So they've climbed up the side of a bluff and are standing on this small platform, looking at the vine-covered entrance to this tomb.  The wizard just told me that she had discovered the location of this ancient and secret crypt in her studies, and put this expedition together to stake her claim on the site and finish her thesis. The Titch, she says, were known for their clockwork automatons and similar artifice, now largely lost to the world.  

Looking at that map, the first room seems like an obvious place for bats to lair in, so I describe how the entrance is mostly obscured by vines and brush, but there are plenty of openings they can look through. The can vaguely make out a stairway leading into darkness and catch a faint whiff of... ammonia?  

"Does it look like anyone's been here recently? Like, any tracks or anything?" asks the ranger. So he's studying the area, right? Looking for tracks. And asking, basically, "what happened here recently?" But the answer is obvious, I decide: no one's been up for hundreds up years. Except razor bats.   

Because the answer is obvious, I just make a GM move: introduce a danger. "There certainly weren't any tracks, and based on the state of foliage when you got up here, no one's been on this ledge in a long, long time. But that ammonia smell is a sure sign that razor bats are lairing down there. What do yo do?"  

The wzard says that she starts pushing the vines aside, looking for any writing or a plaque or anything like that. She's closely studying the entrance, sure, but didn't ask one of the Discern Realities questions, or really anything close. So I just offer an opportunity, and say "Yeah, you do find some old markings, carved into the rock face itself. They're like little pictographs, maybe? Definitely Titch-era."  

"Can I tell what they say?" she asks. That sounds like she's consulting her accumulated knowledge, so she Spouts Lore. Rolls a miss and I think about having the bats come flying out, but instead I build some tension and reveal and unwelcome truth. "Sorta. It's not like anyone knows how speak the Titch tongue anymore, but you're pretty sure these pictographs are a warning of some sort? Something like DO NOT DISTURB... THAT WHICH HAS NO NAME... LOST TO THE WORLD...  Funny that those books you found didn't mention any of that, huh? What do you do?"

The fighter and ranger start cutting the vines and brush aside, opening the entrance, and I decide to show signs of approaching trouble. "Ranger, fighter... you hear hissing and squeaking coming from down below, like the bats are agitated.  Like lots of bats are agitated. What do you do?"  

The fighter wants to keep hacking away. But the ranger is like "Wait. I stop and listen.  Does it sound like they're going to swarm or attack or anything?"  

"Sounds like you're studying the situation closely? You want to Discern Realities? If so, ask a question from the list."  

The ranger's like "sure" and asks "What is about to happen?" I'm thinking they're getting agitated, maybe about to swarm, but I don't think that's obvious, so I tell him to roll +WIS. A miss!  TEE-HEE.  

I'm like "you hear the hissing and squeaking, like I said, and it seems kind of steady, and then, like holy crap FLUTTER SQUEAK FLUTTER HISS SQUEAK! They burst out of the entrance and start swarming you all in broad daylight, what do you do?"

There's a fight. They manage to kill many, many bats and then drive off the rest of the swarm. We learn that the wizard's magic missile is a small blast of lightning, complete with thunder-clap, very loud and potentially dangerous. (I've made a note that the draw attention of the lightning eaters that the fighter mentioned offhand earlier on.) 

After the fight, they finish opening the entrance and peer down the stairs.  Dark, narrow, steep, slick with bat guano. The wizard casts light and sends it dancing down the stairs. I tell them that the stairs go down a bit and then a tunnel heads off to the right. I offer an opportunity and say that they don't hear any more squeaking or anything... if there are still bats down there, there aren't many and they aren't likely to be a threat. Do you head down?

The wizard brings the light back up into the stairwell itself and says "I'm moving the light around, studying the passage closely. What should I be on the lookout for?" 

I don't think there's anything in the stairwell, and I've already established that the bats are no longer a threat down there, but there's only so much the wizard could learn from outside the tunnel. So I tell them the requirements and ask and say "The stairs are pretty steep and they're going to be slick with bat guano, but beyond that you can't really tell from up here. You'd have to enter the stairwell itself and poke around if you want to learn more."  

They decide to just descend cautiously, the fighter going first, tapping each stair with the butt of his ax, staying alert. They ammonia smell is stronger down here, almost overpowering, but they get to the bottom of the stairs, no problem. That turns into a landing, and another set of stairs, and then I change the environment and describe the square room with the four columns.  There are hints of a mural on the wall, long faded, but no obvious exits or sarcophagi or anything like that. There's a thick carpet of guano down here, like almost up to your knees. It's super gross, you're all kind of retching.

The wizard spends some adventuring gear to produce kerchiefs for everyone, soaked in some lemon-scented water. They put them over their noses and mouths and enter the room. 

"I'll take a closer look at the pillars," says the wizard. They're smooth stone, marble, but each one has a metal ring inset around it, maybe six inches tall, flush with the stone. And each of those rings has a series of pictograms on them, going around each ring. Maybe a dozen pictograms on each one. I'm hinting at more than meets the eye. None of this was in my notes, but the map shows four pillars and a secret door in the floor, and the wizard's detail about clockwork & artifice made this room spring to life for me. I pretty much know exactly what's going on in here. 

I ask the fighter "what do you do?" and he says "I'm using the haft of my ax to poke around in the bat guano, looking for stuff that might be buried in there." "I'll do the same thing," says the ranger, "but with my bow."  

"Sounds to me like you're studying the situation closely, yeah? If you want to Discern Realities, ask a question from the list."

"Can we just poke around and see what we find?" the ranger asks.

"You can," I say, "but it's a big room and the guano's like a couple feet thick. You pretty quickly become sure that there's nothing really buried in it."  Then I stop, and think about it, and I decide to point to a looming danger. "Wait... no, you know what?  You do find something. Fighter, your feet kick something hard in there, but, y'know, not big. You fish it out?"  They do.  "It's a chunk of a human skull," I say. "Blackened and charred. You find more bones, too.  Scorch marks on them, but also small little bite marks all over, like razor bats gnawed on them.

"Do razor bats burn things?" asks the fighter. "Not that you know," I tell the ranger. I'm hinting at more than meets the eye now, not even waiting for the ranger trigger Spout Lore.  

I ask the wizard what she does, and she asks if she knows what's up with these rings on the pillars and the icons.  "Sounds like you're Spouting Lore? Roll it." She agrees and rolls a 7-9 so I reveal that they're a combination lock. The pictograms appear to be kind of nonsense, maybe the equivalent of "A, B, C, etc." But the rings spin around the pillars, and if you put the four rings in the right position, a lock opens. Sure enough, each pillar has a little triangular notch on it, right above the metal rings; that must be where you put the "right" symbol. I ask how she knows this and she talks about the ancient books that she found.

I jump back to the ranger and fighter, and ask what they do. "We just find the one skeleton?" asks the ranger. "Two, actually.  Well, bits of two skulls, and a whole bunch of other bones. Plus, maybe like a super-corroded bronze knife and helm?  You can't really be sure, but yeah, looks like two people died in here."

"Is there anything else in all this guano?" asks the Fighter. "Like a hidden door or anything?"

"Sounds like you're Discerning Realities, asking 'What here is not what it seems? If so, how are you trying to figure that out?"

"Same as I said before... going around, tapping on the floor with my ax head, listening for different sounds."

Now, I know that there's a secret trap door, right? And it's certainly not obvious... it was concealed before  the floor was covered in guano. But I start by telling him the requirements and asking. "It'll take a few minutes at least, and you'll have to roll +WIS, you do it?"  Sure, he says.

I ask the others what they're doing. The ranger says he helps the fighter (that'll be Aid to Discern Realities).

The wizard leaves the pillars alone for a moment and goes to study the murals. "Can I make these out at all?" I say they're pretty faded, you can barely make any shapes at all. "Huh. Well, I'll give a really close inspection. Like, I'm looking for a clue. Oh! Discern Realities, right?  What here is useful to me?"  That answer is not obvious at all, so I tell him to roll +WIS.  He gets a 7-9, so I tell him that the shape and pattern of the mural looks really familiar to him, and he thinks he's got a reproduction of that in one of his books, maybe? One you brought with you, maybe, if you expend Supplies to have it.

"Yeah, totally.  I'll get the book, carefully in this mess, and find the mural."

Meanwhile, I have the fighter roll to Discern Realities (with the ranger's help) to determine what isn't what it seems. They get a 10+, so, yeah, the fighter finds the secret door in the center of the floor, because it felt more metallic than like stone. The fighter expends 1 supplies to produce a shovel, and then starts clearing it.

Meanwhile, I have the ranger ask the next question. I then turn to the ranger and say "you got a 10+, and you were Aiding, so why don't you ask the next question." He asks "What here is most useful or valuable to me?" and I'm like not bloody much.

So I answer:"Well, I guess the bat guano itself is kind of valuable? You've heard of farmers using it as fertilizer, and sometimes wizards or alchemists have use for it, but it'd be a pain in the ass to get it all home, y'know?"

"Okay, well... what should I be on the lookout for?"

Ah!  There's a trap here, the thing that set those previous corpses on fire.  "You know, along the walls, almost buried under the guano but not quite, you find some... nozzles? Little metal nozzles coming out of the walls. They just sort of feel sinister to you. What do you do?"  He Has What He Needs to produce some beeswax (a small item, so he marks "out of beeswax" and then starts plugging the nozzles.  Smart! 

"Wizard, you get the book out and find the page. Sure enough, you find the engraving you were looking for, in the notes that led you to this place. I think maybe you found an old engraving plate engraving plate and had a print made, and it was definitely this mural. Like 4 separate pictures... a dude's portrait, a mountain, a sword, and a ship. They're laid out in a 2x2 grid."

"Oh, like the pillars?  I check the pillar on the far left corner. Are there any glyphs on it that would match up with the picture on the top left corner of the mural?"

Clever. "Are you like walking around it, or spinning the cylinder around, or what?"

"Huh? Oh, I'll spin it."

The thing is, I had decided that spinning those metal circles more than one "notch" would set off the trap. I decided these maybe ten minutes ago, but whatevs. The wizard just gave me a golden opportunity.

"Okay, well, as soon as you spin it more than like one or two icons, WHOOMP a big metal door slams shut over the entrance, it's super loud. And as you recover your hearing, ranger, you notice a... hissing sound? Coming from the nozzle you're just about to plug up. And then a sort of light gray, almost sparkly gas starts to mist out of it. What do you do?"

From there, it plays out like an action scene. The ranger tries to finish stopping up the nozzles. The fighter Bends Bars/Lifts Grates to get that big heavy door open, and the wizard Defies Danger with INT to figure out which symbols reflect the pictures from the murals, while the fighter then defies danger with CON to keep the door open while he figures that out, and they all succeed before the room fills with phlogiston and a sparker sets the whole thing ablaze.

Other considerations

If I make this change, I'll need to look at all the other moves that tweak Discern Realities.  In particular, I'm not sure how this will work with moves that let you always as a specific question for free, even on miss.  I'm thinking maybe if that's your trigger question, you get advantage on it?  

The other thing rolling around my head is an even bigger variation on the move:

DISCERN REALITIES  

When you closely study a situation or person, you can ask the GM one of the following:

• What happened here recently?
• What is about to happen?
• What (else) should I be on the lookout for?
• What here is (most) useful or valuable to me?
• Who or what is really in control here?
• What here is not what it appears to be?

If the answer isn't obvious, roll +WIS: on a 7+, the GM will answer honestly; on a 10+, also hold 2 Insight. You can spend Insight 1-for-1 to:

• Ask another question about the situation from the list above, and get an honest answer
• Gain advantage on a roll you make to act on the GM's answer(s) 

This means you would not get advantage to act on the answer on a 7-9, and that you only might get one a 10+.  It also means that asking each subsequent/additional question on the 10+ is a more active thing, and it doesn't have to immediately come after the first question or even flow from the initial act of studying the situation.  Finally, it makes the "get a bonus for acting on the answer" thing much more intentional, and less likely to be overlooked.