Step-by-step: how to write up a front

This post was originally a conversation on the Dungeon World Tavern back in Google+. Bryan Alexander said "Let's talk about Fronts and Dangers and Grim Portents... you start!"    

Later in the conversation, Bryan said "Honestly, I'm struggling a bit with understanding it myself. I've reread the chapter three times now and it isn't really clicking. We are three sessions in and while I have several ideas and things that tie into each other--I’m not quite sure how it is supposed to come together in terms of how the book says to do it."

And, yeah... Fronts are one of the chapters that folks in the DW community regularly point to and say "this could be easier to understand."  So here's my answer to Bryan, regarding how to proceduralize it.  Maybe you'll find it useful, too? 

From 20 Dungeon Starters (Marhsall Miller, Mark Tygart)

After your first session (or maybe two):

Dangers

1) Look at the fiction already established, and identify the dynamic actors, the people or things that will move forward and adapt and pursue an agenda: the rival adventurers pillaging the dungeon; the abusive lord looking to increase his power; the goblins trying to defend their home. Each is a Danger.

2) Look for fragile, untenable, unstable circumstances. Like a crumbling dungeon holding a slumbering terror, a village simmering with resentment at its abusive lord, a disease or curse poised to sweep through the land. Each is a Danger, though maybe not yet active. Consider putting a “face” to each of these dangers, like the rabble-rousing matron who’s had enough or the spirit of the restless priest-king buried in the tomb.

How to handle "boss" monsters in DW

I originally posted this on the Dungeon World Tavern, in response to Lauri Maijala asking: 

"How do you handle wizards etc. 'boss monsters' that do not have a cohort of minions to keep the characters busy. I have failed constantly with them and feel like even three characters can take out any single threat without too much of a trouble."

The Dungeon World community at large is pretty quick to say "read the 16 HP dragon" article (content warning: passing reference to violence against children) when someone asks about making monsters more than just their numbers.  It's a good article, but it doesn't really tell you how to do those things; it shows you a high-level example of those things in action. 

It's on my "someday maybe" list to write up a fictionalized "actual" play example of the 16 HP dragon incident, showing how that scene might have actually played out, with moves and rolls and GM deliberation. 

But until then, here's an attempt at some specific, actionable advice for running "boss" monsters. 

Step 1: Stat the boss monster up, hardcore

Use their moves, special qualities, and potentially their lair and gear to make them hard to get at, able to interrupt player actions, and capable of dealing with multiple foes at once. Bonus points for moves that take PCs out of the fight without actually killing them.

E.g. qualities like “Aura of will-sapping menace” or “Hidden by swirling shadows.”  Moves like “Reveal a preparation” or “Unleash a spell of death and destruction” or “Turn their minds and fears against them.”

For a spellcaster/magic-user, maybe think a little about the specific spells they can cast, or at least the nature of those spells.  Try to word that into your moves (“Unleash a deadly spell of fire and flame” is better than “Unleash a spell of death and destruction”). Or, make a list.  But if this really is a big bad, don’t feel constrained by the list. Think of that list as giving yourself permission to do those things, but maybe they can do other stuff, too.

if it helps, find a badass picture that helps you visualize the BBEG

The G+ Archives

Today is April 2, 2019, and those of us who regularly used Google+ are sitting waiting for the end. Google announced that the platform would go down sometime today. As of this moment, it's still there. But the end is soon.

G+ was mostly ignored by the larger world, but it was a hotbed of activity for the RPG scene. The initial integration with Hangouts meant that bloggers and other RPG folks could easily coordinate and play games with each other online. That led to a critical mass of gamers--especially indie RPG and OSR gamers--hanging out and talking on G+, and it became a sort of constant, ongoing salon. Ideas where exchanged, friends and partnerships were established. There was drama, yes, and schisms and bad actors. But overall: it was really something.

In the past few months, I've used Friends+Me's Google+ Exporter to archive about 30 RPG communities and back them up onto WordPress sites. Those archives live here:

https://gplusarchive.online

The archived communities are:

• Blades in the Dark
  
• The Dungeon World Tavern
• Inverse World
• Lampblack & Brimstone
• Planarch Codex: Astral Repository
• Stonetop
• Worlds of Adventure
  
• Powered by the Apocalypse
• Alas for the Awful Sea
• Bluebeard's Bride
• Epyllion
• Legacy: Life Among the Ruins
• Masks: A New Generation
• Monster of the Week Roadhouse
• Monsterhearts
• Nahual
• Night Witches
• Pasión de las Pasiones
• Sagas of the Icelanders
• The City of Judas
• The Sprawl
• The Veil
• The Watch
• Uncharted Worlds
• Urban Shadows
• Veil 2020
• Velvet Glove
• Wheel Tree Press (the Sword, the Crown, and the Unspeakable Power, Time Cellist, Greenlight)
• World Wide Wrestling
• Worlds in Peril
  
• The Gauntlet

Together, there are about 37,000 posts and 282,000 comments saved.  My hope is that people of the future can continue to reference these communities, not just as historical artifacts but as a source of wisdom and insight. There is gold buried in these archives. In the future, I intend to mine some of it for this blog. I hope others do likewise. 

If I didn't archive your community: I'm sorry. It wasn't an intentional thing. I started with the ones that I was active and involved in, then expanded to various communities related to PbtA games.  I feel bad that I didn't get any OSR communities, but I was never directly involved in those and didn't even know where to start.

Cheers.

-Jeremy

Deal Damage is a Crap GM Move

I posted this essay on the G+ back in June of 2017. I still feel this way, and in Stonetop and Homebrew world, have replaced the GM move "Deal damage" with "Hurt them." It's not much of a difference, but I find that it better matches how I play. Fair warning: if you ever play DW (or a variation of it) with me running it, expect to be losing HP very often.

obligatory "wounded man" image

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When I've played DW with less-experienced GMs—and certainly when I started GMing DW myself—I've seen this sort of thing happen a fair deal:

"Okay, you got a 7-9 to Hack & Slash the orc? Deal your damage. 3? Okay, he's still up. But he stabs you back. Take 1d8+1 damage.  You still up?  Okay, what do you do?"

The strawman GM in my example is making the GM move deal damage, but they aren't following the principle of begin and end with the fiction.  As a result, the whole thing is flat. The player reduces their character's HP total. We vaguely know that the PC landed their blow, and the orc landed one back. But we've got no sense of the actual fiction, the details, the momentum. Who hit whom how? When? And Where?  Is the PC's axe still stuck in the orc's shoulder? Does the orc up close and personal, stab-stab-stabbing you with his rusty knife?  What the hell is going on?

Now, you can blame that on the GM (obviously: they aren't following their principles).  But you've got literally a dozen principles always competing for your attention, and it can be tough to keep them all straight.

You can also lay a lot of blame at the feat of the Damage and HP and "down at 0 HP" system that DW inherited from D&D.  But if you start tinkering with any of those things, you end up changing basic moves, and class moves, and how you make monsters, and equipment, and spells, and pretty much the whole mechanical economy of the game.

So what about the GM move itself:  Deal Damage.  I'd like to argue that this move—its name, its description, the fact that it exists at all—is part of the problem. And maybe an easier one to fix.

Of all the GM moves, it's the only one that maps most directly to a purely mechanical outcome. "Take 1d8+1 damage."  The GM must evaluate the fiction a little to determine how much damage you should take, but not much… you can just look at the orc's damage die and say "you're fighting an orc, take 1d8+1 damage."  And because the result of move (the roll, losing HP) is so mechanical and abstract, it's easy to forget to return to the fiction and describe what that damage actually looks like.

(You don't see this issue nearly as much in Apocalypse World, even though it basically has HP and has basically the same move: inflict harm as established. I think there are two reasons. First, the way NPCs suffer harm is much more handwavy than in DW… each level of harm corresponds to a rough description of trauma, and it's GM fiat to determine if the NPC is still standing. Thus, the GM has to decide on the specific trauma, in the fiction, in order determine if the NPC is still a threat. It's pretty brilliant.  Second, against PCs, there's the Suffer Harm move, which can generate all sorts of interesting fiction.)

Compare deal damage to use up their resources. When the GM uses up resources, they must decide which resources to use up. If they decide to "use up" your shield, then the natural thing to say isn't "you lose your shield, reduce your Armor by 1" but rather "it smashes through your shield!" or "you feel the strap on your shield snap and the thing goes flying, what do you do?"  Even if the GM uses up an abstract resource (like adventuring gear or rations), it's pretty easy and natural for everyone to visual your pack getting smashed or torn open or whatever.  HP are such an abstraction that it's easy to just decrement them and move on.

Every now and then, the conversation crops up that you just shouldn't use the Deal Damage move, or that you shouldn't use it very much.  Other GM moves are more interesting, etc. etc.

Another relevant detail:  on page 165, there's this gem that often gets forgotten:

Note that “deal damage” is a move, but other moves may include damage as well. When an ogre flings you against a wall you take damage as surely as if he had smashed you with his fists.

With a sidebar of:

If a move causes damage not related to a monster, like a collapsing tunnel or fall into a pit, use the damage rules on page 21.

So… could we just remove "Deal Damage" from the GM's list of moves?  If it just flat-out wasn't a choice, and instead you always had to make a different GM move (or monster move), one that might also happen to deal damage, would that help GMs begin and end with the fiction?

Or would it just confuse things? Or not make a difference?  After all, you'd still have the GM move Use up their resources, and you HP are really nothing more than a resource.

It's entirely possible that I'm just overthinking this, and the "solution" to this "problem" is just learning to "begin and end with the fiction."

Discuss!

Now, for some selected comments from the post:
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Aaron Griffin:  I like the idea of removing it, but you'd need to have some more coaching about "on the fly"/improv monster moves.

In your orc example, I doubt the orc has "hit with sword" as a move. A novice GM with a strict reading of the rules might not understand that the orc can swing that sword even if it doesn't say it.


Me:  I'm actually thinking you would NOT replace it with "attack" moves for monsters.  But rather, any time the monster attacked, it'd be a different GM move that happened to also inflict damage.

E.g. when the orc "makes an attack against you," if I don't have "deal damage," I'd be forced to pick do something like this instead:

Use a monster move >> the orc's Fight with abandon : "So, you like run it through, but it doesn't seem to notice. It just pushes itself onto your blade, hacking at you and your shield over and over with that vicious meat cleaver thing, scoring a number of blows before it expires. Take d6+2 damage and your blade is stuck right in the thing's gut. What do you do?"

Reveal an unwelcome truth:  "You gut the orc, but he scores a scratch on your arm, not a big deal but holy shit does it burn, take a d6+2 damage. And you're like, uh oh, what's that greenish oil coating this dead orc's blade?"

Use up their resources: "You slash it across the chest, and it reels back, then follows up with just this reign of blow after blow. Take a d6+2 damage and your shield is just in splinters, it hauls back for another chop, what do you do?"

Separate them:  "So, yeah, you run the orc through as it leaps at you but its momentum carries it into you, knocking you down the ravine in a tumble. Take d6+2 damage and you land in a heap, a dead orc on you, the fight up top.  Ovid, you see the Hawke and the orc go tumbling off the cliff and another one comes swinging at you, what do you do?"

Put someone in a spot: "Oh, yeah, you totally slice this orc's throat open and goes down in a gurgle, but the other two rush in on you and hack away, take d6+3 damage (+1 cuz of the extra one, right?). And they keep reigning blows on you, herding you back toward the pit, it's just a few feet away, what do you do?"

Etc. etc.

I.e. there's no replacement for the "Deal Damage" move, no general monster moves like "stab them."  So whenever a foe makes an attack, the GM must make a different GM move, one that makes no sense unless you begin and end with the fiction.

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Greg Soper:  I really like this. I think that there should still be references to damage, but just push it through the general-Damage dice lens (scrapes and bruises = 1d4, etc). So GMs can still be liberal with dealing damage, but just as a result of other moves, and never just as an automatic response to a 7-9 Hack & Slash or a missed Defy Danger.

Me:  oh, I still think there's a lot of value in having distinct Damage values for monsters. It's part of what establishes the "difficulty" of fighting (e.g.) orc bloodwarrior (d6+2) vs. an orc berserker (d10+5!!!).  

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Wright Johnson:  I think the problem with deal damage is actually the name.  As you said, the move itself is the only one written purely in the language of game mechanics.  Inflict harm as established is not a phrase which rolls off the tongue outside the context of Apocalypse World, but it's also consistent with the mannered way the rest of the AW game text is written.  DW is written in natural, conversational English, so the shift into purely mechanical jargon stands out.  If the move was called something like hurt them, I think it might be less jarring.

Asbjørn H Flø:  That was my first instinct too​, with that exact wording. Making hacks and rule changes strikes me as too much work, but rewording it to hurt them opens it up sufficiently to remind you to consider the fiction and your options.

Jason “Hyathin” Shea:  Aside from removing the option entirely (a valid solution, IMO) hurt them is a great option. As I've been reading comments that phrase has been rattling around my head, and it leads me to say, "okay, so how am I going to hurt them?" I don't think that way when I read "deal damage."

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There were also a number of comments around the idea of introducing versions of AW's Suffer Harm player move, discussion of Paul Taliesen's A Descriptive Damage Hack for Dungeon World, and so forth.

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In the end, I've replaced Deal Damage with Hurt Them in my Dungeon World hacks, along with these instructions to the GM: 

When you make a GM move that involves someone getting banged up, knocked around, hurt, or injured, then deal damage as part of that move. If the damage is caused by an established danger, deal damage per its stats. Otherwise, what would it do to a normal person?

• Bruises & scrapes; pain; light burns d4  
• Nasty flesh wounds/bruises/burns d6  
• Broken bones; deep/wide burns d8  
• Death or dismemberment d10

Debilities are ongoing states reflecting the tolls the characters have taken. Inflict them as (or as part of) a GM move. They are:

• Weakened: fatigued, tired, sluggish, shaky (disadvantage to STR and DEX)
• Dazed: out of it, befuddled, not thinking clearly (disadvantage to INT and WIS)
• Miserable: distressed, grumpy, unwell, in pain (disadvantage to CON and CHA)

Debilities might also cause someone to Defy Danger to do things that are otherwise safe.

Yes, those are different debilities than core Dungeon World. That's a post for another time.

Discern Realities v. Spout Lore v. Just Describing Stuff

This is another retrieval from the archives of the Dungeon World Tavern. Gerke Bouma posted about how "I still struggle sometimes with when to use discern realities and spout lore, and when to simply provide information or make them do a different type of roll." This was my response. Mostly the same as the original, plus formatting and some editing.  The examples section, though, was pretty heavily expanded on.   

Here's how I distinguish between Discern Realities, Spout Lore, and me just telling them stuff.

If they're just asking for clarification on the environment, what they see and hear and feel, what should be immediately obvious, then I'll just tell them.

• "What are the paintings of?"
• "Is the tunnel, like, worked stone? Or natural?"
• "What sort of stuff is on the shelves? Anything valuable?"
• "How many of them are there?"
• "I drop a coin down the pit... do I hear it hit bottom?"

All of these are basically the player asking me to do my job and describe the situation. But they're also invitations to make a GM move (because they're looking at me to see what happens).

Are they asking something that really should be immediately obvious?  Tell them! Is there a looming threat you can point to at the same time?  Do it!  "Yeah, the tunnel is like, raw stone and not bricks, and it doesn't look, like, hewn... it's more like it was... melted? There are these ripple-marks, and parts in the ceiling where it looks like the stone was almost, like, dripping? What do you do?"

If you've got no idea what the answer is, you could ask questions and build on the answers. "The paintings? I think they depict a number of important historical figures... you recognize a couple of them, who are they?"

If they ask about something that wouldn't be immediately apparent, then tell them the requirements and ask.  "The stuff on the shelves? Just a few ceramic pots, a couple rotting wooden boxes, and a bunch of dust and spider webs. None of it looks valuable, but who knows? You'd have to like open the containers to find out. Do you?"

Now, if they they take action in order to figure out what's going on, then they're Discerning Realities. "I shine my torch all around the opening to the tunnel, looking carefully at the walls, those dripping stalagmite things, the ground."  "Sounds like you're Discerning Realities to me!"

But if they ask whether they know something (or assert that they do, or ask what they know about __, or something like that), then they're Spouting Lore.  "Do I have any idea what could have made a tunnel like this?" or "Do I recognize the style of the pottery? Like, can I tell where it came from or how old it is?"


If it's not clear which one they're doing, either interrogate them and/or the fiction until it becomes clear, or just ask them which move they're trying to trigger.

Also: there's nothing wrong with giving them an opportunity and just being like "Ovid, I bet you'd know something about the scenes in these pictures, what to Spout Lore?" or "Well, you could search the shelves to find something valuable, that'd be Discern Realities."  In Apocalypse World 2e, they specifically call out "Push Read a Sitch" and "Push Read a Person" (etc) as GM moves for certain threats.

(And: the GM principle of "never speak the name of your move" is talking about the GM move. There's no prohibition against using the names of PC moves, and in fact you pretty much have to name those moves in order to play the game.)


Now, for some specific examples.

From Gerke's post: 

Situation 1: I described one of my room in a dungeon to have various pictures of rituals etched into the wall. The room was known to belong to a cult they were investigating. One of my players wanted to examine the pictures more closely and figure out if they provided them with any more information. I did not have anything specific in mind up front.  

Discern realities' questions didn't really seem to apply to this. I went with Spout lore (which resulted in them finding a riddle pointing to a hidden door), but i'm not entirely sure this was the 'proper' way to handle this.  

What would you have let them roll, if anything? 

"Figures in a Basement," Joseph Mallard William Turner, via the Tate
Seemed appropriate.

I'd have told them what the paintings were of (generally), maybe asked a couple questions ("You recognize one of these places, where from?") and then maybe prompted them to Spout Lore ("You want to Spout Lore to see if you recognize the significance or anything?").

Assuming they Spouted Lore, on a 7-9, I'd have made up something that connected the paintings to the cult, but given only fuzzy details about it:

"You're pretty sure your recognize most of these portraits and places... and the thing that jumps out at you, is that they all were people who came from humble beginnings and rose to prominence in society."

On a 10+, I'd give them some last piece of info to make it all relevant and immediately useful, like:

"So either these guys were all cultists and the cult is responsible for their rise to power, or the cult respects their rise to power. But hey, now that you think about it... the merchant who hired you to investigate this place... didn't he used to be a lowly wainwright?"

or maybe...

"You notice something a little weird, though. In each painting, there's this strange ankh shape... all the portrait subjects are either wearing one, or holding one, or it's on the wall behind them... and you're sure it's not a heraldic device. In fact, you're pretty sure it's the sigil of a demon lord, Ahtraxis, known for enriching mortals at the cost of their souls! Hey... how did you come to learn about Ahtraxis?"

(editorial note: in the original post, I suggested that they notice the ankh in the paintings, and then notice an ankh-shaped inset in the wall, but that felt more like a Discern Realities result to me)

If, instead, they described searching the room and the paintings, I'd have gone with Discern Realities.  (Yes, of course it's a situation... you're in a dungeon, right?).

• What here is useful or valuable to me? "The paintings are pretty nice, and would fetch a decent price if you could get them safely to a collector." 
• What here is not what it seems? "There's a recurring ankh motif in the paintings, like all of the subjects are holding one, or the walls behind them feature one, that sort of thing. Also, there's an ankh-shaped depression hidden in the far wall." 
• What should I be on the lookout for?  "Yeah, that ankh-shaped depression is definitely the trigger to something, like a secret door. You even find the edges of where you think the door is. But you also find a number of faint runes all around the edge... you're pretty sure it's some sort of magical trap."  
• Or perhaps, if they'd previous Spouted Lore about the contents of the painting and gotten that 7-9 result above.... "You know, looking at these important men and women from humble beginnings... it dawns on you... the wealthy merchant who's funding this expedition... didn't he start out as a lowly fishmonger?" 
  
  
• What happened here recently?  "Well, the paintings have clearly been here a while, though some are definitely newer than others. And this room doesn't get a lot of use, but you can tell from the dust that someone's been in and out of here somewhat recently, like in the past few days at least."
• What is about to happen?  "What, if you poke and prod that ankh-shaped depression? Probably nothing, unless you have an ankh to put in there. Or it might set off that magical trap, if they 'key' isn't right."
• Who or what is really in control here?  "Well, I mean, this place is pretty obviously controlled by the cult.  Hmm.  Oh! You know, you can tell that these paintings were all added over time, like based on the people in the portraits, maybe every 20 or 30 years?  And there's one that's relatively recent, showing a colonel in the King's army, Sir Montrose. He's still alive, last you heard. Is he maybe the head of the cult?"

Notice how some of the answers are affected by the previous answers, or the information garnered through a previous use of Spout Lore.  I find that this happens a lot. You establish a seed of information and truth, and then future questions/moves grow from it.

Also from Gerke's post: 

A player obtained an artifact belonging to the cult I mentioned before. The use of the artifact (a bracelet) has not been established yet (for the players, I do have something in mind). One of the players wanted to fiddle with the artifact around the room to see if it reacted to anything.  

Although I wasn't really planning on them doing this, it seemed cool to me. The answer "It doesn't react to anything" would be unrewarding and lame. However, simply telling them 'oh it reacts to XXX' might be a bit too easy. This action uncovering something potentially dangerous felt unfair without there being a roll involved.  

How would you have handled this?

Since the bracelet was discovered elsewhere and clearly the PCs thought it was important at the time, I'm assuming that it's already been described and the players already asked the obvious questions. If not, I'd start there.  "It's a metallic bracelet, with this blue lacquer. There's a red, glassy stone set in it, maybe like a carnelian? No, no markings, but it'd clearly be worth a fair amount of coin. The way your fingers tingle when you touch it, it might even be magical."

Now, when the PC pulls it out in the room with the paintings, if you (the GM) had something planned about the amulet and the room, you might offer an opportunity right then and there. Or, you could decide on the spot that there was a connection (even if you hadn't planned one) and do the same thing. Something like "The red carnelian is glowing; it wasn't doing that before. What do you do?" (and I bet that whatever they do, it triggers Discern Realities).

But if you didn't have any planned connection between the amulet and the room, and didn't want to introduce one... you have established to yourself that the amulet is magical and dangerous. So the player is sort of creating their own situation by waving this thing around to see what happens.  Sounds like Discern Realities to me.

• What here isn't what it seems?  "Well, this clearly isn't just a bracelet. You feel a warm... thrum of power when you put it on, and when you move your arm about."  (Or, alternately... "The bracelet, there's a powerful, subtle magic in it... how can you tell?")
• What here is useful or valuable to me? "Well, it doesn't seem to react to the paintings or anything. But when you move the bracelet towards a torch, you notice a slight flickering of the flame. it's, like... bending towards the bracelet, just a little.  Maybe more when you concentrate on it."
• Who is really in control here? "No one, right now. But you sense that you can control the bracelet's power through practice and force of will."
• What is about to happen? "As you move the bracelet closer to the flame, the flame like... leans in.  You're pretty sure the flame is about to jump onto the bracelet!"

• What should I be on the lookout for? "Well, if this bracelet is going draw flames into it, you better watch out. Use it wrong, or lose control, and you'll probably be flinging fires around all over the place."
• What happened here recently? "What, to the bracelet? Or this room?  Nothing. You guys are the first people to enter this room in years, maybe decades!"

In Defense of Discern Realities

I posted this essay on G+ back in 2016. At the time, there was a lot of talk and swirl on the Dungeon World Tavern about whether Discern Realities was a good move, and when it triggered, and how to use it. This was my response.  I'm re-posting it here to make it easier to find, and as (hopefully) the beginning of a series of posts on using Discern Realities. I've added some formatting and cleaned up a few typos, but it's otherwise unchanged from the original. 


I love the move. It's one of favorite things about DW. It's not perfect, and it occasionally grinds gears. But it consistently moves my games forward in ways that I'd never anticipate otherwise.

When does Discern Realities trigger?

In the previous thread, there was a lot of back and forth about when you should or shouldn't trigger Discern Realities. The trigger in the move (closely study a situation or person) is pretty wide open; I can see where the confusion comes from.

In play, I rarely find there to be any confusion. It triggers when I ask a player what they do, and they describe doing something with the intent of gaining more information.

• "I'll toss the room, looking for valuables."
• "I'm gonna take a closer look at that wall."
• "I'm staying just outside the clearing, looking the hovel up and down."
• "I keep my hand near my sword, but size these guys up."
• "I peer out into the darkness, looking for threats."
• "I try to calm down, take it all in, figure out what's going on."
• "I'll wander about the area, looking for tracks or spoor or other sign of big game."

I can hear the objections: "But XYZ isn't a situation!"

Of course it's a situation. Didn't you just make a GM move?  And ask them what they do?  This is Dungeon World. Think Dangerous and fill their lives with adventure. Something bad is almost always right around the corner.

Now, sometimes you'll ask them what they do, and they won't tell you.  They'll ask you a question instead. That in and of itself is probably not Discern Realities. That's them asking you to do your job (How to GM > Describe the situation, Make moves)

GM:  "You enter the room. There's a rumpled, musty bed in the corner, a dusty old bookshelf, a frayed tapestry on the wall showing, um... like a forest with a castle in the background and like a few dudes on horseback in the foreground.  There's no door but the one you came in. What do you do?"  (Notice I didn't really make a move there.) 

Wizard:  "What's on the bookshelf?" (Not Discern Realities; just asking something that should be apparent.) 

GM: "There's probably a dozen old tomes on the top shelves, and some brickabrack on the bottom shelves. You can't really see them well from the doorway, especially not in torchlight. You get closer?"  (Tell them the requirements & ask) 

Wizard:  "Yeah, sure. I step in and peer at the books, what do I see?" 

GM: "Ooh, yeah, now that you're closer you can see that a few of them are definitely tomes of magic! But as the torchlight flickers, you see a... shifting? shimmering? Like there's some sort of almost unseen field between you and those books.  What do you do?"  (Offer riches at a price) 

Wizard: "Huh. Like a forcefield or something?" 

GM:  "Could be. It's just this vague shimmering in the air. Like a heat shimmer, but not as intense. You barely saw it."  (No GM move. Just clarifying what the player already perceived.) 

Wizard:  "Okay, I'll slowly move the torch around, trying the find the edges of that ripple." 

GM:  "Ah!  Sounds like you're studying the situation closely! Discern Realities!"

But Why Do the Questions Have to Come From the List?

Yeah, it's partly a holdover from Apocalypse World. And it's definitely the most jarring part of the move. For example, in my moving-the-torch-around-to-find-the-edges example, the player might be like "dude, I just want to find the edges... that's not one of the questions!"

But here's the part that's brilliant: the questions force them to ask something meaningful.  Something that will propel the situation forward into action or deeper into context.  If you just answer the question "where is the edge of the shimmering effect," you're just encouraging pixel bashing.  Seriously. What happens next? Nothing about that answer will propel the situation forward.

The Discern Realities questions? They almost always will propel the situation. (Even "What happened here recently?" will likely add information that deepens the overall scene. "Nothing," you might say, "the way the dust has built up, not just on the bookshelf but on the floor and the bed... no one's been here for years." That's way more interesting and meaningful than "6-inches from the top center book.")

Another reason the questions are great: they force the player to prioritize. What are they looking for, really?  Are they more concerned about threats ("What should I be on the lookout for?") or opportunities ("What here is useful or valuable to me?") or deception ("What here isn't what it appears?") or or or.  The move forces them to pick.

(By the way, if it really bugs you or them, try this: let them ask more-or-less any question they want, but answer one the questions from the Discern Realities list--whichever one is the closest match. Can't tell which one is the closest match? Ask them questions about what they're hoping to find, or about how they do it, until you know.)

On a 10+, the questions make them think more broadly. They got what they were most interested in, but now... what else might they glean from the situation? This is where I find the most fun happens.

Wizard: "Um, first question... I guess, what is about to happen? I'm trying to figure out what this field does." 

GM: "Okay, cool. You find the edges of the shimmering field, about 6 inches from the books, yeah.  And as you carefully move the torch closer, the field almost starts to... solidify? No, more like... tense.  You're pretty sure it's about to lash out with some arcane force if you get any closer. Next question?"   

Wizard: "Huh. Okay... um, what is useful or valuable to me?" 

GM:  "Well, the books, obviously. But... well, yeah. You keep moving the torch around carefully, and you notice two things.  First, the field actually seems to be emanating from just one of the books. Out in, like, a sphere from that one.  It covers all the others, but, it's centered on one of them.  Also, you noticed that the field isn't triggered from the flame, just from the physical part of the torch itself.  Looks like energy can pass through it, but matter can't. Last question?" 

Wizard:  "Oh, hmmm... who's really in control here?" 

GM:  <pause>  "Huh, let me think about that for a sec....  Oh! You guys are! This place... the dust, the musty smell, the cobwebs in the corners... no ones been in this room for months, maybe even years.  Yeah, there's some sort of weird protective field around these books, but there's no sign that anyone's gonna be coming back for them anytime soon." 

Finally (and this is important to remember): sometimes the answer is a negative. "Who's in control here?"  "No one. It's a damn free for all."  "What isn't what it seems?"  "Nothing. This lady has been totally honest with you." "What should I be on the look out for?" "Not much. This place looks pretty safe."

Yeah, those answers might be kinda boring, but they are super valuable answers. Players can make informed decisions with those answers. They're great.

But the Move Takes Us Out of the Fiction!

Maybe? But it doesn't take you out of the conversation. You're still talking about what's happening in the game, aren't you?

Obviously, this is a personal taste thing, but: I find "immersion" to be somewhat overrated. I don't want to lose track of the fiction, but I don't mind having a conversation about what the fiction entails.

Nonetheless, I try to couch my answers in terms of what the characters actually perceive, and what they infer from that. That helps keep the move grounded in the fiction, a lot.

(Related: they often get better, more immediately useful answers if they discern realities up close and personal than if they just study a situation from afar.)

Another trick: I try to always answer their last question by either making a GM move and/or by switching focus to another PC. That way, the questions and answers blend nicely back into the normal flow of play.

e.g. "...no one's gonna be coming back here anytime soon. Hey, thief, while the wizard's been waving the torch around, what have you been up to? That chest at the foot of the bed seems to be padlocked shut, though the lock has gotten all rusty. What do you do?" (present a challenge that fits a class's skills).

"Isn't the +1 Forward Hard to Track?"

Yup, sure is.

It's particularly hard to remember because:

1. it doesn't always trigger (someone has to act on the answers)
2. if it does trigger, it might not matter. Any given +1 bonus only matters on 1 in 4 rolls (i.e. results of 6 or 9, after modifiers).

However, the +1 forward does give the GM's answers mechanical weight. If you Discern Realities ask the GM "what here is useful to me?" and get an answer like "um, your sword?" you might have been like "duh."  But you get a +1 to hack and slash (or defend, or whatever) if you can act on that information--and it's a pretty easy thing to act on!

And if you forget about the +1 forward?  The questions from the Discern Realities list will still be propelling the game, so it's no huge loss. That +1 probably (3 in 4 times) wouldn't have mattered anyway.

Editorial note: in my personal games, I've switched over to using Advantage and Disadvantage instead of +/- X modifiers.  'Vantage means roll an extra die and drop the lowest/highest. So for Discern Realities, the rule is "gain advantage on your next move that acts on the answers."  In a face-to-face game, you can represent that by having the player add an extra d6 to their usual "dice pile."  They might not actually get to use it, but they at least have it there as a reminder.  

In Summary

Discern Realities triggers when a PC takes action in order to get more information.

If the player is just asking you questions about what they see/hear/feel/know, and it's stuff that would be obvious, just provide the details. If what they want to know wouldn't be immediately apparent, tell them that and ask them how'd they'd learn it... and that will almost always trigger Discern Realities.

The questions are great because they force the players to ask questions that provide depth, texture, and momentum. They force the player to pick what's actually important to them. The extra questions on a 10+ prompt us (the players and the GM) to think about the situation more deeply than we would have otherwise.

The move can definitely "pull you out of the fiction," but I don't think that's a bad thing. And you can use your answers to put everyone back in the fiction.

Yeah, the +1 forward is easy to lose track of, but think of it as gravy. It's not the main dish, but it adds a little something-something when you put it on top.

Obviously, this is all just my opinions and experiences!  Your experiences might be very different than mine.  But I find Discern Realities to be one of the main drivers of my games.