The enlightened GM way to see it is:
They're looking to you for cues as to which NPCs are significant enough to bother learning about, and providing a name upfront is a clear gesture in that direction.
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The enlightened GM way to see it is: They're looking to you for cues as to which NPCs are significant enough to bother learning about, and providing a name upfront is a clear gesture in that direction. 8 comments
Anyway, tonight was my second session running DW. A bit more comfortable with the moves, and I managed to get the campaign headed in a clear direction, which means I can dig into developing some fronts for the rest of this arc. As of now, though, I prefer Ultra-Violet Grasslands, which is the only other ttrpg I've run. DW's rule set is interesting, but I enjoy working in a distinct setting, and the setting here is almost totally tabla rasa. Dungeon World is asking a lot by providing minimal setting and also emphasizing collaborative storytelling. Feels like they should have picked one or the other. There are probably RPG groups in which everyone feels comfortable constructing bits of the world out of whole cloth, but most players are likely more comfortable improvising within a suggestive framework. Third session tonight, and my paladin player has only just figured out what deity his character serves. That there was no starter pantheon really threw him for a loop — and he's probably the most experienced player in the group. DW provides mechanics for really playing characters *as characters*, but I find myself having to prompt players to invent details with very little established world to work from. @lrhodes I loved that about it but also I only made it two sessions before my GM moved away...
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That's something I need to get better about in general. I like to leave things pretty open-ended, even at the level of description, in hopes that my players will poke and prod around until they either give me a good narrative excuse to uncover details I've prepped, or opened up opportunities to improvise new details. But sometimes, they just need a nudge in some direction, ANY DIRECTION, to keep them from bogging down in uncertainty over what's supposed to be significant.