GM help: New to Dungeon World

Hi,

I'm an experienced GM and player (I've run or played in DnD 1E-4E, Savage Worlds, Paranoia, Star Wars d20, Deadlands, etc.)  I found out about Dungeon World from Sly Flourish's DnD blog, got the book, and decided to run it as an alternate campaign when one of the players can't make our regular DnD 4E game.  We've played twice so far.  For the most part, the fast character generation and little prep required have been ideal for the purpose of a fill-in game, but it hasn't been without some bumps.

First of all, some players get a deer-in-the-headlights look when you ask them a question that requires any creativity.  Oddly enough, it's not my tactician/puzzlemaster player who has this problem -- for our group, its the oldest player with the longest and most varied experience with rpg games.  (He's the one who is always going on about retro clones, academic RPG gaming theory [didn't know this existed before meeting him], and all sorts of other esoteric gaming things.)  So far, I've given him a decent pause to see if he thinks of anything, and then if not, I make some suggestions or options.  He is generally ok if you ask him yes/no questions, ask multiple choice questions, or ask a similar very limited question, but otherwise he's just stymied.  Are there any suggestions for helping players out with this?

Even with traditional rpgs, I'm more in the wing it school than the ultra-prepared school.  But, I still have problems with dungeon world.  When a player fails a role and I have to make a move, I sort of go into an internal panic.  The GM moves are so vague, and I’m trying to think fast, so I’m usually just grasping for the first complication I can come up with (to avoid destroying the pace), and sometimes these are not well-thought out.  If there was a list of examples for each of the GM moves, it would be easier and would help me from using the same sorts of complications over and over.  Do you know of any resources like that? 

Another problem I have is with pacing.  The game sessions start out slow, with a lot of pauses where people think of answers to questions and a lot of uncertainty about what to do.  This is both for me and the players.  I don’t know how to get the action going.  By the middle and the end of the session, it is going a lot better – the momentum builds the longer you play, and by the end of the session it seems more or less self-perpetuating without a lot of conscious effort.  But, how do you get over this initial hump?

I also need more help with preparation for subsequent games after the first one.  I used an adventure starter for the first game (I used the Black Oak Ridge one), and this was very helpful.  But, it didn’t help much with the second game.  I made my fronts and everything, but since they are higher level, I still didn’t know how to deal with actual hooks and minutiae to get the game going.  I feel like there needs to be another level to post-first game prep that is at least an outline or list of possible encounters, hazards, and other small events to fill in the gaps between the bigger events that happen with the fronts.  When I play other games, I have sourcebooks with two-room dungeons or example encounters that I know I can pull from on the fly and insert as needed.  I feel like I don’t have some of these lower level tools with Dungeon World, and (for me at least), I feel like they are needed.  Has anyone done anything like this and do you have any suggestions for how to do this?

One last thing -- I made a rules cheat sheet for myself and my players.  Keep in mind that I'm new so it's possible that I got some things wrong.  But it did help the second session go more smoothly than the first. (I found the existing basic moves sheets too wordy and lacking some needed things.)  My cheat sheet is located here is anyone is interested in using it:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B5RWb_pba4YrcFNOSWxmZ0ZDRzQ&usp=sharing

(By the way, the trivia questions at the bottom that you have to answer to post are hard.  Vincent's game company is what games?  Since I'd never heard of a Vincent who had/has a game company, it took a while to figure this out via google..)

Just a few thoughts:
1) Make sure your players read the awesome Beginners Guide pinned on these forums. I have my players read that before reading the core DW book; in fact, two of my better players have never actually opened up Dungeon World!

2) Every player is different in regard to how much creativity they feel comfortable with, or are capable of. This is probably the biggest part of DW that you need to customize for your table. I have two players that love being asked questions and exercising their imaginations and four others that would rather not. So I usually ask "either-or" style questions or, more often than not, I  ask questions requiring a little "less" of the player.
Don't say: "Fighter, tell us about your home village."
Instead say: "Fighter, you grew up in a small trade community on the edge of the Dragon Mountains governed by the Church of Order. When you were a child did you often get in trouble with the monks of the church, or did you conform with their tenants and expectations?"
In the second example you're feeding a lot of creativity to the player, hopefully this inspires his imagination, but ultimately you're just asking for a simple "choose A or B". These kind of front-loaded questions often get a players creative juices flowing more so than asking an open question in a vacuum (the first example).

3)  Making GM Moves may be the most "complex" part of the game for many GM's. You don't want to keep doing the same things over and over. The moves in the rule book are intentionally vague to keep from becoming restraints and hopefully stimulating your own creativity. I don't know how easy to adapt my technique is, but this is how I run things in our game. Basically in my mind's eye I am constantly looking at the scene from a "cinematographer's" view. Where are the characters? What's on the set? Where is the viewer's eye drawn? What's at risk for the heroes? How much "energy" does the scene need? With all these elements swimming around in my head, I perform moves based on "What would look cool and lead to more interesting situations?" Here's a quick example from the other night when the heroes fought a pair of bog trolls (I'll just focus on one of the characters for this example):

GM: "A huge stump hurls toward the group from the far side of the mire, what do you guys do?"
Rogue: "I'm diving for cover!"
GM: "As a reminder you're still in knee-deep water; Defy Danger-Dex."
Rogue: "I leap to the side and move to flank; oh, rolled a 7, what happened?"
GM: "You avoid getting hurt but you're knocked down and the tangled roots of the stump have you pinned. Going to have to roll STR to get free."
Rogue: "That's not good; damn, rolled a 3."
GM: "Ouch. As you struggle you force yourself deeper into the mud. You can't keep your head above the foot-deep water."
Rogue: "I try and take a deep breath before going under. Defy Danger-CON?"
GM: "Sounds good."

In real life if you have ever asked yourself, "How can this getting any worse?", and life showed you how it can get worse; that's a GM move! Think in terms of all the things that can go wrong and that will force a character to deal with something new.
- Its claws slash at your chest as you dodge away, unfortunately the straps to your pack are cut and your equipment tumbles down the ravine
- The barbarian's axe is completely embedded in your wooden shield
- You loose your boot (think Die Hard!)
- The viceroy agrees but the crowd clearly thinks your a whiny d-bag
- You successfully remain hidden, but you're laying next to a nest of angry fire-ants
 
I mainly focus on the environment and the things that make life more "complicated". These things usually inspires fantastic GM moves. I am always picturing in my head elements that would make this scene more "visually" appealing. Watch the final battle scene of The Avengers, it is an exhilarating visual spectacle. The action flows from place to place, character to character, event to event.

4) Pacing can always be a problem. I try and always start things off in the middle of a situation the heroes have to deal with. Sometimes I even start an adventuring "part way in":
GM: "Alright guys, you agreed to rescue the chamberlain's nephew and things went really well tracking the bandits to their fortress and breaking in. As the rogue finishes unlocking the nephew's cell you hear a strange alarm sound and the smell of brimstone in the air!"

These are just a few initial thoughts but I'm sure this community will give you tons of great advice. Welcome to the Dungeon World forums!

Regarding smaller encounters, what kind of sourcebook would help? Couldn't you just grab a monster and run the encounter? Like, "two giant frogs attack you from the reeds, roll Defy Danger as a sticky tongue is launched at you."

Looking over the cheat sheet, it looks like you have deal damage for a miss on H&S and Volley, which is just one of the GM options on a hard move.

First of all, some players get a deer-in-the-headlights look when you ask them a question that requires any creativity.  Oddly enough, it's not my tactician/puzzlemaster player who has this problem -- for our group, its the oldest player with the longest and most varied experience with rpg games.  (He's the one who is always going on about retro clones, academic RPG gaming theory [didn't know this existed before meeting him], and all sorts of other esoteric gaming things.)  So far, I've given him a decent pause to see if he thinks of anything, and then if not, I make some suggestions or options.  He is generally ok if you ask him yes/no questions, ask multiple choice questions, or ask a similar very limited question, but otherwise he's just stymied.  Are there any suggestions for helping players out with this?

Ask limited questions. Or perhaps "loaded" questions. Don't just toss somebody a question like "what are dwarves like?" Ask, like, "what do you eat that everybody gives you weird looks for?", "why don't more dwarves come up to the surface?", "why do you go back to the abandoned places?" Assume half the answer and give your players the other half.

Even with traditional rpgs, I'm more in the wing it school than the ultra-prepared school.  But, I still have problems with dungeon world.  When a player fails a role and I have to make a move, I sort of go into an internal panic.  The GM moves are so vague, and I’m trying to think fast, so I’m usually just grasping for the first complication I can come up with (to avoid destroying the pace), and sometimes these are not well-thought out.  If there was a list of examples for each of the GM moves, it would be easier and would help me from using the same sorts of complications over and over.  Do you know of any resources like that? 

You shouldn't just be thinking what moves to make against your PCs when they fail. You should be thinking what moves to make against your PCs all the time. What are the dungeon threats? Location threats? What lives here? You should basically have two hard moves ready to go on your PCs at all times. And a soft move is pretty much just the threat of a hard move.

I mean, the hard moves are just things you've been doing as a DM anyway. Separate your party, break their stuff, offer a class an opportunity, show a downside to somebody's character choices. None of these should be new to you.

Another thing I tend to do is instead of designing whole adventures and plotlines and such (play to find out what happens) I like to design interesting "sets" for things to occur. Think about a cool location and all of the interesting things that could happen there. For example I just finished adding a location like this to my notebook:

Crumbling Cellar on the Waterfront
The old cellar is falling apart and already filled with ankle-deep water.
- Slip and fall [maybe d4 damage]
- Drop something that disappears in the shallow water
- Step into a hole or opening [may be very deep]
- Stray [shot/spell/attack] hits wall; water begins flowing into cellar
- Stray [shot/spell/attack] strikes a rotten wooden support; debris crashes down
- Foot caught [in a crack/under a tile] pinned in place
- Flooding suddenly gets much worse; and faster!

Keep in mind that I wrote this without any thought of when or where I'm going to use it. Just a tool in the toolbox for the time and place that it feels right.

About GM moves:

It's ben said before, but the list of GM moves is really a formality, it's just a list of stuff that GMs have been doing forever. I only use it as inspiration, when I can't already think of a natural consequence. Don't feel pressured by the list, just think about why your player is rolling dice: it's because something could go wrong, right? So what could go wrong? Sometimes it's obvious, and pretty much whatever you say is going to make sense. You're Putting Them In a Spot, if you're making the situation worse. Sometimes, though, you're like "man, what should I do?" And then you look at the list until something strikes you: Take Away Their Stuff, great: "you drop the hammer, the beast is almost on you, what do you do now?"

Basically, trust your GMing instincts. The moves should logically follow the fiction. So look to the fictional situation first and think of a consequence. I promise, it will almost always be on the list. If it's not, then maybe it's not really a consequence. Make it harder. Make it a Move.