Thread by @ActionEconomy

I want to talk about a method of PbtA and Blades/FitD GMing that 1) takes a lot less work for you, 2) offers a stronger perspective in your games, 3) gives you a chance to create really interesting social triangles, and 4) Gets me away from the essay I was writing. THREAD:

Players ask questions about the fiction a lot. It's totally normal, and it's often their way of flagging to you what they're thinking about a particular scene. (Throughout this I'm going to include examples from a few different games, stay with the tone jumps).

"Ragtag is back from the Dread Wastes already? Shit, is she looking for a fight?"
"Can I tell if Sister Constance is possessed or not?"
"Are these the kind of Bluecoats I could slide some coin toward?"
"Will the guards mention seeing Lady Blackbird if we leave them alive?"

This is a question being asked of you as GM at a table level. Moving in and out of fiction is really common, and has always been a healthy part of my experience. But I do always want to push it back toward the fiction, so one tool I've always used is to answer through narrative

"Margo's got a mean look in her eye, she isn't here for cake."
"Sister Constance's eyes are blood red and pained."
"They're laughing, maybe even passing whiskey back and forth. They're not professionals."
"They'll have to give up something, they let you get away."

But then I was playing Dogs in the Vineyard, and I got that Sister Constance question. And I didn't want to answer the question because Demons in Dogs are inherently a question of perspective. The Dog may believe people to be possessed, but I don't want to confirm that.

So I asked "What is it about Sister Constance that confirms your suspicions? What is it that tells you she's possessed?" And the played jumped at it. He spoke about how his character had smelt that kind of brimstone-y smell only once before, and that it settled it in her mind.

Now there are five important things to come of this, and each one I'm going to talk about a different one of the games from which I'm taking examples:
1) Perspective - Dogs
2) Complicity - ApocWorld
3) Competence - Blades
4) Triangles - Lady BB
5) FLAGGING - EVERY FUCKING GAME

1) Perspective - Dogs in the Vineyard.
A big part of Dogs in the Vineyard is that we don't want to judge the characters. It's not about whether what they do is objectively right or wrong, it's about what they believe. The same is true of Apocalypse World as well, but not as hard

So if we don't want to make Objective Judgements, when a player asks "was I right?!" How do you answer that? Saying "I don't know" or "I'm not going to tell you" are both drastically unsatisfying. Instead you can offer your players an opportunity to express what their PC believes

It's doubly fun if you give them both in sequence "What tells you she was definitely possessed?" "Okay, now what tells you she was definitely just a woman doing her best by her family?" You're putting the judgement in the Character's mind, not at the omnipotent table-level.

2) Complicity - Apocalypse World
This is what 7-9 choice lists are all about: Hey, player, choose your poison. It's the RPG equivalent of a gangster asking "do you want it in the chest or the head?" It's better to be involved in your own destruction than to have it forced on you.

Choosing to lose something valuable makes it hurt more when you lose that really important clean water that you'd saved, because you know that you could've chosen something else, but you made this call. Well, this kind of question asking does the same thing.

"What tells you Ragtag is looking for a fight?"
"The fuck-off shotgun she's toting!" Okay, great, now when you miss a roll and cop both barrels in the chest, you're going to know that you brought that on yourself. That kind of complicity feels good as a player, it feels earned.

3) Competency - Blades
Blades characters are competent. That's a feeling you want to generate at your table, even (especially) in your first sessions. Offering a character the opportunity to describe reading a situation appropriately is orders of magnitude better for this.

Example "You can tell, these Bluecoats can be bought". Even "You can tell they can be bought because they're drinking." sucks
"Tell me how you tell these Bluecoasts can be bought?" "Oh, I recognise one of them, I know he's in deep with one of my contacts, a local loan shark."

The second one does two cool things: Firstly it demonstrates character (players will have a better understanding of their character's nuance than you do), and secondly it makes the character look MILES more competent. It's the kind of thing a protagonist in this fiction would see

4) Triangles - Lady Blackbird
Firstly, you probs haven't played LBB in a while. Go do that, it fucking rocks. Secondly, this is utilising a thing I mentioned before, asking the reverse question in sequence. The only difference is now you're asking it of another player.

"Naomi, what tells you these guards can't be trusted to keep quiet when you're gone?"
"Snargle, what do you see that guarantees these guards won't snitch when you're gone?"
Bam, social triangle. Naomi and Snargle are at odds, and we get to see some sweet Key action.

"Cyrus, where are you going to tell Snargle to take the Owl?"
"Oh, okay. So Kale, why is diving to the Lower Depths the absolute worst thing to do right now?"

In each case you're trying to generate tension. But you're letting your players flag what they're interested in. So...

5) Flags - Every game you play
Offer your players an opportunity to tell you the kind of story they're interested in. "Kale, why is the Lower Depths a bad idea?" offers Kale's player an opportunity to tell me what kind of play they want to see. This is waving the "flag"

If Kale's player wants:
swashbuckling: "There are sky squids down there!"
Ensemble ship fixin': "The acid will eat through our hull as fast as we patch it!"
Adrenaline ship battles: "Pirates. EVERYWHERE!"
Asking questions lets your players answer with what excites them.

You (GM) flag what you're interested in by framing the question. You're not asking "kale what do you think" "What's Ragtag look like" "Tell me about Sr Constance" You're asking clear, bounded, questions guiding which space to explore. And you trust your players answers(!!!)

And if you're thinking to yourself "Hey this sounds a lot like the Swords without Master thing that you were talking about before" then yes, that's why I said it'll make you a better player and GM, because it's a game of best practices. Go play it.

And if you're thinking "dawg, this is just 'ask questions and use the answers' and 'turn their move back on them'" then yes you're entirely right but I never quite understood it until I had to answer that question in Dogs. Now I've got an essay I should get to <3 I love you.