Another question I sometimes come up with: where’re boundaries of MC’s ‘setting injection’? (That is more or less general *W question, but still)
Players playing X are supposed to be the ones with main knowledge about X, but is there any place for MC to inject their ‘theme’ and basis of the game, and if so – to what extent? If you see this as ‘each game group makes their choice’ – please, at least give your personal view.
Examples:
– I want to state a couple of key Fae NPCs into the picture, and one of the players plays Fae – can I use my ideas at all, should I mould them to what player chooses to describe as ‘what your fae court politics are like?’ or can I just inject it as ‘So, John, you want to play Fae. Main setup for the Fae court is like this: … Where you sit in such picture?’
Should I also first hear other PCs about their relationships with the Wyld? I assume when there’re no players for Fae I have somewhat more freedom with this.
– I want, say, have daemons to be somewhat different (for example, inject setting element from nWoD Daemon, where demons and angels are ‘cogs in the machine’). Can I do that only if no player wants to play Tainted, or do I set this as base for Tainted player, or I should never try to do that because players are creating setting, not me?
– I want to introduce new type of creatures into the story, which I view as belonging to a Fraction (let’s say Night). Can I do that? (or it is assumed that only players can do that) If so, does everyone else in the Night faction have to know that those creatures exist and how they operate?
I feel that there is a sliding scale, on which at one end MC gets to be the usual mostly all-knowing GM, and on other end MC has very little chance to actually affect how world works.
I think like any gaming group, it’s all about asking questions. If you have someone playing the Fae, and you have some ideas of your own, ask them about it.
i.e. “You’re the Fae, huh? What’s your Court? Storm Court, you say? Cool. I was thinking about a group of Fae in the city who specialize in magical tattoos, do you think your Court is involved with them somehow? Are they one in the same? Or maybe they’re a rival faction?
This applies to everything you’re asking about. If you have ideas, voice them to the players and see if you can, as a group, make them fit. Everyone’s ideas should be allowed to be voiced and considered, the MC included.
I hope that makes sense?
I suppose as much as I can get in a situation when there’s no clear answer.)
I always mix and match with my players.
Usually i ask a few questions first in order to get a picture of what kind of setting they want. Once during play i introduce elements as usual, but always listening them, and letting them create as much as they want.
Like other AW Hacks, US encourages the GM to play to find out what happens but ultimately it doesn’t codify that strongly into the system. It leaves the extent and method of the player contributions over to each group.
IME, normally, each group will simply go with a balance that has been a success in the past. I suspect that this is fundamental to AW Hacks’ success. Rather than trying to prevent or change what works, it adopts and overlays what is already working instead.