The Dungeon World (DW) character sheet pdf includes a GM sheet that give the priciples of running a DW game. I think it’s a good intro as to why I like Dungeon World (despite not having actually played yet).
Draw maps, leave blanks
I’m not good at maps, I admit this freely, and it’s definitely the sort of thing I think is best left in the hands of players. Unless you’re playing a game where geographical certainty is ascertained by advanced technology it’s one of those things where the players point-of-view is important.
I need to be better about maps, and leaving blanks for gameplay to fill in is a fantastic idea.
Address the characters, not the players
It’s all too easy to get pulled out of game, this is just one of those little details that helps things move along.
I think this will help alot in games beind productive.
Embrace the fantastic
Most of the time, games benefit from not spending a lot of time or effort trying to mimic the real world. If you’re players want a game system that mimics real life they should probably avoid the Fantasy genre entirely. Fantasy is at it’s finest when we have movie moments that defy reality as we know it and the heroes save the day.
I love it when players get caught up in the story and use it to drive the story (usually to places I never expected).
Make a move that follows
(bit of background, actions in DW are called “moves”, e.g. hack-and-slash is a move).
What this principle is saying is that your story should drive the action not the other way around. As an example: In D&D when you get into a fight you might pick an ability, make a roll, then describe what happened. Your character’s abilities drove the characters actions rather than the story elements. In DW if it makes more sense for your character to try to disarm the foe or pull the rug out from under them, or drop a chandaleer on them or etc etc. The fiction of the narrative should drive the action, rather than the other way around whenever possible.
The DW rules are designed around sharing a story and the mechanics really support that.
Never speak the name of your move
Don’t use mechanics to describe the events of the world. Tell it like it is. This is a good idea for any system ever.
Give every monster life
If you’ve ever read OOTS you understand this. “Random encounters” aren’t just critters that poofed out of thin air to challenge the PCs. They are entities from the world who have backstories and families. The PCs interaction with them may be brief, but they had lives before this encounter, it can be very interesting for both the players and the GM if you think about that.
Name every person
As above, its easy to make NPCs one dimentional constructs that appears for a scene and are never seen again. Keeping list of names, and taking notes about when NPCs were used leads to re-occurring NPCs and depth.
Ask questions and use the answers
Don’t steamroll the players in giant block of text. We call this phenomina save vs boxtext. Story happens, but you need to give you players the chance to respond.
A group of players is more creative than most GMs could ever hope to be. Use it.
Be a fan of the characters
This is a very important rule for every game you ever run. You want your characters to do great things and be really intersting. Yes, it’s your job to make their lives difficult, but it’s important to cheer them on while you’re doing it. Reward them for great deeds and daring-do, and don’t punish them for failure. They are the reason you are all sitting at the table, let them know.
I want to feel like my PCs are heroes, and that’s how I want my players to feel too.
Think dangerous
Groups respond best to clear and present danger in my experience. Guard dogs are ok, but attack dogs are better.
Begin and end with the fiction
If you do this the game will be more engrossing and make it more likely that players will stay in-character as they respond an react.
Think offscreen, too
Have you ever read a book where things occur primarily from the point-of-view of a single character or group of characters, and then there is a cutaway to show the evil bad guys doing evil bad guy things that the characters couldn’t possibly know about? That’s pretty much what this is, but with out the exposition.
One of my GMing tricks is to play out the fiction of what will happen in a scenario if the players never interact with it. E.g. bad guy will ride his army over the hill, defeat the town guards and enslave the populace. Then I can adjust the fiction based on what the heroes do. If they run away or something like that then the bad stuff happens, but if they work to prevent it then the story changes.