Ask questions and build on the answers.
- Principle
- Ask questions and build on the answers.
- Type
- Core Principle
- Primary Agenda
- Hunt the wild story.
Questions lie at the heart of this game, with several different kinds of questions that engage different mechanics to help pace the answers you can find. Immediate questions cost nothing, though, and every player should look for opportunities to ask them. Ask about the things you see, hear, smell, taste, and touch, about feelings and perspectives, about hopes and fears, about the past, about anything and everything that catches your attention, piques your interest, or makes you wonder. The answers may remain uncertain, but these impressions provide the hints and signs that help us see the Fifth World together and hunt the wild story. When others answer those questions, feel free to build on those answers by telling us what else you can see. If those answers and descriptions prompt even more questions, so much the better. And when this produces larger, looming questions, pursue them in play.
#Examples
- Questions can really help set the scene when you come to a new place. What does it look like? What do you hear? What does it smell like? Do we see any animal tracks or signs here?
- You can also use this principle to ask provocative questions that challenge characters (or players) and shake things up, but remember to use this power in keeping with your agenda and other principles.
- You can use this principle to slow things down when it seems appropriate. If one person says, “I climb the mountain,” and you feel like hen should do more to earn that, you can ask, “Well, won’t you need to find a path up, first?” When hen admits hen will, you might say, “That sounds difficult….” Then you might ask, “Once you figure out a way up, you’ll have to climb that sheer northern face, won’t you?” And when hen admits hen will, you might say, “That sounds dangerous….” Remember, though, that we want to see the Fifth World together, not punish other players, challenge them, or keep them from the things they want. Use this technique as a further way to tell us what you see, things that seem clear and obvious to you, and to make the Fifth World feel real.
- Alternatively, you can use this principle to speed things up, by asking questions the shift our focus to something further ahead in time. If someone skips too far ahead, you can rein hen in with the ritual phrase, “I don’t see it.”
- If the story strays away from any of the places that the players have picked for this tale, you can lean on this principle to fill in what you need and bring the story back to the places where it can develop.