Welcome

Drivethru says BB is only 54 pages. Does it purport to be a complete game of does it expect one to have past experience?
You might benefit from reading Monster of the Week's advice on running mysteries if BB does not give you enough.

It's mostly very clearly written, but it certainly doesn't explain itself from first principles as thoroughly and cleanly as DW. But then it's also not trying to do as much - having only one playbook, and also therefore so many fewer moves to explain, saves a lot of pages.

I think the mystery system is elegant and probably works fine, I'm just conscious that I have a lot of other things to learn first.. :)

But will check out the MotW advice as well, thanks for the tip!

Hey have been meaning to report that I had my first go of GMing a PBTA game on Friday, which was also my first go of GMing anything. I have an old friend who's played trad games and boardgames since the '80s, and who is up for anything, so I asked if he could be a guinea pig. We did it over Discord.

I ran The Warren, set in Australia, in the north of the state where I live. He played a fast-talking runt with a high Shrewd (which turned out to be a shrewd thing to do), and ended up talking a fox out of eating him and instead leading it to a rival warren. This was a very high-risk strategy, and I was constantly prepared for him to be eaten, but he had an amazing run of rolls, and it came off.

What went well
- I'd deliberately chosen a game with a single playbook, so there was less to remember
- I'm glad I chose a tolerant friend who's up for anything, so I wasn't anxious about him having a good time
- I did fine at knowing when moves were being triggered
- I got by with the prep I'd done
- I'm fairly good at thinking on my feet, because I have a fair bit of training and facilitation experience
- I did reasonably well at narrating using multiple senses
- once when I was stuck I asked my friend what he thought should happen. That was a good move, and I'm glad I remembered to do it
- I chose a good spot to wrap the story for the night
- the story was fun and memorable - one his character could recount again and again to other rabbits in the warren
- at the end my friend said, "Hey we should play this again with more people!" So I take that as a success for my first go

What I could have done better or just differently
- even with just one player I found it hard keeping track of everything! I had notes on index cards all over the place
- in tension with that, because it was just me and him it was a lot of work and I was constantly 'on' - there were no other players for him to bounce off. Next time I'll try with more players, but will need a better system for keeping track of things
- I need to work on evoking place and embodying NPCs more vividly. I reckon that's where I'll focus future prep - making sure I can really get a felt sense of the world. I know that what players do will veer away from anything I prep, but if I have a strong sense of atmosphere and presence, I reckon it'll be easier for me to evoke new places and NPCs on the fly
- so to follow on from the above - spend more prep time daydreaming and visioning, until I have a good feel for the place / characters I want to evoke
- I didn't really act too contrary to this, but I did forget to be a fan of the characters - I wish I'd had that on a sticky note somewhere as a guiding principle

We're planning another session with at least one other friend, in a week or so - after that he is out of town for a few months and we are going to try a PBP. And it looks like I will be running a game via Discord for a couple of other friends this Saturday. I will likely do The Warren or Escape From Dino Island.

Oh one other thing - because his rolls were so consistently good, I had few natural opportunities to do GM moves as a result of rolls. I ended up doing a couple anyway, to move the story along, but I'd expected to get more practice doing this.

And I did miss an opportunity to end on a cliffhanger, which I will try to be more alert to next time. But overall I am happy with it as a first go and keen to get better :)

Yes, that can help a lot. There can be so much pressure to get it 'perfect' the first time that people don't even try.
Taking the pressure off allows us to get the practice we need to get good, and even the early attempts are usually not that bad anyway.
We are our own worst critics.
It is mostly pretty obvious. And if we miss a few it does not really matter.
The trick is to not overthink it, and to not kick ourself later when we have time to review and notice all the potential Moves we missed.

The only time you need to make a GM move is when they roll a 6- or when they look to you to see what happens. And those are hard to miss.
There is nothing wrong with taking a moment when that happens to look down at the GM Moves cheat-sheet and think about which to use in the situation. Don't worry that there might be a 'better Move', go with your gut and take the first one you think of.
Possibly easier with rabbits. Which is good since it is probably more important with rabbits.
Good game to learn those skills on.
Good skill to have, but don't overdo it.
YES! This! All the time this!
A good ending is more important than a cliffhanger. Cliffhangers can be hard, and can often be missed by a sentence or two. You realise that if you had just stopped talking 28 seconds ago it would have been perfect, but now you have to finish the thought and it just slips further and further away.

Anyway, cliffhangers are seldom a thing in PbP.
That is a skill that comes with practice.
Keeping the story simpler helps.
Relying on the other players to keep track of some of this stuff can help too. (But not always, players can be stoopid.)
One player is a lot of work for everyone. It can make for very rewarding games but is as much work for a GM as many multiplayer games, and require a lot from the single player.
As you say, they are also 'always on', they don't get to rest and take a breath either, they don't get to see what someone else does, or ask for another opinion.

This is a good way to test out a game system or GMing skills, but a hard way to play games.
Try not to stress about NPCs. Keep them simple. You can always build up the ones they players latch onto. Don't try to predict which NPCs your players will gravitate to, they tend to pick the ones you did not focus prep on. (as below:)
True. The more you prep the more you can improvise. But the more specifically you prep the harder improv becomes.
If you understand what sorts of things there are in the world in general, you can easily improv what is reasonably in a place you did not plan for them to go to.
If you understand what sort of things people in the world want, or what this particular NPC wants or does not like, you can more easily improv their reactions when the players make outrageous and unexpected demands.

This is the best sort of prep. You can do this in the bath, or in the car, or while standing in a queue.
You sure? Check again.
Anyway, sticky notes are a thing you can do.
Yep. That is the best outcome. A 'perfect game' where players don't feel that way is pointless, but a struggling game where they enjoyed themselves is all that counts.
Everything you do is a GM Move. Every time the player looked to you so see what happened next, or did something risky, you made a Move. Sometimes that Move is calling for a roll to let the dice decide.

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Congratulations. I would love to say it gets easier, but I am not sure it does. It is still worth it.

Thanks vagueGM! This forum has been invaluable, even though I haven't run anything myself here yet. I've learned a lot by being here and really appreciate your generosity in mentoring us!

Can report back that I've now GMed for my first group, the friends I've been hoping to get into ttrpgs. It went well, they had fun, and they've asked to do it again this Saturday! So I am very pleased - it's the main outcome I was hoping for.

I ran The Warren again, with a more layered scenario than when I ran it for a single friend. It's 1859 and they're from one of several warrens in a walled estate owned by a wealthy businessman. No rabbit they know has ever been over the wall, but their parents have told them stories of the monsters who live over there - giant rabbits, and the Thorn Rabbit, who'll catch them if they go over there. I started them off facing a predator and a rival warren whose rabbits want what the characters currently have; there's an impending hunt too though, and the creatures who live over the wall have things they want too.

Things I was happy with
- I think I did the worldbuilding/establishing questions fairly well; well enough for a first session anyway, and there's plenty of threads to draw on next time. At the end several of them said how much they enjoyed the process of establishing the setting and situation together, and how real they'd found it by the end of the game
- For a few days I stopped listening to podcasts when riding my bike, and instead either payed attention to the sensory world or daydreamed about the setting. Establishing a sense of place isn't my strong suit, and those two things helped me do it better
- at the start, when they were confused about how they should assign stats, I said, "Well, there's four stats and four of you - how about you treat it like putting together a boy band, and have The Strong One, The Shrewd One, The Swift One, etc? They liked that and it made sense to them, and helped them pick character moves. It also meant there was always someone with a chance to shine.
- foreshadowed one of the threats which will confront them later

Things I could have done better
- keeping track of where things were in space - again, it's not a strong suit of mine. I'd set up a tablet for one of the players (my partner) to sketch a rough map on as we went, but then forgot to use it in play
- one of the characters (The Steady One) ended up with a too weak sense of his connection to the others, I think. Both times I've played with him he's played very difficult characters to interact with, who don't seem to want or need anything, which is surprising because in real life he's very collaborative. I have ideas for how to connect him in better next time though, with establishing questions, and I'm also going to suggest he change his character move to The Worrier, which will give him an easier way to use his Steady to help others

In all though, I was very happy with it and it was really fun.

One thing I'd love to do in this forum, if there's interest, is learn to run Dungeon World in a way that derives plot and setting from questions asked to the different classes (like e.g. here or here). That's how The Warren works, so I have some experience, but DW has a lot more moving parts.

We've already got one DW game going though - would anyone be interested in another, to help me learn this? We could potentially use the characters we've already got in OkumHart's game. No worries if that's one game too many though!

This can be harder to do in PbP, or at least it can take a long time. It is an important part of PbtA (all fiction first games, really) and I miss it a bit from live play.
I often spread some of this out to happen after the 'start of the game', once the action is going. It is less impactful in terms of world generation, but can get things moving before players get bored.
This is good advice, but difficult advice to take. In this hectic world we are not good at just being in the world.
Practicing this really does improve our ability to describe things.
Was that a problem, though? Often we will find that this matter much less than we think it should.
Even in live play at the table, I often don't bother with maps and exact positioning.
I highly recommend you also talk to him outside the game. It is possible he is wanting to play with the outsider type archetype because it is different to his usual collaborative self.
Unless it is actually causing problems in game (and if others are feeling uncomfortable, addressing it out loud (as you, yourself, did in our WoDu game '...kept deliberately behind his companions and waits uncomfortably, hoping one of the others will speak...') can put their minds at ease) you might not want to 'force' them to stop if they are enjoying it..

If they don't have much experience with RPGs they may not know about all the problems that come with 'lone wolf characters', it is such a common archetype in other types of stories and especially in computer 'roleplaying games' that many go for that with their first few characters.

I have not read those references, but what you describe is how I always run DW (and more games).

It can be tricky in PbP since it can take a long time before things get going, but if the players have signed on for that then it boosts engagement once they go get moving.

It can make for a lot of details for the GM to track, and they can feel, unnecessary, pressure to try to touch on all the backstories equally, but is generally worth it.
Starting another DW game is no problem, I can be a player. I would not suggest trying to keep characters from another game. It can get complicated (and not just if they die:).
If you are wanting to practice a particular skill then label the game as such, and also let us know what is expected. If you are not planning on playing too much past the world generation part then players should know.

If you are wanting to play this longterm you also move it to a game of your own later. You can also start a game of your own now, and recruit from the larger pool of players than we have here.
If you do that, go ahead and add me. You can still ask questions here if you don't want to do that in your game.

theatreofcomets: If you want help setting up a game here on GP, just ask. There are others here more qualified to help, but I will do what I can as well.

If you are enjoying the anthropomorphised animals, and want something even more 'pastoral', with a different take on PbtA (no dice, no masters) maybe take a look at Wanderhome.

Thanks!

Yes, I have Wanderhome but haven't played it yet. After Fiasco didn't go so well with my friends I decided we should focus on GMed games first, until everyone is a little more experienced, which is why I've been learning to GM.

Wanderhome looks really good. I'm also interested in Briar and Bramble.

I have not yet read Wanderhome (I am less enthused by anthropomorphised animals) but I believe it has provisions for using a GM.
The original Dream Askew game did not, but I found it tended to struggle with lack of direction (especially in PbP) and taking on a GM-type facilitator role helped it a lot. Apparently others felt the same and many of the newer Belonging Outside Belonging games have included a GM option.

Good advice! What would be a good label? What's that style of play called?

No idea. I call it 'world creation'.
I suppose the distinction is that this is Player Lead World/Setting Creation? Even though the GM is leading things by asking questions.

You don't have to ask questions, though. Unless there is severe time pressure I have my players do character creation collaboratively, together at the table (yes, even with DnD), and I listen to everything they say (and take notes) then I use what they said to set the first scene as we start playing.

I will ask questions if anything comes up or needs clarification, but I don't use set lists of questions.
I recall there was such a list in Truncheon World (Dungeon World Truncated) and meant to try using it, but never got round to it.

So, in summary: IDK. 'Player Lead'-, or 'Collaborative' World Creation? Socratic World?

Oh two other things I did better a a GM this time:
- I'd invited a more experienced role player, who two of us knew from my daughter's school. She really helped the others grasp how to play, just by seeing what she did. (She also said I was 'a natural GM', which I was pretty chuffed by and graciously accepted rather than telling her how hard I'd worked at it.)
- I built a character keeper in google sheets so I could keep everything organised - it worked way better for the online context than having index cards everywhere.

Cool, thanks :)

Though, Socratic World might actually be Pigsmoke. :)