OK, after playing Swords for a bit I think I know where the usual sticking points for me are, so I thought I'd ask...

OK, after playing Swords for a bit I think I know where the usual sticking points for me are, so I thought I'd ask for some advice.

-Who talks when: In the Perilous phase, the overplayer stops talking when a rogue player rolls the dice. Maybe we're just focusing too much on this as a rule, but is it fair to say the overplayer really may not narrate until the dice are once again picked up? In practice I have had to say "roll the dice, narrate just one thing(and its consequences), and then pick the dice up". Otherwise I've had players who want to keep control in order to keep me from hurting them. (I like to read "shields, scars, and other glories" out loud to new players but I still end up with an adversarial vibe a lot... players passing the dice and rolling as quickly as possible, for example, rather than ever holding on to them.)

As a side-note here, I like to explicitly encourage characters to narrate the consequences of their actions, rather than turning to me to find out if their swing struck home. Before I started doing that, even people who weren't that used to RPing expected the overplayer to decide.

But anyway, how have others been handling the rhythm of the perilous phase? Does the player who rolls get free reign until they say they're done?

-Discovery Phase: I've had a bit of trouble getting the Discovery Phase to go smoothly. Passing the dice without Storm or Challenge tends to feel very bare, and players don't know where to start. The discovery narration can tend to skip a lot of time. Maybe I need to focus it in more on small facts leading up to the fun part - the loaded question. Well, and maybe I need to get better at framing the discovery phase too. I'd be happy to hear any advice.

-Mysteries: To be honest, both Morals and Mysteries have been a bit awkward for people - it's hard to be abstract and pithy on morals right after making a concrete consequence for your actions. But with mysteries I have a specific question: how do people usually handle answering them? I've never had a mystery reincorporated during the endgame; people usually can't help but answer them a roll or two after they're thought up.

I realize there are two ways of taking mysteries - the rules call for something "unknown or supernatural", and I've always focused on the "unknown" part, having the stymie be literally a mystery rather than mysterious. So, maybe I should focus more on the imagery.