I just listened to the Walking Eye Podcast of Durance and found the idea of oaths to be really interesting. Does anyone have an idea about how to integrate a move that deals with an Oath you have sworn?
I just listened to the Walking Eye Podcast of Durance and found the idea of oaths to be really interesting.
I just listened to the Walking Eye Podcast of Durance and found the idea of oaths to be really interesting.
Make a custom move about breaking or keeping a sworn oath.
(This is fast and not tested or well-thought out! Be warned!)
On this rock
When you keep to your sworn Oath, roll+Cool. On a 10+, your commitment brings you courage – turn the situation back on the person who tested you.
On a 7-9 you struggle but keep your oath. Take one of these;
-Shaken Faith – take -1 to your cool
-Suspicion of Doubt – you gain a reputation for slipping – take -1 to all weird moves against you
-Chink in the Armor – you are at a -1 to resist Seduce/Manipulate attempts from the same source for the rest of the session
On a miss, take all three
The Initiate in Monster of the Week has a move about oaths:
Sacred Oath: You may bind yourself to a single goal, forsaking something during your quest (e.g. speech, all sustenance but bread and water, alcohol, lying, sex, etc). Get the Keeper’s agreement on this – it should match the goal in importance and difficulty. While you keep your oath and work towards your goal, mark experience at the end of every session and get +1 on any rolls that directly help achieve the goal. If you break the oath, take -1 ongoing until you have atoned.
I kind of dislike the idea of an Oath being a player move. What about it being an MC move? I mean, swearing an oath seems to be a situation where the player is telling the MC, hit me here or I want to be challenged thus. No? But then I don’t have Durance so maybe we’re talking about oaths in a specific context I’m not getting.
I think the MC already has got moves for that (like Announce off-screen badness); furthermore, in AW (and its hacks), very specific moves are usually player moves.
Sure they do, but I guess we’re all looking at an oath slightly differently or we have different ideas as to how it would be most interesting to play.
Meg’s suggestion is really about the interesting situation engendered by taking an oath – do you live up to it or not – but it feels a little weird to me. Something invoked rather than lived with/under/up to. I like that (a) it seems really powerful (you get to turn the situation around entirely) and (b) it’s basically is a way of offering weaknesses to the MC for further exploit (the mechanical penalties come with diegetic tags).
The move you pointed out seems to model more what living with an oath would be like, but it really almost seems like an agreed upon, slightly tweaked read a sitch. Which is totally OK, but it feels like what’s going on with an Oath, capital “O,” something worth modelling with an entirely seperate move, ought to be more dramatic (in terms of mechanical and diegetic affects).
Definitely look to the Fae skin from Monsterhearts for inspirado here, as it is all about the consequences of people not keeping their oaths to you. Shouldn’t be too hard to reverse-engineer something from there.
Holy cats, that Fae bit about making and breaking oaths is hardcore.
AW, YEAH.
I have seen it kick back on the Fae, though leaving poor Ping bound up by so many oaths there was no safe movement left.