I got a question considering “Monster Moves”. Can you use Monster Moves to apply penalties to character rolls or require additional rolls before they can perform a specific action.
For instance, I have an antagonist that has a monster move that allows them at will to teleport short distances by stepping through shadows. While there is a way the hunters can nullify this ability (by using a powerful light source to block out any deep shadows in the area), if they don’t use this the monster can teleport around making it difficult to strike in combat and allowing it to strike the Hunters at will.
One option I would consider is requiring an “Act Under Pressure” roll to even attack the monster. On a full success they can use a “Kick some ass” move as normal. On a partial the monster is evasive imposing a -1 penalty on any move used against the monster that phase. On a failure the hunter automatically misses and takes harm from the monster as they miss their mark and then get stabbed from the darkness.
What would be your suggestions for this kind of power?
I would handle this just with the fiction. Unless the characters are somehow preventing the monster from instantly disappearing into a nearby shadow, how do they expect their attack to land? Until they come up with a way to get around that ability, they’re not even able to make the Kick Some Ass move.
With only 2d6, even small modifiers have big effects on the bell curve. I try to avoid them when playing PbtA games. I also try to avoid moves that force the character to make other moves first. Making the player roll twice for only a single positive result feels unfair to me.
My advice is that you should define carefully what the power does – and “move from one shadow to another” is probably plenty for this one.
Don’t worry about planning out too much how it will play. Let that happen, and you can see what the hunters do and how the creature reacts in the moment.
(This is really just another way of saying what Christopher Stone-Bush just said)
Well I did give the PC’s a way around the ability as the Expert was able to identify it with a successful Investigate a Mystery roll. If they fail to take advantage of the weakness I still want to give them a chance to hit the monster but make it more difficult as they have to time their attacks in such a way to hit the monster before it can jump into a shadow and teleport somewhere else.
Well, from my perspective, if you’ve established that the monster has a weakness, and that hitting the monster without taking advantage of its weakness is pretty impossible, then stick to the fiction. If the PCs try to hit this thing without first trapping it in a shadowless space, they simply can’t do it. The move doesn’t trigger and, if you want to be really mean, you’d make a Keeper or a monster move.
Unless they narrate a really good reason for how they can hit this shadow-jumping monster when there are shadows around, they’re not going to be able to do it.
I think the thing we’re both getting at is that you shouldn’t plan in advance to roll this or that, or use this move or that one. Just define how the power works and trust that when you’re playing you can establish what’s happening at each moment and use the appropriate moves then (I find having a list of them in front of me is a key tool for this).
Difficulty in MotW (and other Apocalypse World based games) is defined more by what moves you choose, or call on the hunters to roll, not adding or subtracting points in the heat of the moment.
In your case, calling for act under pressure to hit the monster as it ducks into a shadow is a perfectly acceptable way to resolve the situation, and there’s not really any need to add a new penalty for just this case.