Sergeant’s beginning stats
Can a sergeant start with +3 -1 -1 or +1 +1 -1 in her stats?
Doubts about Act Up
Yesterday evening I was running a demo with Mauro Ghibaudo, Luca Ghibaudo and Mattia Grazioli.
Luca was playing sgt. Sveta and she was acting up against some male comrades who, in an act of bullying, stole the bombing levers from the planes of Sveta’s Section.
Well, Luca rolled a 7-9 and choose “add one the the mission pool”. Ok, so Sveta didn’t make the boys do what she wanted. The problem is Luca narrated as part of her initial action that Sveta took away with force the levers from Stepen, an NPC.
Then Luca asked me: “Does the 7-9 mean that I still get the levers or not?” Luca’s request was motivated with the general rule of the moves, which states that with a 7+ you still get a success and not a failure.
I answered him that is the general rule of thumb, but that the outcome depends on the specific move: “The trigger of the move says ‘When you try to get your way…’ and, well, if you don’t choose ‘make someone do what you want’, I don’t think you are getting your way”. But, at last, I only narrated Stepen and his friend taking back only a few of the levers, leaving the most with Sveta.
How would have we managed that situation according to the rules?
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First, the stats question. Yes, based on the rules, you can choose those combinations. The current handouts don’t make that clear but the rules (p76) do.
For Act Up, think about the 7-9 result as the classic Apocalypse World “GM can offer you a hard bargain or worse result” situation. The player succeeds, but with complications that present choices. You can choose to actually fail in getting what you wanted, but succeed by getting Mission Pool instead.
Alternately, you can choose to succeed but only partially, with consequences coming for it later.
Your solution worked fine for that situation. Sveta can walk away pretending it was a complete success, but when her crew’s Mechanic/Armorer finds out they don’t have enough levers to equip all the planes, there are going to be problems…
Thanks for the answers. ;-)
So it’s possible to roll 10+ and actually fail in getting what you want?
Sure, but it’s a failure by choice, right? You’d be trading your success in that moment for clear benefits (multiple Mission Pool points) for your whole squad. Sounds like a win to me, comrade!