When you claim to know something about the situation at hand, say what you know and roll plus weird. On a 10 plus, you’re exactly right. On a 7-9, you’ve got it mostly right, but your missing a key detail. On a miss, as sure as you are, the maelstrom/world seems to think (and be) otherwise.
When you claim to know something about the situation at hand, say what you know and roll plus weird.
When you claim to know something about the situation at hand, say what you know and roll plus weird.
Is this your way of more narrowly defining the open your brain move?
“I know that if I show all those gangers this yellow flower they’ll all become my loyal followers and give up whatever mayhem they were about to get up to…” says the Brainer…
Is this to be a real, openly used “basic” move addition or is it something more specific? Seems… abusable… but is that bad?
What do you want this move to do in game?
(And “you’re missing” not “your missing” in the 7-9 text… sorry, can’t help myself!)
David Benson, Not really. Rolling plus weird was just a random pick. I’m just thinking about/playing with the nature of “what the GM says is true” and “what the player says is true if the GM says it’s okay” thing.
I like the “the GM creates the world” design of most RPGs – this was more a re-thinking of how Dungeon World’s “spout lore” move could work.
It was also just kind of a fun idea : )
Kevin Petker, oh the potential for abuse is limitless. It’s not really supposed to be a for real move. Just an idea on how player input into the fiction could be made more dynamic.
For example
A player, to another: “Oh don’t worry, those cave spores won’t trigger unless you touch them”
(Rolls a 7)
The MC, smiling: “That’s true, but they’ve got these really thin and hard to see feeler-roots that are all over the cave. Setting those off is like touching the spore directly. Did you still want to go down there?”
The potential for abuse was my first thought too Kevin Petker. The MC is giving up a lot of control to the players and the dice. But if your players abuse the move rather then play along in good faith, are they really the type of people you want to play with?
Mouse Guard 1st Edition had exactly this rule.
When you claim to know something about the situation at hand, say what you know and roll plus weird.
Before you roll, state two simple things you know.
On a 10 plus, you’re exactly right. On a 7-9, you’ve got it mostly right, but your missing a key detail. On a miss, as sure as you are, the maelstrom/world seems to think (and be) otherwise.
Barf forth apocalyptica.
It needs some fine tuning, but I love the idea of a fiction-inserting move!
I have been playing with this move basically as written in Adventure World for years, and boy has it paid dividends. You have to be ready as the GM for things to veer in very surprising directions, of course, but many of my most memorable moments in playtesting are “Make Known a Fact” rolls.
On the subject of abuse: I prefer to design games that trust their players. That way, the people who abuse that trust find that the game stops working as designed and thus isn’t very fun, and the people who honor it have an awesome time
I don’t like this move at all. The abuse potential has been mentioned but it can just wreck the fiction with a simple statement. That might be even worse.
I guess to me the whole concept of “abuse” of a rule like this presupposes two things:
1: That the power over the fiction this move offers is the GM’s only, and that a player having this kind of control is a violation of the GM’s part of the game.
And
2: That a player using this move would do so only to advance the agenda of their character (which is bad?), rather than to contribute to the fiction in an interesting and surprising way.
In some games, the first is totally appropriate, and in others, it’s totally not. It depends on the nature of the game itself and the amount of collaboration the group likes in their game.
On the second point, Vincent talks about how an MC could just say “an earthquake happens, you all take 10 harm AP and die,” and still be playing by the “rules” of an MC, but they don’t, because that wouldn’t be fun. We place this trust in the GM roll to have all of the power but not to abuse it, but we assume that a player will always try to abuse whatever power they’re given to get their way.
It’s funny that I posted this, because when I’m the GM/MC I like to hold onto the fiction with an iron grip. I feel like the world is my character, and I don’t want others to mess with my character ; )
I very much enjoy the traditional “GM and PCs” dynamic, but incidentally, I also enjoy placing a lot of power on the hands of the PCs. (I like games that give players a sense of empowerment, and that also avoid GM fiat, which I loath)
I also just like toying with game theory and the implications of rules : )
Most of the time I play or run games that have this type of rule (also, see Inspectres’ “Confessionals”), it never gets used because it’s hard to create new stuff.