My Oracle, in the last game, realized that they didn’t quite understand the wording of ‘At Any Cost’. Is it basically just an extra bonus on top of Foretellings that applies only to the Oracle?
As well, I’m finding that I’m having some trouble with a few of the Basic Moves. For example, in the last game one of my players, the Fae, used his power that lets him cast an illusion to cause a swat team to appear in the club he was playing at in order to cause a panic and give everyone a chance to Escape the scene (a lot of nasty stuff was about to go down with some vampires, at least that’s what the Oracle believed). I had him roll Distract – taking into account he was using a power so it allowed him to do something that cool – and he rolled a 13.
He had a hard time coming up with 3 things off the list. He wanted an advantage, but really all he wanted to do was give everyone the chance to Escape. I had planned to let everyone bail if they wanted to without even having to roll, since he did something so awesome and rolled so well, but then the other players didn’t play along and stuck around. I think he felt cheated. He was trying to come up with an advantage he could use, but to be fair he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do at that moment other than stay hidden, which was pretty much covered by the Distract roll already. He also thought “You create an opportunity” and “you confuse them for some time” were both too similar.
Finally, the other move I’m not sure how to deal with relates to a mystery that is unfolding in the game. A local medium has gone missing, and one of the players feels like they were framed since they heard they had been seen with the medium when they clearly couldn’t remember it. A few of the players (who are friends with her) are trying to find her – so they hit the streets. The players all assume there’s some sort of doppelganger, or more likely, a Fae involved.
So one of the players says he wants to hit the streets with wild to talk to a Fae, lets call him Fergis, who is an outcast of the Fae, and so often deals with the other factions (They’re pretty sure the vamps are behind the whole thing). He wants to find out if any of the Fae were paid to do this thing.
On one hand I want to let them use their moves – but on the other this doesn’t seem like something someone would talk a lot about (a Fae working for a Vampire), so picking some random NPC out of the air feels like a shortcut to clearing up the mystery a little too quickly (honestly, I’m not sure exactly who did it – I have ideas, and one that could fit the Fae angle).
Anyway, any help you guys can give would be great. The players had a blast, though the Fae really seemed discouraged by the big roll that the other players basically made not so useful.
Foretellings is designed to put control of the future into the hands of the Oracle; At Any Cost encourages them to act on their visions (advancement) and gives them tools to deal with the aftermath (+1 forward).
As for the distract:
I think your player is assuming that each option does too much. If you pick “you confuse them for some time,” people will be convinced that the swat team was real for a long time. If you don’t pick that option, at least a few people will figure out that some magic was happening. If you pick “you create an opportunity” it’s on the other people to act on that opportunity. 😀
As for the hit the streets:
That’s the perfect use of the move! Fergis might know something (if they have a hit), but he’s not going to want to tell them. Or maybe he does want to tell them because it will hurt his enemies. Or maybe they roll a 7-9 and they come upon him making a deal with the vamps on some other issue. We’re playing to find out what happens, so we’ll follow that thread and see where it goes! Trust that things will snowball.
Helpful?
Thanks Mark Diaz Truman – yeah, I think part of the disappointment with the distract was that the other players didn’t take advantage of the awesome situation he created. Not much to do there – I think secondarily he was trying to come up with some sort of way to make the awesome roll awesome in another way without the players, but we just couldn’t come up with anything. I think I’m willing to just say that sometimes, even with great rolls, there’s not going to always be great options for you to fill in with all the choices you get.
As far as the hit the streets – how do you decide how much information you’d give him? Maybe that’s the big thing – I’m worried that a single roll will reveal too much of the mystery at once. Or should I not care, and just have Fergis say “Oh yeah, I heard Summer was working for Paedreus, the Vampire?”
Michael Barrett – I think the Fae should also think about exposing a weakness… that’s there to give you a cookie when the other stuff doesn’t seem particularly useful. And remember that if they don’t pick avoid entanglement… they get entangled.
As for hit the streets, I just measure it by the pace of the game. If they are moving fast, make Fergis difficult; if they are moving slow, have them help them out and claim a Debt. Nothing is free!
First thing, about the distraction. IMO (as it sounds) the real problem Fae player had was that he wanted the game to take particular course of action – everyone escaping under the cover of his distraction. This would look cool and he’ll be in the spotlight, the usual. However other players didn’t really feel like it and he haven’t got his spotlight. Mechanics is incidental to the interpersonal expectations issue.
As for the hitting the streets – it is OK. After all, how the movie heroes do it? They go to the contacts, and they usually find a way to move the story forward. Which doesn’t mean Fergis has to know exactly what they want or tell it to them. He may heard similar stories, he may know a guy, he might sell them out, but just saying ‘he does know shit’ is usually not the best way. You can even throw in something which is different but in fact related to the situation, like Fae’s relative visiting town, so they find out he and his reputation are the real target. When they hit the streets, they say to you “we do not see the way to move the story forward, give us something” . It’s a GM facing move. So find a way to proceed.
Yeah – ok, I guess with the Hit the Streets I’m just worried that players will be disappointed that the character won’t know exactly the answer they want. But honestly, I don’t think the fiction warrants it. Fortunately, we ended the game just as they started talking about Hitting the Streets, so I can work with that – and all your help (thanks).
I’m trying to figure out what Fergis could say that would move the story forward on a hit, but not totally crack it open. Maybe he’s heard that the blood suckers were seen talking to a female Fae, but he’s not sure exactly who? It moves the story in a particular direction, but I’m not totally against that. Still, it might not feel like they got a ton of info.
Thanks again!
I’d say it depends on how long you want it to last. If you want to drag it longer, you need your mystery to be more complex, so they can get info and not finish it outright. Having Sudden Twist might help, too.
You could have the Fae (who may or may not know what happened to the medium) give them misdirection to one of his enemies, and then that enemy, if not taken out, one way or another still gives them a lead, perhaps because of what she/he knows about the first Fae or by intuition or by mistake…
In any case, hitting the streets is designed to give information. “People wouldn’t talk about it” isn’t a thing you need to worry about — the debt economy covers that to the extent the move itself doesn’t. “This particular Fae wouldn’t know” has two possible answers. The first is that this particular Fae knows who might know more. The second — assuming the system allows for this — is to do a montage scene. Sure, the pla..yer might not know the right name so the PC might not have gone to the right Fae at first, but lots of footwork later, which doesn’t need to be played out in exhaustive detail, the PC is now with an NPC who DOES know something useful.
If you’re thinking, “But only one person would know, the one who did the deed, and they’d never tell”, well, find a way someone else would have found out, preferably several someone elses. Or find a mistake that character made, some clue left behind that someone else found and can tell the PC about. Like, if I hit the streets about a crime and go to a mortal cop, maybe the cop knows that there was this weird odor of brimstone, or something. Or find a reason that the character who did the deed might boast.
The moves give the mechanics. What we need to do as gms is to avoid GM Panic, that voice that says, “But, this thing the players are doing can’t possibly work, because that breaks things” whether those things are your plot, your sense of how the world works, your suspension of disbelief, whatever. Often — very very, often — if you think about it, you can find a way for the tactic to work that you CAN believe in, and that will make what’s going on even more awesome.