From my Feedback of todays game i understood that my players think of the game as too easy. It seems to me that i have problems making the right hard moves, chaining only soft moves until eventually someone just succeeds with a move and resolves the situation.
From my point of view that would be no problem, but my players think that they get their success too cheaply.
Maybe we can gather a few examples for hard moves that the gm can make as a response to failed moves. I really want to avoid being an arbitrary railroad GM but as it is right now, the players can always escape the situations because i always ask “what do you do?” before i get the chance to pull through with a hard move…
Simply put, with a hard move you tell them what happens to them. Make it something dramatic and bad for them and their goals. Once it’s done. I mean done. “You took 3 harm” or “Your house just blew up” or “Ninjas are attacking your nightclub” kind of done. Then you say, “What do you do?” With a hard move they don’t get to react preventatively, only as a reaction to the terrible thing.
I’ll try to post some specific examples later.
Ok, so here’s some thoughts. I’m sticking to the basic moves. I look at hard moves as my turn to make something happen. I’m not influencing, pushing or introducing; those are what soft moves are for. No, with a hard move, I pretty much get to say what happens.
As far as making the hard moves hard, think of it like a film or novel, where there is inevitable a phase in the story where things seem to go entirely wrong for the protagonists. A setback. So, go for something dramatic.
One of my favorite hard moves is “turn a move back on them.” this is perhaps a good place to start thinking about your hard move. If they tried to stab the villain in the heart and they fail, well her spring loaded dagger pops into her hand and she stabs the PC instead. The PCs get to act after damage is dealt, not before.
Since information can be so essential to the conspiracies in US, a fail for a less combative roll might be giving away info to a foe. If it’s face to face they get to ask you a question or two you have to answer. For faction moves, maybe the wrong person learns you’re looking for X or you attract some other unwanted attention.
General point:
You don’t have to drop your hard move right that second. If you’ve decided the location of the PC base has just fallen into the wrong hands, you might hint at that with a cut scene or you might just spring an attack later by surprise. Take notes. Plot your twists in advance.
I love the groans of dismay when my players roll a fail and I make a note, saying, “Please continue the scene.” smiling.
Finally, a fail shouldn’t mean the PCs look like idiots. Somehow the bad guys just are more awesome in that moment. Fails are big and dramatic, not just whiffs.
Hope that helps some.
Maybe, just maybe, you can try to kill (NPCs), destroy, detonate, instead of inflicting harm/damage step by step.
You don’t roll, so your moves can be very… final, if you respect yur principles.
If you can provide some examples of yours, I’ll tell you what I’d have done instead, if it helps.
At first I had the same problems, mostly playing Monsterhearts. Eventualy you get the hold of it. As people said already a hard move is a moment when you already seted up a situtation, players reacted and they gave you a golden oportunity to act upon them. At this point your word is final, and you can do some pretty harsh things, as long as you respect your own principles. Make they feel it, make them lose things, assets they rely on, reveal something terrible to them that make them feel like they were going in the wrong direction in their assumptions. Put them down against a formidable foe.
I really liked what Bryanna said : this is the moment to show off your NPCs, make your bad guys look awesome, terrible beings
, if not direct against the PCs, at least against their allies, loved ones, etc.
First of all, sorry for the late reply. The last few days were a bit busy at work. I read your replies, but did not get around to write a response.
I really like most of your ideas. Especially the “simple” trick of running a tally. I think I can justify a “harsh” move much more easily, when looking at my note sheet and see a looot of situations were I let them get of “the easy” way. Currently, these moments just occur to me in retrospect, when I have time to think about the game.
Furthermore, I had some bad experiences with “railroad” GMs so I might be a bit burned on this topic. On the other hand I finally see Urban Shadows as the first game to actually play through all those dramatic situations you see constantly in film and literature, but which rarely happen in classic roleplaying games.
I am getting harsher towards NPCs, but i am not sure that really connects to the players, who still mostly think of their own PC as a contribution to the world, despite the fact that THEY made up most of the NPCs inhabiting our world. Maybe this will improve in the future when they attach more to some recurring NPCs.
This is something I will definitely try to remember: Finally, a fail shouldn’t mean the PCs look like idiots. Somehow the bad guys just are more awesome in that moment. Fails are big and dramatic, not just whiffs.
Nobody likes failing, but seeing really awesome characters at work could be rewarding in itself, especially if some of the NPCs were invented by the players.
But now I will present some examples from last game:
* Our vamp wants to interrogate a contact of her, a shop owner in Queens. She rolls a 7-9, and he has his own problems. Shortly after she enters the shop two armed robbers come crashing in. She wants to distract and disarm them but fumbles. I decide that the robbers panic, shoot the shop owner and run away, while the vamp is not harmed, despite the failure.
* Our werewolf is meeting a mortal friend of hers who does not know of her “condition”. While a scientific experiment concerning the calling of ghosts goes awry, the ghost (which hates her for killing him a few years back) tries to “show her real self” to those outside. She fumbles keeping cool to detain her werewolf-self, but instead of pulling through I give her another chance to avoid her friend seeing her, once again missing the punch.
* Lastly, the vamp goes investigating the scene of this experiment the next day because her boss is interested in converting the scientist. She fumbles and is waylayed by another group who capture her in the hope that she might lead them to the target. She wants to distract or mislead them but fumbles greatly. Instead of having her captured i cut to another character. During the course of the action he goes to the vicinity of the university, where the vamp action is going on, and i switch back, giving the vamp another chance to distract, as soon as she sees her friends car. Naturally, two 10+ later she is inside the car and the goons look like idiots because they cant even hold her captive…
From my point of view it was a really awesome session with a large amount of player driven story and drama, but my players complained that it felt “too easy”, and “not challenging enough”.
Next session, I REALLY want to drive the point home that some of their enemies are not to be trifled with. Maybe we can come up with some dramatic turns that their enemies might pull of?