So I had a kerfuffle with my players over the Angels Wings power out of The Divine. The players are of the opinion that RAW you can teleport anywhere on the planet with that power provided you have been to that location and/or know the target very well.
I am of the opinion that’s OP as all heck and on top of that complicates/has game breaking ramifications (at least in terms of my story).
Is there a recommended distance limiter? A continent, verse a country or state?
Players tend to win in agency disputes for PbtA games.
I’ve struggled with this one a little, too. It comes down to: does it make sense that the PC has been there before? Does what they want to do make sense in the fiction?
If so, the dice will determine the outcome. If something goes wrong… now’s your chance to show them the perils of long distance teleportation. Even a 7-9 is pretty juicy for the MC.
Protecting our “plot” is not on the Keeper’s agenda. If your story is preset, you are not “playing to find out.” I know it can really suck and is a very different aesthetic than traditional games, but that’s what PbtA games are all about. Be fan of the heroes (as much as you can).
The move I really dislike is the Divine’s (I think) power that makes their weapon always count as a monster’s weakness. Bleh. Usually half the story is figuring out how to kill the damn thing. That move just says “Nope, you already have the weapon you need.”
The trick/fun then becomes How do you keep things complex and interesting? The divine can only do so much damage. Use the limitations to your benefit.
Bryanna Hitchcock has it covered pretty well. The only thing i’d add:
in PbtA games, the MCs aren’t simply neutered – rather, the PCs share some of the responsibility for the story. If a PC is doing things that don’t make sense or consistently steal the thunder from other players, that is the problem, not whatever move they are “exploiting.”.
If The Angel wants to fly somewhere that we haven’t seen them in-game yet, i’d ask for information about when and why they were there before, and i’d use that information. Whatever their explanation, i’d use it within the rules of the game, according to the MC agenda and principles.
if The Angel is using this in some way that cheapens the play experience for other players (including the MC), i would have a conversation with the player about it, either privately, or as a tactful group discussion, depending on who is being affected.
Yeah, I’ll second Andrew’s response here. If the player says “I’ve been there before”, ask questions and build on the answers. 🙂
I guess my biggest concern is that I built the game to be focused on a specific group of people in a specific location and if the player can teleport globally (they’re from another country and allied NPCs travel quite a bit) that shifts the focus to a global scale. If their popping over to 1901 London, Istambul and New York and rolling persuasion to make up for a failed haven roll, I have to come up with favors for them to pay that would likely entail jobs thousands of miles way from where the game is based out of. And since a steamer is the fastest means of travel, the rest of the team can’t really get around quickly without risking botched teleports.
That definitely sounds like a discussion you need to have with the players, if it’s taking the game outside of the scope you’re intending.
It also sounds like the Angel Wings power is causing trouble for the players because of the favors that the Angel is potentially incurring afar.
Don’t “build the game” on unilateral decisions. If you limited the scope to a specific cast/location without the players’ buy-in, you’re not “playing to find out what happens.”
If you have the players’ buy-in to the decision to limit the scope of the story, then they shouldn’t be flying all over the world anyway.
I strongly suspect you could resolve these questions if you (and maybe the players) re-assess the roles of players in this game.
from your initial post, it sounds like you’re in an oppositional role against the players, who you present as being of a singular position in direct opposition to your efforts to “protect” the game/your story.
In PbtA, the MC is supposed to be watching the story of the characters unfold just as much as the PC players are.
If you haven’t read Apocalypse World yet, i’d recommend reading the MC section of that book. It really helped me understand the beauty of MCing games in this philosophy, even though i’ve never MC’d AW, and primarily run/play Dungeon World.
Good advice there already.
I’ll just add that when writing the move, I imagined the scope to be “Anywhere in the universe”.
Also William Carson, your concerns about the divine jumping to other places look filled with potential coolness to me.
Don’t think “oh no, when the hunter does X it messes up my plan”, think “awesome, what complications and consequences happen because of X?”
There is potential I’ll agree I don’t want that power to become “Oh we flubbed a roll? I’ll just price check with npcs till I roll a 10+.”
William Carson I don’t understand your post with the “price check” thing. This doesn’t sound like the same game. Would you be willing to elaborate?
No roll is “flubbed” – every roll has plot-changing consequences. On a 10+, they get what they want. On a 7-9, there is a complication; on a 6-, it goes badly.
But PCs should never get to roll and re-roll until they get a favorable result.
In PbtA, when dice hit the table, something big happens.
Michael Sands I strongly agree. Remember all those old Star Trek episodes where the “Transporter” would stop working if the plot needed it?
I would just use that as necessary. Our “divine jumping” isn’t working? The bad guys must have inscribed a demoniac pentagram nearby! Or maybe a piece of “pure evil” is hidden locally? Adventure opportunity!
And the failures can be even more fun…Our Divine is trapped in the “Well of Loss”? What the heck and where is that? Or maybe…
“You mean now we a trapped in the Man in the High Castle “Nazis Win” alternate timeline and can’t escape till we find this universe’s version of Philip k. Dick! “
Maybe just send them to fight Morlocks…
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7cav44145d9Vm9wN2p4M3VYZUU/view?usp=sharing
Of course, an operating Morlock “Red Matter” reactor blocks any form of “Angels Wing” power. So Sorry.
Mark Tygart those are some interesting suggestions, and could work out well.
My concern would be that a player chooses moves for their character,and arbitrarily negating those moves could easily wander outside of our proscription to “be a fan of the character.”
I’d avoid springing it on them when they announce they’re using Divine Wings to go somewhere, with a “gotcha” announcement that they can no longer trigger the move.
Instead, i’d foreshadow some interference with the power before they even try to use it, making soft moves as necessary, and possibly have a custom-written alternate move in place, until they resolve the issue. Heck, i’d probably describe the gist of the idea to the player, and ask how THEY think it manifests, to get them to write the custom (temporary) alternate move.
I think I’ve posted a problem similar to this only coming at it from the other side. Player does some totally out there left field class A shenanigans and I just have to see where it goes which then sidelines my conventional mystery solving. The advice I got there applies here I think.
If it’s in a limited time situation (like a con) or it threatens to take the spotlight away from the rest of the team for a good period of time then narrate a brief overview of the consequences without rolls or conflicts and then get back to the grist of the story.
If it takes the whole team away from the mystery at hand just roll with it. Remember here that the countdown clock is your friend, and while your angel is attempting to communicate with people on the other side of the planet Pough Keepsie is suffering it’s own little Godzilla swarm. Announce future badness with breaking news/ news paper headlines or a message from the divine source to remind the players what they might want to be doing instead.
As an aside, touching on the previously mentioned thing of avoiding an adversarial role where the MC wants to control the story and limit the scope of the players.
The key I’ve found for running PbtA games is that the most satisfying thing you can do as MC is to give players what they asked for and then watch them deal with the consequences. The game is far more fun when they are playing super powerful bad arses than when you place limiters on their abilities outside of the text. Hell when people fail their rolls I often give them what they asked for anyway I just let their actions come to the attention of parties they definitely didn’t want involved.
Daniel Steadman your last graph there is made of win. It’s all good, but you really nail it there. 🙂
Daniel Steadman I think you just bottled and labelled the essence of what makes PbtA games great.
Andrew Fish Your points are well taken. Its just that a failure shouldn’t be “that didn’t work.” It should be an excuse for an awesome new adventure. And marking XP.
Daniel Steadman I also agree with everyone else. You nailed it, sir! Great post! 🙂
The problem (not really one) that I see is that it is the perfect get out of jail free card. You can never be put into any danger alone. You don’t even need to roll when you go alone and you go instantly. That is mighty powerful and makes it really hard to threaten the divine personally. Now it is also perfect for threatening people close to the divine as they can get there easily and deal with the problem. But maybe that is what the monster wanted…
When talking about problems, I still need someone to explain to me why Hunches isn’t constantly triggering all the time in play. There is always something bad happening where you aren’t. Always.
So what are the consequences for skipping out on everyone else? I imagine the big bad gets to act unimpeded. Your fellow monster hunters are unimpressed etc etc. I can see why you might think that it’s a frustrating move but again I think you should be trying to come at it from the opposite direction. Make a soft move that telegraphs oncoming harm….If they teleport out apply a hard move to someone else. Make a soft move that misdirects the second time around and then do what the big bads nature suggests. If they skip out on a threat you have announced you get to use the hard move freely because that’s what the player chose. Don’t look at the teleport as ‘it makes the divine invulnerable’ instead look at it as ‘the divine has just exposed their soft underbelly’. Also, as Michael Sands said earlier, nothing to stop you making a soft or hard move to bring em right back or stop them leaving in the first place.
Hunches, as I read it only applies to you and your sphere of influence. Friends, family, and your current mystery. It’s an open invitation for the MC to announce future badness when they want to make a soft move to get the ball rolling or to invite a hard move if it is incautiously investigated or ignored. Hunches is the players gift to you.
That is clearly the intention but that is not how the trigger works. It’s an easy fix but completely not-working RAW.
Okay…try it out, anytime you really want to make the spookys life difficult amp up hunches to cover everything. I would consider this a really vicious hard move on the spooky and probably worth it’s own story ark. As I said, hunches is the players gift to you. Like all the moves it is normally an opportunity to show how awesome the characters are. Your job is to stand on the sidelines clapping and cheering but then you double down and make them need to be awesome just to get though the mess that follows.
There are several ‘universal’ moves in the playbooks that make a similar blanket statement such as the Monstrous ‘Feed’ or the Professionals ‘Battlefield Awareness’. They are only universal within the scope of the game or the story. If the monstrous needs to eat the brains of his teammates everytime they are in his vicinity I would suggest you are either playing a super awesome twisted game or something is going terribly wrong. Likewise, if you started reading the phonebook to the professional because he is fighting near a phonebooth I would accuse you of breaking your own principles and agenda to make the characters lives interesting.
My advice would be to follow the advice on page 199 of the new book: “I’ve gone into detail about how to handle the basic moves, but there isn’t room to cover all the playbook moves in the same depth. The overarching rule is to interpret results using the Keeper’s agenda, principles, things to always say, and all your moves. If you stick to those, you won’t go wrong.” One of the Keepers principals also seems particularly relevant “You don’t always have to decide what happens.”
I’m seeing a few comments here regarding frustration with ‘overpowered’ moves on the players part. I want to argue that there is no such thing. Watch Supernatural and you will see what I mean…Angelic genocide, gods dying left and right, it’s all good, it’s all frantic, it’s all scary. I would contend that much of this frustration stems from an older style of play where the GM attempts to win. When you start thinking “What could I do that would stop this player from doing ‘x’ ” you have a fundamental problem. That game might still be enjoyable but you have imposed an unnatural and unfun limiter on it’s potential.
Some fairly random thoughts on the subject follow.
I think MC’s need to have a conversation regarding the limits of your mythology so everyone is on the same page regarding the scope of a characters abilities but once you are agreed then let them do it. If someone wants to play an angel that regularly pops back to cloud base 9 for tea and crumpets why should that matter? Would it be better if they were only teleporting a few blocks away? They are still out of the action right? They have passed up their agency in return for their safety either way. As a story teller I think that is always a fair trade.
Threats have their own agenda in the meantime, they want to do things and a player with no agency cannot stop them. This is awesome, you get to destroy the town, dopplegang Hillary Clinton or whatever. That drives your story forward.
At the same time don’t let the players bully you, let them use their moves but get back to them in your own time. Someone who has left the scene doesn’t get to tell you when they come back. That happens when you want to know what happens next. If someone wants to use magic to solve an unusual problem…they want to shrink a monster so it’s more moth than Mothra. Let them try, they have just kickstarted a quest to steal the last moon-moth from the Emperor God Shangmei. Sounds like fun. Just don’t let the players tell you that it’s not big magic and shouldn’t require a big ritual with rare ingredients.
If your worry is that the players are able to attack the mystery monster easily, again, so what? If their ability to hurt big bads without prep (like the Divine can) means they can rush in on their own juice, teleport past the enemy hoards and take it to the mummy king that’s awesome. They have chosen to jump into the middle of it all and use an ‘intimate’ attack all on their lonesome. I would thank them for making the story exciting and watch with anticipation to see if they can survive such a full on tactic. Who knows? It might even work.
Whatever happens you should be cheering the PC’s efforts and making precisely zero effort to save or protect your NPC’s and threats. If you treat them like stolen cars your game will become much more epic. Just stay true to your agenda and principles
Daniel Steadman I agree and add much of this is in the rule book.