What do you think about moves that use options or questions about the fiction to determine the modifier for a roll instead of a stat?
Here are two established examples…
One of the barter moves from Apocalypse World:
“When you make known that you want a thing and drop jingle to speed it on its way, roll+barter spent (max roll+3)…”
Recruit(Dungeon World):
“When you put out word that you’re looking to hire help, roll. If you make it known…
• …that your pay is generous, take +1
• …what you’re setting out to do, take +1
• …that they’ll get a share of whatever you find, take +1
If you have a useful reputation around these parts take an additional +1…”
Some pros of stat independent moves:
• They can be useful when differentiation is unnecessary, although it’s relatively easy to differentiate if you want to.
• More predictable and easier to tweak. No wacky +3’s.
• You can get rid of stats that only serve one move by making that move independent.
• Avoid advances that let you roll x move with y stat instead of z. I’m not a fan of those.
• Easier to design the relationship between moves and stats since there are less of them.
…some cons:
• With many independent moves, you can’t bump up one stat to get better across the board in a category. You have to address each move separately if you want to give playbooks an edge.
• If the options are vague it is easy to waste time on definitions and justifications. Look at the recruit move.
• Higher word count and complexity, although not necessarily. Look at the barter move example.
• Potentially lots of +1’s to keep track of.
I sketched out part of a theoretical combat move that makes the combat stat in my non-existent game unnecessary. I can imagine that a move like this would work well in a game where combat is all about using the fiction and your other moves to set up +1’s before the fight move is triggered or skip the fight completely. Keep in mind that it is just an example.
FIGHT!
You’re all here to defeat bad guys with speed, wit or brawn, so your stats don’t matter. When you fight, roll and take +1 if…
• …they are flanked or caught up in something else at the same time.
• …you have a longer sword or something.
• Etc. (Don’t make me come up with something intelligent on the fly)
Then each playbook can have their own little battle move extension.
• When you fight and smash everything around without consideration, take +1.
• When you fight from higher ground, take +1 and deal +1 harm on a hit.
• When you fight, you get to do x on a hit.
• When you fight, take -1 unless you blah, blah…
Is it worth considering moves that don’t use stats when designing a hack? Any thoughts?
I like the way your examples would encourage players to approach things in specific ways.
I am a big fan of the idea. In fact, I made a hack a long the same lines.
Here it is: goo.gl/RX5tfd
I didn’t go down the “each playbook has it’s own modifiers” road, though. That’s a neat idea.
In the limited playtesting I’ve done, it worked exactly like Chris Stone-Bush suggests: players were really cognizant of setting up the fiction to get the bonuses to their rolls. The “tap a relevant stat for a +1” feature then makes stats more like insurance than core to your character’s effectiveness.
Jeremy Strandberg I wouldn’t necessarily give every playbook their own thing, but all the ones that have a particular approach to combat could have one to make them more capable or just to insert flavour.
But I do think it could be cool to have a unique “combat move” along with the sex move, corruption move, death move or whatever your hack has.
I’ll give your hack a closer read later. It looks interesting.
This post has given me some ideas for one of my own hacks that has been languishing on the back burner for a while. Thanks very much Tor Droplets. 😀
It feels like you could just do this with a simple “when you do X, take +1 forward to Y” move on each playbook.
Aaron Griffin Yes, that’s essentially what the unique combat modifiers are and that’s probably a much better way to say it.
“When you fight from higher ground, take +1 forward and deal +1 harm on a hit”
The big question is really about moves being roll+stat or roll+nothing with inbuilt options for more +1’s by spending resources or If certain conditions are met.
Hey, William Nichols, Jeremy Strandberg’s hack here is the one Buddha mentioned earlier tonight!
I am a huge fan of them and incorporate them into my custom moves and my own game.
Actually Tor Droplets if you see my custom move entry for discern realities they read it in the first ep for the contest. I use that to establish some fiction to help an adventure get going. I find them way more help and more interesting than just +1 forward.
The problem is potentially spamming the move to get +1s. When designing moves that give +1s, you should make sure that there can not be more than +4. If you have that sorted, then go ahead.
Wynand Louw Good point. I’m aware of the issue and I’m not a huge fan of high stats and cheap modifiers anyway, but it needs a mention.
You could do that by limiting the number of options each move provides. Or by making the options mutually exclusive so that picking too many of them makes no fictional sense. Or by simply saying there is a hard cap regardless of circumstances.
I think the most salient point about the questionnaire moves is: These things take time. You have to consider and discuss each question. That makes them good for longterm efforts but hardly so for dense action scenes.
The moves that require you to spend resources are about resource management. They ask: How much do you want to invest. That is a very different thing from the questionnaire.
Also roll +damage taken is used by several hacks. Again this is a different thing.
Pompeius Pomponius You are absolutely right. Every additional decision or calculation requires more time and effort, and designers should keep that in mind.
(Jeremy Strandberg Without seeing the game in action, I imagine this could be an issue in your hack unless justifications are a core of the game, like in Fate I guess.)
However some questionnaires are quicker than others. As Chris Stone-Bush suggested, you could have mutually exclusive options. But how specific or black and white the questionnaire is will probably make the biggest difference.
Example:
When you attempt to slay a vampire, roll and take +1 if…
* …your weapon is blessed.
* …the vampire is exposed to sun.
* …you’re carrying a holy symbol.
These are all fairly black and white and even though it might take longer to resolve than a straight roll+stat, it’s a lot faster than the recruit move.
Questionnaires can make things longer if they require a lot of thought. If the moves are going to be triggered fairly often, like Basic Moves everyone has access to or the “main” moves of a character type, the players will eventually internalize the options.
If the moves are for things other than the characters, like monsters, and are open information for the player, they can really drive the story. Tor Droplets’s vampire example is a great one. If players and characters know how to get those bonuses, they are going to make damn sure to attack that vampire in broad daylight, with a blessed weapon, while holding a holy symbol. Making sure those conditions are all true can be a big part of the story.
Fraser Simons Ah, The Starlit Meadow. A neat move at the slow end of the spectrum. People can find it in the comments here:
https://plus.google.com/108530078404383929502/posts/Hm2UzZsbi7V
Who said something about rather having +fiction than a +1?
Thanks, George Austin . This’ll be a good ole read.
Conceptually I like the idea. However, one of the big draws of AW and PbtA games since has always been the moves as self contained things. This feels more like it could drift to a big table of modifiers.
To answer the original question. Stat independent moves, in my opinion, are intended to reflect activities that are not explicitly affected by your character’s stats. Do use them to help shed light on the world around the character. Don’t rely on them to drive the game unless you want players chasing +1’s.
Moves that run on situational modifiers like this can have interesting implications with the fiction. If your move for fighting people is based on this instead of stats, then you’re implying it doesn’t matter how skilled you are, or how good a shot you are. It’s all about the circumstances of the fight. It might push players to think about fights in different ways, maybe spend more time preparing or setting up the situation.
If you make a threaten move that’s based entirely on how big your gun is, then it doesn’t matter how good a character is at threatening people, it’s all about appearances.
There’s potential here. Everyone else has said good things, such as keeping in mind resolution time of the move. But I would say also keep in mind what the move implies about the setting.
Jonathan Semple Amen to everything you said.
Toby Sennett It could absolutely drift to a table of modifiers and players could start chasing +1’s and that would ruin what I like so much about AW. But I still believe that even the core moves that drive a game could theoretically be stat independent to great effect as long as all the problems you and other people mention are dealt with. For example by making sure the questions are black and white and easy to process and maybe doubleedged so chasing bonuses has a cost. Say carrying a holy symbol leads to discrimination or prosecution and blessing your sword is expensive and temporary.
But I do think your general rule about when to use them is sound and the trick is to know how and when to break it. Stat independency seems great for moves like The Starlit Meadow and Recruit, while my example moves and maybe Jeremy Strandberg’s hack require more caution and playtesting.
I like all moves. Diversity in moves I like the best, as it makes the characters and their modvement in the Fiction more fluid (and it lessens the one-(stat)-trick-ponies and I believe fiction should, if not trumhp, so at least compete with character building.
Check out John Harper’s Blades in the Dark game. It does this with its resolution system. Step 1. player declares fictional action and goal. 2. GM and players set fictional position, effect, and consequences before rolling. 3. effect and consequences are delivered/resisted both mechanically and fictionally
Step 2 goes something like this: “Position, effect, and consequences are judged by assessing the fictional details of the situation. Given the maneuvers and vulnerabilities at hand, how effective is this action? When things go badly, what are the consequences? Is there just one consequence, or several? Are they mild or severe?”
There are three positions, each more severe than the last: controlled, risky, desperate. Controlled is for exploiting dominant advantages within the fiction & carries the least severe failures (escalation is an option, for example). Desperate is for when the odds are against you, and carries the most painful outcomes. And Risky is for when its neither of those. The fact that effect is a separate discussion from position (albeit a short one) means that sometimes you can get controlled position with great effect if the fiction is right.
TL, DR: it sort of does what you are wanting, but in a different way.
You could use stats with a limited range of modifiers (-1/0/+1) and for each moves two types of advantages (like “equipment” and “position” for combat), each worth a +1 bonus to the move.
Mark Cleveland Massengale There’s a lot that intrigues me about Blades in the Dark, especially the positions. I don’t own it and I’ve played only one session, but I hope to explore it further soon.
MisterTia86 My initial response is that it’s going too fiddly, but if it’s done right it might not be much more complicated than what I’ve already suggested. Also, unless you’re fine with low modifiers it removes the option of having straight roll+stat moves in addition to the statless ones which I think is a loss. But hey, it’s another option I didn’t think about. I’m all about expanding the toolbox.
Yea it’s changed what I believe can be good about TRPGs a lot. What I love most about the game is resisting things. It always works (or at least reduces the bad nonsense) – but is risky in that it might cause stress. So it’s a cleverly hidden mechanism for players to say “Not failing here is important to me” or else they choose to accept the failure and we move on
It’s such a robust game system, my new fave for sure.