New draft of Rogue, Warrior, Sage:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1IHa8A33hy7VGExbk85cE05YUE
This one hacks a bit deeper into the structure of pbta, messes with the die roll, reframes how some of the concepts and rules are presented.
Would love thoughts and feedback, esp. relating to those structural changes.Tagging people who’ve influenced the development or I thought might be interested.
Scott M, David Morris, Kristopher Miller, Jason Cordova, Paul Taliesin, Jason Lutes, Jeremy Strandberg
I love the new dice mechanic. It’s novel and fun. I really like the “Peoples” sheet. I’m not super sure I’m a fan of the trifold + cut up sheets, but I’d probably have to fiddle with it in practice.
Basically, I want to play it
This is really neat. Lots of cool ideas here.
First glance, this is really neat. I’ll try to give it a deeper read the next few days.
Colour me interested, I might try it someday – time, give me time!
Very interesting. Unfortunately, I have no experience with earlier versions so I can’t really help out there.
One small bit of input that you might find useful: the ability checkboxes in the playbooks are easily confused with the ability options boxes. On my first read through I thought that when instructed to check off a box when taking action I could check off an ability options box. It was only on a second pass that I understood that those boxes were there to indicate a thing that could be purchased.
I would recommend simply changing the boxes into bubbles to fill in. This would also make them visually similar to the bullet points that you use in the playbooks to call out the other ability options, thus creating a deeper visual language, wherein you could indicate throughout that boxes are to be checked off while circles are for purchasing.
Otherwise, I see a lot here that I find very cool. I especially like the systems in place to construct the Peoples. Very intriguing and evocative.
Aaron Griffin haha, I’ve definitely been irrationally fetishizing the trifold layout. I love it, but would be curious how it feels to others in play.
M. P. O’Sullivan re:checkboxes–yep, you’re right! I should change those to round bubbles!
Dirk Detweiler Leichty I think the trifold is fine. It’s the following pages that appear as if they’re intended to be cut into bookmark like strips and perhaps placed inside each playbook? Seems a little bit easier to manage two trifold pages than a trifold and 3-4 bookmark things (moves, people, and the initial start one? Plus followers at some point)
Really, really nice!
I’m not so sure about the MAKE WAR move of the Warrior. It seems like a checklist of things to do or sacrifice in order to win a war – that would be really cool in a game about, for example, politics, where you don’t actively partecipate to the war, but it seems out of place for a sword&sorcery (if i understand correctly your intentions.)
Maybe you may add a couple things to do in the middle of the war:
– during the battle, you have to conquer, destroy or kill _________
– you have to protect _______ until___________
On the People sheet i would say to choose 2 for the “What we care”.
It helps to make them more nuanced.
Andrea Serafini Good thoughts on Make War. The “You’ll have to take care of ___ yourself” demand is there to that end, but I’m interested in the idea of breaking that out into more specifics like you suggest.
I especially like “you’ll have to protect _____ until___________”
The overall idea with Make war is to give the Warrior player a tool to find the path forward to victory, make the planning of tactics feel grounded.
On the peoples sheet, “What we hold dear” is definitely supposed to be choose TWO, the choose one is a mistake.
Neat! Will take a closer look this weekend.
I agree with Andrea Serafini. Having a couple more immersive, concrete actions would be awesome. Like, “gain a condition” is less interesting to me. Mostly because it seems reactive instead of proactive. But, maybe that’s because I haven’t seen the Conditions? Not sure they are in this draft or maybe I’m overlooking them?
Michael Pfaff conditions are purely invented, fictional descriptions, a la Monsterhearts. “broken leg,” “pneumonia,” “beguiled,” etc. they come into play via the “act at a disadvantage” rule.
Some more thoughts:
1)You may decide to better incorporate the setups in the character sheets. I would add:
– the equipment.
– the fact you may add 5 more boxes.
– the fact that X marked boxes are more difficult to recover (and that, in particular, you should just mark )
(How do you recover them? I did not read it.)
2) You may decide to play a little with the henchmen and people sheets.
No one said you have to have all the sheets equal. (For example, you may mix up the options from column to column)
3) Do you think places (for locales) or legends (for epic things to do or find) sheets (maybe varied from booklet to booklet) may be useful?
4) I’m not sure about disadvantage. The disadvantage mechanic of roll one more dice and keeps the lesser results feels a little bit clumsy – it is useful if is a “roll and keep the highest” or “roll and sum” system, with a “check the threshold and count successes” it does not work well.
You may have advantage and disadvantage change the threshold (3+/5+), give special effects (reroll 1/ reroll 6), or just have disadvantage take away a dice.
5) In sword and sorcery, magic is never safe – or better, it is most often used by enemies.
I do not think the (You risk danger from…) to be appropriate in order to reflect that.
Maybe you can ask for a roll in order to finalize the spell – giving out success anyway (it would be nasti not to have the spell working if you passed 3 session to collect the material!) but giving horrible effects in case of failure.
Maybe a sage may take a condition, ask the aid of dark powers, risk unintended consequences to add successes (even after a roll?)
That way it is not a “will it work?” question, but a “you need 1/2/3 more sacrifices in order to not to throw to the nettles the work you did. Do you sacrifice?”
Dirk Detweiler Leichty Gotcha! I guess my thing is, when comparing this to say the Savvyhead’s workspace, the options lead to doing something, not an end result. A lot of the Make War options are end results. Like, “X will die” is less interesting than “X must fight alongside you”. So the “you will need the aid of…” or “you will need to muster more troops…” leads to the player doing something about it that leads up to the action. And, things like, “X will come for retribution” – surely that will happen anyways if the option isn’t chosen, right? That’s a new threat just made. Which is why I like the options above and I like how they are a part of the battle too. It leads to something else. Something like, “You’ll need to reinforce your position” (remember in 13th Warrior when the Vikings all had to pitch in and work the fort to put up defenses?) seems better.
When you go into the Savvyhead’s workspace and the MC’s like, “That’s going to cost a fuckton of jingle” the Savvyhead reacts with, “Awesome. Now where do I get a fuckton of jingle…” That’s what I’d like to see more of in that move, which you said is meant to be a battle-planning move. Not much planning if it’s all reactive.
And, “exposing yourself to danger” is way different than “you get results of danger” – which is why I like the moves Andrea Serafini wrote out above. It’s just specific versions of that thematic to a big battle or siege.
Oh, lovely stuff. I want to run this and I have a place to do it.
How do you recover Abilities that you mark with an X?
Graham Spearing would love to hear about it if you run it!
Right now there’s nothing in the rules that let’s you recover x’d boxes. I’m thinking about a “pass the season” rule with that as an option.
Andrea Serafini More great thoughts!
1) I originally had the setup instructions in the character books, but there was too much to say and it didn’t feel like it presented itself in a coherent order that way
2) Interesting, so like different options on each peoples/follower/etc sheet? Could be cool to play with
3) Definitely! Also considering a new type of sheet or maybe a whole new book that describes “the land,” almost like a playset or adventure starter.
4) Wow, you’re really right. I don’t like the disadvantage mechanic at all. Reroll 6s sounds like a simpler option, not sure how much more or less punishing that is though.
5) I think it’s fine to have a mixture of before-hand requirements (“first you must gather a drop of titan’s sweat.”) and costs (“you’ll anger the local gods”) as possible demands. Both are interesting and useful levers for the MC and let the rule map to a wider range of fictional situations. This gets at what Michael Pfaff is saying, too. I think it’s very useful to the MC to be able to say, for instance, “you’ll need to gather a large army and most of them won’t survive.” I also like how the “Commanding” ability lets you ignore one of those demands, and the kind of fiction that suggests.
I’m not sure how I feel about “Others will come to take retribution.” I agree that it’s somewhat of a given, but the MC can make any number of demands, so it’s no sweat to state it when it’s appropriate. More importantly, it entitles the Warrior to know beforehand who will come for retribution, who they risk angering by the action. I also like imagining the fictional implications of ignoring that demand with Commanding.
Absolutely love “you’ll need to reinforce your position” as a demand.
As for the Sage’s Spellcraft and rolling for it: the Sage’s craft requires the use of their methods, which I think would trigger Defy danger in a lot of situations. I agree that “you risk danger from…” could be tighter. I think I should get more specific: “you’ll be toying with forces beyond your control” or “You’ll surely draw attention from…”
For example, “Using your magic ring and the right incantations, you can certainly turn the stone to gold, but it will set a process in motion that you can’t predict or control.” And then, once again I like the option to spend ability points to negate those demands and the fiction it implies.
Agree wholeheartedly that “exposing yourself to danger” doesn’t fit well with the rest of the structure of these “ritual” type moves.
Again, thanks so much for talking to me about this!
Aaron Griffin yeah, I haven’t run a multi-session playtest yet, so I’ll be curious to see how cumbersome it is to keep track of all the loose sheets in the book. Especially since I’m hoping to eventually include a bunch of subclasses/compendium classes that would also be on those sheets. When we play a long campaign of dungeon world, though, everyone has like a dozen index cards to keep track of by the end, so I’m hoping it will be slightly less of a mess than that?
1) OK, then i would advice you to go big or nothing. Either you write the character instuction on the sheet (i think you just have to add gear and add 5 points to the stats), or maybe it would be cleaner to cancel also the choose n on the front part of the sheet (the one in which, for the sage, you choose origin, spheres and methods)
2) Give it a try. If you want if “softer” you may add empty lines to every option, so a player may say – hey, you’ve other options and this one is cool – i’ll steal it.
3) Tonight i was thinking that Legends in particular may be more interesting if done together. Maybe it’s not 1 Legend – 1 Player, but every legend could be partially compiled by every person at the table, so to give everyone more investment.
4) Roll 4+ means each dice has a success probability of 0.5. If they reroll 1 (6) on 4+ thresholr, the success probability is 0,58 (0,42); if the threshold is 3+ (5+) with no reroll, the success probability on each dice is 0,67 (0,33).
By doing this, it will definitely change the flavour of the +1 / +2 dice choice.
A character will want a +1 if they’re at disadvantage; +2 dice if they’re at advantage.
In any case, you may tinker with the anydice program to see the curves grafically.
5) i have to think more about this.
5) I’m not sure what you mean by the two first paragraphs – in case i misunderstand, tell me.
I would advise you to break the Make war list in three pieces, in your mind.
a) Before the beginning of the battle, you have to do this.
Ex: recruit more men, obtain a specific information, scout a specific location and deal with its dangers, acquire a magic item or the help of a specific person, make a blood sacrifice, …
-> This list is essentially equal, from the narrative point of view, to the Savvyhead list.
From the point of view of the Warrior, this will make him feel like a commander or a general. I like the idea that “commanding” may help you forego an option.
I would advice you to write “forego an option. Tell the table how you manage to obtain or not having the need of it” (ok, that is crappy Andrea is tired english).
(You’re so expert that you don’t have to pass the night studying maps and be “tired”; you know how to catch a pigeon with a message with falcons and honey, and you have your useful secret )
b) Outcomes of the battle.
Ex: but __ will be killed; _____ will come to take revenge; take the “lame” condition because of a cannonbal.
I’m not sure about these. It feels to me that they’re out of place for the genre, especially because the battle is a fucking cool moment, and you don’t want it to be skipped (unless is a minor one, then only the a) kind of requirement will suffice) or play it ans force the results to happen. (Hey, how the fuck Spider was killed if he was leading the artillery and i killed the enemies there?)
Moreover, if you happen to play the battle, it may be a little bit clumsy.
(Hey, Jack is dead, why didn’t you told me, mc? – I would have used my commanding ability to prevent it!!!!! What does it means that the Kerrigan sister are hunting for my head? – we did not decide to have “they will come for you”!)
c) Things to do in the middle of the battle.
Ex: you have to defeat____, you have to conquer this position______, you have to protect____ until _____
This makes you have some special focus on the battle. That is cool, since the warrior will manage to assign to every other character a specific thing to do, and then you, as a MC, will have clear flags about how to direct those scenes.
Here i’m not sure about how the commanding ability may work. It could be a fun bargain, but also spotlight stealing (this said, i think this could hold for the others, too.)
“hey Warrior, no, i will not go into those tunnels. Can’t you ingeneer one of your trick to go inside by some other mean?” The Warrior player looks at the options and says “Listen Rogue, you’re an assole, and i know. I was thinking to use the night to round up some guys at the Bloodborne tavern. I can’t do both tunnels and tavern. Your choice.”
“MMmmh, no, i don’t trust the sage. I will spend commanding to make a wonderful pep talk to my men, so that we will not have to kidnap an enemy to sacrifice to her blood gods.”
_______________________________
In my opinion, you should keep a) and c), and get rid of b). This said, maybe playtest with different sets of options will help you to have a grok of how that works.
Building on what Andrea is saying…
There are, broadly, two “types” of statements in any “Savvyhead’s workshop” style move:
* Requirements
* Consequences
I can see the value, for Make War at least, in splitting them out. You tell the MC what you hope to accomplish, and they give you a list of requirements for victory. (Unlike Andrea, I don’t see a need to separate the pre-battle requirements from the during-battle requirements.) Some of the existing ones might be rephrased. So, like:
* You will need to muster more warriors
* You must first make specific preparations
* You will need to overcome ___ personally
* You first need to acquire
* ___ will need to accomplish ___, and that’s far from a sure thing
* You’ll be sending ___ to their doom
Then, Commanding lets you negate one (and I definitely like Andrea’s idea of phrasing it so that the player must say why they get to ignore that one).
For the consequences, those could be questions I get to ask the GM. Maybe there’s X of them, and as part of making a battle plan, I get to ask X-1 or X-2. The questions being things like:
* Who will seek retribution upon us?
* How badly will ___ suffer?
* Where will the enemy likely retreat to?
* Who will use this as an opportunity for their own selfish gain?
* What collateral damage will this cause?
Jeremy Strandberg …oh, that is cool.
So you can say something like:
Slash commanding to ask the mc one of the following questions about the dangers of the battle and its aftermaths. When you’re acting on the answer, you’re at advantage.
(questions)
Andrea Serafini Jeremy Strandberg
It’s taken me some time to ponder this, but I’m really coming around hard on it now. Love the addition of “you may ask the MC x of the following as a second step of these rituals. spend abilities to ask more ( and yes, always should be saying what specifically that looks like in the fiction.)
the mandate to describe things fictionally is covered by the player and MC rules and principles, but worth calling out again here probably.
Idea for a “playset” to be used in setup: plus.google.com – Playset idea for Rogue, warrior, sage:…
Just catching up on this discussion; lots of good stuff.
One issue with the “successes” mechanic: you’ll almost never roll failures, compared to most PbtA. May be a feature or a bug; your call.
Paul Taliesin for defy danger/endure calamity, it depends on the difficulty. for the listed standard of 2 hits, there’s a 1/8 chance of an outright “MC makes a move” and a 3/8 chance you’ll have to choose a complication/condition respectively. Feels okay to me. I’m a bit worried about the “for each hit, choose one” moves like Cross blades, since they’ll really rarely trigger an MC move directly–thus disrupting the structure a bit. An idea there: “For each hit, hold one…then ask the MC what happens or spend one hold to say what you do first.”
kind of a lite initiative system. I dunno have to fuck with it
more.
Sure! It’s a design call, like any other. Keep in mind that an MC move on 1/8 outcomes is somewhere between a +2 and a +3 in AW.
During playtesting today we made some alterations to Cross blades that seemed to work well. Folks were struggling with lack of hold, rerolling to repeatedly generate more with unclear fictional implications. So now:
When you engage a foe in armed combat, roll.
For each hit, hold 1. While you’re fighting, spend hold to:
put them where you want them;
make a weapon move;
enhance a weapon move with +1 harm or forceful;
add +1 die to Endure calamity.
After you roll, gain one hold if you ask the MC what happens next. Otherwise, say what you do first. When you run out of hold, you’ll have to regroup or rebalance the situation before you can engage again.
Also in playtest, there was a feeling that the Rogue needed some additional thrust. Parley as a class rule chafed a bit. I’d like to keep Parley there, but was thinking of adding something like:
Hidden talents
When you search your life or luggage for some useful bit of knowledge or paraphernalia, roll. For each hit, choose one; ask the MC for the details:
it’s exactly what you need;
it will be useful more than once;
it comes with no strings attached.
New version:
plus.google.com – Rogue, Warrior, Sage, new version (2.1) -Added “making a move” to game…
Those seem like good improvements! I believe we discussed the “running out of hold” issue way back when you first started posting about this. I hope this latest version will suit you as a solution!
How does the frequency of misses feel in play?
Paul Taliesin misses are rare, but almost every roll forces a compromise or uses up scarce resources.
My favorite part about running it was making them Endure calamity. Since character death is on the table only by player choice, I felt a lot of freedom to hit them hard. There were a couple knockouts, drag-offs; lots of broken armor. I’d like to maybe increase the incentive to ask for a condition, maybe offering 2 dice instead of 1 hit.
Also, a couple fun uses of Make War and Ambitious venture. I liked the way they gave players a tool to approach a situation in a more zoomed-out way. For instance:
Thag the warrior and Cedric the rogue fight to take back a tenement from the Bleeding Riot, a gang of vicious, scarified thugs. They bound/sneak up to a balcony to take out some archers, have a protracted fight with Captain Hart, then burst inside and have a moment to think.
Instead of moving through the rest of the fight in the same level of detail, Thag’s player makes a plan of battle (Make war) to take back the rest of the building. I demand that there will be collateral damage and he’ll need more warriors. He marks a box of Commanding to ignore the demand for more warriors, and so we handle the rest of the conflict as a montage of Thag brutally cutting down and casting out the rest of the gang.
^aw yessss
Sounds pretty cool! Other comments in the Story Games thread.
Draft of a replacement for Endure calamity. We have had some problems in playtest with Defy danger leading directly into E.C.–feels redundant and time-consuming to roll twice to resolve the same event. Playing with reframing the move as a Saving throw and trying to refine the trigger so that “dodging out of the way” clearly triggers the saving throw rather than defy danger.
Saving throw
When you’re threatened with harm to your person, say how you try to elude it or brace for it. Ask the MC how many hits you need and roll. You may add two dice to your roll if you ask the MC for a condition.
If you get enough hits, you shrug it off and keep going. Otherwise, choose one:
-you’re knocked out, dragged off or overwhelmed; ask the MC how it happens.
-Die: tenderly, heroicly or with great malice. You describe how it happens.
I also wanted to to open it up to something like resisting an enchantment.
I think the “miss” results are too prescriptive.
Like, seems like this move would trigger if I dodge some schlub with a dagger or if I hefted my shield against dragon fire. And either one is, apparently, just as likely to take me out.
Also: I don’t like how I have to ask for a condition before I roll, rather than as a result of my roll. And if you want this move to encompass things like Will Save vs. Enchantment, you’ll need to generalize it anyway.
When you dodge or resist, you’ve basically got four “tiers” of outcome:
Best: You evade/resist the danger, and turn the tables somehow
Good: you evade/resist the danger, free and clear, what do you do?
Okay: you evade/resist, but…
* Not all the way… partial damage/effect
* You lose something (footing, position, initiative, gear)
* You pick up a negative condition
Worst: you take the hit, full force
(Maybe Extra Bad: you take the hit full force, and then some.)
You could get a “Good to Worst” range of results with something like: the GM will tell you how many hits you need; after you roll, you can ask the GM for a consequence in exchange for +1 hit; if you fail, you take the hit full force.
That leads down the road of quantifying (fictionally or numerically or both) how “bad” any given source of harm is. And in a PCs-have-plot-armor style game, you might then want some way to mitigate that harm (so that a single failed roll doesn’t take out a PC).
Which is what I think your Endure Calamity move is meant to do, but you’re trying to avoid that. So, my thoughts run out of steam here.
Jeremy Strandberg a couple clarifications:
-you do ask for a condition after you roll, giving you another shot if you fall short initially. (Clarified elsewhere in the text, anything that gives a bonus to a roll can be used after rolling. Could certainly stand to be restated in the rule itself.)
-the difference between dragon fire and a knife thrust is indicated by the required number of hits. Every danger has a chance to take you out. It becomes a question of how costly that fate will be to avoid (in resources like armor and ability boxes.)
Re: resisting enchantment, an example:
I tell the warrior, “the medusa locks eyes with you–you can feel your flesh begin to stiffen, what do you do?”
The warrior responds, “I’m being threatened with harm, yeah? So I brace myself and use raw strength to break free of her gaze–how many hits do I need for the saving throw?”
I tell them three hits, it’s strong magic.
They roll one hit, then ask me for a condition to get two more dice.
I tell them, “as you continue to strain against the enchantment, you feel something crack in your shoulder. Take busted shoulder as a condition.”
They roll their two extra dice and get zip. They choose you are knocked out dragged off or overcome, looking to me for details.
I tell them, “you are overcome by the gorgon stare, your body turned to stone,” or maybe, “you strain until your vision goes white. Your companions see your body go limp as you break the medusa’s gaze.”
Another, for something more mundane,
I tell the rogue, “the duke’s archers have you pinned down, any foray will provoke a hail of arrows.”
They tell me they make a break for it anyway.
“You’re being threatened with harm here,” I tell them, “how do you try to elude or brace?”
They tell me they duck and weave; I tell them they need two hits.
They roll one hit, but mark a box of armor for another one.
“A few arrows bury themselves in my breastplate, but none touch me gravely,” they say.
Those basic elements have actually worked pretty well in play. I’m convinced the trigger needs tuning. When your body or mind comes under assault, maybe, or when violence or magic threatens to overcome you?
You’re absolutely right about Endure Calamity often leading to two rolls, one after the other. I designed the move that way, as a replacement for AW’s “harm” move.
I’m really not sure how your “fix” solves this issue, though. How do I decide whether I’m rolling Defy Danger or “being threatened with harm”?
In my vision of the move, it’s quite strictly for “something bad has already happened, it’s too late to avoid it”, but I also design it so that getting away with no consequences is impossible (or nearly so).
I like the idea of trimming it down… but not sure how your proposed version does that.
Really, it sounds like you need to combine the Defy Danger and Endure Calamity move into a single move, if you want to fix that effect.
Paul Taliesin So I need to narrow the triggers to remove that overlap, do you think that’s possible?
Defy danger when you’re trying to make something happen, something proactive.
Make a saving throw when you’re reacting to something that could harm you or take away your agency in the story.
Sometimes the moves snowball from “you expose yourself to danger,” might put you in a position to make a saving throw right away still, but by creating a separate moment, a new threat.
It’s not, “I roll defy danger to dodge, fail, then roll a saving throw.”
It’s “I roll defy danger to hop onto the giant’s back, fail, now something new is happening, the giant is swinging it’s club at me and I roll a saving throw.”
Sometimes the outcome of “exposing yourself to danger,” could be gaining a condition directly, without the benefit of a saving throw. “You expose yourself to danger? Okay, the giant’s club hit’s you square in the chest, take the condition, bloody mess .”
The main goal is to avoid ever rolling twice to resolve the same moment.
Huh! Well, now I’m confused. That’s exactly how I use those moves already. I certainly wouldn’t go from one to the other, with no narration at all -> fail Defy Danger/Act Under Fire? MC makes a move.
Now what do you do? You Endure Calamity/Resist Harm/whatever?… ok, roll it!
Where are you getting the two rolls in a row business?
It’s a matter of the MC making first a soft version and then a hard version of the same move: “The knight swings her sword at you, (roll defy danger)…you roll a miss? Okay, the knight hits you with her sword. (roll endure calamity)” To me, these are not distinct enough moments to warrant separate rolls. It’s two rolls to answer the same question: “Am I hurt or taken out by this?”
My goal is to set up player rules that catch and respond to certain MC soft moves (specifically, ones that threaten to injure or otherwise take a character out of the story.)
An example of two rolls for one moment in Dungeon world:
I’m the MC, I make a soft move to deal damage : “The knight swings her sword at you, what do you do?”
They tell me they “jump out of the way,” but roll a miss on defy danger.
I follow up with a hard version of the same move, “the sword bites hard into your side,” How hard? Roll damage to figure it out.
This isn’t really a problem in DW because HP is such a quick abstraction. (But that specific abstraction is the whole thing I’m trying to avoid here.) Also should be said that the structure of DW in no way mandates that I follow up with a hard deal damage in that situation. I could have as easily made a hard move to separate them as a result of that miss. That’s a good feature, but used rarely.
Same example, but using the prior version of Endure calamity:
I’m the MC, I make a soft move to inflict harm : “The knight swings her sword at you, what do you do?”
They tell me they “jump out of the way,” but roll a miss on defy danger.
I follow up with a hard version of the same move, “the sword bites hard into your side, you’re definitely enduring calamity.”
I tell them they need three hits, and they get them. Two rolls to adjudicate that, basically, nothing happens.
Maybe they had to use up some resources, which is a fine outcome, but if the question we’re asking is “do they get injured to taken out by this,” I think we can answer that with one roll.
The drawback options on Defy danger also have muddy interactions with Endure calamity. So I successfully “get out of the way,” but I still “expose myself to danger?” It’s not an unsolvable problem (maybe it’s a new danger, maybe it’s a lesser version of the same danger I was trying to avoid) but it’s complicated when the whole intent behind the roll was to “get out of danger’s way.”
I think the issue is that you’ve taken my basic move, and changed it into a version where “nothing happens” is a common outcome.
Although I may have forgotten (or failed!), I always tried to design mine so that this kind of “rolling for nothing” would not be a possibility.
How is that different from the “nothing happens” of a successful defy danger in identical circumstances?
I tell them that dragon fire is barreling toward them.
They say they get out of the way, and roll defy danger.
A 10+? They get out of the way (nothing happens?)
To break down the outcomes with this “Saving throw,”
I tell them that dragon fire is barreling toward them.
They say they get out of the way, and roll a saving throw.
-best outcome: they get out of the way (nothing happens?)
-mixed outcome: they get out of the way, but ask for a condition. “Charred,” I tell them.
-worse outcome: they’re “knocked out, dragged off or subdued.” In this case, I tell them, “you hit your head as you land, you lose consciousness as the fire rushes past you.
Basically, the trigger for DW’s defy danger is, “When you act despite an imminent threat or suffer a calamity, say how you deal with it and roll.”
and this break out those two triggers into separate rules.
Yes, that’s quite true. But “defy danger” is still based on character action (at least, I’m pretty hardcore when I play that kind of move – the character needs to do something active in order to roll).
I think the problem here is that you’ve got two moves in a row which can produce that outcome.
New version https://plus.google.com/107200488853215420475/posts/4unKEZsQoso
plus.google.com – Update for Rogue, Warrior, Sage: (v2.3) http://bit.ly/2eB3gQR Also, a couple…