Noob eic/gm here.
Could someone share some examples of and thought processes behind “hard choices” presented as a result of 6- rolls on appropriate moves? I mostly get the concept, but coming up with a compelling choice in the moment has been extremely difficult.
I feel like I remember examples such as allowing the player to accomplish what they wanted with a cost. If I offer this choice and it isn’t taken, what happens? Retcon the fiction so they didn’t do the thing seems problematic. Must I always come up with and offer a dichotomy?
On a separate note, I had an issue last session as a blind character with avatar-like powers wanted to place a fire wall between him and a crowd of mooks with guns. I asked him to defy danger to be able to put up the wall as he was being shot at, and asked how he would avoid that danger. He began talking about an ice wall, so i asked how much water he had available (they’re on a space ship and he specifically addressed a level of this resource management by carrying a large gourd containing earth and water). He then said not enough. He came to the conclusion that his character had no real way to deal with gunfire and grew frustrated. Part of his frustration was being unsure of how realistic v ridiculous in game physics were. I had tried and tried then to communicate that I wanted breaks from realism to happen in character/power design, and then to be as realistic as possible within that framework. I saw it less as realism and more as working from how the powers had been defined in chargen.
Any tips?
For hard moves, the best piece of advice I can give is to do something that feels natural and that flows from the fiction. Don’t try to think up something clever or put pressure on yourself to do something really cool. Instead, do what seems natural for what is happening in the fiction. If the ground is shaking, have them fall through it or get pulled under. If they’re at a construction site, have them get thrown into hardening concrete. I hope that helps! I know a big thing for GMs is always trying to think up really cool stuff to have happen on misses, but it’s always going to feel more natural and organic if you build up off what you’ve already got established.
As for the other issue with your player, I’d say there’s a number of things that could be done there:
1) Set expectations before play. Talk about what each other’s touchstones are for this game, and what the feel of the game is. Are we playing something more like X-Men, or Watchmen? This would help with the realistic vs. ridiculous aspect at the table.
2) Clarify Defy Danger at the table (what the danger is and how it’s trying to be mitigated). Maybe he felt like you were being skeptical with how his fire wall could stop bullets (or he was unsure about it) so started talking about ice walls? In any case, he’s triggered Defy Danger because he’s acting despite an imminent danger. Now, even if the wall of fire can’t stop bullets, it doesn’t mean that it couldn’t mitigate that danger – simply by obstructing the view of those firing it could help him Defy that Danger, so that’s solid I think.
3) Offer suggestions about powers and suggest other moves if necessary. As the EIC, it’s up to you to help the fiction get clarified so that everyone knows what move is being triggered and why (and if that matches up with what the player is thinking as well). For example, you could say, “alright, well a normal wall of fire isn’t hot enough to melt bullets, right? so you’ll probably need to Push to create a wall hotter than you’ve ever gotten it before.” Or, “it doesn’t look like you have enough water to make an ice wall big or dense enough to stop those bullets, sounds like you might need to Push to draw the water from somewhere else, which could be risky. Maybe you pull the moisture from your own body or from those around you? That could be cool, do you want to try a Push or what were you thinking?”
Remember that at chargen the characters Powers Summary is pretty open and general. if he’s got “Control over the elements” on there, that leaves him pretty open to try all out all kinds of stuff via Push (for stuff they’ve never attempted or have yet to master).
Hope that helps!
When there are mooks with guns, you can Defy Danger by just standing there hoping to be faster than they are. Roll a 10+ and succeed, there’s your wall of fire between you and them, giving them no clear shot because they can’t see anymore. Congratulations, the mooks are dealt with for now!
Roll a 6 or less, and you might get shot before the wall of fire goes up. Hurts like hell, but doesn’t necessarily mean you fail at your power. The mooks might be out of the way for now, but you need to do something about that bullet wound you took ASAP! Do you keep heading toward the Big Bad or do you make a detour toward the med bay?
Roll a 7-9 and maybe you only get winged a little, or maybe you don’t get shot before your wall of fire goes up, but the bullets breach the spaceship’s hull and it starts venting atmosphere – amping up that wall fire as all the oxygen rushes toward the hole. Who let them bring guns on a spaceship? Now you’ve got yet another problem to deal with. If those mooks aren’t wearing space suits, you could just air-bend a bubble around your head and let them go unconscious as all the oxygen leaves this area. Or you could use some ice to temporarily patch the holes so that you don’t end up killing everyone on the ship.
The Defy Danger move was triggered because there were mooks with guns and the player was doing something and had a chance they would use those guns to shoot him. Asking him to roll Defy Danger doesn’t require him to think up some other amazing use of his powers. He could stand there and hope they miss. He could duck around a corner, or hide behind a support column so they don’t have a shot. Or he could water-bend mini-shields to block bullets as they come close. All result in the same thing mechanically – if he rolls well, he doesn’t get shot, if he rolls poorly, you get to make a hard move and the obvious one is he gets shot.