I’ve come to question my GMing when it comes to villains and fights.
I have my villains do stuff that fall within their abilities, but that they don’t have explicit moves for. This affects the scene and the heroes and sometimes means a move doesn’t trigger.
Last session my players went up against one of the A-listers of Halcyon’s villains, the powerful sorceress Morigan Lefaye.
The Bull and the Janus both rushed to attack her and I had her catch them out of the air and throw them both back and to the ground with a dismissive gesture.
When the Legacy lasso’d her with a chain, she spoke a magic word and electrified herself and the chain, shocking him.
She turned the Doomed into a raven. Now they have to find a way to break the spell.
Of these 3, only the last one was as a result of having the villain react to a failed move. The first 2 I just described happen in response to my what my players said their characters were doing. I know both my Bull and Janus were trying to directly engage, but I didn’t think it would come to that and instead had Morigan counter their attacks.
Is this right? In my mind, this seems right. Some villains with certain abilities will be tough or downright impossible to engage with in certain ways. It doesn’t matter how strong you are, if all you do is punch, you’re not directly engaging the amorphous water-monster. Try as hard as you may, no amount of unleashing your ferrokinetic powers are gonna create a cage that traps a person who can freely teleport – it isn’t a roll. This is kinda how I’ve been thinking when these things happen.
I don’t want to break the rules or be a jerk to my players.
Thoughts?
My advice : don’t flat-out cancel a PC Move with a villain non-scripted Move. If the villain is an amorphous water-monster and a Bull is trying to punch him, just ask “OK, are you directly engaging the threat ? How do you do it though, the villain is amorphous ; how do you engage with that fact in mind ?”. This kind of questions keep the fiction flowing, so you don’t have to get to the “no, you can’t do it, and the monster retaliates” punishing point. Masks is not a “gotcha” game : if the player is trying to trigger a Move that doesn’t seem adequate fiction-wise, just ask questions until the player finds a fiction-adequate idea. Am I making sense ?
Masks is indeed not a “gotcha” game. But that doesn’t mean NPCs only get to make moves when the players miss rolls. Just as you said Daniel Akbas, some villains with certain abilities will be tough or downright impossible to engage with in certain ways.
The MC shouldn’t negate the PC’s actions, but on the other hand, they shouldn’t “nerf” an NPC’s abilities either.If the PCs are going up against a speedster, the heroes are going to have to find a way to slow the villain down. Otherwise the villain is always going to get to act first, just because of who they are.
It is a delicate balance though, as you don’t want to frustrate your players.If you’re worried about it, straight up ask your players how they felt about that encounter.
Sounds like a great way to demonstrate Lefaye’s power relative to the party’s without necessarily creating an “unfair” experience – I agree with your instinct, that you shouldn’t expect be able to directly charge a top-tier supervillain without doing a little legwork first of all.
Lead with the fiction. If something is possible, you either say yes or roll the dice. If it’s not possible, and your players don’t realise that, help your players get on the same page. If they do understand that what they want isn’t possible, but you’re not sure, you can always remind them: “You’ve heard that Lefaye has evaporated whole squads of soldiers before – are you sure you want to just run right at her?”
Their framing of the situation might not match yours, so showing them that Lefaye easily outclasses them in a fair fight (without necessarily punishing them for trying) is a good way to let them know what state the fiction is actually in!
I agree that in some cases (a Bull charging a ethereal monster knowning full well she can’t hit it, for instance), confrontations can count as “a player hands you a golden opportunity”, hence as a GM Move.
Well, so the conversation rarely opens with me asking if someone is directly engaging. Someone says “I’m gonna roll under Eternity’s stasis-beam and then sweep his leg, and punch him in the face”. In the case of Eternity that angle of approach could work, and the character is exchanging blows with an enemy, so I say it sounds like they’re directly engaging.
But if the enemy had not been Eternity, but say… the Dread Queen, my response would probably be “You dive forward and try to sweep the Dread Queen’s leg. Your leg stops short as it impacts something, and we see a glowing hemispherical barrier being projected around her. there’s a close-up of her face, still turned forward but she’s looking down on you, as though she’s offended you’d even try something so simple. She extends a palm towards you and fires a crushing beam of concussive energy. What do you do?”.
I do see the suggestion to talk to the player about how they’ll manage some form of attack that will actually allow them to make the directly engage move. I like the idea and I’m wondering, isn’t that something you can do by assessing the situation?
LeFay should probably have a more explicit move, like “magically counter a direct assault”.
With it defined, the players have a better chance to interact with it, even if they never know the exact wording of the move. It will also help keep you “honest” as a GM because you’ll have something written down that you can look at and evaluate.
You definitely don’t need every possible thing an enemy can do to be explicitly written down. You can make GM moves, using NPCs to do it. In your examples, it sounds like you’re using “Turn their move against them.”
My concern is that it seems like your players were pushing for Moves, and you responded with Hard Moves in response, instead of Soft Moves or helping them trigger their moves. The trick is finding a balance that helps the PCs feel like the heroes, without making the enemies pushovers.
If you think it is unlikely that The Bull and The Janus could coordinate a joint rush attack at the enemy, when they announce their intention to do so, you can Soft Move to show them why it won’t work:
“As you split apart and attempt to rush her, she waves her hand dismissively. You feel unseen energies build up against you and begin to drive you back. What do you do?”
This doesn’t directly negate their attack, but does show them that they have a hurdle to overcome. And it gives them a chance to respond heroically.
Simply tossing them away from her, without giving them a chance to be heroic, isn’t being a fan of their characters.
Now, if they attempt to push through and fail a roll, a Hard Move, such as driving them away from her and inflicting a condition, would be appropriate.
Similarly with The Legacy, i like the idea of the enemy sending electrical energy down the chain. But i’d give the PC a chance to react before simply assigning a condition. Perhaps they want to grit their teeth and try to shake off the effects; perhaps they want to throw the electrified chain in a puddle that some goons are in, or use it for some other cool effect; perhaps they’ll screw up in their next move and you get to shock the heck out of them!
Your example with the Dread Queen captures this well. In that example, you let the PC take their intended action, but you clearly explain why it doesn’t trigger “directly engage” when they run into the shield, and you show them the looming threat. but then you pause the action and ask what they do.
This is what gives the PCs the chance to do the cook things.
I like Andrew’s approach best. It turns it from a failure into a possible negation. They can still charge if they want, and if the emotions are right they might!
+Andrew Fish You’re right, that is a pretty hard move. Making soft moves to telegraph that something is about to go pear-shaped could be a good idea.
Let us say I do a soft move, rather than a hard. I tell them they’re pushing against a sorcerous barrier and the further they push the more energy is building. I ask them what they do. Does every answer here have the potential to solve the problem?
If the Janus says they’ll keep pushing, trying to unleash his powers, or the Bull says she wants use her Unstoppable move from the Transformed playbook, they’re both still doing what the villain is guarding against. At this point what do you do? Tell the players it won’t work? Do a hard move that throws them back in response to the fiction? Or do you allow their moves, in spite of the fiction?
I suppose what I’m actually asking with that is: can every individual hero always overcome any issue without outside influence?
I feel like the answer to that should be no. If Robin’s intention is to personally beat down Superman, he has to get into Bruce’s kryptonite safe or get his hands on some magical brass-knuckles. Without a fictionally appropriate way to overcome an obstacle, there is no move. Is that right or is that an instinct I need to silence?
As I run PbtA games (and this is totally a thing we encounter in other games)… sometimes the players can run into a wall. In fact, it’s sometimes important that they do run into walls, to offer some differentiation within the fiction, i.e. some enemies are easy and some are hard.
I love what Andrew Fish is saying about giving folks a chance to respond, but I think this is a place where the soft/hard move dichotomy is making things difficult. There’s no such thing as a “soft” move, only moves that are softer in a given context than other moves*. In my opinion, throwing the Bull through a wall with telekinesis is like shooting Wolverine… it’s a pretty soft move.
If you say that a villain is physically invulnerable and the PCs try to punch them… they don’t get to make a move. There is no uncertainty. You know what’s going to happen, and they know what’s going to happen. And it helps to signal what’s going to happen (“They just wait for you to approach, unafraid and bored with your antics”), but they don’t get to Directly Engage.
Be careful not to take away their agency. Let them make choices. Let them suffer consequences (Take a Powerful Blow) that introduce uncertainty. Let them choose to mark a condition instead of just negating their action.
But… sometimes the fiction tells us that the answer is no, and it’s totally fine as a Masks GM to say “No” when the fiction demands that you deny them an avenue of attack.
*(For more on this idea, you should read what Brendan wrote about soft/hard moves: http://www.magpiegames.com/2016/03/17/picking-the-right-gm-move-in-pbta-part-one/)
magpiegames.com – Picking the Right GM Move in PbtA: Part One
Mark Diaz Truman When pressed to think it through on a specific issue, i would agree that hard/soft is a spectrum, but i tend to think and speak of it as a dichotomy.
Thank you for pointing that out, and sharing Brendan’s essay. It’s a lot more to digest than i can take on at my work desk, but i look forward to drinking it in later.
Daniel Akbas – i think Mark’s post handles it well – sometimes it is okay to say “no” – if you have clearly established that an enemy is impervious to what the PCs are trying to do, it won’t trigger a move.
If you try to directly engage smoke with a punch, you won’t trigger the move. but if you directly engage it with a gentle breeze, you just might.
If the Bull has “unstoppable” you get to decide whether the Bull is in a position to “smash their way through the scenery to get to or away from something.” If the enemy is unreachable, the move wouldn’t trigger. If it is possible to reach the enemy, the move is triggered. If you have not clearly decided whether it is possible, turn to your GM agenda and principles.
In the Robin punching Superman example, the fiction around the characters has clearly established that a simple punch won’t do it, but a kryptonite gauntlet might do the trick.
Doyce Testerman I mean…it might be, but it might not be. Maybe recklessly charging in on a completely unknown foe is a Golden Opportunity to use “Inflict a condition”. I mean, the Bull has got to be pretty Angry they got tossed aside like a used napkin…
Remember that giving players conditions is not like wounding them in AW. It will never kill off their character, it will only push the story forward and add wonderful complications as they try to deal with or get rid of the condition.
An unquestionable jerk move would be…I dunno…throwing the Bull into a building that collapses and kills someone.
The Fiction is important, as well as your Agendas. Remember that you’re supposed to be a fan of the heroes, as well as making threats real. And always keep in mind that Masks is supposed to be a “conversation” (therefore, you should be constantly discussing things back n forth between your players).
Moves aren’t ‘used’, they’re triggered by the fiction taking place.
If the villain puts up a magical barrier, and one of the PCs tries to break through it. The two of them aren’t trading blows, and thus the Direct Engage move isn’t triggered. Instead, the PC triggers Unleash Powers, as they’re attempting to overcome an obstacle. It’s up to you to interpret the result.
If a Strong Hit/10+ is rolled, you could have the effect happen exactly as described, with the barrier breaking open. But you could also weaken it a bit and say “You distract the villain, causing a ripple to form in the shield, which is an opening for your teammates” (Bring them together). This can be done with a Weak Hit as well.
And should a Miss be rolled, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the PC failed in their attempt, but it does give you an opportunity to hit them back. “You hit the shield, causing a ripple, creating an opening for your teammates… And right after you do this, the villain waves their hand, sending you sprawling across the floor with a burst of magic. Take A Powerful Blow.”
Even when your players don’t roll misses, you can still hit back with Condition Moves.
Do not make your NPCs or PCs ineffectual by waiving something with the uncertainty clause. That’s supposed to be for things where there shouldn’t be any trouble or chance of fighting back. When it comes to heroes and villains, which is chockfull of stories of people without powers standing up to those with awesome abilities. Even the most basic of abilities should have endless applications, just make sure you’re making the PCs roll Unleash where appropriate, and have Adults be telling them all the while how useless their abilities are in X situation.
“They’re magic, you can’t just punch them out. They’re one of the most powerful sorcerers ever!” (- Danger, + Mundane)
“Oh yes I can! Watch me.” (Reject Influence)
Even Wolverine can fight Magneto.
Even The Joker can beat Superman.
Steffi Kyle that sounds like a fun encounter!
It does sound like you’ve already solved the problem for the PCs though.
Half my fun as MC is coming up with problems for the PCs without preconceived idea how they “should be solved” – then I can sit back and be entertained by the players as they come up with credible, exciting solutions that i may never have gotten around to myself.
They might use the Moves you anticipate, or might come up with fantastic fictional positioning that solves the problem with entirely different Moves, or without triggering moves at all.
Have fun tormenting those poor heroes!