1) What’s your favorite MC (or whatever the role is called) move in any PbtA game?
2) What do you love about it?
1) What’s your favorite MC (or whatever the role is called) move in any PbtA game?
1) What’s your favorite MC (or whatever the role is called) move in any PbtA game?
I like “announce offscreen/future badness” or its equivalent because the escalation of narrative tension is built right in.
Magical Fury’s Complicate Life. It’s just so spot on for a magical girl game where school and your social life are just as important as kicking monster tail.
I’ve always loved Tell them the possible consequences, and ask. “Oh, wow, if you do that to your little sister, then your parents are never going to trust you again. You’ll have to sneak out every night, you won’t be able to use the car… are you sure?”
Put them in a spot. It reminds me of Bangs from the Forge, and it’s the crux of what I usually enjoy about roleplaying. I love to see how people deal with tough decisions and difficult circumstances.
Turn their move back on them.
“Do I know anything about this corrupting quicksilver stuff?” Spout Lore, miss.
“Yeah, you do. Why don’t you tell me about the horrible experiences you had with it in your past, and why it still gives you nightmares.”
Everybody above stole all my answers. (I’m commenting to see notifications from people stealing the answers I haven’t thought of yet.)
Picking favorites is hard but here’s one that I like from Farflung: Give them way more than what they asked for. I like it because the move can make for a nice plot twist.
“After every move, ask, ‘what do you do?'” This has changed the way I run everything. Even when I run that most traditional of RPGs, Dungeons & Dragons, I steal this now. Failed rolls are never “nothing happens” anymore; they always lead to being put in a spot, an announcement of future badness, or a telling of consequences and then asking.
Tell the consequences and ask.
I like this because this is how every game should be GM’d ever. Bold statement, I know, but hear me out.
The biggest point of contention between GM and player is almost always a confusion as to how each side is imagining something. “I jump over the crevasse” is a pretty common example – GM thinks it’s 200 feet, but the players think it’s 5.
Tell the consequences – “uh, you can’t jump that far, you’ll fall and die” – is one thing. A typical antagonistic GM would just say “lol you fall and die”, which is still telling the consequences. But asking is key – “you sure you wanna do that, knowing the outcome?”
That one confuses me, in terms of the pattern of how moves are supposed to work. In response to a failure or a moment of silence, you offer consequences and ask? Shouldn’t that come before a roll?
Robert Bohl Aaron Griffin I assumed “tell them the consequences and ask” was not so much for a 7 or less roll, but for the “when they look at you expecting you to say something” trigger (or however it’s phrased). Instead of calling for a player move or what have you, you tell them the consequences of what they just described to make sure they actually want to do what they’re saying.
There’s also an example for “act under fire” in Apocalypse World 1e that involves a choice like, “Yeah, you can sneak in, but you gotta kill this kid you just surprised.” That’s technically an “ugly choice” per the wording of that move, but I guess I see some overlap.
Robert Bohl ok so, maybe I swing my Warhammer at a door, and we do some sort of Defy Danger because goblins are coming down the hall. I bomb hard. Snake eyes. GM says “well shit, you didn’t make it through the door like you hoped. If you swing again, it’ll crack open and you can make it, but your hammer will get stuck”.
But it’s mostly a move used “when everyone looks to you to see what happens”
Yeah it feels like the logical trigger that would be hit most often is when someone’s about to roll. Also, I never took moves to be operant on a 7-9; I figured they were always 6- or “look to you.”
I like Tell them the consequences and ask because it’s kind of like an interrupt (e.g. M:TG) meets double or nothing. You’re doing this thing – hold up! Let me up the stakes. You still in?
Hmm, you may be right that MC moves are technically only on a 6- or when they look to you, but personally, I often refer to the MC moves to offer inspiring prompts for 7-9 results when the options are open-ended enough.
Bridging off from “Tell them the Consequences,” I really like the Masks move “Make them Pay a Price for Victory.”
I feel like things rarely work out for characters in Masks (and most PbtA games, I guess), and giving the players an opportunity to achieve victory at a price is really enticing.
Offer an opportunity, with or without a cost. I especially love offering them a cost, or better yet, letting them suggest a cost… Nothing like having the players hoist their own petard.
“Well Dremmer’s probably got one of those… What do you think he’d want for it though?”
That one, is that more of a “when they look at you” than “on a failed roll?”
Opinionated pedantry warning
Robert Bohl regarding this:
Also, I never took moves to be operant on a 7-9; I figured they were always 6- or “look to you.”
I’d argue that you’re almost always making a move on a 10+ or a 7-9, because the conversation has naturally flowed back to you at that point. Everyone is looking at you. You make a move.
It just so happens that the move you make is constrained and informed by the 7-9 or 10+ result.
So, like, you’re leaping across that chasm and you Defy Danger with a 7-9. I offer you a hard bargain, ugly choice, or worse outcome. Hard bargain/ugly choice almost require that I make the GM move tell you the requirements or consequences and ask. The worse outcome could be like almost any GM move out there. I decide on a worse outcome of “you don’t make it all the way, you’re hanging by your hands, legs flailing, and the root you’ve grabbed onto is starting to give”. I just put you in a spot.
On a 10+, yeah, I describe what happens, but when that’s done, you all are still looking at me. A very proactive player maybe takes the initiative and says they do something in that pause, but more often than not, the conversational ball is still in my court.
Like, you swing your warhammer at that orc, roll 10+ to Hack and Slash, you roll damage, they’re down and out. I’m like “Cool, yeah, his head crunches like a crunchy melon, it’s gross.”
…
Now what? Do you talk? Do I keep talking? I bet I keep talking.
If I say “What do you do?” in some games, that’s considered a GM move itself. Personal opinion: “What do you do?” is more of a principle than a move, a thing you do to say “your turn” and to designate spotlight. And in my skull-smashing example above, I’d say that I’m tacitly giving your an opportunity (I’m handing you the initiative).
If I’m like “And as you yank that bloody hammer free, you see three more orcs bearing running at you with murder in their eyes, what do you do?” then I’ve just put you in a spot (or arguably announced badness or used a monster move or whatever fits).
And if I shift the focus to Rhys, because why not, I’m going to make a move at Aaron, even it’s a total softball. “Cool, yeah, his head crunches in like a crunchy melon, it’s gross. Rhys, you step into the room to see that gruesome blow, but you also see three orcs charging at you both with death in their eyes, what do you do?”
Of course, you can totally just do whatever comes naturally on the 7-9 results and the 10+ results, following the rules and your principles, and not ever consciously make a GM move in those cases. But I’d argue that you’re still making moves.
Does it matter? Usually, I’d say no. But I’ve found that some of the most stilted, one-sided GMing I’ve experienced comes when the GM thinks they can only say the results indicated by the 7-9 or 10+ results and no more. That’s where, in DW especially, you get complaints of “the PCs just hammering on the bad guys and they don’t get to do anything until someone rolls a miss.”
( Jeremy Strandberg is correct.)
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Shit Jeremy Strandberg you should get that response from Vincent framed
I’m a big fan of the twin blades of choice: “Tell them the possible consequences, and ask” and “offer an opportunity, with or without a cost”
But real talk, the Grotesque threat moves “Display the nature of the world it inhabits” and “Display the contents of its heart” are both personal favorites as well.
Quick, someone design me a game where consequences are dictated by the move being triggered but success is handled by a discrete set of GM moves.
Maybe it’s a horror game where the gruesome bits are all really, really excruciatingly specific to what you’re doing and make up the moves’ 6- results but a 10+ means the GM decides between really basic GM moves like reveal a clue, put time or distance between them, put a weapon or tool in their hands, show them mercy, heal their wounds, or bring them together.
Marshall Miller sort of like “on a 10+, the GM chooses two, on a 7-9, the GM chooses one” ?
Aaron Griffin is so right! “Tell the consequences and ask” is the most brilliant MC/GM move/practice and everyone should follow it in almost all RPG games!
MC: “Sure, if you want to round up a posse from Uncle’s gang and hunt Charmer, there’s nothing s/he can do about it, but you know they are gonna be pissed about it, especially if you lose anyone. So, what do you do?”
The Player can off course respond. “Dammit, s/he’s going to be a problem, … I think I’m taking a short rest to schmooze up to they!”
I like “Turn their move back on them,” if only because it typically takes the fiction in a direction that we don’t expect that no other move can deliver.