I’ve often had problems using the Seduce & Manipulate move in Apocalypse World and the Parley move in Dungeon World , but until now I never tried to express them in a communicable form.
In the linked post I try to explain my gripes, and to offer a possible alternative solution. One that is now part of my personal DW reimagining, jokingly called #AdvancedDungeonWorldNext2 (or just #ADWN2 for short) (just a funny placeholder name for the project).
Am I the only one experiencing those problems?
What are YOUR problems with that move?
How do you like my alternative move?
https://plus.google.com/+AlessandroPiroddi/posts/CB6PvBs4bny
So it’s not that if successful the player was correct about the leverage, regardless of what the MC thought beforehand?
That is what the move itself seems to suggest.
But then the extended explanation on the rulebook makes it clear that no… the MC says IF the move is triggered by making a judgment on the NPC drives and motivation.
No leverage? No roll.
Yeah, that doesn’t seem right.
I find it interesting that in discussing AW you don’t mention Read a Person. I find the questions in that list are often key in PC/NPC interaction. When I run AW, I wish I asked for read a person more often. Especially in scenes where seduce/manipulate comes up so that the player can find out a little about what makes the NPC tic. This might also make the seduce/manipulate leverages explicitly part of the fiction.
That’s because my gripe is mostly with the wording of the 7-9 outcome from the S&M move.
RaP is very useful, and I often suggest that the PC might want to observe the other N/PC while interacting with them.
But if the Player does not describe anything that could trigger the move (and it happens quite often) that I’m not gonna impose it.
Many times I ask something like
“_While you express all this stuff you just said, I assume you look at the person you are talking to, right? I mean, you observe them. You pay attention. Yes? Because if you do, you Read them. So, are you?_”
You can’t imagine how many times the answer ends up being “No, not really” because they imagine their PC being self involved, or distracted or just dumping their awesome speech on the listener.
In such cases I just accept it and move on 😛