Last AW session I found the Angel’s “Healing Touch” move results to be designed strangely.
The roll results read as follows:
On a 10+, heal 1 segment. On a 7–9, heal 1 segment, but you’re also opening your brain, so roll that move next. On a miss: first, you don’t heal them. Second, you’ve opened both your brain and theirs to the world’s psychic maelstrom, without protection or preparation. For you, and for your patient if your patient’s a fellow player’s character, treat it as though you’ve made that move and missed the roll.
The usual goal for this move is healing and the different results reflect that well. The 6- result is fine too, because in addition to failing to heal, the MC can make a unpleasant move.
What I found strange is the complication on 7-9 very possibly isn’t a complication. Especially if the Angel has weird highlighted and gets a hit on the opening your brain move. Instead of just healing 1 segment the Angel gets an additional XP point (because the character actually makes the move instead of “treat it as though”, like with the 6- result) and receives “new and interesting information”.
In short: the 7-9 “Healing Touch” result is way better than the 10+ result unless the player misses the open your brain move.
That does not feel right to me. Do I miss something in the move’s design? If you agree, how do you solve this issue narratively or mechanically? I would like to reserve psi-harm for misses (would get boring in the long run anyway) and handing out wrong information doesn’t work forever too.
Any feedback is gladly appreciated!
Well opening your brain to another person let’s them ask you any question and you have to answer truthfully. In most AW games I’ve been a part of, the characters have not really been friends and sometimes work at cross purposes.
“Ok Angel, why did you heal Dremmer after I shot her?”
Rolls always have an element of risk, and the character may have not wanted to open their brain at that time, for whatever reason (like, maybe they’re under fire, or being chased).
But also – it’s often a cool narrative turn, and an excellent to ask amazing questions. So why worry about it?
Why worry? My reason was that it seemed to contradict the design structure of all the other moves and I can assure you my other players recognized that. Still went along with it, as they slowly settle in the gaming concept of AW, but there still was a “that seems to good to be true” reaction at first and I would like to avoid pulling my players out of their immersion.
But after mulling over your answers a bit, I guess I did not treat the 7-9 complication very well. I was not really aware or did not realize the difference between “opening your brain to someone” and “opening your brain to the Maelstrom”. May be partly because all, except one, patients (the Angel treated a whole bunch over time) were NPCs and most of them random riff raff. Also it’s not really explained.
If it’s treated more in a way of “your patient learns something about you, you might not want them to know” that feels much more like a small drawback and forces inter-character play instead of more info dump by the MC (as with the usual “open brain to Maelstrom move”).
I will try this approach next time, I’m positive it will fly better. Thanks for your responses!
Consider if it’s a random npc that they might have witnessed something significant (and unwelcome) to the angel as well as the angel’s personal exposure. Fwiw, we play brain opening as not entirely positive in the best of times.
A character can open their brain whenever they want, it’s the easiest move to trigger (but it’s also the most impredictable, and for that reason the coolest), so an Angel can open their brain after a 10+ on Healing Touch if they want to, however on a 7-9 they don’t have the choice, they have to, even if they don’t need to and could roll a 6-.
Trevis Martin That was my thought too (now). At least along the lines of “I owe you, but you’re still weird”, potentially even more. Although then the NPC might become more important through this, by now knowing info important to the Angel. But that’s good for the game anyway.
Good to know I’m on the right track now!
I mean, do note that the Move doesn’t say that you’re opening your brain to them. It just says that you’re opening your brain.
But, you as the MC can help frame the situation by asking how does their mind open, what their connection to their patient is in that moment, what they feel, etc. As always, ask provocative questions, build on the answer.
But in general – don’t force yourself to think of it as “trouble”; think of it as the story shooting out in an unexpected direction, which may or may not bring trouble.
Alberto Muti Yeah, but I love to give trouble to my players to see how they deal with it ;-).
I hate to say this, especially because I ignored it until now too, but the move actually says “open your brain to them” in its first sentence. That’s why I liked the first answers so much, they opened an interpretation of the rules which fits the wording even though there’s no real explanation what is meant. I guess the reason is to keep the possible results open and variable (just like you described).
My personal approach is: first, understand the rules, then you can alter them better. Don’t worry, I’m experienced enough to keep my options. I just like to have a baseline to operate from, because then it’s much more impactful when you deviate.
I am very happy about all the answers and how quick they came. You guys definitely helped me to wrap my head around a possible way to deal with it with my group. Already talked to my Angel player and we found a way to implement it in the future. We agreed to test it as “you open yourself and accidently spill to much of yourself into the connection”. So the patient gets a free “read a person” on you and gets a good deal of freedom when asking their question. The open your brain roll determines how clear the info is they get. Might be a direct answers, might be just a cryptic picture. We’ll see how well this works as a baseline. Next session is in two weeks, but it might take a while until I can test variations. Your input is not forgotten though. 🙂
Everyone’s answers here are good and it seems like you got what you were looking for, but I thought it might help to add a reminder that one of the MC’s Principles is to “respond with fuckery and intermittent rewards.” A 7-9 result on this move seems like a perfect opportunity to respond with fuckery.