I’ve got a moves question here. I’ve run about 6 sessions of MotW (mostly one shots) but we are now 3 sessions into a longer term campaign. For the most part things have been going well, but each of the last 3 sessions I’ve had a particular issue come up with “Protect Someone” vs “Kick Some Ass” vs “Act Under Pressure”.
I’ve got an initiate who uses a sword/gun – and often doesn’t want to hurt the monster, but rather wants to use his martial prowess to protect someone. The first time it came up was when the monster was going to kill a bystander, he decided to shoot at the monster, in his mind – he wasn’t trying to kill the monster but rather protect his friend. I had him roll kick some ass but he was displeased afterwards because that wasn’t his intention.
I tried to clarify that, in my mind at least, Protect Someone is when you are placing yourself in jeopardy in order to prevent damage to another person, reasoning that it would be Kick Some Ass if what you were doing was focused on damaging something [namely because in theory every time you are hurting the monster you are protecting someone by removing the monster from existence – but it is still kick some ass, lest all ass kicking be protecting someone].
Then it came up again the next session, where he wanted to “Protect Someone” by disarming the monster of its weapon. He wanted to chop the monster’s hand off that was holding the weapon. He didn’t feel like it was kick some ass, but I didn’t want to give him the benefit of protect someone and also doing harm to the monster, so I compromised and did Act Under Pressure to “disarm” the monster.
All that to say, am I missing something? How do you guys run these moves? How do you communicate the way you intend to run moves to your players so that Keeper and Players are on the same page and don’t walk away with shattered expectations? How should each of those three moves be delineated? Is Act Under Pressure the default? Does being a fan of the players mean I shouldn’t fight them protecting someone and doing harm at the same time?
Remember that you always have a third option: apply the move as established! The game even calls this out for a “shooting a zombie” vs “punching a zombie”. I also think “Act Under Pressure” is a fine move to handle risky actions that don’t directly result in harm.
That said, if this is going to be happening a lot, consider rolling it into a custom move, since the player is invested in it. Think about how you want disarming and pacifist protection to impact the fiction, and talk with the player as well. What are some ways to put them on the spot in a 7-9 roll?
Andy Hauge’s advice is good.
You might also want to spend a bit more time negotiating before applying a move… make sure all the options are open: e.g. “Well, if you do protect it seems like you are focused on the disarm, not doing harm, but if you did act under pressure maybe you can manage both.”
Also you should be applying Keeper moves whenever relevant. Another option for that disarm is to have the hunter roll protect and perhaps based on the results, you could also apply the Keeper move inflict harm as established (or something else).
Great advice guys, thanks for the replies! I’ll try to put it into practice next session.