How frequently at your table do players trigger moves and roll dice?
Listening to my players objections to the too-fast pacing, I went through the last session letting them do most of the leading without new things being thrown in. (Feedback to that was positive) There was some great role play and some of the outstanding threads got wrapped up. In an 8 hour session, moves were triggered where dice were rolled only about 5 or 6 times.
How do your experiences compare?
They do it a lot, although sometimes in different ways. One of my newer players will grab the dice and be trying to specifically trigger the moves. Most of them are used to describing what they’re doing and I’ll stop them to say, “that sounds like you’re trying to unleash your powers, unless you’ve got a playbook move you think is more appropriate” or some variation on that.
Not everything they do needs a move, even if it involves their powers. Letting their actions take place and then stopping them to say they’re triggering a move is a good way of doing it. Being a game, people will be overtly or covertly aiming to trigger some of them. My new guy who likes to grab the dice and get all excited, saying things like “I’m going to directly engage Helium Horror!” Is fine, although I tend to counter by asking what that looks like or how he’s going about doing that. It’s all about finding the rhythm of the conversation both for yourself and your group.
That rate is not unusual for us at all. I also suspect that we roll much less than an average table. Seven characters, a year of pretty regular play and no one is into advanced moves yet.
I think last session I ran was 2 1/2 or 3 hours long. I didn’t measure anything, but I’d guess each player initiated moves 3-6 times an hour. They had enough failures that multiple of them took advances. Assuming they roll with an average of +1, they’d typically succeed 15/36 of the time. Which mathematically suggests they rolled an average of 12 times in the session, which is roundabout 4 or 5 times per hour.
Seem like it might be a little low, but it really depends on what’s going on in the fiction. There are some really wonderful scenes that don’t trigger moves.
Since you’re moving from a situation where you’re being a proactive GM with reactive players to a reactive GM with proactive players, one element of your role that’s going to become more emphasized is to spot situations where characters are making moves.
Always be ready to ask “are you provoking them right now?” “are you telling them who they are?” “are you revealing a weakness or vulnerability?”, etc.