Just a little project I’m working on. Dunno when this will be, but next AW campaign I run I want to bring in a custom move for each prevalent NPC the protagonists encounter. Just simple little one to two line moves that add a bit of mechanical colouring to them. Anyways, I wrote down about 20 quick moves that I can look to for inspiration or to just use outright.
Here’s my starting list of 20 or so moves. If you like, take a look and let me know what you think.
I can’t see the whole thing at work, but Slippery goes against the principles, so I’d vote that one right out. You, as the MC are under oath to tell the truth.
They seem a little to complicated, I think. the four that I can see could easy be replaced by some flavouring.
“Dangerous” : That guy’s a badass. Like, major badass (treat his harm like a PCs instead of an NPC, he deals 3-harm)
“Deadly” : I really don’t like, because it makes the badass characters feel less badass (the gunlugger should be able to kill everyone else in the setting. He’s the gunlugger. It’s what he does), and the less badass characters feel useless.
“Whack Job” : You could just say that reading him also triggers opening your brain.
Sorry, had the document locked. It’s fixed now.
What kind of game are you expecting from this? AW with a bit more flair or an entire setting all together
To each their own Alex. 🙂
I didn’t really think too much about my expectations really. Just thought this would be fun. I like when I am a player and I trigger an NPC custom move. It’s surprising and really fun. Wanted to capture that I guess.
Could not agree more! In essence, if you want the moves, they are perfectly fine.
Except for slippery. It goes against a principle and thus against an agenda (Follow the principles and make your moves), and that just feels wrong.
Keeping information from players changes the interaction between PCs and the MC in a major way, and that can lead to not “playing to see what happens”.
I see what you mean, you’re not wrong. But this is a move that you’d use maybe once or twice before the players pick up on it. And then they know Rolfball can lie through his teeth and they need to change their approach with him. As a player, I would adore this move getting one over on me.
Well, perhaps keeping info might be okay, but the dishonesty less so. Perhaps the response could be, “Keeler here is too slippery, I can’t answer that. You can take your question back.” Then we’re still being honest, responding with fuckery, and not really taking away the pc’s success
Yeah, I think it’s fine to tell the PC that he’s not allowed to ask that question. But lying to them is essentially making them feel less awesome for using what their character is good at.
I think that is an elegant solution. That is essentially what would happen after they discover what the NPC could do anyways. Once bitten twice shy and all. A solid change, I will make it.
I can see where you’re going, but I don’t think I’d care for it as a player.
I tend to find that it’s a strong point of AW that the NPCs are paper, and nothing is ‘off the menu’ as it were. It’s part of the atmosphere of unpredictability and potential the base rules can create.
But it might work in your game. Depends on the players, of course.
These could effectively be Front moves, couldn’t they? I haven’t done much with those myself… I guess the oddity is they’re probably often moves for the Home Front…
You could make them spend to Holds for certainty that they are speaking the truth. Hey, he is slippery and hard to read. You are not sure of his intentions. You can take that back or you can spend an extra Hold to be sure.