Scavenger: when you dig through remnants of the old times, roll+sharp.
On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7-9, choose 1:
• you find something worth 1-barter
• you avoid serious trouble
• you find a salvage-rich area, giving you +1forward the next time you return
• you’re quick about it
a ruin runner move. Do you still find “something” on a hit? Otherwise the 7-9 result is pretty weak and should be at least choose 2….
am i right?
No, otherwise you could always choose “avoid serious trouble” on a 7-9 and still come ahead. The 7-9 result is a difficult choice, because you might find something or set yourself up for a better result the next time you search this area, but if you choose either of those then the MC can introduce a threat. Maybe somebody is following you, maybe somebody is ambushing you, maybe you found something valuable by stumbling onto a raiding gang’s campsite.
but then i am basicly always hosing myself on the roll. The 7-9 realy seams to weak to me. The choice automaticly becomes to find something for 1 barter because otherwise why would you make the move?
Rolling a 7 or higher with a +0 is a 58% chance of success. That would be pretty powerful to just be able to roll that to get 1-barter all the time.
Keep in mind that a 7-9 is basically still a success, but for a move like this you’re picking options. The move is loaded with options to give the MC ideas of how to make a hard choice for the player. You can take 1-barter every time you make the move, but when you roll 7-9 you’re going to have some difficulty just like a regular 7-9 result which will lead to a moves snowball.
Check the rulebook, page 152: “Hitting rolls on a 7–9, especially, usually leaves a whole lot unresolved, primed for follow through or a counterstrike.”
but there is no option to just find thing X. something that is worth less then 1 barter.
I think that’s implied if you select “you’re quick about it” or “you avoid serious trouble”
second thinkg: “something worth 1 barter”
does that mean thing X or 1 barter? A shotgun is worth 1 barter as are 2 stock angel kit.
Do you decide that? Does the GM just decide?
I think you follow the fiction of the conversation. If the player just goes scavenging without declaring that they’re looking for anything in particular then that gives the MC license to make shit up. If the player says “I’m looking for an old radio or TV set.” then that gives the MC license to narrate finding electronic parts if the player succeeds and nothing electronic if they fail.
The moves in AW aren’t structured for success like other games you might have played, where they look like this:
– Critical success: success, with benefits
– Success: You get what you wanted
– Failure: You’re boned.
They’re structured so that unless you have an all out win (which thematically in a post-apocalyptic-hard-scrabble game is rather rarish) that middle ground becomes a half-won place where the outcome serves to help the fiction forward.
Think about the success levels in AW more like this:
– 10+: You get a clean success in a world where nothing is ever clean.
– 7-9: You won by personally surviving, advancing or clawing your way through despite the fact that the world did it’s best to get you back.
– 6 down: Nope, the world is exactly the way you expected it to be: hard, brutal, scarce, toxic, and the deck is stacked against you.
i know and get that Jo
But let’s say i make the move and get a 7-9 and choose
you avoid serious trouble
– then nothing has happened
some time has advanced but that is not that interesting. This move then becomes “just waste a couple of hours with uninteresting stuff”
of course, choosing to still get the 1 barter is interesting -> but i can lead to a boring, unnceccary move too
This is one of those moves that could benefit from having the parts where you tell the MC what doesn’t happen taken out of it.
When you choose to avoid serious trouble, you’re playing it safe – it’s not just that nothing happens.
Some players will come into the situation all jacked up from a previous encounter, looking for a quick barter, get 7-9, and opt not to get hammered for the attempt. Maybe the player wants it boring that time.
Other players maybe have the juice to knock some heads together, start scavving, get 7-9, and opt to either get the barter or the lead on better stuff later, with the attendant risk of having to knife some dudes.
Plus, avoiding serious trouble may not necessarily have to mean that nothing happens. Maybe they encounter a raider who doesn’t have the fight in him to drive the player(s) away. Or they find out that someone from their Hardhold already got the good stuff and scared away a bunch of cannibals. It’s only boring if the MC says “so, nothing happens, then”.
I think it just needs an extra line of text to clarify the move. Maybe:
when you dig through remnants of the old times, roll+sharp. On a hit, you find something of value. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7-9, choose 1:
• it’s worth at least 1-barter, maybe more
• you avoid serious trouble
• you find a salvage-rich area, giving you +1forward the next time you return
• you’re quick about it
isn’t that what i proposed from the beginning? Or at least it is what i had in mind.
Because that’s essentially how I read the move anyway. On a hit you find something, but if you don’t select “it’s worth 1-barter” then it’s essentially not tradeable, but is probably usable.
That’s clearly the intention yes but it was totally missing from the text.
I thought you were proposing that you always find something worth 1-barter.
.oO (Am I Jo?)
Avoiding serious trouble isn’t nothing happening, it’s a cue for the MC to introduce the serious trouble you’re avoiding. If youre alone in a scavenge land and you choose this the gangs should drive along the broken tarmac just after you swing off the road, toothy hive minded cannibals should rise up out of a hole you just dug and abandoned. If you’re alone in the scavenge land and you choose this option and the MC nods and says: OK, nothing happened, then the MC doesnt understand how the system is serving him, and you, and the fiction.
Its also a flag that tells us something significant about the character. What does it say when you don’t pick this option when the hive cannibals are already scenting your trail? What does it tell us about your character when you do pick it, and you’re alone in the scavenge lands?