I have a question about The Oracle’s “Foretelling” move. I haven’t actually used my hold in-game yet, but every time I try to figure out how it’d work, I get stuck on how and when the +1 Ongoing is applied:
“Foretellings: At the beginning of the session, roll with Spirit. On a 10+, hold 2. On a 7-9, hold 1. During the session, you can spend your hold to declare that something terrible is about to happen. You (and your allies) take +1 ongoing to avoid the impending disaster. On a miss, you foresee the death of someone important to you and take -1 to all rolls to prevent
it.”
Here’s a likely scenario from next week’s session, when I’ll probably (+3 Spirit) have some hold to spend:
James has beef with a local anarchist Fae hacker adhocracy, who’s recent mass-doxings have put him in hot water. He’s going to drop in on them at their combination head shop and hackerspace in downtown campus town. If everything goes well, he’ll convince them to help him get “off the grid” and away from his stepfather, whom has been actively chasing him for years.
So James rolls up to the building and as the player I say “I have a bad feeling something terrible is about to happen.”
My question is: do I have to say what that terrible thing is? Do I have to say “I think this is a trap, these Fae want me dead.” or “The local Vampire Clans surely won’t let this invasion on their territory last, they could bust in here and slaughter everyone at any time!”
The +1 ongoing is only for AVOIDING “something terrible”, but who gets to say what the terrible thing is? Is it part of player skill to guess, like “I think i’m walking into an ambush.” If so, does that mean if they guess wrong – they call ambush, it’s actually Vampires – they don’t get the +1 Ongoing?
Does the MC say what the terrible thing is, so the player can make metagmame-informed decisions about how to avoid it in the narrative? Or do you just declare that some rolls are for avoiding the terrible thing?
I took it that the player declares what terrible thing is about to happen and that now becomes fact.
I thought that too, but I can’t figure out why I’d want to make something terrible happen once or twice a session, just so I could be better at making rolls to AVOID it. That also treads dangerously close to the “Czege Principle” of “it’s never fun to make your own adversity.”
In any other case, it’s the MC’s job to make terrible, unexpected things happen. Why this one time to Players do it? That just doesn’t read right with me. It seems like you’d want this move to help you avoid things you normally wouldn’t be able to control for. Not a move to make new things you can’t control for like sudden Vampire attacks or ambushes.
I also took it to mean that the player only says something terrible is about to happen and the MC makes it so. Of course player suggestions should always be welcomed!
I think the section “about your moves” covers this a little:
When you spend hold from Foretellings, you’re not necessarily guaranteeing that thing will happen; you’re giving yourself and your allies the chance to act before the thing comes to pass. If you’re hiding from a vampire assassin, for example, you might spend your hold to say, “She’s going to find me,” and take a +1 ongoing to attempts to escape before she notices you or unleash an attack on her when she gets close.
—
So it seems like you would declare it after things already seem to be going down a route. It’s letting you declare something retroactively, which is covered in the MC section of the book, under the Power Archetypes(p219)
There’s a GM move of “sometimes, disclaim decision making” — well designed playbook moves (like this one) often have a GM move built into them. Under one view, that’s what’s going on here.
Many times I’ve had a game where the GM turns to a player and says “what’s beyond that door?” (or similar), and the player makes a decision. Same thing here, but the GM doesn’t have to be active about it.
Ok, so you use it slightly retroactively, and also as a predictive/preventative power. I think I can mostly work with that.
That example seems weird, with the vampire assassin. The power is to AVOID something, so it seems weird that they say “unleash an attack” is a viable option for the +1 Ongoing. If you say “she’s going to find me”, making yourself known by attacking her isn’t exactly avoiding someone finding you, is it?
They must have a more generous interpretation of “avoid” than I do.
I think what the person in the example is avoiding is the bad consequences of the assassin finding you. It wouldn’t be so terrible if a vampire assassin found me and we fistbumped and talked about Kanye for a while.
Yeah I think part of that is skill in wording. If you say “this vampire is going to find me and kill me” then the +1 ongoing would apply to either.
I actually really enjoy how careful one has to be about their wording. It’s a skill many games don’t reward, but Urban Shadows is really good at.
I’ve gone both ways with this and been happy with both. I tend to default to letting the MC control the badness, but it should also flow from a logical place when it’s done that way. If you’re moving into dangerous territory belonging to Kerrigan, the immortal swordswoman, the bad thing you’re foretelling is probably a violent run-in with her. But, asking the Oracle what they see is totally awesome too!