Author: Written Speaker

So, I’m starting a new group of players with MotW. We are planning on doing a longer term campaign and I’ve Dmed MotW quite a few times already for a group of experienced RPG players.

I’ve run into an issue with newer players that didn’t come up in my old group. How much world building do you roll with from the players? I want them to. Be invested in the world so I obviously want them doing some of the world building and lore stuff. But I have one player who essentially just took a character from Supernatural and inserted them into our campaign/world. And when I say inserted I mean, their backstory literally involves the Winchester and their main antagonist is a primary antagonist from the show and that the battle between angels and demons and other angels is going down.

That wasn’t necessarily what I was hoping for, but is it a huge problem? Do I try and roll with it or do I make it clear – this isn’t that world, but there are similarities?

Should I do anything about it and if so, what?

CUSTOM MOVE:

I made custom move for my campaign that takes place in the 1920’s and involves a speakeasy that caters to the magical lot in town (magic is not widely accepted or known among the “ungifted”).

We found that there was a lot of deception/distraction stuff that people wanted to do in place of just kicking ass or trying to manipulate someone. So this is kind of a hybrid move that overlaps a bit, and to that effect I’ve incorporated the “glitch” type mechanic from Use Magic – with consequences from other moves into a sort of Frankenstein move assembled from the parts of others.

My players have used it quite a few times since I made it and it feels right in practice, so I figured I’d share it.

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Hoodwink Em!: This covers trying to do something that will influence a conversation or fight by hiding, lying, or misdirecting or attempting to Protect Someone, or Kick Some Ass without involving yourself in the fray; trying to get the monsters attention when you are far away from the harm; trying to tell the security guard that your FBI ID is totally real “dude”; trying to shoot that sword out of The General’s hand before he can finish his down-swing; or telling that barkeep that you will definitely consider giving them a raise when you certainly won’t.

When you Hoodwink Em! roll +Cool or +Charm (ask the Keeper):

• On a 10+ you do what you set out to.

• On a 7-9, you succeed, but choose an “uh-oh” from below, and the Keeper will determine what effect it has:

– You draw immediate unwanted attention;

– You expose yourself to extra danger;

– You gain a 1 forward;

An ally gains 1 forward;

Something or someone breaks down;

• On a miss, things go to hell.

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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?