Here’s my little Dungeon World story:
A mind flayer has taken our druid captive and is slowly backing out of the room with the poor druid’s head wrapped in his tentacles. The villain has coerced our paladin into swearing an oath to allow him to escape. My ranger, Jonah, has an arrow drawn and ready but my target is almost entirely concealed by the druid’s body. The shot is possible but it’s going to be very hard (Defy Danger to avoid hitting the druid, then I have to get a 10 or higher on the Called Shot or else I hit them both. It’s also a dilemma because the druid is a player’s second character – the first one died in a previous session – and I didn’t want to be responsible for making him roll a third).
Jonah takes his time, he lets himself breath, and he takes the shot (nailed the Defy Danger roll with an 11). The arrow flies straight and true, missing the druid entirely and burying itself in the eye socket of the mind flayer (10 on the Called Shot roll, followed by an 8 on damage – the best result I could have rolled). The bad guy dies almost instantly, our druid is saved. Jonah is a big damn hero.
When he leveled up shortly after, I picked “God Amidst the Wastes” for my new move. My ranger took a shot that was so miraculous and perfect that it gave him faith.
I love this game.
So what would have happened on a 7-9 Defy Danger or on a miss?
I am not sure this move really works here…
The danger is that you shoot the Druid. So on a 7-9, maybe you hesitate and the mind flayer drags him out of the room: success, at least you haven’t made things worse. On a miss, you let fly at the wrong moment and the Druid gets it. Neither of those are much good, but this is supposed to hard.
Well at least give them the choice on a 7-9 shoot now and deal 1d6 damage to the druid but hit the Mindflayer or let them go.
Just letting them go doesn’t feel like a yes but. It feels more like the “seperate them” move.
Well, you could, but I don’t think you have to. The DM has already set up the Separate Them move, you just didn’t stop it.
Well soft move (announce future badness) and then on a miss, hard move (seperate them)
Hard bargain: Your arrow can strike true, right through this thing’s eye, destroying this thing’s brain, but you know in your heart that you’ll never fire an arrow quite so perfect again. This shot, right here, is your masterpiece. Or you can miss, of course, knowing full well that you can do better.
Yeah, there are a lot of options the DM could have gone with. Luckily we will never know what he would have chosen because I rolled some wicked hot dice.
On a miss you kill the mind flayer but not before it gets into druid’s head. Now his player goes with mind flayer posing as a druid.
Whatever the DM call, it doesn’t stop this being a cool scene. The test was set and you nailed it. Just like a couple of Nat 20s in a row!