Theory: Show downside of equipment basically has to go together with another move.
Can you give an example where Shwoing the downside isn’t one of those too:
– Deal Damage
– Put someone in a spot
– Deal Damage
– Take away their ressources
– another GM move
?
or said differently, Shwoing the downside of X is basically
– other GM Move because of X
Basically half of GM moves are variants of “put someone in a spot”.
I guess I would argue that “the goblin is inside the reach of your halberd” isn’t so much putting someone in a spot as it is showing them what they have to do to be able to use their equipment. You could argue that’s “take away their resources,” or more likely “tell them the requirements and ask.”
So I can’t yet really disprove your theory, BUT I would say that “show the downside of their equipment” still belongs on the list because it’s an important thing to be reminded of.
There’s definitely overlap, but the point is that “show the downside of equipment” (or race, or class, or whatever) is a helpful way of framing things to give the GM ideas, suggesting things that “put someone in a spot” or “take away their resources” might not.
p 165
“Note that “deal damage” is a move, but other moves may include damage as well. When an ogre flings you against a wall you take damage as surely as if he had smashed you with his fists.”
so there is that.
How true is this for other moves?
To do it, do it! If doing it involves dealing the PCs damage or taking away resources even if that’s not the specific move you’re making, go right ahead.
I’m doing that anyway, i just wanted to know if their is some credence to that in the rules.
The moves are there to foster your creativity, not to classify it into perfectly distinguishable classes.
I did one that was “you stab through the spider, but your sword also sticks into the large web cable [that your friend is using to dangle precariously over a very deep gorge]. The sword isn’t stuck, but you might cut the web by pulling it out. What do you do?”
That’s a downside of owning a sharp and pointy piece of metal. It didn’t take it away from her, as she still has it. That’s kind of putting her in a spot, though.
I agree with Vasiliy Shapovalov; the actions aren’t exclusive categories. But it’s still a fun intellectual exercise to figure out something that is X but not any other move.
“You fell in the ocean? Well, way to go, plate mail. You are drowning.” Which could snowball in a bunch of directions, and it snowballs directly into “put someone in a spot”
In some ways there’s only one GM move: make something happen that follows (usually with a negative bent, but not always).
All the actual GM moves are just ways of looking at that, because giving concrete options (even when not all of them apply all the time) is more useful (to us at least) than a super general directive.
Something else to do between sessions, look at all the gear the pcs have accumulated and make notes on the downside of each.
Adam Koebel Just curious, based on this is it a “house rule” at your table that you keep the characters between sessions?
Nah, we usually keep the character sheets at the place we are playing.