Second game GMing DW and some minor issues came up. I have run into issues where people are spouting lore etc in non-combat situations and rolling -6. I was doing some bad things in the background, but maybe not enough in game to make people realize that there are consequences to their actions even out of combat. The perception is that some players are getting free XP for well…free.
What are some good ways that I can better show the failure of things like spout lore or discern realities in say an Inn or outside of battle? Am I triggering the moves too much? For instance one player asked if his young paladin has been around enough to know if he should tip a waitress. I had him spout lore to find out. Should I just have said you tell me?
In conclusion…what are some good non combat bad things on a -6 for spout lore etc and should I not call for moves as often as I think I should?
Thanks for any help.
rdk
Roll for spout lore when it is lore. Knowing how much to tip a waitress is not something discovered in your tears of study to be an archmage, or your years of experience as a ranger, or a fragment of an ancient song. Lore is significant and deep, things most people don’t know.
For me, a good rule of thumb is: if a player wants to do something and I can’t pretty easily come up with something interesting to happen if they fail, just let them do it.
DW is pretty good in helping here because it works off of those blatant triggers for moves. So roll when it triggers. But I would use the above rule of thumb still in most cases. Technically sure, the paladin is consulting his accumulated knowledge. But if they say,”hey do I know…”, and you’re thinking “who cares?”, let them decide or just say yeah.
Well, if he rolls a 6- something has to happen. Like you think about tipping the waitress and notice the ninjas creeping up on her. If you don’t have a GM move planned, don’t roll.
I think it’s valuable here to “reveal an unwelcome truth.” In my game today, one of the characters was possessed by the spirit of an ancient elven king. When another player Spouted Lore to determine how she could get the spirit out (and rolled a 4), I told her “You’ll have to get the spirit to give up the possession. And if you don’t do it soon, the energy the spirit is releasing will destroy your friend…”
I like what Mark said. Another take: so what happens if the bard spouts lore to say giants never come this far south and she roles 6-? Seems to me that a giant or two might threaten the group, and the party will think twice before believing her again: “That’s what you said about the giants.”
Discern realities is similar, put the character in jeopardy because they were wrong. This recently happened to me in a DW encounter where I put acid on my shield and bashed an undead snake with it. I had failed my Discern Realities roll about the acid earlier. Instead of harming the snake, it recharged its venomous bite. Ouch!
The miss can be of two sorts:
– circumstancial: while you spout lore, something wrong happens (a monster approached, the trap triggered, you get a lumbago while looking up…)
– personal: you discover an unwelcome truth (it maybe right or wrong, who knows ? those gentle fishermen eat people alive in dark rituals, you will soon discover if it was prudent to drink their “welcome cocktail”).
As Chuck said, it’s the same with discern realities.
And yeah, check before if it really triggers a spout lore move.
In my last session, I just kept escalating situations. Players used Discern Reality quite a lot, as they investigated a murder.
Opening scene was that they just heard people shouting outside the inn. They went out and checked what happened. Apparently, someone had been murdered.
The “clever” fighter decided to check what had happened. I said it sounded like he was “closely studying the situation”, so I asked him to roll Discern Realities. He rolled a miss.
First I was like “now what?”, but I just made the move show signs of an approaching threat. I decided something really strong had ripped the poor girl in half.
It might not sound like much, but it escalated the situation to something more dangerous than a “muggin’ gon’ wrong”.
Great, thanks for the help.