Is it just me, or does the Ranger’s Elf Ranger move reduce dramatic tension?
Why not a 12+ move, such as: Elf – When you undertake a perilous journey through wilderness and score a 12+, you succeed wildly at your role. It takes half the time, you can frighten, intimidate, or dismay any opponents waiting to ambush you, or you consume no rations.
That 12+ move probably needs work. Is it a cool idea, or does everyone else like the automatic success? Any ideas for how to improve move?
Rolling 10+ as a scout doesn’t mean you avoid an encounter, just that you get the drop. I think this is the most angst provoking job anyway.
I had the exact same idea some months ago. Unfortunately, all the rangers so far have been human, so there was no way for me to test this thing and see if it actually improves the game.
You shouldn’t change moves to make the game more dangerous mechanically. That’s just a waste of work. You can always throw more dangerous stuff at them if you want 🙂
I mean, this doesn’t only make it more dangerous. It makes it more variable — it’d still be hard for a Ranger (high wis) to fail the roll, but this way they can have a real moment of glory. What I dislike about the current move is there’s no learning from mistakes, one of my favorite hallmarks of DW.
We never aim for “dramatic tension” as such. We take things that fit our various fictional ideas of what elves and rangers are and jam them together to make something that reflects why an elven ranger is cool.
The great thing about Perilous Journey is that there’s still other rolls to be made. It’s such a weird move because since there are multiple rolls, one 10+ is kind of only a partial success overall. Think of it that way: an elf ranger makes your perilous journey always a partial success.