How do you guys handle a miss on Spout Lore? I’ve been using it as an opportunity to “Reveal an unwelcome truth” and sometimes use the opportunity to make the adventure more dangerous as a result. Basically tell the party some detail that makes the subject matter at hand more dangerous. The inverse of a 10+ kinda sorta.
Example: My group was planning on raiding the tomb of the long dead Khan. My Druid decided to spout some lore about “secrets of the tomb.” He rolled a 4. I decided to tell him that he has heard tales around the fire telling of the Khan and his power. That it is said the Khan was stronger, faster and more powerful than any man in his time. It was said that he had power even over Death.
The failure on the roll made my idea of the adventure/tomb go from a spooky crypt where a dead warlord was buried, to a Prison where his Undead from still resides.
Is this off base? Or do people do similar stuff with Spout Lore?
You can make any move you want 🙂
You can give an opportunity/bargain, like saying “You can’t remember, but you are pretty sure you read about this in a book at home. If you go home, you could find out, but it would probably take a few hours. What do you do?”
The trigger is when you consulting your accumulated knowledge about something… This might take some time, depending on the situation.
Something not entirely related to the action at hand might also happen; wandering monsters, setting off traps and such things.
Guy Sodin, that sounds absolutely spot on. Respond with a move that is as hard as you like.
For me, the key that I’ve found is to consider the results of a 10+ weighed against a 6-. On the scales, those should be balanced. On a success Spout Lore is a way for the players to get information about how to deal with a specific problem; It follows, at least for me, that a failure could expand the problem.
I tend to ask the player what their character just spouted, and believed, that put them at a direct disadvantage; it may or may not be true, up to them. The way you handled it sounds pretty cool, and entirely non-problematic.
a PDF of great resource for spot lore misses: http://plus.google.com/105808699738403752805/posts/ickbSdjj14G