Sudden realization this morning about a tone I keep catching in the Dungeon World games, and have been chasing with my GMless hack.
Dungeon World is the game of Choose Your Own Adventure/Fighting Fantasy/Gamebook Adventure fiction. CHARACTER does THINGS, so you ROLL to find out how that goes for them. If there isn’t a result worth writing an entire branching story path for…don’t roll!
I don’t get that sentiment somehow. Importance or risk is not part of when you trigger moves. Only the trigger is.
And only because you do something doesn’t even has to be a roll. The exactly same action can be a move or not a move depending on the circumstances. This however only has to do with the fictional positioning RIGHT NOW, and not with some potential story threats that could emerge.
Part of it is in how the moves are structured.
Stabbing someone with a sword isn’t hack and slash. Trying to stab someone who can stab you back is hack and slash.
Discerning Realities is triggered when you try to find out about the situation. If you fail it, the situation find out about you/gets worse/suddenly, a dragon.
There is always risk in triggering moves, at least the rolled for ones, which are the ones I actually consider moves rather than “this is where we put the rules of the game because hey look, the rules of the game basically fit on two sides of a piece of paper!”, because on a failure you get those hard moves.
Perhaps read it as a call to make those hard moves hard enough to justify the time and attention they take.
But how does that cover
“If there isn’t a result worth writing an entire branching story path for…don’t roll!”
When you sit at the end of the dungeon, having defeated the Angel there and the Wizard casts light then there got to be a roll. When someone decides to check the room and everything in it you roll Discern Realities. You trigger a move and it happens. And results of the action doesn’t have to be a part of it. Something totally unrelated to the action you took could happen.
The Story is never important in dungeon world. When you look back at what you did you know what the story was. You don’t get to decide beforehand if something would be a cool or uninteresting story.
Invert the sentence, “if you are rolling for it, make the result worth a branch. “
The wizard casts light and fails…now his Master needs him to go pick up that shattered Angel Wing and bring it back before the moon sets three times. The party tosses the room with Discern Realities, and finds out that rot grubs look a lot like bad shag carpet.
If you are rolling for something, the risk needs enough narrative oomph to carry the story forward. Yes, and/Yes, but/No, and are the three results of a check. If there isn’t a fictionally interesting answer to those questions from the Move usage…then don’t roll for the move.
The wizard is casting a spell. That is never safe. Light a torch if you want safe.
The party is searching the room. If they don’t know what the reality of the room is, then it could be something horrible. If they already know what is there…then you don’t. I might be crossfading this from Monster of the Week, where you don’t get the answers to questions you couldn’t logically ask of the situation. A footprint doesn’t tell you how many hit points the Ogre King has.
Way better
The trouble with chasing vibes and feelings is in pinning them down in articulations that make sense to other people. Thanks. 🙂