How do people feel about Letting It Ride, as per the rule in Burning Wheel? Especially when there’s no obvious threat?
Let’s say the party has finished a major battle and withdrawn a short ways to a safe place to camp. Everyone’s low on HP, so the Bard uses Arcane art to start healing people. It’s a lot of work, and will take several rolls to complete the job. How do you handle this? There’s no pressure on the group right now, so do you hand wave it and let the Bard heal everyone up for free? What could happen on a 7-9?
How do you handle this?
The way I DM, I really want the players to be picking up the dice. Every time they do, it’s a chance they’ll roll 6- and give me a chance to make a move.
Moves aren’t always about threats. Say the safe space is at an inn: perhaps a drunk barbarian wants to join in the singing and keeps everyone up all night, or perhaps she offers them money to sing at her wedding tomorrow. Or maybe there isn’t a lot of magical healing in this place and the Bard’s obvious magic draws attention not from vicious monsters or exuberant barbarians but instead from a gang of orphans who need healing.
These moves are inspired by Show a downside to their class, race, or equipment or Offer an opportunity, with or without cost.
Tell them the requirements or consequences and ask is a great move to escalate a situation and test exactly how badly someone wants something. When making a move in response to a missed Arcane Art, you could tell the bard “Sorry, your voice is ratched tonight; you’re going to have to assemble a choir or a drum circle and make a heck of a lot more noise in order to get your healing done. What do you do?”
What could happen on a 7-9?
The move says “On a 7-9, your spell still works,but you draw unwanted attention.” This is Dungeon World. Danger lurks everywhere! No place should be truly safe.
Also, not sure how this is a Let It Ride situation. Let It Ride is about making every roll final and consequential; DW’s philosophy is a bit different. Every roll is consequential, but not necessarily final.
What they are doing is making camp. There is not let it ride in Dungeon World. It’s a dangerous and fantastic place and its not your job as GM to say someone is safe now. Play to find out.
And there is always pressure on the group. Even if it is offscreen (think of all your principles)
As Tim Franzke said: Let It Ride is something in Burning Wheel, there is no such thing in DW. The underlying principle of the Apocalypse Engine (not sure whether it’s written as-is in DW) is If you do it, do it. So, if the move happens in fiction, do it mechanically.
And yes. When they sit down to heal their wounds they are making camp. You can describe the healing as the bard doing it but it’s still the make camp move.
Tim Franzke going to agree and disagree all at once with the very smart Tim. If they’re stopping and resting — yes! It is making camp! I agree!
But! You can’t describe it as bard magic and say its just “making camp.” To do it, do it and if you do it, do it! If it’s described as bard healing, you have to roll it and risk badness happening. Can’t separate the triggers from the rolls.
Let It Ride stands diametrically opposed to the core trigger system of Dungeon World. Don’t use it.
That said, you can, as the GM, always aggressively push forward and skip time. You have that power.
“So, about six hours later, you’re all healed up and standing at the gates of Gothalla…”
That’s just making moves and following principles. In this case, you’re embracing the fantastic (by ignoring the mundane) and offering an opportunity (without cost) for further adventure.
Yep. What Adam said. Let it Ride is awesome and useful for the way BW does things (and both Adam and I are huge fans of BW and related games), but it doesn’t really work with Dungeon World. Using it will tend to quickly get odd.
You’re explicitly allowed to keep trying to do something – if you’re succeeding over and over without adversity and there’s no pending danger, the GM should jump ahead. Get to the good stuff.
If there is a chance of danger, every roll to recover hp is a chance that danger will come crashing down on your head.
safe place? What’s a safe place? Never heard of them.
Check the heading:
Safe heavens and other wrong assumptions
I say if you want to skip anything mundane and boring to skip to the good stuff, then do it. If your players are itching to get to the Dark Liche’s castle and take him down, then don’t spend a bunch of time on camping/healing/whatever. Just say you rest up, and get to the fun.