Ran a one-shot last night for a group that’s never played DW before. It went really well; except for the cleric. I watched this guy roll 11 consecutive 6-. I think he must have angered his god! Or his god was really wanting him to level up…
Ran a one-shot last night for a group that’s never played DW before.
Ran a one-shot last night for a group that’s never played DW before.
“Your god is pleased by Your stoic attitude in difficult times. You are stronger now.” Level up, dude.
Did some one die?
No, but after his third horribly botched healing attempt the rest of the party started saying “No, I’m good.” whenever he offered to heal them.
At one point he said “But I’m the cleric!” to which the bard replied “I do not think that word means what you think it means!”
LOL that is horrible. Poor guy =P. Does he plan to return for more? Did any of them express interest in playing again?
I’ve had something similar happen to the warrior in my group. It kind of sucked the fun out of the evening. Come to think of it, we haven’t played DW since.
If failing isn’t as interesting and fun as success you should probably re-assess how you are handling failures.
I use those nights as a good time to let a 6- be “success with a GM move.” Yes, I make my move, but nothing in the rules says a 6- can’t also mean the PC does something, it just costs a LOT.
Example: healing. Ok, you don’t lose the spell, because you use up your bandages instead, and the target regains 1 hp. Yeah, it’s a bit soft, but by the time the PC has rolled his 5th 6-, I would be softening the consequences until I needed a more dramatic event to happen.
I agree. One of the core mechanics of * World is that every roll has a consequence. Every time someone fails a roll, something “bad” or, as Jason said, “interesting” is supposed to happen. Maybe not to the Cleric, but perhaps to someone else in the party.
Jason Morningstar well, it’s part of the learning curve to GMing DW. It was also 4 or 5 in a row at a critical juncture /and/ at the very end of the session. At some point I run out of cool ideas for how to handle failure. Improv isn’t my strongest GM tool and sometimes running DW can be really hard.
I agree with Jason Morningstar and Rory MacLeod.
That’s why I asked if someone died. If more than four failed roles happen in a row and someone hasn’t died then I begin to wonder if I’m tightening the screws enough.
Whats frustrating about a failed roll in other games is the drop of fiction.
Player: “I try to open the door” *Rolls
GM: “You don’t open the door.”
DW is different…the player should almost feel like they didn’t fail.
Player: “I try to open the door.” *Rolls “Oh, shoot!”
GM: “Mark XP. As you get to work, goblins bust out of two other doors you hadn’t previously seen, what do you do?”
All that said, kill a character. They’ll thank you for it. Getting a new character in the game is easy as pie and your player may appreciate not having to be the cursed cleric anymore.
So true Steven Markley!
Sidebar: G+ has given this post the hashtag “#God”…
Steven Markley I always tell my players that if I’m dealing damage to them on 6-, it means I’ve run out of ideas and I welcome alternative suggestions.
No reason Matt Smith’s example can’t happen in most any other ttrpg.
If a 6- doesn’t make at least someone at the table groan than your move probably aren’t hard enough.
That’s true Jason Healey, but some systems encourage that type of creative thought more than others, I guess.
Some also directly forbid you to have these “nothing happens” results and players can call GMs on it.
I like those games Tim Franzke.
They all had a blast! Most of them asked where to get a copy and the whole group was thinking that it would be great for those times they aren’t playing their primary game (I think they are in the middle of a huge campaign).
I was really impressed at how well they adopted to the DW paradigm and really start getting into it. The guy playing the thief loved the fact that he only made 1 or 2 attacks all night but did tons of awesome stuff. The dwarven fighter must have done 15 cool things with his axe, including a few actual attacks. Even our host, the guy playing the cleric, said it was awesome. Each hard move feeling like something significant was really happening.