Had a great session last night – found myself doing something occasionally that I wanted to get feedback on. Every now and then in a fight, I would make a monster move on a 10+ roll. I didn’t identify it as such, but I felt like it helped a lot to keep things moving. It seemed to follow the fiction and everyone was happy with how the fights flowed.
For example
Ranger (bow was knocked out of her hand): I grab a sharp rock and fling it at the Goblin Orkaster as hard as I can while he goes after the fighter.
GM: OK, let’s call that a volley. Roll for it
Ranger: 11+2! I throw the rock so hard it’s just a blur through the cave, dead on target.
GM: Roll damage
Ranger: 6 damage!
GM: Your stone hits the Orkaster square in the forehead with a sickening crunch. The force of the blow knocks into him with terrible force, knocking his head back.
(Orkaster’s HP is at 1 at this point)
Party: Yeah!
GM: He staggers back and and you hear him scream an incantation – fire seems to pour out of his hands, turning the goblins closest to him into ash. Cleric and Wizard, you guys are close to him – a wall of fire is filling the cave near the Orkaster headed right towards you – what do you do?
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In that situation I was making a monster move after a 10+ roll. It seemed to flow naturally – maybe the moment post-throw was a golden opportunity? I am wondering how you guys read this.
From how you typed it, it looks like they were looking to you, so golden opportunity. You’re good!
Yup. I completely agree with Giovanni Lanza. Seems like the 10+ result from the Ranger’s Volley move had been resolved and the players were now looking to you to see what happened next. It was your turn in the conversation, and you made a move.
Same as the previous posts, you’re just keeping the narrative going. The players should constantly be reacting to you. Imagine a theoretical situation where all players constantly roll 10+ for everything. If you don’t make moves to drive the fiction, things just stop happening.
if the players don’t trigger their moves, then it’s time for a gm move!
And in this case, you weren’t making a hard move, you were making a soft (setup) move. Totally legit. Expected, even.
Yes. This example is exactly how you are supposed to do it.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone! For me the toughest part of GMing is keeping the pace going and making sure I keep the players pointed towards action. This seemed to really help in fights.
Heck, even if people weren’t waiting for you to say something, I’d say that you did the right thing. As you said, you kept the combat interesting, and every so often things should happen (IMHO) to shake things up a bit.
they should constantly. Who wants a combat with no surprise and new situations?
My first time running an AW-based game (and the first time any of us had played) went horribly. I didn’t give the players/characters anything to react to, and so they didn’t make moves. It was a terrible death spiral that ended in complete failure.
But I learned my lesson.
I think “terrible death spiral that ends in complete failure” is my new bottom grade description when I have to rank something.
Jason Healey it just makes me think of an awesome game of Sorcerer
indeed