I was giving a friend of mine some pointers on running DW for his group the other day and something dawned on me I hadn’t really thought about before. I have bad guys use a lot of weapon types that often don’t see much use in other games but are great in DW because of the “other” things they can do. Couple of examples:
Bolas: can trip and entangle.
Whips: disarm, perform interesting maneuver, trip, and entangle.
Pole Arms: Keeping opponents away (most systems grant reach but don’t really allow you to keep an enemy off you).
Brass Knuckles: Stun, daze or even knock out.
Just a few thoughts related to doing things to characters other than simply Hit Point damage. Of course PC’s could easily take advantage of this as well!
When I have monsters that use interesting weapons, I either write monster moves related to them, or write a custom move. Something like:
When a Daughter of Cadixtat catches your weapon with her hooked pole-arm, roll + STR. On a 10+, you pull it lose easily. On a 7-9, choose one; release your weapon, or hand on and grapple with the Daughter.
Christopher Stone-Bush Wouldn’t that be handled better with a regular monster move?
The monster catches the characters weapon as a part of a GM move, and it seems unfair not to give the player a chance to say how they deal with it.
The forces them to use strength, immediately. They can’t even choose to let go of their weapon. As the move is written, they have to resist with brute strength.
If I played a druid, I’d never get a chance to shapeshift and use a feature of my form to solve it.
John Lewis Trident and net -> watch the fighter weep. Assuming they don’t just shoot the bastard carrying it of course.
Thats a good point Kasper Brohus Allerslev , I also think custom moves should be reserved as an option for player actions. The monster catches your weapon, what do you do?
Tough crowd. 😉
The monster in question did have a monster move of “Catch an attacker’s weapon with their hooked pole-arm.” That’s really all you need, but I wanted to codify that action a bit more for myself. Plus I like writing custom moves, though it could be handled just as easily with Defy Danger.
As written, yeah. The character doesn’t have an option to let go of their weapon before the move triggers. Which was not my intent. I should have caught that.
Christopher Stone-Bush Well, it might just be me. I’ve grown very fond of handling more or less everything with GM moves. Unless there actually is a move.
But then again, I’m also a low-prep kind of guy. I think I should make more custom moves…
Everything Kasper Brohus Allerslev just said, I’d like to repeat. I feel I should make more custom moves but always find myself handling everything with GM Moves.
John Lewis I love this aspect of DW. I’ve whipped out some Rolemaster Oriental and Exotic weapon guides specifically to populate my world with interesting options. It is amazing how different weapon designs afford characters and monsters different opportunities. What would normally be a weak or mundane weapon in another game is suddenly cool, useful, and unique in DW. I can’t get enough of it ^_^