Hey I had a game last night and was wondering a question. I had some Fire Demons attacking and one of my players asked whether there was water I obviously made up that there were 4 water buckets and it kind of just turned into him just rolling Dex all the time to try and get them. Any suggestions on how I could make sure its a little bit more varied for when next time it could happen?
Hey I had a game last night and was wondering a question.
Hey I had a game last night and was wondering a question.
I’ll just throw it there: Use different gm moves, maybe the fire monster set something on fire preventing the player from reaching the bucket, what do you do?
Or it makes te bucket (if made of iron) too hot to handle.
I think the fiction and the gm moves can make a lot of difference, probably you are still defying danger (maybe with different stats) but it could feel different.
One of the bucket could be too heavy, also.
If there are water buckets present AND fire demons suffer an aversion to water, then an intelligent fire demon would behave accordingly. I always try to think like the adversary: if I have a weakness to bullets and my enemy and I are in a room with a loaded gun near by, what would I do? Simple answer, take control of the gun myself so that my enemy doesn’t get that advantage. The water buckets, tactically, should become an objective for the demons, since they obviously spell doom if used effectively.
I think that if if they have an aversion to water they´d not get near it.
And grant your enemy a straight line to the one thing that could dispatch you in a blink? I disagree. Tactics play out if they are intelligent. If they were house cats terrified of water, sure. But intelligent fire demons? Hell no, (pardon pun), they’ll make you suffer for even thinking about those buckets. Walls of fire, physical charges, tooth-and-nail defense to stay alive. Else flee, which may not be an option here.
All very good points I have to say, yeah I definitely have to get better at thinking about different types of moves and thinking about the enemy a lot more. A first time GM so finding it fun if a little overwhelming all the stuff I have to keep in my head.
With DW, it’s all about practice. Over time, some aspects become second nature, and you find you have more room to think about special circumstances rather than every single move. Kasper Brohus Allerslev’s flow chart may be of great use to you.
Really intelligent fire demons would attack their opponents in the right place at the right time. They usually are not in a hurry.
The line of thought you’re developing will lead to the situation where a creature vulnerable to a substance will amass it in its lair to have a presumed control of its availability. It’ll be it’s downfall in the end.
Destroying the object of your aversion would be a good tactic, if possible.
Not at all. An intelligent creature would not amass their weakness any more than Superman would amass Kryptonite. My point is, assuming these fire demons are summoned and bound to this specific area, and for whatever reason have not destroyed the buckets (I agree with you there), then they will do all in their power to keep the heroes from accessing them. Why there are buckets of water around some fire demons in the first place is a question for the OP. I am presenting the logical behavior of the fire demons based on the info provided and making no further assumptions.
Back to situation at hand:
First fire demon action: destroy the buckets of water
Then he can deal with those pesky pcs. With pleasure.
Yeah, the fact that they are there implied to me that, for whatever reason, that was not possible, else those buckets would not be there (already destroyed). Without the context of the scenario, I suppose I’m reading into what the buckets are even doing there. And at this point the OP is probably asking the same thing…
Ok guess I should give more info. The PCs had this orb that contained a god and this temple was a Black Temple that could nullify any of the energy so they were in there to place the orb into it getting rid of it. The doors were only open by magic and I thought the water buckets fit in with the fiction cause it was built by one of the enemies of this fire god. My thought process was that the Demons would be a lot focused on the orb as it had their god in it but I guess I should have thought they they would be worried about the buckets as well.