I was musing on a custom move for brewing potions this morning, and I know people have treaded this water with specific classes (Witch, Alchemist, Cultist), and discussions like this one: https://plus.google.com/u/0/112484087750169360510/posts/aGs9QZCB97u, but I wanted to come up with something you could give to an amateur potion-maker. Here’s what I came up with:
The quality and potential side-effects of the potion are unknown until it is consumed, and the brewer simply knows they aren’t a master of their craft, and risks ensue. This eliminates the “I brewed a poison by accident, I’ll only dose my enemies” workaround which sneaky players often do.
I didn’t want to use the standard range of Success/Partial/Miss wherein it goes ALL right, SEMI-right or ALL-wrong, or choices for the imbiber based on CON because I really wanted a random element for dubious quality brews, hence the percentages for the B and C-grade potions below. Does this method rub anyone the wrong way? How would you achieve this?
===MY EXAMPLE:
When you add the third eye of the frost-troll to your potion, you create one dose of Stone Skin. When someone drinks the dose, the brewer rolls+INT. On a 10+, the potion was A-grade; +2 armour for an hour. On a 7-9, the B-grade potion could just as easily petrify you for the same duration. On a miss, the C-grade potion has a 50% chance of petrification as above, 25% chance of permanently turning you to stone, but a 25% chance that the +2 armour could last for a whole month!
===
You could roll a d4 or d100 to determine the outcome, using the lowest numbers as the worst results.
Not a fan of potentially good things happening on a 6- not without an equally horrific hard move happening also.
Chris S fair call. Thanks! I just wanted to emulate the gambling aspect that comes with illegal potions…
I dunno. An insta-kill chance on a potion seems a bit overkill. I have a potions move in my playbook, but crafting high-level potions requires you to procure expensive ingredients first. And if you fail you don’t get a potion at all. You get either a stinkbomb or a bowl of soup 😛
totally get that Matt, but it should come with something like a -1 ongoing to Dex for the month or -1 Cha ongoing for the month… Possibly both if you are giving a +2 to Armor.
25% chance for something great happening on a failure is to good a chance to pass up.
But it’s different I suppose. The gambling seems like an excellent idea though. I’d just keep hammering at a way to use the base roll stats and eliminate extra dice rolls.
Is it the brewers innate potion ability being tested (INT)? or more the random nature of throwing all the ingredients together and seeing what happens?
I would give a +1forward if you follow a previously successful recipe.
Maybe if you throw doubles you get the bad effects?
snake eyes gets you turned to stone
2×2, 2×3 gets you petrified
2×4 gets you the armour for an hour but you are also petrified for the duration
2×5 gets you +2 Armour for 2 hours
Box Cars gets you +2 Armour for a month!
Nathan Roberts More the former than the latter, but I like your thinking. Petrification of any kind also grants the armour bonus, albeit insult to injury.
🙂
David Guyll … nice