“Aid Another Exploit”: I ran a DW game at the PAXEast convention for my friends last week and after hearing about the rules system and the XP generation, they came up with an easy way to generate XP. It stemmed from the fact that the Aid/Interfere basic move doesn’t note what happens on a 6-…
Aid or Interfere
When you help or hinder someone , roll+bond with them.
✴On a 10+, they take +1 or -2 to their roll, your choice.
✴On a 7–9, they still get a modifier, but you also expose yourself to danger, retribution, or cost.
Initially, I was running the game more dice-based to have them get familiar with their basic and special moves (I started the game with a Grim Portent of a nearby mountain erupting Mt St Helen’s style and I had them pick three of their six party members to Undertake a Perilous Journey to the nearest steading of Trendorfell.). The three non-participatory party members decided that they wanted to Aid the trailblazer (who failed his roll with a 5.). One of them succeeded with a 7,, but the other two failed.I think he picked “danger” since the situation didn’t seem immediately threatening.
By a strict reading of the Aid, they felt that a 6- would be “low risk, high reward” since the only stated outcomes were “success or modified-success+danger/retribution/cost.”
However, I saw it as a golden opportunity to have some GM moves happen offscreen. They didn’t arrive in time for a bandit ambush on a merchant caravan or the subsequent twist (a second ambush by zombies!) as they slogged their way though the ashen landscape. A subsequent earthquake and aftershocks weakened the bridge that the caravan would placed on was dangerously damaged to the point of near collapse. The monsters (zombies from Trendorfell, recently turned as a result of the earthquake breaking open a tomb of a long-forgotten plague) would be alerted to their presence and strategically placed for another ambush…
This all happened in the first few rolls of the game while they were going around the table, describing their characters to each other and their bonds.
However, because the three failures were silent, they felt encouraged to continue Aiding each other for all of their near misses (5 or 9 rolls). My initial DM instinct was to make up how they were aiding the character, but later on in the combat I remembered the principle of “Ask questions and Use the answers” and threw the Aid mechanic back at them: “ok, so how are you helping him?”
This led to some hilarity as Élan the Bard kept flubbing his Aid rolls to others (how fitting is that?!?) and when the bridge collapsed with half the party standing on it holding some zombies at bay, when he threw a rope at the falling party members, his feet were tangled up in the other end and he ended up falling in as well.
I think they started to realize at the end that any opportunity to roll dice and fail is an opportunity for the GM to make the character’s lives worse (but hey, more XP!)
My iPad was being funky with my long post so I couldn’t get to my question amidst the flavor text of my game recap.
Question for the DW GMs:
What are some examples you have for players who fail Aid rolls out of combat? By the rules, my players argued that they wouldn’t suffer for danger, retribution or cost, but was I right to advance the off-screen action?
I was struggling to come up with Discern Realities and Spout Lore Aid failures. Perhaps it was because I wasn’t having them adequately describe how they were doing Aiding Another.
Thoughts?
I think you did a great job, from your description of handling those golden opportunities.
The secret to DW is that you can make any GM move at any time . Golden opportunities are not the only times to make GM moves. You should be making GM moves all the time, kind of like how you normally play RPGs.
You did perfectly fine, especially with the Bard.
Two things:
1) a miss is always a golden opportunity is always a reason for the DM to make a hard move. It is never, ever consequence-free.
2) players never go “I want to roll to Aid ___.” They describe what they’re doing, and the GM tells them what to roll (this is also valid for every other move in the game, obviously).
It should always be clear exactly what character A is doing that warrants an Aid roll, which means it’s nearly always going to be clear what the consequences of the miss are going to be.
Also, remember that a GM move doesn’t need to be a direct response to a player move. A miss on a Hack and Slash doesn’t necessarily mean they take damage; a miss on Spout Lore doesn’t necessarily mean something goes wrong with their lore or their spouting; etc.
If character A goes “I’m helping character B search the room” and they fail their Aid roll, you should absolutely be saying stuff like “you kick what you think is a pile of rags out of the way, but it wraps itself around your leg and slithers up to your neck, lightning-fast” (you’ve just added a Cloaker in) or “you go around pressing on every brick that sticks out that you can find. One of them gives in to your pressure – you hear a hissing sound coming from the wall” (you just introduced poison gas – only do this if the Thief didn’t first search for traps, of course).
As long as the move you’re making on a miss is plausible given the circumstances, go ahead and do it; you don’t need to have set it up beforehand in most cases.
I’d also point out that anything is fair game, even if it’s not laid out by the move. E.g. miss on volley – your arrow flies true, do your damage but choose something from the 7-9 list. Also I’m making a nasty move somewhere!
Sometimes I will choose something from the 7-9 list for them, e.g. cast a spell – it goes off, with unintended consequences, and you forget the spell. This also applies to Aid/Interfere. Frequently I’ll expose them to the same danger even on a miss – in addition to advancing some other threat.
It’s possible that player A triggers a move, player B describes their aid, both roll – if B misses but A succeeds anyway, B still has to deal with that danger/retribution/cost! Or now some unrelated trouble comes to B! Or both! Basically, rolling a miss does not necessarily get you off the hook for 7-9 results when I’m GM.
Alex Norris:
2) players never go “I want to roll to Aid _.” They describe what they’re doing, and the GM tells them what to roll (this is also valid for every other move in the game, obviously).
This is not right i think. Clearly i can say “I want to roll to Aid”. The typical GM response would be “sure, how are you doing that?” or “so you are helping him with X by doing Y, or is it something different?”
A player could also go “I want to roll to Aid, but i have no idea on how to. Anyone got any ideas?”
Also it is not the GMs job to tell you what move you are rolling but a discussion of the whole table.
“Everyone at the table should listen for when moves apply. If it’s ever unclear if a move has been triggered, everyone should work together to clarify what’s happening. Ask questions of everyone involved until everyone sees the situation the same way and then roll the dice, or don’t, as the situation requires.”
Thanks for the feedback guys — it’s made my DW experience richer already!