On Aid/Interfere:
The long-form text for the move says “If a player can explain how they’re helping with a move and it makes sense, let them roll to aid.
No matter how many people aid or interfere with a given roll, the target only gets the +1 or -2 once. Even if a whole party of adventurers aid in attacking an ogre, the one who makes the final attack only gets +1.”
That suggests to me that only one aid roll should be made, by one player – perhaps for the PC with the most relevant bonds then (if that’s not unique) the PC who’s best placed to help in the fiction. Otherwise, you have some people rolling when only the downside can apply to them.
Is that how everybody’s doing it?
Like a lot of questions for DW, I agree, this scenario seems convoluted and hard to determine without knowing the fiction.
As the GM, I would ask who’s doing what. If someone is going for the throat, someone’s going for the knees, and someone’s trying to set the ogre on fire, I would say that the throat guy is looking for the kill, so I’d ask more about that move. Then I would say that the knees guy is aiding the throat guy by bringing the monster down so his neck is reachable and exposed, so there’s the aid. After that, I’d still allow the immolation of the ogre to take place, mostly through fiction, but if he’s not dead, maybe we see what happens when a burning, throat-bleeding ogre gets angry.
Let the fiction lead. It answers so many questions.
Yeah, but sometimes you know that the situation is going to have an horrible consequence, by the fiction. So, if you don’t want your comrade mage get his head separated from the neck, go help him! It’s too risky let just one person do all the job…
Man, I really find myself disliking the Aid/Interfere moves more and more. They’re pretty much never mechanically “worth it.” In terms of getting a 6- or a 7-9, rolling twice with the same bonus is about equal to rolling once with a -2. In exchange for a +1 that ay or may not make a difference? Not worth the risk.
My take : Who desires to, and can (within the fiction), aid? They all commit, then roll. If any of them get a 7+ there’s a plus one (or minus two, although that hasn’t come up yet for me) to the ‘main’ character’s roll. Anyone who rolled sub-ten suffers consequences as appropriate.
There was this one time a player rolled a 6, so someone else rolled to aid and got a 6 too. Then there was an aid roll to the aid roll. Also a 6.
Then things went BAD. But it was really fun.
Jeremy Strandberg it does allow some spreading of risk across party members, in theory – the helper takes a risk in order to help the main actor. However, that’s down to how the GM handles 9- results on the Aid roll – if they make moves that hurt or endanger the whole party, then the maths has the same consequences as one PC rolling twice.
Hmmm… need to think about the consequences of the maths some more (don’t have time right now – am warming up for a DW session).
Sean Fager that makes sense to me:
* Several people commit to aiding.
* Each of them rolls.
* If any of them get 7+, a +1 is awarded
* Each of them that gets 9- gives the GM a move opportunity (for each 6-, that can be a hard move)
The more and better-bonded people that roll, the more chance that you’ll get a +1.
Of course, the more people roll, the greater the expected number of 6- results as well. Which seems…odd. Not alien to *World play – the more moves that trigger, the more chance there is of 6-‘s and thus GMs being able to make hard moves, that’s how it always works – but odd in its potential for permitting a sudden hail of hard moves (one actor, three helpers – that opens the door for 4 hard moves, though the odds aren’t good).
Of course, the GM can always make a soft move in place of a hard move, or make a hard move that isn’t very hard.
One related issue – in my limited experience, players seem to feel awkward when they write two or more bonds to the same PC. I’ve encouraged people to do it (in one group I run, there are only three PCs so most classes need to) but it doesn’t seem to happen naturally.
Contrast Hx in AW, which can get to +3 and a given PC could, in theory, have that with multiple PCs. (I haven’t played AW at all, so I don’t know what patterns of Hx are common)
(For further comparison with related games: Monsterhearts has no direct equivalent of Aid in its basic moves – you can win Strings, but they can only be used for the equivalent of Interfere. That’s quite deliberate – you’re playing troubled people in their difficult teenage years, so the social tactics you have available are crude. All four of the later “Growing Up” moves (earned through advancement) provide some way to help another.)