What to do when a move has nothing listed for failure? In particular I’m thinking of COUNTERSPELL and CALLED SHOT.

What to do when a move has nothing listed for failure? In particular I’m thinking of COUNTERSPELL and CALLED SHOT.

What to do when a move has nothing listed for failure? In particular I’m thinking of COUNTERSPELL and CALLED SHOT.

9 thoughts on “What to do when a move has nothing listed for failure? In particular I’m thinking of COUNTERSPELL and CALLED SHOT.”

  1. Any time a player rolls a 6-, the GM makes a hard move (see “When to Make a Move” in the GMing chapter of the Dungeon World book). That’s just as true for Counterspell and Called Shot.

    The hard move can be any of the listed moves, and should have an immediate consequence (that’s what differentiates it from a soft move, which might not be all bad or can be prevented).

    Depending on the situation, it might make sense for the hard move to relate directly to the action taken, or not.

    If the Mage performs a Counterspell on a magical spell cast by a powerful rival, it could easily make sense that the rival’s spell has “counterspell defense” and so the GM might use “Turn their move back on them” to make the Counterspell not only fail, but counter one of the Mage’s own existing spells. Or, the GM could use “Separate them,” and say that the Counterspell goes off successfully, but an explosion of magical energy blasts in the ceiling and now rubble has split the party.

    Or, it could even go somewhere totally different, and the Counterspell could work or not (up to the GM. If it was the spell of a lowly Goblin shaman, maybe it doesn’t make sense for the Mage to fail. They get the Counterspell off just fine), but a demon in the next room over noticed and has come to investigate, from the GM move “Reveal an unwelcome truth.”

    Make sense?

  2. A good Hard Move is irrevocable and follow through to completion. It doesn’t necessarily have to be immediate, and it doesn’t have to follow from the character’s action: it is a token that you, as MC, spend to advance the fiction on your terms (usually in a problematic way)!

    When someone rolls a miss on Counterspell or what have you, you are within the rules to let them off the hook and instead advance a villain’s dastardly plot elsewhere.

  3. Wow… It just seems so hardcore. If I have my math right, on any given roll the PC has a 5/12 chance of getting punched in the face by the GM with a hard move. But I am still left wondering why some/most moves have prescriptions given for 6- rolls, and some leave it to GM fiat.

  5. There are various reasons. For the Druid’s Shapeshift move, it’s a promise that the Druid gets to change their form no matter what (though that’s just asking for Turn Their Move Back On Them). For the Paladin’s I Am The Law, it’s an extra, but known, risk, to balance out a powerful ability.

    In general, though, remember, it’s different from “getting punched in the face by the GM” like some games. The GM has rules of their own, and among them are “Play to Find Out What Happens” and “Be a Fan of the Player’s Characters.” Whatever face-punching happens, if they are following the rules, adds to the collaborative story.

  6. The most common result of 2d6 is a 7 (16.6% of the time), and you’ll get some kind of success about 58% of the time. However, pretty much everyone will always be rolling a +1 at a minimum – whether from a stat or from discern realities, or similar. The odds are slanted, specifically, so that 7-9s happen more regularly than full hits or misses, I believe.

    And yes! Making a hard move is suppose to be hardcore! This game is about having some actual, concrete stakes whenever the dice come out. Something should always be happening somewhere, and the hard moves hammer that home.

  8. For counterspell I’d assumed something like this:

    GM: The NPC wizard starts casting a spell! What do you do?

    PC wizard: I counterspell. Damn, a six…

    GM: the spell goes off, take damage (or whatever seems appropriate for the npcs spell).

    Called shot is trickier, but remember that the hard move doesn’t always have to be against the archer specifically. Though of course this means that the specific move is very circumstantial. So maybe the orc siezes the gem the pcs where after, or stabs the player the archer was trying to defend with his bow-shot.

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