Shut your mouth when you’re talking to me!
When you listen to the lunatic’s/drunk’s/possessed child/dying man’s ravings, roll +INT. On a 10+ You can figure out the clues in the madness! Pick two, on a 7-9 pick one:
-You learn where something is
-You learn what something is
-You realize something was right under your nose
-You have a suspicion confirmed
Move I am working on, thoughts?
The only thing is that it seems the player doesn’t initiate it. Would this happen if they hear someone mumble something and they have to try and listen actively? Seems there should also be some kind of penalty on the 7-9 rather than just less benefit – to make it more entertaining.
and.. pink one… hehehe.
Like most investigation moves, the interesting part isn’t finding out where something is, or what something is. You need that to progress the plot, that’s the baseline. You should be rolling to find out the complications!
Just spitballing:
When you listen to the lunatic’s/drunk’s/possessed child/dying man’s ravings, you are able to pick out vital clues from the ravings, but at what cost? Roll + INT, on a 10+ pick 2, on a 7-9 pick one:
-You get an concrete, actionable clue that gives you +1 forward when acting on it.
-You hear something that allows you to make an unexpected connection! Ask a question, even tangentially related, and the GM will do their best to answer truthfully.
-You don’t receive foreboding information that makes you question something known, like the loyalties of an ally, the nature of your investigation, or the nature of the world itself.
-Your psyche isn’t caressed by the unknowable madness.
Not crazy about the tangential question one, but I’m trying to represent the twisty-turny nature of an eldritch/paranormal investigation.
EDIT: If it wasn’t clear, just give your players the “learn something/confirm suspicion” results because they need to learn that stuff anyway. Roll for crazier things. 🙂
Eric Lochstampfor It feels a bit like something that could be handled by Discern Realities but with +INT instead of +WIS. Is there a specific reason you wanted to create this?
Jonathan Spengler AH! YOU GOT IT IN MY EYE! Eric Lochstampfor Very much what Jonathan Spengler wrote. To push it further away from Discern Realities, and in deference to the forebodingish tone of the trigger, you should add some negative side.
It’s not bad, but it mainly seems like a very situational stat swap to make Spout Lore a little more like Discern Realities, and you should think about what’s covered by this that’s not in either Spout Lore or Discern Realities.
If they try to SL in response to hearing something weird, you give them something interesting and useful. If they try to DR, they get questions, and there’s a lot of overlap between the DR questions and the options here.
So the main difference between this and SL is that this has more of DR’s player-directedness of the information.
But you should think about whether that fits the fiction. Is parsing a lunatic’s ravings a place where intelligence gives you more control than usual over the type of information you gain?
In that situation, I would probably just use either DR or SL depending on the description of what they were trying to do.
Am looking for a starter for a adventure front where the players hear a dying man’s last words that have clues to a treasure (or something). Would probably be best just to ask the questions at the adventure start than get fancy with a move.
When you attempt to question the drunk about a specific target…
… by bullying him, roll STR.
… by twisting his words, roll+CHA.
… by getting drunk with him, roll+CON.
On a 10+, you manage to find out some specific information that will get you closer to your target. On a 7-9, someone also confronts you or gets the jump on you while you are hassling the drunk.
Damian Jankowski Looks like Parley to me. Parley’s “leverage” is a very open concept for a reason.
Damian Jankowski Sorry, rereading that and it seemed snarky. What I meant was that it seems like what you’re suggesting is already covered by Parley’s rather ambiguous notion of leverage which, I feel, works well. Your idea could certainly work for a unique move for a specific case, like harassing the drunk, but should have more specific effects.
If it’s an adventure starter, I might lean more toward just asking players questions. Fighter, the dying drunk mentions a treasure you’ve always dreamed of. What is it? Wizard, he’s connected it to an unexpected name from your past. Who was it? Thief, you’ve seen this drunk before. When was that?
Adding dice-rolling here seems like it would mostly give players a chance to roll badly and be denied the chance to contribute their share.
Maybe make it work more like spout lore?
Unravel the Conspiracy
When the player perceives order in randomness, on a 10+ they come to a startling realization. 7-9 they see the patterns but can’t follow them to their conclusion. -6 The madness stares back and the GM picks one.
-incoherent rambling
-paralyzingly terror
-zealous fervor
When you try to interpret or remember the ravings of the drunk, roll +Wis. On a 10+ pick 2. On a 7-9 pick 1.
-you recognize a reference to a famous treasure. What is it?
-you find advice for dealing with a threat. What is it? Take +1 forward when following it
-you are not angered and confused by his rambling, and don’t take -1 forward
On a failure, DM makes a hard move