One of my wizard players informed me that the fungal blooms which process waste in the sewers are a sentient telepathic network spanning the city. Here’s my first pass at a custom move in case he wants to talk to them. The unwelcome truth he may discover is that they are mobile and some of them have an aggressive disease…
========
When you open your mind to the fungal sprawl, roll+INT.
*On a 10+, the closest bloom considers you an ally, granting you either an audience or protection, your choice.
*On a 7-9, the same offer, but its brethren are not so sure. They are on their way to inspect you personally.
*On a 6, this bloom mistrusts you and immediately summons nearby help to restrain you, or worse. You are deemed unworthy of their secrets.
I don’t think you need the 6- clause, but that’s just personal preference. Otherwise that looks pretty cool.
Chris Stone-Bush I probably don’t need the move, but it’s shorthand for me to remember my notes and focus my improv brain on new stuff during the session.
I totally get that Matt Horam and it’s a good reason to do so. I think though, and this is not a criticism, including a 6- clause often makes a move less useful for other people’s games. I’m not saying that every custom move has to be usable by everyone, mind. It’s just something interesting to think about.
Note: Leave more blanks. Got it.
Only if you want to. After all, you’ve made this custom move for your game, and so it can damn well be whatever you please. 😀
Just to jump on the train here – the move looks like it will inspire and provide for lots of fun.
Because moves should generally be laid out on the table for players when they’re triggering them, i’d be mindful that the 7-9 result and the 6- result both heavily imply that the fungi are mobile (or have mobile help). If that isn’t established in the game yet, i’d rewrite them – for 7-9 for instance: “…the same offer, but its brethren are not so sure. They want to inspect you personally.”
Depending on what’s going on in the game when this move is triggered and a 7-8 is rolled you can discover they’re mobile, or that the player needs to travel a bit to get what they want. Either way, it keeps you from having to determine too much ahead of time, and instead lets you discover it when the dice fall.
I also tend to not write 6- results, simply because when there is a result in place, the GM is bound to that result. I understand the desire to put it down there as a note-to-self, but instead of predetermining exactly what happens on a failure, i’d leave it up to interpretation in the spur of the moment. If this is the best thing for the fiction at the time, it will occur to you again, since you’ve already thought of it. But if you have a better idea at the moment, you’re stuck with this.
“You open your mind to the fungal spore, and find them reluctant to talk to you until you bring them a great gift from location the spores can’t get to on their own. You don’t even notice that they’ve blasted you with tiny puffs of spores, ready to hitch a ride wherever you’re going. What do you do?”
I enjoy a mix of GM-facing and player-facing moves, but these are all good points.