If someone inspects or really studies a trinket of some sort, what move would you use to provide information? Spout Lore seems strange as it’s not known info, but discovered info; and the Discern Realities questions seem to be all for physical locations.
Do you just straight up provide information?
I do not straight up provide information unless it is within the characters field of knowledge.
It is however totally fine for a player to say: “I heard about these things in Fighter College, wait a sec it’s a Spout Lore”
The move I would use there though would be:
Offer an opportunity, with or without cost
You don’t know but there is this Sage buddy of yours in town. What is her name again? She could probably help
(just as an example)
GM Moves are your friend here.
Yep. If there’s no way they could know the information, there’s no player move to trigger. Maybe they know a spell that could do it? Otherwise they’ll need outside assistance.
Defy Danger + INT, if they need to discover something important hidden in the text / or about the object. The Danger is (maybe) that they understand not every part of it, that they need to much time, that they activate some kind of trap, that the deep understanding could change a character’s mind etc.
Also, in my groups my players like to use Spout Lore for “Master, tell me what I know/understand about X”. Usually I provide knowledge about the setting, and simply ask the players help only for small details, color things etc. They don’t like to “build” the setting, they like to discover it.
What Danger are they defying with that int roll?
I wrote it in my post 🙂 you can find infinite dangers, even in apparently non-dangerous situations.
Of course, you can call my D. D. a “custom move”, something like: When the PCs read the book/examine the artifact, roll+INT. With 10+ they understand all. With 7-9 they understand but a) they need too many time b) a new danger is approaching c) the book/artifact change them forever d) they still miss a part.
… However, it’s the same thing, just with a different name.
I find that significantly less interesting than the alternative, and it doesn’t fictionally make sense. How can they know what the strange artifact does just by examining it? Being smart doesn’t help you here.
Andrea Parducci there is a huge difference there, the trigger condition being the most obvious one.
Let’s look at the other dangers you posted and why they don’t really work there.
hat they understand not every part of it
That presumes the character CAN identify what the thing is. So a character who has no idea what this thing is looks at it and suddenly needs to defy the danger of not understanding everything about it?
Not fully understanding something is not inherently a danger.
You as the GM should know what the thing is and yes maybe they don’T get that it also sucks out your soul when you use it and then there is a danger there BUT all of that does not make the character able to understand what the thing is.
that they need too much time
Is only a danger when they know they have something time sensitive going on.
that they activate some kind of trap
Here is how this would work I think:
“So you check out the item, rotating it in your hand and reading the text, suddenly there is a click sound – something inside is activating. What do you do?”
“I quickly go over the text and see if it mentions some kind of trap or problem”
“Okay Defy the danger of whatever is happening with this thing”
that the deep understanding could change a character’s mind etc.
Yes maybe but still that doesn’t happen when you start to do it. That happens when you are nearly done. It also doesn’t answer HOW the character understands that in the first place when hte question was dealing with an item the character does not understand.
Yes you can pull a danger for everything out of your ass. That doesn’t mean you should just so that you can have a Danger and players can roll because they expect to roll for that stuff in other games and you don’t want to make a GM Move…
[/rant]
Can we go over an example? I feel like I’m not getting what you people are suggesting.
From the hip: Characters are deep in a dungeon. They come to a room with a complex clockwork mechanism of many levers on the wall. The thief wants to inspect it to see if he can figure anything out before randomly pulling levers. What move would fit?
If they are inspecting the machine they are triggering Discern Realities.
That might be a bit of a bend as they are studying the machine, not the situation but they are basically the same thing here.
That case, discern realities, definitely. “What should I be on the lookout for?” “Well, there’s some small holes in the wall there, probably a trap of some sort triggered by pulling the wrong lever.” “What here is useful to me?” “Well, there’s mechanisms connecting most of the levers to gears. You think in order to open the door you need to do something along the lines of __.”
And the hard move on a miss: “Hells, who knows what this thing is or does. You’d need to fiddle with it to find out. What do you do?”
Ben Wray so do you just ignore half the questions in this case? Or replace them with suitable ones? Is this a thing that can be done, modifying DR questions on the fly?
Aaron Griffin It’s up to the player to ask questions. The list doesn’t change. What they can and can’t use is up to them.
Maybe they pick up their heat sensitive googles and ask what happened here to see if something was recently touched. Who knows.
Not all questions work all the time but that is okay.
Yeah. what Tim said. I was just giving examples of how you might answer some of the more obvious questions to ask in that situation, not an exhaustive reading of every possible question.
But as regards to “modifying DR questions on the fly”… I’ll personally let players ask anything, because 90% of the time it just boils down to one of the existing questions, maybe slightly focused. (Worst case scenario, I shake my head and refer them to the list, after all.)
And as DM, you’re totally justified coming up with a custom move like “When you study the massive clockwork levers and gears puzzle, add the following questions to the discern realities list” if you want.
Ben Wray you know, I never really thought of explaining it as a custom move. That makes more sense.
Tim Franzke ehi, you put that down a little bit too rough… No problem, I’m thick-skinned 😀
About “Let’s look at the other dangers you posted and why they don’t really work there.” Ehi, it was just a fast example, made with no actual knowing the specific game situation, and made simply to explain what I was trying to saying. Again, you can call it “Defy Danger”, you can call it “Custom Move”. However, if the OP think in his game he needs a roll, because he think the players need to “challenge a situation”, that is the “canonic way”. They need to understand the meaning of that room? Well: Roll+something. 10+ they understand. 7-9 yes but, 6- master choose and narrate. I think I didn’t say something weird, before.
Peace.
You don’t need moves for everything, though. If the players do something that doesn’t trigger a move and stare at you for your opinion, now it’s your turn.
http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/65809/how-to-ask-nicely-in-dungeon-world
See I don’t allow them to ask anything cos that’s one of (IMO) the wizards greatest moves.
I would use “requires someone who can help” option. Like a Sage, or whatever exists or is plausible in the immediate setting.
Ah asking the sage would just be asking him IMO. Not sure that triggers a move?
Only GM moves most likely.
Ah my bad I meant player moves. Should have made that clearer 🙂
Yes, a GM move. This could result in a favor for a favor (sage gives information if players collect rare plant, ex.) or use up assets like gold or silver, or perhaps retrieve a tomb that has a Cypher key for the strange writing.