I would like your help with a move I’d like to use in a playbook of mine.
The idea is to have prescience, visions from the future, so that the PC can “warp” the dice by “having seen that hapen in his dreams”, choosing a result. Of course it would have to be limited, but every iteration of the move I’ve come up with is overly complicated.
It is because it cannot be implemented satisfactory or am I missing something? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Prescience: At the start of the session, when you receive visions of the future, roll + INT. On a 10+, hold 2, on a 7-9, hold 1. You can spend your hold to force one single die to a 6 in any roll this session, because you have seen this moment in your visions.
Can we see your move so far? Hard to answer your concerns otherwise.
Going with Aaron Griffin’s, you could force to max value or min value, opens it up to non skill rolls, such as incoming or outgoing damage.
I would make the movie akin to the the books machine of death character thinks really hard about something and they get one or two words back.
Depending on the roll depends on if the answer works the way they think it does.
Example from the book, the machine of death tells you how you die, not when just how and usually in one word or a very small sentence. Noone knows why the machine actually works but You might get the result “old age” great you think, I’ll live a long happy life. On the way home an old lady runs you down in her car and kills you.
Yoshi Creelman I liked the idea of making it a single die. So then you have a roll between 7-12 – you will succeed, but reality might not turn out EXACTLY as you saw in your vision.
I don’t think you can do the same with a damage roll – rather, your defense/defy danger roll would take the hold adjustment to explain the same fictionally.
I don’t have any skin in this game, I just liked the idea of the move 🙂
My move starts basically as Aaron’s above, but limited the choice to a certain amount of characters, places or NPCs, something like INT+WIS people or places to choose from, at least one had to be chosen as the move was concluded (basically one of the PCs), and the choice was not to maximize or minimize the dice, but to literally choose one of the threee outcomes possible. Really extensive and boring.
Is it important that the warping be done through manipulation of the dice? Would other methods be acceptable?
Oops so my idea is more a narrative thing, sorry bout that.
Dylan Knight How, for example? Putting it in the dice makes it easy to grasp, that’s why the primary choice seems to be that.
I should have been more clear, but the folly of typing from a phone, I meant the max or min of a single die. I could easily see how my response was not clear. The problem with giving players too much choice (especially with deep decision trees) is that some players will get lost in the optimization, and really slow play down. This would be ironic, considering the flavor is that they had seen the outcome ahead of time and took actions to do something about it.
From that perspective, the move should be something that speeds up play, not slows it down.
Also take a look a the human fighter move, I think it is, “Once per session reroll any roll”, something close to that might also work.
Yoshi Creelman I see your point and agree with most of it, specially about being able to either maximize or minimize the result. Maybe one of the advanced moves goes as the fighter one, choosing people at specific situations so it does not bog the game down.
Use hold to apply the “b” or “w” tag to the die in a roll. You would be able to affect NPC damage as well but would not guarantee auto success on rolls.
You are then able to create advanced moves that strengthen the ability since this is for a playbook.
Eric Lochstampfor Awesome twist on it, specially for the intent of the class, which is being the representatives of the missing gods of the setting. Putting their divine powers to work in many ways. (No clerics on the setting, just for the different twist on it).
There are some clever ideas here, but i am always looking for ways to help players embrace bad die rolls, rather than trying to escape their consequences. When players roll a 6-, i’d rather they sit on the edge of their seats, excited to learn what comes next in their characters’ lives, than groan and regret the move.
In line with what Dylan Knight said, i’d consider ways to warp fate outside of changing dice that have already been rolled.
When you recall the future while facing a momentous decision, roll + WIS. On a hit you are divinely bolstered; on a 10+, take 3 preparation, on a 7-9, the visions include dire tidings, choose 1:
Take 1 preparation;
Take 2 preparation and draw unwanted attention; or
Take 3 preparation and mark one condition as you struggle to make sense of it all.
When you make spend the preparation as part of your move, reveal to the GM what you saw.
Preparation already exists in the game, under the Bolster move. This move lets you pull in the effects of Bolster without the time-in-fiction, but at risk. You’ll essentially gain +1 forward up to three times, which helps skew the dice before you roll, instead of after.
Andrew Fish I see your point, but since there will be only 1 or 2 chances to do that in the sessions, considering all the rolls that are made, it’s not much of an impact overall, and makes them have to choose very carefully where they want their sure success or failure. Also, you can use the previous ideas for fixing the dice rather than changing them, using the holds before the rolls are made.
Nicolas Bohnenberger – i’m giving a longish response not to defend the move i wrote, but to push into the theory behind how i see the game. What you have proposed is interesting, and raises points that are relevant to lots of game tables. Most importantly is the players’ relationship with failure and success of a roll, especially since the NPCs do NOT roll.
As your goal is “sure success or failure” you are correct. As i said, i’m more inclined to get players to find the fun in failures, and don’t look for ways to give them guarantees.
Playing Dungeon World is “filling the characters’ lives with danger” and “playing to find out what happens” – if the players can automatically dictate success or failure, we are getting off track. Especially in PvP, where dictating failures to a PC, instead of an NPC, really starts to get un-fun.
An idea that “fixed” one of the dice, even prior to rolling, is too much impact for my tastes. If you fix one of 2d6 to a 6, the worst result you’ll get is a 7+, which takes failure off the table. On average you’ll get a 9.5 + MOD, which means you’re averaging a 10+.
An idea like Eric Lochstampfor ‘s where you get the “best of” or “worst of” two rolls might be more to my liking, if you’re declaring it before seeing the first roll. It gives you good odds of a result you like, but no guarantee.
Finally, i’m not sure why there would only be 1 or 2 chances per session to trigger the move. It really depends on how the move is triggered, right? You can write a move that can ONLY happen once, for instance, or write a move that can be triggered whenever fictionally appropriate, such as my example.
I always like the moves or abilities where you have to make a hard choice. The Fates Cost – Change any 10 into a 6 to gain 1 hold. Spend 1 hold to upgrade the result of a miss to 7-9 or 7-9 to a 10. I think Immolator has similiar ability. The idea is your character gets the vision that they need to mess up now to be better in the future.
Andrew Fish The way I’m taking the move, as the first post put it, it is triggered at the start of the session, so either you get hold 2, 1 or none.
The main problem is: if you saw a vision of the bee queen stabbing you through the heart you might have told somebody.
If you already knew there was a firesnake trap in the moment you set it up, why did you walk into it.
Every time you say you knew something but before you never acted in a way that shows that you knew things get weird.
This is the issue you need to solve.
Like you get attacked by the ice elementals the Haruspex summoned via a hidden secret portal. You defend your comrade and use the move to improve your result. You knew that. For some time.
In game however you didn’t. You are as surprised as everyone else when it happens. If you knew – why didn’t you bring the enchanted lavamace you still had? If you declare stuff retroactively without the ability to do impactful flashbacks (like Blades in the Dark or Leverage allows you to do) it will always be weird if you think about it just a little.
Tim Franzke – that isn’t weird, it’s an opportunity for another playbook move:
When you suddenly used to always knew something but never acted on that knowledge, explain to the other PCs how foolish you feel, and retcon the fiction as needed; then, choose 1:
*Tell the group what you suddenly have with you
*Travel back in time to kill the villain as a baby
*Change to an Apocalypse World Playbook and tell everyone how things are about to go really, really wrong.
Tim Franzke You see, the idea is not to have CLEAR visions of the future, but glimpses of it, blurs really, exactly not to fall in that kind of trap. I do not like fixing result either, but when your character says he saw the fighter dodge the giant’s mace, well, you expect that to happen, don’t you?
I also don’t think bonuses to rolls are the best way to do something like that.
Look at the AW Battlebabe move (I forget the name, something like “Visions of Blood”) where you get to name someone who will live or die in the upcoming battle.
You’d have to tweak it for DW where the baseline expectation for almost every encounter is that all the players live and all the monsters die, but I think that’s the model you’re looking for. Make a roll to have a chance to say something that comes true within some kind of fictionally limited context.
Alternately, something where you have hold and spend it to retroactively explain how you’re already prepared for a situation because of your vision. Again, I’d say you roll to gather the hold but not to spend it, like the Druid’s shapeshifting.
Setting a die to a 6 is basically auto-succeeding. (There’s nothing wrong with auto-succeeding; that’s why I bring up the Druid.) Replacing a random die with a 6 is an average bonus of 2.5. If you get to pick the die you set to a 6, you’re replacing the worst of 2d6 with a 6, it’s more like 3.5. There are reasons you don’t seem moves give bonuses of 3 or 4 to a roll.
Russell Williams That move is the fighter’s on DW, but it only contemplates a battle. The idea is for it to contemplate the whole day or session.
A totally different possible move, one that tinkers with the dice:
When you have no FORESIGHT dice and spend time (an hour ir so) contemplating the warp and weft of the future, roll 5d6 FORESIGHT dice and set them aside. Each time you would roll to make a move, you must use one of your FORESIGHT dice plus a newly rolled d6 in place of rolling 2d6.
(Gives the player unclear hints about the future and an ability to nudge it without perfect control. Also gets them gaming the actions they take in an interesting way. Do they intentionally trigger a “safe” move–which we all know doesn’t exist–in order to burn a low die? Do they roll big on their 5d6 and this act boldly? All sorts of fun, without just nixing misses.)
You could simply use the Luck optional rules from Funnel World.
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/137012/Funnel-World
Deja vu
When you dream of things to come roll + WIS:
* on a 10+ take 3 hold
* on a 7-9 take 1 hold
When situations from your dreams become real you may spend hold;
Choose any option:
* spend 1 hold, take +1 forward
* spend 1 hold, warn an ally, they take +1 forward
* spend 2 hold, reality bends and you may choose one single die (yours, or someone else’s) to reroll
Something like that?
What do you want the move to achieve at your table? How does the fiction work? Can visions ever be wrong?
Prescient – instead of rolling you can choose the 7-9/(maybe 10+) result of your roll. Do this once after every rest (make camp-move)
Considering all that people discussed here, pure prescience is not possible without harassing the precepts of the Engine. So I thought about dialing a bit back and using the “Fallout 4 Mama Murphy” take on the subject: she has feelings about a person or place. So the move now looks something like this:
‘Prescience
At the start of the session, when you have glimpses of possible futures, roll + WIS. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7-9, hold 1.
When you meet a person or see a place for the first time in the session, you can choose to spend 1 hold. If you do, choose who your vision affects:
– you
– a fellow PC
– the whole party
– itself
And choose what future do you see in it: weal or woe. The GM will make sure your vision comes true.’
What do you think? It might even be broken down into two moves, does not tweak with dice rolls or results, and can be manipulated only through fiction – since the GM does not roll anything, he can just weave your vision into the events of the session.
Please feedback on this.