18 thoughts on “https://plus.google.com/+RayOtus/posts/ggqZ6QP152P”

  1. I can’t comment on the original post, so I’ll say this here:

    I’ve never used a pause during conflict as a chance to make a move. I don’t run a super deadly game, and feel like acting during pauses punishes indecision, when indecision is where the tension is! Do I save the girl or close the demon portal? Oh no I have to decide!

  2. Well, the book advises you to (act when players pause). I’ll find the reference(s) if you want. And you may be reading too much into what I’m saying. I don’t “punish” people for thinking a little over a hard choice. Stalling out can just mean players standing around in a room trying to decide how to deal with a trap – so the GM has a wandering monster come up behind them.

  3. It says when they “give you a golden opportunity” or when they “look to you to see what happens”, if I recall.

    I’m not saying the suggestion is wrong, just that I try not to act on a pause unless people are “stuck”.

  4. Yep. Fundamentally, I’ll bet we do about the same thing in play. You have to strike a balance. Once characters jump into combat with a monster I won’t let them have long conversations in character without pushing them – at least with a soft move that makes them dodge around while they are coming up with a plan. Otherwise it just gets weird, fictionally. Is the dragon just listening to their conversation with his chin in his claw? 🙂 But I don’t hit them every time they spend an extra 15-20 seconds of in/out-of character chatter while in a combat. And sometimes we will pause the combat for something like a character flashback or to have a short meta-conversation about something.

  5. First of all:  Ray Otus, PREACH!

    Regarding “making a move on a pause,” I guess I read that not as “make a move when the players hesitate” but rather “make a move when there’s a pause in the conversation.” Because a pause in the conversation generally means that the last “turn” has resolved in such a way that it’s not obvious who should speak next. And when that happens, the table is tacitly looking to the GM to see what happens.

  6. Ray Otus see I take long conversation to be more like a “flashback” in fiction terms. Like, I imagine all the nights on the road, they may discuss tactics and tell stories and things that allow them to work together in the moment.

    So when there’s in character discussion about some tactics in a combat, I see that movie as flashing back to them sitting at a fire sharpening blades and playing a weird game of 20 questions.

  7. That might just be me but I moderate way heavier. The players aren’t always talking and when they make a move I still get to narrate what happens and then I also make a move. Also my monsters are usually proactive and demand the players to react.

    So it’s not a monster acting every Nth turn but them acting basically every second turn.

    Especially in the beginning of a fight this pits pressure on them and only when they found their footing again can they go on to proactive. Of course there are certain tricks you can use as a player to seize some initiative.

  10. I’m not sure I agree that a monster fighting 8 PCs gets to potentially attack 8 times. The only time this would happen is if it makes sense. 8 PCs around a goblin means one player gets to defy danger to make the killing blow because the monster is so overmatched there isn’t a hack and slash trigger.

    At least that’s the way I would run it.

  11. If 8 characters hack and slash and they each fail in turn, the GM has 8 opportunities for a hard move. They don’t all have to be monster attacks but they could be. And even 7-9 results open the characters up to attacks/ soft moves. You don’t have to do it, but that’s the way the game is written. But yeah. It would be weird around one goblin. You are right that it wouldn’t make a lot of fictional sense and that is important too. (That would be one tough goblin!)

  12. What I mean is that unless the monster is something capable of taking on 8 characters in melee there’s no melee, there’s just butchery, which doesn’t trigger hack and slash. There’s no question of whether they’ll be able to kill the thing. The question is whether or not the individual giving the killing blow will get hurt doing it, hence the defy danger with the danger being that the goblin gets one last cut before he dies.

  15. To be honest I think this an interesting dilemma. Me personally I would put caution on jumping to heavily into using monster moves when playersare thinking cause it can punish thinking.

    But I do think the GM needs to do something more then 7-9/6- moves to make the combat a lot more risky and exciting, because I have found that if you have a lot of players you can take down a monster quite easily since they can succeed or give you 7-9s but it not be that problamatic.

  16. Actually monster moves are often compromising rather than damaging. If I were specifically going to push players to pick up the pace a little, I would tend to use monster moves. Let me also add — fuck players! 🙂 NOT really. I mean I take “Be a fan of the characters” seriously. But you cannot let strategizing slow down combats. Pushing them is not the same as punishing them. It’s not vindictive. Endless table talk is not fun for everyone, or maybe even anyone. Usually the barbarian/fighter player takes care of things for you because he gets tired of the yapping and cuts over everyone with a “I bury my axe in its skull!” But if I get the feeling that the monster is sitting idle and watching the “tennis match” of in-character conversations — or if I get the sense that I as the GM am really tired of listening to the tennis match of the players’ conversation — I will move the fiction forward. And how I move the fiction forward a GM or monster move. Usually it’s something that forces them into action and/or on the defensive (Defy Danger to dodge his acid spit). 

  17. I always explained monster difficulty like this…

    Rank I: A bear, just a normal bear with normal bear stuff

    Rank II: Invisible Bear, not stronger in any stats, but requires more effort and creativity to defeat

    Rank III: Intelligent mirage bear, a magical creature with ambition, cunning , and deceit. He wields mind warping abilities to throw off and harass his opponents. Still has bear stats.

    That’s the basic gist of how I understand it. I think it is pretty much the same idea you have, but I might have overlooked something. What do you think?

  18. That’s a cool/funny/useful distinction Samuel Bogumill. I’m not sure how it fits what we were talking about though. I think the discussion above is about how often and when a monster gets to act. I was pointing out that in DW monsters can act more than once per round, unlike in D&D where they act only in their initiative slot once per round. Then the discussion turned into one about fictional appropriateness – meaning sometimes players can’t reasonably attack or damage a monster (the book example is someone trying to punch a dragon) and sometimes the opposite is true. For instance, can an ogre legitimately attack eight different opponents in one round, even if they all fail and create an opening? And, can eight characters actually all get around an ogre to make an attack, or should the GM limit it to 3-4? 

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