Today’s move is pretty simple but I think is a lot of fun to roleplay.
Blog Post: http://vindexus.net/2016/08/25/can-dish-it-out-but-cant-take-it/
Vin Moves site: http://moves.vindexus.net/move/dish-it-out
GitHub page: https://github.com/Vindexus/VinMoves/blob/master/moves/dish-it-out.md
Can Dish It Out, But Can’t Take It
When you are insulted by this enemy and have a cutting retort, roll+CHA. On a 7-9 they are taken aback and momentarily drop their guard. On a 10+ the same and all allies take +1 forward when acting against this enemy.
http://vindexus.net/2016/08/25/can-dish-it-out-but-cant-take-it
How does that make any sense?
“Your mother is fat!”
“Oh dear this man has insulted my mother what should I do?”
It’s like being tilted by smack talk, happens all the time.
This is straight out of The Secret of Monkey Island – I love it. On a 7-9, I would love to see that the enemy “looks unsure, but responds with another clever quip. Respond again and attempt to take victory over this lingual duel with a +1 to your roll, or take advantage of their momentarily lowered guard right now. On a 10+, gain +1 Ongoing for you and your allies against this enemy.”
Just like in the game, I’m sure 2-3 retorts and one of you will be the winner.
Colin Kierans Except the dude has a weapon. All you would do is taunt him into attack you (which is already in the game). You’re not going to make him mess up in he stance, you’re just going to make them grit their teeth and go after you.
If someone shouted an insult at you, would you “drop your guard?” Or would you just ignore him and keep fighting? Even if it was the sickest burn ever spoken by man, you wouldn’t be paying attention.
I think you’re assuming a lot about this made up character. The moves are meant to be applied to enemies where this makes sense, not universally to all enemies.
“I find you extremely attractive….”
“What….?”
Friend sweeps his leggs out from underneath him
Patrick Schenk I think you missed a bit from the trigger of the move. It triggers when the NPC insults you, and you then come back with a cutting retort.
So, it wouldn’t trigger if the NPC says “You fight like a dairy farmer!” and you weren’t paying attention (or otherwise ignored it). It would only trigger if you did pay attention and came back with “How appropriate, you fight like a cow!” or similar.
The fact that it requires both sides of the conversation to engage in the insult match before it triggers means that both sides are paying attention to what the other side is saying, even if they’re also crossing blades.
See “Sick Burn” from Immolator. It’s pretty similar, if not the same
+Robert Rendell that’s even dumber, having the opponent just throw their sword into a pool of lava would make more sense then them dropping your guard. This move doesn’t work for several reasons.
One the logic makes no sense as I’ve said many time. Telling someone their father has a tiny dick, isn’t going to make them lower their guard. At all. It’ll just provoke them into attacking you, which would be fine if that was the goal (even though that is already a class move). But it isn’t, the only person that would “lower their guard” if you talked shit, would be so bad at swordplay you wouldn’t even need to roll hack and slash to begin with. So it’s bad because you would never use it in an actual game.
You can’t explain how the PC fails, outside “well just because.” How does a character learn from there failures when they were just talking trash talk? And then you have the GM’s hard move, which violates the GM principle of being a fan of the characters. You going to tell me that the fighter completely fails in his attack just because he talked shit before he swung his hammer? If I want to play a Barbarian, who thinks he’s better then everyone, why is my -1 charisma going to punish my character just because he is living up to a character trait.
Third point is that, moves are triggered by intentional actions that require skill or intelligence to perform with an obvious fail state in some form. Shooting an arrow, jumping a gorge or deactivating a trap, all share these traits. “your sister is a whore” one is something a character would do just by roll playing. I wouldn’t go in with the intention of trying to lower his guard (because that isn’t how that works), my character isn’t showing any any skill or intelligence because insulting someone who said you have a dumb haircut is an natural reaction, and you skill to talk shit is shown via the fiction, not a dice roll. Plus if you told me Roll+Charisma after trash talking, I would ask you why. What was happening that would need me to roll that stat, what was going to happen if I failed. I would be confused as to what was happening, not exited about potential doing something cool.
Insult fighting!
Depending on your objective (perhaps to distract an enemy), I would say you have to roll DD+CHA because you are attempting to use your words to fool the enemy, thus there is danger that you get your words wrong and screw up the punchline putting the objective, perhaps a sneak attack by your ally, at risk.
Thanks for your input Patrick Schenk
To your first point I don’t think you can simply say “fighting doesn’t work like that” just because that isn’t how you’d react. There are many different types of people and monsters with different personalities, who would react differently to the same thing. If I create a character who likes to insult people but has a very fragile ego, then I’d say this move could easily apply to them. Just because you don’t think it’s a smart reaction to be distracted by someone’s words doesn’t mean no character can ever react that way.
I think you’re missing that this isn’t a global move that exists for all enemies. It only applies to the enemies the GM thinks it fits with. Does that make more sense?
I’m not sure why you’re talking about failure, the move has no explicit 6- result. Could you expand on that? Remember that a miss doesn’t automatically mean you fail, it means the GM makes a hard move.
I disagree with your third point. Moves are triggered by the fiction, and don’t have to be deliberate. Many custom moves deal with things that happen to your character, even if your character didn’t try to do a thing. “When you are touched by a ghoul” or “when a lycan bites you” etc etc
Damian Jankowski that could easily work as a simple Defy Danger roll if you didn’t want to use this custom move 🙂
I know my Bard would love to retort a drunk in a bar, just before a bar fight.
Bard: “id like a fruit vodka”
Drunk: “ha, what are you? Some kind of sissy?”
B: “thats not what your mother said last night” ((rolls 10+))
D: turns towards the bard and starts swinging, forgetting about the Bards friend on his otherside.
Friend: “dont forget about me” and grabs the drunk with the +1forward