Possibly dumb question:
Is there a place that discusses how to handle monster special qualities? I’ve seen:
-Turn flesh to stone with a gaze
-Spell: Overheat a foe so they doff their armour
-Spot a foe’s weakness and take advantage
How do you handle these kinds of things at the table? Just have the player Defy Danger and describe the results? I’m having trouble with the nuts and bolts here. Can anyone help?
-Turn flesh to stone with a gaze
“The thing turns it’s snake head at you and you feel your foot start to cramp up. It feels heavy, and as you look down you see your calf is starting to turn to stone and it’s moving toward your knee. What do you do?”
– Spell: Overheat a foe so they doff their armor
“Your armor starts to glow. Everywhere it touches your skin, the heat hurts, and it’s getting worse. If you don’t do something soon, it’s going to start burning you. What do you do?”
– Spot a foe’s weakness and take advantage
“She watches you fight with a trained eye. Warrior, what side is your weakest? Left? That’s where she comes from, way too fast. You’re not going to be able to parry it. What do you do?”
What Aaron said. You describe the danger, they decide whether/how to defy it.
Good stuff from Aaron Griffin there. 😀
Also, it’s absolutely not a dumb question Tony Tucker. I just think you’re going to get lots of different answers, none of them necessarily more correct than any others. Lots of stuff in DW is, by design I believe, open to interpretation, so whatever works for you and your group is the “correct” way. Personally I really dislike “save or die” kind of effects. So if the monster has some really nasty power, like a gaze that turns people to stone, I try to drop hints before the encounter
Once the monster is mixing it up with the characters, I do what Aaron does. I describe the effects of the power and ask the player what their character does. Their response will trigger different moves, maybe a Defy Danger, maybe not.
Chris Stone-Bush I also hate save or die, but in the foot-to-stone example, it’d be amazing if a player cut off their own foot
Aaron Griffin So what if, in the stoning example, the player tries to kill the basilisk and fails. DM judgement?
You would continue making moves as hard as you like, escalating in some sort of logical fashion.
“I try to kill it. Shit, rolled a 5.”
“You lunge forward, striking at his face, only to be hindered by your fifty pound leg – it’s stone all the way up to mid thigh. You need to do something about the leg soon or its probably going to kill you. What do you do?”
“I swing at it again”
“You’re not very mobile at this point, pretty much unable to reach the nimble creature. You could try throwing a dagger or something, but that probably won’t do much through it’s thick scales. Maybe your allies can help somehow? Cleric, what do you do?”
Etc
DW is scalable, so what happens on a miss is totally up to how hard you, and your group are comfortable going.
Maybe that -6 when the character tries to attack the creature results in them turning completely to stone. Maybe the petrification creeps up to their thigh or waist as Aaron Griffin described. Maybe you let the dice decide and ask for a Defy Danger with CON roll to see how bad things get.
Whatever you do though, I think it should be tense. The player should feel as if their character is in danger, as this seems to be a pretty dangerous situation. 😉
As people have said a lot of the DW moves are open to interpretation, if the player failed their attempt to defy danger you could inflict damage on them to represent their flesh turning to stone or you could represent it purely narratively, whatever suits your style and game.