My main campaign won’t start up again until April, but I’ve been dying to GM so I ran a one-shot for some experienced players last night. I gave them the option of choosing two 2-5 moves, or one 6-10 move.
My best player, Dave, chose Immolator and picked Watch the World Burn. At one point the party was facing a horde of zombies, so he whipped out Watch the World Burn and rolled a 7. He said “Dang, I was actually hoping to fail because I wanted to see what would come with the storm”, and the other players laughed and thought it would be cool as well.
My response was “Didn’t that zombie club you in the head pretty hard?”
With eyes wide he quickly checked a section of the rules and said, “Yes, yes it did. My ears are ringing and my vision is blurred. I’m kind of out of it.”
“Yep, sorry, mark the Confused debility, which subtracts 1 from that roll, making it a 6. The sky rains fire devouring the zombies below, but also inflicting 1d6 damage to each of you, ignoring armor, but something else seems to be happening as well. What looks like a ball of flame right at the center of the storm is quickly expanding. In only a few moments it bursts like a bubble and something drops from the sky. The ground shakes as it lands very close to you, knocking you off your feet, and you find yourself staring into the flaming eyes of a Balrog (because I couldn’t think of anything else at the time). The creature snaps it’s flaming whip in your direction and starts to move towards you. What do you do?”
Normally I wouldn’t fudge a roll, especially in DW, but my players REALLY wanted to see what would happen there if he failed. I asked Dave what would have happened if he’d rolled a 9 or 10, and he said he’d be fine keeping it. It was only because he rolled a 7 (SSOO close to failure as he put it) that he wanted to fudge it.
Has anyone had a similar experience? Should I have left the dice alone, or was it OK for me to fudge the roll?
I have fudged dice behind a screen when, and only when, it would make for more fun for the players. But i wouldn’t when the dice are visible to the players.
What i would do in a case like this is, ask them what they want to do. If they want disaster then by all means let them. They succeded after all.
DM: “thats a partial success. You can succeed but at a great cost. Do you continue?”
Player: “yes, i throw caution to the wind to make it happen”
Insert Balrog
Robert Doe, that’s actually the perfect way to look at it and I forget that this IS Dungeon World after all. Success means getting what you want (more or less). He rolled a 7. He wanted something to come out of the Fire Storm. Done, here’s a demon!
I don’t even need to fudge the roll. Thanks!
You could have also asked another player to Interfere, which might have added more interesting stuff there.
Damn Aaron Griffin, that would have been more fun I think. I only ever think about AID with the Aid or Interfere move. I don’t think I’ve ever actually had a player interfere with another.