Any good advice of philosophy on hard vs soft moves? Do you ever just let yourself as the GM just make a hard move, say everyone is rolling high that fight? I know there’s no turn order,you but do you allow yourself as the GM a spot to make a periodic hard move?
Any good advice of philosophy on hard vs soft moves?
Any good advice of philosophy on hard vs soft moves?
It’s based on the fiction. Ask yourself: what do the players need to happen in order to enjoy themselves? Should I be more challenging, or easier?
Also, a 6- is always a hard move.
A 6- is as hard a move as you like.
And no, absolutely do not arbitrarily make hard moves because everyone is doing well. The GM’s job is not to punish players for doing well, or anything like that. If they do well, fine, great, there’s always more monsters and the next fight or next puzzle or whatever.
Remember that you should be making hard move whenever the Players look at you to know what happens next (“I guess we go down into the pit.” Cool, they want to know what happens then.) or when they give you a golden opportunity. (“We send the wizard down into the pit to break the enchantment, while we guard his flank.” Cool, break the news to the wizard that the place is trapped and he’s in for it now).
Pretty much everything else you say is some kind of soft move, talking about their surroundings and finding out what they choose to do: use this to set up for future hard moves. This is how you set them up to make hard choices that give you golden opportunities, this is how you make them look at you to find out what happens.
Big no no on the “make hard moves when they roll well”
Here is some reading material.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://book.dwgazetteer.com/gm.html&ved=0ahUKEwiMuuq00rrTAhXGJiYKHSEVAg8QFghlMAk&usg=AFQjCNEIqmba1p3EPwdxMAu5pRaaq08KLw&sig2=glsrp3zMKtksXpaeOGEykQ
I tend to try to move more obsticles in the players ways when they are doing well because I always felt that I need to keep the game interesting. Tonight I listened to the Alfred Rudzki s advice. My players rolled well all night and had a GREAT time feeling competent. They kept commenting on how happy they were that things were finally feeling like things were going their way for one.
Top notch advice guys. My players thank you.