I’ve made this move few weeks ago because I’m running a kinda-hex-crawlish campaign so that I can still have random encounters but not necessarily play the fight scene everytime. Just realized this would work great when you start to notice a fight scene drags on and you don’t want to play to find out how the PCs massacre the remaining 8 goblins.
NARRATE A FIGHT
When everyone agrees to resolve a combat scene in a single roll, say on which tactic you rely and roll…the GM wants to resolve a combat scene with a single roll*, say on which tactic you rely and roll…
■ … + STR if you fight in melee
■ … + DEX if you use ranged attacks
■ … + CON if you rely on the Balboa tactic
■ … + INT if you cast INT-based spells
■ … + WIS if you cast WIS-based spells
■ … + CHA if you bolster your allies
On a 10+, Choose 1.
On a 7-9, Choose 2.
■ Take damage, ask the GM which dice to roll.
■ Take a debility and describe how you got it.
■ Lose something important to you (ammo, spell, follower, weapon, etc)
I don’t like the trigger being dependant on the GM. Perhaps any player could call for the move. The GM having all the power is boring.
Yeah, I said that to myself when writting but then I feel like a player in bad shape could “cheat” by calling for this move.
Maybe I can say : when everyone wants to skip ahead or something
How about
When everyone agrees to resolve a combat scene in a single roll, say on which tactic you rely and roll… ?
Addramyr Palinor expecting a player to “cheat” is the same as thinking they will “ruin your game”. That attitude shows a lack of trust in the social contract at your table.
My players come from a long history of OSD&D. Their brain are attuned to finding and exploiting game “flaws” to their advantage.
I need some more time to break that 😛
The trigger should be grounded in the fiction rather than the mood at the table.
Something like “when you’re in a fight that’s overwhelmingly in your favour” or something like that.
I like that, although I still want the move to be triggered when we don’t want to play out the entire fight (ex. random encounter from our hex-crawl) but still resolve in 1 roll.
There’s no reason a custom move needs to triggered based only on fiction. For example, see End of Session or the Barbarian’s Outsider and Good Day to Die moves.
Don’t get me wrong: it’s usually (almost always) a good idea to ground your moves in the fiction. But you design a custom move (including your triggers) with a purpose in mind. In this case, the purpose is to speed along a fight that you’re not interested in playing out. It’s not necessarily because the fight is obviously won… it could because you have a bunch of other stuff you want to get through during this play session and you want to resolve the fight scene quickly. Having a meta-level trigger makes perfect sense for that sort of move.
Addramyr Palinor I wonder if you could make this generate more interesting results and interactions between the players. Maybe something like this:
When everyone agrees to gloss over the details of a fight, describe your general role in the fight and you each roll +STAT. On a miss, pick 1 from below and the GM picks another. On a 7-9, pick 1:
* You were injured by your foes (ask the GM how much damage you take) — tell us how it happened
* You lost or used up a resource (ammo, a spell, adventuring gear, etc.) — tell us what and how
* There’s some tactical or strategic consequence or loss. Ask the GM to describe it.
On a 10+, choose 1:
* You made it through the fight unscathed
* Choose 1 from the 7-9 list, but tell us how you negated or prevented someone else’s choice from the list.
So… you’ve just killed the goblin orkaster and the fighter had already dropped the bugbear champion, and now there are still like 8 goblins all huffed up on rage drake bile and furiously fighting to the death. No one is really interested in playing out the rest of the fight. We trigger this move.
The fighter takes up a defensive position in front of his friends and receives the brunt of the attack, so he rolls CON for a 7-9. The ranger falls back behind the fighter and picks off the goblin berserkers with his bow, and rolls DEX for a 10+. The wizard already used up her combat spells, so she hangs back and guards the fighter’s flank. Alas, she rolls CON and gets a miss.
The fighter is on point, so I ask him to pick first. He got a 7-9 and picks the obvious choice: damage. “Okay! There’s 8 of them and their berserk, so that’ll be [b]2d6+7!” “Yikes!” says the fighter. “I guess there’s just so many of them, and it takes time to fight them off and they just land a bunch of blows.”
“I got you,” says the ranger with his 10+. “I’ll negate that by shooting them off you. I choose to use up a resource, my ammo.” Makes perfect sense. Pew pew pew!
The wizard, though, got a miss. She has to pick 1 and I get to pick another. “If I take damage, is it going to be as much as the fighter?” she asks. Naw, the fighter was taking the brunt of it. She’ll just take [b]2d6. “I can handle that. I’ll take that. I guess one of the little shiesters gets past the fighter and I end up fighting him off, but get pretty beaten up by it… ugh, 6 damage. Ouch.”
That leads me to my choice. I go with a strategic setback. “Okay, yeah, it’s like you say: the fighter’s standing at point and the ranger’s picking off goblins as they come in, and one gets around and just tackles the wizard. They’re still like scrabbling on the ground, the goblin’s needle-like teeth chewing into the wizard’s arm when the fighter and ranger finish off the others, and then turn and kill the one on the wizard. “But, wizard, your left arm and hand are just mangled and bleeding all over, it hurts so much. You can’t even close your fingers, much less hold your staff or make complex gestures with it!”
Or, I could have chosen a different setback, like maybe when the dust settles and they go to loot the corpses, they find that the obsidian orb the orkaster was using to power his magic is, like, gone! And the ranger spies some little bloody goblin child footprints near the body and then heading off into the woods. One of the gobbo kids stole the magical artifact! What do you do?
So in Ironsworn (a PbtAish hack) there’s a move called Battle which does exactly this, and the trigger is when you fight a battle and it happens in a blur which allows you to decide when it goes off while remaining grounded in the fiction.
If you want to read the details of it, you can get the core book for free from ironswornrpg.com – Ironsworn – Tabletop RPG
Here’s my updated version. Thanks Jeremy Strandberg. As always, spot on. I wanted to keep my options as I think strategic consequence or loss is included in “you lose something important.
NARRATE A FIGHT
When everyone agrees to gloss over the details of a fight, describe your general role in the fight and roll+STAT.
On a 10+, Choose 1.
■ You made it through the fight unscathed.
■ Choose 1 from the 7-9 list, but tell us how you negated someone else’s choice from the list.
On a 7-9, Choose 1.
■ Take damage, ask the GM which dice to roll.
■ Take a debility and describe how you got it.
■ Lose something important to you (ammo, spell, follower, weapon, your position, an arm, etc)
On a 6-, choose 1 and the GM choose another.