Honest question, why do you think DW lacks a 13+ result entry whereas some other pbta games use it to represent extraordinary results.
Are 10+ results in DW supposed to represent exceptional success or just normal success without complication?
Honest question, why do you think DW lacks a 13+ result entry whereas some other pbta games use it to represent…
Honest question, why do you think DW lacks a 13+ result entry whereas some other pbta games use it to represent…
iirc, many of the playbooks (like the fighter!) have a 12+ as an advanced move.
In other systems, you talk through/already know what happens with success and failure before the roll (eg you do the thing or not) and exceptional rolls (eg natural 20) offer the exciting chance to to have unexpected outcomes and maybe exercise some narrative control and add on to what you said. In many PbtA games, that opportunity is built into the 7-9 range (often a partial success) and where the player gets to drive the story and the 2d6 bell curve supports it. A 10+ or even 13+ just means you do the thing you already talked about.
For me , running DW is mentally taxing enough that having to invent exceptional successes feels like asking just a bit too much. Special moves that trigger on a 12+ are cool by me, tho.
I don’t know if the DW rules explicitly mention it, but the way I run it, exceptional skill/ability influences how much I push back on the fiction before the roll instead of prompting me to grant special cookies after the roll.
As a wacky example, in one con game I ran, a fighter tried to survive orbital re-entry by curling up behind his tower shield and riding it down. That fighter had an Armor of 4 and had been largely invulnerable to hit point damage during his titan-slaying rampage, so this was totally in the spirit of things. He got to roll Defy Danger or be incinerated. (Dude boxcarred the roll, of course. I love con games).
On the other hand, his druid companion who had shapeshifted into a vole and hid in one of his pouches during the re-entry would not have gotten a similar Defy Danger opportunity. She just would have been a little micro rodent meteorite.
To slightly rephrase your questions: Under what circumstances does a 13+ result really make a move shine? What are the really clever examples of moves with a 13+ outcome?
What William Nichols said: they’re embedded in the playbooks.
Barbarian: SMASH and The One Who Knocks
Fighter: Superior Warrior
Cleric: Greater Empower
Paladin: Impervious Defender
Ranger: Hunter’s Prey
Thief: Extremely Cautious and Evasion
Wizard: Greater Empower Magic & Highly Logical
Thanks for the research, Jeremy Strandberg! I very much appreciate it!
I think this is completely intentional in DW; they certainly knew about 12+ moves when DW came out.
Apocalypse World allowed you to take the ability for 12+ results after you’ve reached level 5, which completely change the paradigm of play.
Like you can Manipulate someone so hard they become your trusted friend and the GM is no longer allowed to hurt them (normally the GM principles say to keep everyone in the crosshairs)
Or you can Open Your Brain so hard that you see past the psychic maelstrom to whatever lies beyond.
Or you can point a gun at someone’s head and they HAVE to do what you say.
Its not just an extraordinary success, it achieves something impossible up to that point, it breaks down walls you’d never even really noticed were there.
Fair enough for the playbook 12+ results.
I guess it makes me wonder why some pbta have 12+ results and other 13+.
13+ means you can’t just get lucky, you also need to have some talent (stat bonus) and/or build up advantages. It also means that rolling boxed car isn’t always a “crit” (which is something undesirable in my opinion) but also less likely to hit s crit result without rolling a 12 on the dice (which in turn is something I like).
Marshall Miller Actually it’s the reading of vagabond of dyfed that made me wonder about that so I don’t have an example. That said I always liked “criticals”, especially when they are super rare (1/36 to roll boxed car and snake eyes in pbta, some d100 and Fudge dice system have even a 1% crit chance). And (we discussed this before in here) although you can totally make do with narration to describe extraordinary success (or failure), I feel it’s easy to oversee and that having a line for a 12+/13+ solidifies the effect of an exceptional result. It also help covering one missing result from the non-binary results procured by pbta : the “yes, and…” result.
Elliott Ambrosetti I really like the concept of a crit allowing you to achieve the impossible. I played a Fate Core campaign 2 years ago and because getting a ++++ is so low (I think it’s about 1%) we always narrated over the top effects, crazy stuff like being able to swim up a waterfall or convincing a prince to give you all its possessions.