Author: Ian Oberst

In last night’s play session I had something come up I wasn’t quite prepared for: narrating an enemy that was skilled enough to act defensively against spell casters. My initial take was that a skilled opponent would try and anticipate when an incantation was ending and move just prior to the spell being completed, so as to take cover or avoid the brunt of it.

Fiction-wise I’m satisfied with that, but mechanically I wasn’t sure how it would work out. For regular attacks, fighting a skilled opponent might not even trigger the Hack n’ Slash move, but spellcasting is different, as the move is to determine if the player successfully casts the spell. However, it seemed almost too much of a penalty to have a player roll to see if they successfully cast, only to then say that the opponent anticipates their casting and doges. On the other hand, having spellcasters basically never have to fictionally position themselves against a skilled opponent seems unfair for all other classes (e.g. melee) that have to do so. (Note: I’m excluding situations like “you can’t see the enemy”, or “you are in a dangerous position when casting”, etc, and focusing mainly on a spellcaster who is in a safe position with a clear (at the moment) line of sight, but is facing a cunning/skilled/?? opponent.)

Thoughts?

GM Moves on 7 – 9:

The rules say the following: “Each move will tell you what happens on a 10+ and a 7–9. Most moves won’t say what happens on a 6-, that’s up to the GM but you also always mark XP.”

The other night I was GMing a game that had a druid for the first time. He rolled a 7 – 9 while shapeshifting. According to the move the result for getting 7 – 9 is to get less hold. However, there are not listed soft move options for me as the GM to take. So, what do I get to do in this case: do I get to make a soft move of my choice when no options are listed or because no options are listed does the character simply get less hold as the result and things continue on?

A question came to mind after reading an earlier question/discussion (https://plus.google.com/u/0/105199399549482359686/posts/TnkhKR2TrWx).

How often to GMs out there skip a move just to let something awesome that a player narrates happen? For example, the rule book indicates that attacking an enemy who is surprised may not trigger Hack n’ Slash and the player just deals damage. If the player narrates instant death do we give it to them?

Or as another example, if a player narrates something that would kill the enemy and they are in active combat (like decapitation a la the linked discussion), but the enemy may have just enough HP that they can’t take them down with a single roll, do we give them the outcome they narrate when they roll successfully (10+)?

Yet another Perilous Journey question:

Do characters regain any HP while on a Perilous Journey, or do they have to make the decision to interrupt the journey and make camp?

GM’d my first game last night, and I had a ton of fun! The group I played with are all new to this sort of thing (me included), but everyone really got into it. I was constantly challenged and surprised by what my players threw at me to work with. Thanks Adam Koebel and Sage LaTorra for enabling this wonderful experience!

I did have one question that came up though. One of the players was skewered by an enemy from behind rather deeply and he decided to attack said enemy by twisting (while impaled) and grabbing his sword (which he had earlier embedded into the enemy but then had to leave) and essentially ripping it downward to cut the enemy open.

I figured this action was rather painful since we was impaled at the time so I had him roll Defy Danger +CON to “endure” the pain of twisting around before making his attack. Does this make sense or is there a better way to handle this scenario?

Thanks!