Tag: Matt Horam

I was musing on a custom move for brewing potions this morning, and I know people have treaded this water with specific classes (Witch, Alchemist, Cultist), and discussions like this one: https://plus.google.com/u/0/112484087750169360510/posts/aGs9QZCB97u, but I wanted to come up with something you could give to an amateur potion-maker. Here’s what I came up with:

The quality and potential side-effects of the potion are unknown until it is consumed, and the brewer simply knows they aren’t a master of their craft, and risks ensue. This eliminates the “I brewed a poison by accident, I’ll only dose my enemies” workaround which sneaky players often do.

I didn’t want to use the standard range of Success/Partial/Miss wherein it goes ALL right, SEMI-right or ALL-wrong, or choices for the imbiber based on CON because I really wanted a random element for dubious quality brews, hence the percentages for the B and C-grade potions below. Does this method rub anyone the wrong way? How would you achieve this?

===MY EXAMPLE:

When you add the third eye of the frost-troll to your potion, you create one dose of Stone Skin. When someone drinks the dose, the brewer rolls+INT. On a 10+, the potion was A-grade; +2 armour for an hour. On a 7-9, the B-grade potion could just as easily petrify you for the same duration. On a miss, the C-grade potion has a 50% chance of petrification as above, 25% chance of permanently turning you to stone, but a 25% chance that the +2 armour could last for a whole month! 

===

You could roll a d4 or d100 to determine the outcome, using the lowest numbers as the worst results.

One of my players has promised to honour the memory of a fallen dwarf by challenging a dwarven bartender to a drinking ritual. This is my first attempt at the custom move for it:

When you and a partner toast the memory of a fallen comrade, gain 1 drink, describe the memory, and roll+CON-drinks.

*On a 10+, you pour one for your partner and they propose the next toast. 

*On a 7-9, you pour one for each of you and they propose the next toast. (gain 1 drink)

*On a miss, you pass out and you partner will hold your defeat against you when next you meet, for anything from good-natured humiliation to blackmail about what you did in the missing hours.

If you can’t describe the memory, you are obviously too drunk, didn’t know them well enough, or didn’t really care about them. Treat as a 6-.