Something has been bothering me lately. I ran a game for a group of “good rollers” that was very anticlimactic. I wanted to increase tension and make moves, but they kept SUCCEEDING. I mean, I’m a “fan of the characters” and everything, and want to “fill their lives with adventure”, but I couldn’t DO anything. Merely, react to their awesome.
I’m not saying the games weren’t fun and that the adventurers didn’t have a good time. They did, albeit not a very climactic one.
This was also true in a game that I played last week. I was playing the fighter and rolling 10+ like a BOSS. The GM tried to CHEAT (what a dick, trying to bring some tension into a controlled situation 😀 ), but I had 1 hold left to negate his move and drive Deadeye (my awesome longsword) into the enemy wizards heart. I had fun, but you could tell that the GM had more stuff up his sleeve and was never given an opportunity to act.
Maybe that is what makes Dungeon World so much fun to play? When the Characters are doing well, they are doing WELL, and that’s fun.
My solution was to simply make harder moves whenever I could. The Skeleton King that I was running during my game had a move of “Impale someone on his magical sword”. If he get’s ONE shot to make a move, that should be the one.
Has anyone else seen this?