I am running a really fun game of Monsterhearts at the moment. Just last session our Ghoul died for the second time (he'll be back soon) and the Ghost, Hollow and Fae all became their Darkest Selves through harm and moves. So, things are insane and awesome. Anyway, I'm okay with the Ghost and Hollow.

I'm having trouble with the Fae's Darkest Self. Here's the text.

Everything you say is a promise. Everything you hear is a
promise. If a promise is broken, justice must be wrought
in blood. To escape your Darkest Self, you must in some
way re-balance the scales of justice.

So, he only became his Darkest Self near the end of the session, but the few things he and others said just didn't seem like promises. I know I can skew them, but they just didn't seem to fit. Here are some things people said:

"What's going on?"
"It was you who shot him!" (the Ghost speaking to an NPC, now also dead)
"Everybody's shooting everybody!"
"Give me the gun"
"It's going to be okay"

So, the last one "It's going to be okay" can easily be seen as a promise. If everything isn't okay, then the Fae can seek vengeance. However, the rest were harder.

The Fae took "everybody's shooting everybody" to be a 'fact'... like that the person screaming that was promising that everybody was shooting everybody, so now the Fae thinks he should live up to that and go shoot some people. Shoot everybody, I guess.

"It was you who shot him" could sort of be seen as a promise ("I promise that it was you who shot him") but... so what? Like, it is actually true what the Ghost is saying, so the Ghost gets XP?

Commands like "Give me the gun" are also tricky, because it's not a statement that can be treated as a commitment. I think that sentence was followed up with "You need to give me the gun" to try to make it easier to be seen as a promise.

Some things I've thought of that are more promise-like include: "I'll be back in a minute", "It's going to rain today", "I think you're the hottest guy in school". These are presented as given or as 'true' and so can be seen as promises and so can be broken. If the person takes more than a minute, or if it doesn't rain, or if the person later says someone else is hotter, these promises are broken.

I have been mentally putting "I promise..." in front of the sentences (e.g. "I promise it's going to rain today"). But, as I said, it doesn't seem to make sense for some things ("I promise what's going on?" or "I promise give me the gun"). Even moving the words around a bit it's sometimes hard to see how these could be promises.

Anyway, some advice on how people have treated this would be excellent. I think the trickiest part is the word "everything" in the text. We're having trouble seeing how literally everything could be a promise, when lots of things aren't phrased as promises, event implicitly. Thanks in advance :)

I was asked an interesting question today which I don't know the answer to.

If an NPC has a chance at doing something, but success isn't guaranteed, how do you decide what happens? Particularly in a game with 1 GM and 1 PC, this can become important.

I know the principles of Think Dangerous might apply, or your Fronts and Grim Portents or the fiction at hand may tell you what to do. You could also maybe disclaim decision making by asking a PC what happens, but sometimes these seem not enough.

An example from a game I ran with a different system:
The PC alerted an NPC to an attack on the NPCs life. So, now the NPC was prepared, but survivng the attack was still not guaranteed. In that game, I made up stats for the NPCs and did a few quick rolls to simulate the situation and fight they would've found themselves in. In the end, the NPC won, but she could've easily died. How would you do this in Dungeon World?

Another simpler example:
Two NPCs, pretty equally matched, are duelling to the death. How do you decide who wins?

Another one:
An NPC is climbing a treacherous cliff-face in the rain. It's possible to make it up there, but it's tricky. How do you decide if they succeed, partially succeed, or fail?

Important to note here, is that in these situations the NPC isn't helping/hindering the PC. The PC might not even be there, yet the event is still important to the fiction and deciding a result without some sense of randomness or chance, doesn't sit right.

I haven't run a 1 GM, 1 PC game of Dungeon World yet, but I plan to. Often in games like that an NPC will fill the place of a PC to round out the small party. I could use Hirelings, but this doesn't really fix much. I feel like I should probably stat the NPC up like a monster, which helps some (I now know how much damage they deal, their HP and armour, what moves they have, etc.). However, seeing as PC moves don't apply to NPCs, I can't use Hack and Slash when they fight in a duel, because NPCs don't have STR.

I could also write custom NPC versions of Basic Moves, but it seems a bit excessive. Perhaps I should fill out a PC character sheet for them and treat them just like a player?

If anyone has any advice, custom moves, or play experiences that could help, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!