Given that in lucasarts games the player characters don't die, that seems like a lot of fixation on the damage system.  I'd take a step back and look at other hacks that deal with harm more narratively, like Sagas of the Icelanders or 'Hood.

I think playbooks as entry points is maybe not the best road to go down with a game like this.

Playbooks have to be about who your character is, not who your character was before the agency (whatever that agency happens to be)

Quote from: Scrape on March 11, 2014, 10:36:56 PM

That's what the real crux of this question is: can you escalate your demand after a refusal? If so, is it just the same Move again?

I believe you've nailed it! The answer is: you can escalate the force of your claim after you've rolled. Your roll stands. At each escalation, your counterpart has to choose again. You aren't making a new move when you pull your sword, you're continuing in the same move and the roll you already made remains in force.

You can roll the move at any point during your assertion of right, at the beginning, middle, or end. Play out the rest of your assertion of right according to the terms set by the move.

It ends when your counterpart caves, when you let it go, or when you stop escalating the force of your claim and try something else.

I'll have to make sure that's true, and revise the move, but I believe it works.

Thanks! This is good.

-Vincent

So I get that both actions are claim your right, but are they really the same claim your right?

I mean, rather that do it your way, my natural inclination as a GM is to do something more like this:

Player: "I ask the duke to comply with his feudal obligations and send a group of archers to assist my knights in the north"
(rolls 10+)
MC: "The duke calls your campaign in the North a fool's errand, and insists that his archers will remain on the border where they're truly needed" (the Duke is calling the PC a fool and his mission pointless.  He wants to use the PCs demand as leverage in a negotiation, so isn't bothered by the possibility that the PC will get +1 forward to draw him out.)
Player: "I signal to my knights.  They raise their spear-tips and draw their horses as I unsheathe the lake-sword.  'I am king by right of all lands between the sea and the mountains.  The oath you swore to my father binds you to me, and if you do not obey, then you will be judged traitor to the crown.'"
(Instead of drawing out the duke, the PC rolls claim your right again with the +1 forward, and gets 10+.  So the Duke must decide how to proceed, knowing full well that a +1 forward from choosing to insult is going to be used on in battle rather than a less bloody move)

Well if you're going to do that, you just need to tinker with "retire to safety", yeah?  I mean, there should always be a "quit" option, but they don't all need to be equally good.

I recall a skin from Monster of the Week that had an option to become a villainous npc along with the standard retirement option.

Well, sure.  But you only go up in rank once.  You can't start as a serf and end as a king--at best, you can start as a serf and end as a free tenant.  If you get to be king, it's because you were already the king's son (or the king's daughter's son, or the king's brother, etc.)

I was under the impression that peasant referred exclusively to free tenants, while serf referred to bound tenants.

So, it's right there in the rank 7 description.

But, from a historical standpoint, doesn't "peasant" actually better match rank 6?

safe passage and sanctuary are a type of supporter.  You don't get their bounty and want from fortunes, you get it from the support move.  You roll whenever you call upon the support.  So you'd check for safe passage every time you were passing through the (wherever)