The intention is that you only add a new bond when you resolve an old one (or when a move tells you to).

The one exception is if you didn't fill in a bond at character creation. In that case you can fill it in, or add a new one to replace it, at any time.

There's a reasoning behind that: bonds are a measure of how effective you are at helping others through the aid move. You'll notice that the wizard has fewer bonds than anyone else, and the bard more. This is intentional: it's an extra little reflection of what that class does.

We usually draw marks on the map because we don't have a stockpile of minis. If you've got minis (or a good set of lego) handy they're a great way to track the action!

It says "draw maps" just because "create maps in the medium of your choice" isn't as catchy. If you're using some visual aid to help everyone keep track of the fiction, you're doing it right!

The druid just spends to do what an animal would, yes.

Keep the fiction in mind though: a bear has "tear someone apart" which means some poor human is probably dead, but something like a treant? Probably not. It'll hurt and might, say, rip of some branches that won't be there anymore to smack you, but not outright kill.

They way to look at the druid's shapeshift is that it's a bit more like saving up a success for later. Turning into a bear does give you some "free" attacks, but only as a bear would, nothing fancy like the fighter might attempt to disarm or something. Basically the druid is locking in some future successes at the cost of the animal's limitations.

By "limitations" I'm just thinking stuff like "oh crap there's a bear I'd better attack that instead of that chumb in armor" or whatever.

"Intimidating roar" is an interesting animal move. I wouldn't assume that a bear's roar would scare off a group of people—a dude or two, sure. But a big group? probably just draws their attention, which is useful, but dangerous as well.

In general an animal companion acting without the ranger is inviting a soft move, maybe even a hard one, from the GM.

As always, follow from the fiction.

So the ranger says to his owl "get the scroll!" as the sorceress is casting her spell. Cool. They're looking at you to find out what happens and no move applies so you make a (soft) move.

Showing sounds of doom might be a good one: "the owl grabs the scroll, but the sorceress's grip is too much, they're struggling over it, what do you do?"

Maybe use up their resources: "the owl gets the scroll, but now the sorceress is chasing after it as the owl tries to flap away, what do you do?"



Likewise, in a fight, not by the ranger's side, an animal companion doesn't really do (or take) damage. If the animal reasonably belongs in the fight on its own (say, against a rabble of villagers) it's a soft move. Maybe the animal takes out a villager but it comes back badly wounded (-1 ferocity until it recovers). If the animal is outmatched, perhaps against an angel or something, it's a golden opportunity. Taking the animal out of commission until the ranger does something to recover it is a good choice.

Here's what I mean:

Gregor the fighter is charged by goblins. He says "I run the one leading the charge through with my sword!" He rolls hack and slash and gets a 10+. Awesome! Now he has to choose, but some of the choices don't line up with the fictional situation. For example, he chooses knock down + deal damage, which doesn't quite match up with what he started out doing. Likewise, how did his one stab make his opponent deal damage to an ally?

I think the intent here is that your attack always has it's full fictional effect, right? The list of choices both helps that (running him through sounds like massive damage, sure), but it also provides a lot of options that can't be chosen because they don't make sense.

If the players aren't on the same page it gets even weirder. He says "I run him through" and then expects to be able to choose deal damage to an ally, which then creates some really weird fiction.

The intent here I'm totally for: an attack can deal more than deal damage. We just haven't had a lot of luck with implementing that via a list.

Labor: typical farm animal-type tasks. Pulling a plow (or other heavy load), herding sheep, that kind of thing.

Travel: That, but it can be broader too. A dog might be helpful in travel just because it's trained to set a pace and keep walking. It might even carry some weight.

In general, it's a good idea to work with the player and ask questions to figure out exactly what the training means for that animal. If a player tells me their owl is trained for labor I'm going to ask what that means. Then I'll work with them on the answer—maybe something like owls are trained in the Old Woods to harvest honey, or whatever.


An animal is useful to parley most regularly as leverage, as in your example. It's not ferocity because the important thing is not what the animal does, but how it can sell it. A bear might be ferocious in combat, but not be very good at threatening—it's either content or ripping your throat out, nothing in between.

That said, an animal could be involved in parleying in other ways. Maybe the service it provides is leverage, or it's mere presence is a status symbol. So long as it follows from the fiction, go for it!

At one point we had hack and slash that looked a lot like this (check out the history in advanced devling at the back of the book). The reason we moved away from it is that it doesn't always line up with the fiction very well.

That said, your list is pretty great and comprehensive and most of the options are solid!

Most of the those options would, currently, be covered by defy danger (if anything). If I say "I throw the first mate over the railing!" the GM will probably call for defy danger, maybe with str or dex, depending on how our back-and-forth goes. That's assuming the move triggers, of course—if the first mate is helpless there might not be danger to defy, or if I've been weakened by goblin poison I just might not be able to do it.