I'm thinking about a hack, and wondering what effect the following version of read a sitch/person would have:

When you assess the situation, ask the MC one of the questions below and roll +Sharp. On a 10+, the MC will answer, clearly and truthfully. Take +1 forward when you act on the answer. On a 7-9, the MC will either give a vague or incomplete answer, or tell you how you could learn the answer.
<insert list of read a sitch/person questions here>

What I like about this version is that, in play, it seems like players ask one of the questions first anyhow, which is what triggers the move. But on a hit, they end up with more questions to ask.  Not so much a problem when reading a person (unspent hold isn't a big deal), but sometimes it'll drag out when reading a sitch (no one wants to give up a question they earned, so they obsess over which ones to ask; plus it's pressure for me to come up with an answer).

What I don't like about this version is that it loses the limits imposed by the current Read a Sitch/Person moves.  When you use one of them, there's an understanding that you can't do it again until the situation changes--so pick your questions carefully.  With the rewrite above, that expectation goes away. After asking "what's the best way out" you could easily ask "what else should I be on the lookout for? and roll again.


Thoughts? How would a change like this influence play?

Where is the line between "MC makes as hard of a move as he wants on a miss" and player control of their character's actions?

Say the characters are navigating a ruined and unstable set of buildings (landscape: mirage; entice & betray), tracking this cannibal butcher that's hold up in there.  He's led them into a trap, a room with a floor that's really unstable.  People walk on it, they fall through.

One the players is suspicious, so before entering the room he asks "does it look safe?"  I tell him roll +Sharp to read a sitch.

If he gets a hit, no problem.  I answer his question: the floor's unstable, looks like it could cave in with enough weight on it.  Maybe he gets to ask more questions.  What he does next is his business.

But on miss… how much control do I have over his character's actions when I make my hard move? There are all sorts of good moves suggested by the fiction (put him in a spot, separate them, inflict harm) that involve him stepping out on the floor.  But do I get to say that he stepped out on to the floor because he missed the roll?

I can see many of the folks I play with getting very irate over me saying "it looks safe, but when you step onto it, the floor gives way!"  "But I never said I stepped on to it!" And they've got a point. Just because the floor looks stable doesn't mean they're going to step out onto it.

If I don't have the right to say "it looks safe, so you step onto it…," then what options *do* I have for a hard move in this situation?  I can't lie and say "it looks safe!"  And even if I did, that's far from an irrevocable hard move, especially since the player *knows* he rolled a miss.

I suppose I could have the cannibal attack from behind while they assess the situation.  But beyond that, the best I can think of are setup moves that give the players a chance to act (like "you see movement on the other side of the room, it's that bastard you're tracking, but he's leaving now… what do you do?").  And again, the missed "read a sitch" roll is still hanging out there as a metagame indicator that the room is NOT in fact safe.

How do y'all play this sort of thing?

I've been rolling this around in my head, and I the more I think about the less I like the ambiguity and subjectivity of these love moves.  It comes down to this:  show, don't tell.

I think John hit it in his last comment.  Making the triggers subjective will generate discussion about how PCs are feeling, table-talk about the characters' internal motivations & loyalties.  I worry that you'll get lots of heady, cerebral talk.  Making the triggers objective will push the characters into action, and leave the *feeling* part more off-screen and unspoken.  That feels a lot more visceral to me, and a lot more appealing.

Here's another thing to consider: Vincent said somewhere that he put the sex moves in the game because he wanted to make sex part of the game.  Lots of gamers would politely leave sex out of most games they play, but the special sex moves force them to be part of the discussion.

So what is it that you want in your LotFR hack that gamers (or the ones you are designing for) don't naturally do, but that you *want* them to do?  For what you describe so far, romantic love & betrayal seem to be the issue.  Do you want them to develop and maintain romantic (or filial) relationships between each other & NPCs?  Do you want them to be constantly tempted to betray those relationships?  If so, design the moves to do *that.*

Do you see all the character types having the same set of "Special" moves:  when you betray someone you love; when you declare your love for someone; etc.?  But each playbook has different results?

Or, do you expect that each playbook (or what have you) has a different set of love-related actions?  Like, do the sneaky Scorpion-clan guys have a "when you betray someone you love" move? And the grace-before-all Crane-clan guys have a "when you demonstrate your love through beautiful expression" move?  And if so, do their different triggers result in the same benefit/punishment/outcome?  (Like, mark XP or get +1 Hx.)

If you go with the first (everyone has the same trigger/triggers with different outcomes):  then what you're making those specific love-related triggers an important part of the game and what it's about.  In this case, triggering the love moves feels like something that should be transparant to all the players and pretty objective: action, not feeling.  Since it's a theme that everyone shares, it feels like it should be public.  Then there's the question: is "love" something you want to draw a lot of attention to in a game about samurai and shugenja?

If you go with the second (everyone has different love-related triggers with the same/similar outcomes): then what you're making is a reward system (or maybe a punishment system) that will emphasize what's important about love to each character. That makes the subjective triggers ("no, really, I don't think that was a betrayal") feel more appropriate. The player is in control of what is or isn't important to his character.

If you go with a mix (everyone has different love-related triggers with different outcomes), then maybe you're doing a little of both.  But I don't know that there's an analog to that in AW.

I'm trying to work this out in my head as I prepare to run DW for some friends, particularly friends who are weened on D&D4e.  I've read a lot about AW & DW, but never had the chance to play.

One of the unfortunate outcomes of Saving Throw is "you loose your footing."  Fictionally, I can totally see how this comes into play.  You're on your back or your face, or you're struggling to hang on to the edge of a cliff.  You probably can't move about freely until you address the situation and regain your footing. 

But say you don't really care about not being able to move, but your situation would still hinder you, but prevent the action? How would you handle that?

Consider:  You're fighting a skilled warrior, a real martial artist.  He's +2 levels above you, and you take harm.  Your saving throw is mixed, so the GM says "his kick is right in the knee, and your leg crumples underneath you.  You face plant in front of him.  What do you do?" 

Yeah, your fictional moves are now limited.  You can't say "I charge him" or "I run away" or "I dance a jib" because you can't.  You're on your face.  But what if you say "Screw it, I'm right in front of him?  I slash out at his ankles with my sword."

Hack and Slash, right?  But fictionally, you're at a significant disadvantage to do so.  Crappy leverage, limited range of motion, he's more mobile.  But there's no mechanical penalty, right?  I don't think you'd be Defying Danger at the moment; you're clearly hacking & slashing. 

I'm curious how others handle situations like this, where the fictional circumstances don't preclude a course of action, but DO put you at a disadvantage or impose a constraint.  Apply the -2 penalty (similar to "interfering")?  Let it slide for the immediate move, but keep working it into the fiction?

Thanks!

Moves don't always have to have "when..." triggers that are rooted in the fiction, right?  Sometimes they are player-to-player triggers. In AW, there are plenty of examples ("at the start of the session..." or "when there's significant downtime...").  None in the basic moves do that, sure, but...

So maybe:

Spout Lore: when you ask the GM what you know about something, roll +Int.  On a 10+, you can ask 3 of the questions below.  On a 7-9, ask 1. 
...

The downside of this approach, as I see it, is that the hard move on a failure isn't clear.  Since there's no fictional action being taken, it makes it hard for the GM to respond with something irrevocable.

Has anyone who's played in multiple AW games found that the lists of names become problematic? They strike me as a fantastic tool for MCs and players, but it also strikes me that any given name could carry baggage from one game to the next. Especially NPC names; if the MC is looking at NPCs through crosshairs, those names will get burned through pretty quickly.

I guess specifically I'm wondering: do any of find your group saying things like "Tum-Tum again, huh, guess we know who the villain is" or "no, wait, Joe's Girl was the dangerous cultie goth chick in our last game, she's the door girl at Dremmer's in this one."

If you have experienced that, what have you done? Just run with it? Made up new names? A little of both?  Has it detracted from the "replay value" of the game?