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« on: December 12, 2012, 07:32:30 AM »
HyveMyind, I can relate to your players in those places in particular because I haven't really liked them myself, even though I can see them work I can see that it requires more extrapolation that the rest of the game has already built into the other moves.
Regarding magic, the revoke spell mechanic is basically D&D homage and root showing itself, something old time D&D players will quickly recognize and is easy to understand from that perspective, harder to emulate in fiction, as D&D has always been for me. You can make him compromise to that but you can't make him like it if it doesn't make sense to him, and it probably never did in D&D as well.
Drawing unwanted attention, in my opinion, immediately calls to my mind the put the character on a spot move more than the unwanted attention part, but the wording is meant for the player and yet makes more sense to the GM. A better wording that wouldn't correlate anything to him but would to GMs, for example, could be:
• Your spell has unintended side effects. The GM will tell you how.
This would give him an idea that something went awry with the spell itself, but the GM would be free to use any moves along with it, an example:
"Meeko is facing a group of orcs, all his companions are already face down on the mud and there are still 3 of them left, he casts a fireball spell at the 3 of them, the small space they are in has forbidden him to up until now. He rolls and gets an 8, browsing the list he picks the "your spell has unintended side effects" choice.
The GM consults his moves and decides that the fireball could trigger a separate them move. He tells the player: "You cast the spell with all your might, but you feel the energies being charged by your own desperation, the fireball explodes higher than you would normally, hitting the ceiling. This causes a minor cave in between you and your party members who are all unconscious. The orcs are dead, you have seen them die just before the rocks came down, there is a passage behind you, a small breeze blows through the area, making the dust settle towards the corridor. What do you?"
In my opinion it is the same option, just this one would make it clear to player that is is more open ended.
The -1 penalty is boring indeed, because it is not descriptive, it could be substituted by something more interesting, maybe fold the penalty and revoke into the same option.
• The spell disturbs the fabric of reality as it is cast, but you can take them into yourself to prevent mishaps — you can either take -1 ongoing to cast a spell until the next time you Prepare Spells or you can forget the spell and be unable to cast the spell again until you prepare spells.
You then have a left over spot for a third choice, if you want, but the same choices are all there, just with more fictional meaning.
As for discern realities, that is a tougher one, I can understand the mechanical choice, and the questions are not spot on because that also leaves more space for creativity to bring new things even after they were answered. The player wants to ask whatever he wants because he wants control over the answers, the list is there to avoid the game crawling to a halt as a player decides what questions to ask and formulates them.
In D&D he wouldn't even ask anything, he would be so far away from it that all he could ask for is to roll the dice. Here he knows what he is searching for, the character may even be on the same page as he is, but he does not know what actually is there, if anything, the move, imo, evokes me to actually create something that may not even have been there originally, the player tells me that this is actually relevant by wanting to trigger discern realities, then I elaborate, they may use the move because I created something they want to understand more closely, sure, but to me the untapped potential is on creating something on the spot.
Discern realities is a metagame mechanic imo, mostly because it is not really about making something in the fiction, but about asking about something that the players got intrigued/ curious/ interested/ cautious of. This means it is something the players trigger out of their own minds, much less than the characters would willingly.
The questions are a bad ting if you just want to ask whatever? Sure, but they also give room for more than they give to be there. Asking "What here is not what it seems?" can tell you the same as asking "Is there a trap in here?", but it can also tell you a lot more, and of something else as well.
If he truly wants to ask something else that is not on the list, tell them to, as long as the question is generic and open enough to not pertain a single situation. This would make him struggle to find something, and if he does, the game actually gains for it, they will learn to ask the questions that actually contribute to the game instead of the ones that uncover something that is there.
In short, I see Discern Realities not as a way to uncover a pre-planned thing, but as a means to trigger new and interesting things based on player interest, it is not about what I prepared but about what can come to the game right now that would make it more fun / interesting.