Moves with nothing interesting on a miss

One of the great things about AW moves is that they always result in something more interesting than if the move didn't happen. http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=594 “On a miss, it's never nothing, it's always something worse.” Right?

But then I read the Skinner's “Artful & gracious” move: “On a miss, you gain no benefit, but suffer no harm or lost opportunity. You simply perform very well.”

That not only fails to specify something bad on a miss; it seems to *mandate* nothing bad on a miss.

Is this a bug that needs fixing? Did this slip through the net in editing? What's the recommended bad stuff to make a miss interesting for the “Artful & gracious” move?

Artful and gracious is an exception. Nothing bad allowed! The move's broken otherwise.

This is because, even though you roll dice for it, artful and gracious is more like, oh, NOT TO BE FUCKED WITH or a no shit driver or one of those.

-Vincent

Thanks for the reply, Vincent.

Okay, but if it's meant to be like the non-dice-roll moves, why roll the dice then? If nothing bad can happen, why not just have the player pick from the list?

I agree with the principle expounded on the Lumpley blog entry (“On a miss, it's never nothing, it's always something worse.”) and I have to wonder why bother picking up the dice if there's no risk.

Oh, you roll the dice to get a range of successes. If NOT TO BE FUCKED WITH needed a range of successes, you'd roll dice for it too.

The deeper you look into the moves, the more exceptions you'll see. Many moves break the otherwise rules, not just this one.

-Vincent

Artful and gracious is an exception. Nothing bad allowed! The move's broken otherwise.

Can you expand on this? You're implying that the breakage would be somehow worse than “nothing interesting happens”, but that already seems pretty bad in a game.

Here's my view of the situation:

Everyone in AW has the ability to sing a song.

People who take the Move "Artful and Gracious" are simply better at doing their artful thing, which could be singing a song, than people who don't have the move.
This is expressed in the fact that they get a mechanical benefit for doing it.

Normally, singing a song is a (Relatively) low risk activity. Most people probably aren't going to be hit with a Hard Move for doing it.

If there was a mechanical risk in doing it while you had Artful and Gracious, than people with A&G wouldn't be simply better at doing their artful thing, and the rules wouldn't match the fiction, which would be a bigger no-no than rolls with no outcomes.

Compare with Things Speak:

The only people who have the ability to tell what strong emotions have been near an object by handling it are people with the Things Speak Move.

People with the Things Speak move are simply better than everyone else at handling objects and telling what strong emotions have been near it, because no one else can even try.

When you add a risk to that ability, you don't take away the fact that the person with Things Speak is simply better at doing what they do than anyone else.

Compare with Frenzy:

Frenzy is similar to Artful and Gracious.

Frenzy has more powerful effects (Probably) than Artful and Gracious.

Frenzy sticks a roll into a risky situation (Speaking truth to a mob), while A&G sticks a roll into a low-risk situation (Singing a song)

Even with mechanical risks, the rules of Frenzy mean that if you want to be a crowd agitator, you take Frenzy. The fiction matches, the potential risk works, the move is a slam dunk across all priorities.