Ranger - ammo and moves

Hi all,
I'm playing a ranger and i'm not sure abount some issues:
1) AMMO
Example: the ranger has two boundle of ammo; does he get six volley each fight (not taking into account ammo recovered through a defy danger or lost for a weak hit)?
Does he recover them, at the end of a fight?
Weight: 2 or 1? We were using 1 but i saw a topic where it is said that elven arrowes a lighter than normalp ones.

2) WYLD EMPATHY
Aside being awesome, how can be used in normal play to be effective?
Could be used to avoid an hunt move asking the local animals where the pre.y went?
Could be used in the same way tò avoid a discern reality for understanding what happened in a certain area?
Using the move in this way, however would deprive the pga chance to miss and make experience.
If it cannot be used to have a mechanical advantage...for what can be uesed?

3) CAMUFLAGE
Same as above, uncleare what can be done or how can be used.


Thanks for any advice
L.

On the ammo questions, you only mark off ammo if the Move/GM tells you to do so. (On a 7-9 on Volley, you can choose to mark off ammo if you want. On a miss, you might lose ammo. There are other ways this might come up.) Ammo and weight was an issue in the pre-release pdf from back in August. I have not had time to dig through the latest pdf to see if it's been addressed (basically it was horribly inconsistent between shopping, the Ranger, the Thief, and other places).

First of all, hi dear Ranger of our campaign! Glad you joined this nice forum!

1- I guess 1 weight, because a bundle of arrows could weight as much as a sword, not a lot more. I also think that the equipment list is more up to date.
But I still have to ask Sage La Torra for the new pdf, and I cannot get in touch with him...

2- You can hunt and track if you have something to follow.
You could ask local animals for a hidden thingy so your wolf can smell it, maybe there is a blood trail somewhere, but only an owl saw it!

and as in question #3, abilities like this do not avoid the dice roll (I mean, if you could avoid that roll you sometimes could avoid it even without this power up) but instead let you roll when it's normally impossible.

But again, it all depends on the fiction you create when you use them.

I'm still confused; may be it will be clearer if I take and play it.

Hey Luc,
Its OK to be confused, but what is it about the moves that you like? What sort of cool things do you want to do in the story? These are the sorts of questions that will answer your ideas.

The ammo only gets expended if you roll a 7-9 and choose that option. Though I see what you are getting at with your question in terms of 'each fight'. How could the ranger just endlessly make volley after volley and not run out of ammo? Well, its up to you and the GM to narratively justify that possibility.

Perhaps your ranger scavenges arrows from the dead mid-battle or uses impromptu arrows, or maybe your GM is quite clued in and after a half dozen shots or so decides their hard move on a miss (any player's) is to use up your resources and let you know you've run out of arrows. There is no 'right' way to go about it.

As per the latest playbooks, standard arrows are 2 weight, elvish arrows 1 weight.

Wild Empathy is AWESOME! Dude, you can talk to animals! What do you mean by 'effective'? Like, in an 'encounter' maybe? All of your suggestions are wonderful, and exactly the type of story situations that make the game exciting to play. Also, you can also use any move as a means to overcome the antagonism the GM throws in your way. You can always say that you use Wild Empathy to deal with the problem. A canny GM will always follow with 'OK, so what do you do?' and a move will follow...

Camouflage is all about being not seen. If you can't see how this is a great idea for your character or something you don't want to do in the game, then don't take the advance. Easy peasy.

Moves are like little flags. If you take Camouflage for instance, its like a little alarm bell for the GM.

'Oh Ho! So Luc wants to be all sneaky and be able to hide without being seen! Awesome! I'm going to give his character a chance to shine and make sure that Luc's ranger is in a scene where his camouflage ability is going to get him into all sorts of trouble!'

The game is not so much about being 'effective' in encounters as telling a wonderful story together that piques your interest at the table.

I forgot to post this before leaving the pc for lunch, and noofy ninja'd me! However, even if basically I wrote the same things, I'll post them anyway.

Ammo is an abstract stat, just like adventurer's gear uses. You don't have 6 arrows, you have an imprecised amount of arrows worth 6 ammo. On a weak volley hit, losing 1 ammo means just what is written: you have to take several consecutive shots to hit the target, so your arrows diminish significantly in numbers, and that means reducing ammo by 1.

Recover arrows after a fight is something you might or might not be able to do, based on the circumstances, the gm, the group, and what does make sense in the fiction. However 1 ammo probably means a fair large amount of arrows and a couple of them should not be enough, so my guts say that is a very rare situation the one where you can recover even just 1 ammo.

Wild Empathy it's not a substitute for moves, it's just a different thing. Discern Realities triggers when you are studying closely something and gives you a specific pool of questions from where to choose and at which the gm must answer truthfully. If you are talking with animals, that's totally another matter. You can ask animals anything you want, but they will answer as they wish and within what they actually know. Maybe you can Parley with them, who knows. I see the ability of talking with animals as a window to an infinite array of possibilities. If you give yourself a specific goal that you know could be achieved with a good DR roll as well as finding a friendly animal to speak with, well, it's just your call on where you want the story to go, like for everything else.

Probably it's the same for camouflage, although I don't fully understand your doubts about it.

If you are worried about XPs, don't worry at all. Just do all the crazy stuff that could trigger a move based on your lowest stat. Funny and rewarding!

Noofy Ninja!

Noofy and Adam are right. A big part of Dungeon World is the focus on the in-game fiction, so saying "I am a camouflage master" or "I can talk to animals" are a Big Deal, even if the mechanics seem light. You'll notice that noofy focuses on this in his posts quite often, and it's with good reason. I wanna elaborate for a sec if that's cool. It may be a little off-topic for the original question, but I think it's applicable to the discussion and it's something cool to know, if you're a new player.

Dungeon World is totally the kind of game where description makes a huge difference. Players don't Hack & Slash an enemy, they describe the attack they're making and that might trigger the Hack & Slash move. Describing the attack is the important part, because it tells the GM what your character is actually doing in the game world. If your enemy is surprised or defenseless against your attack due to in-game circumstances, you might not need to roll at all- you might just get to deal your damage. So clarifying what's going on in the game world is important.

Like, check out the Ranger. You've got Called Shot and Volley in your move arsenal. Depending on how you describe your character's action, he may trigger either of them. If you go "while the enemy is distracted, I'm going to let loose an arrow at his back," then the GM has a good case for being like "yeah, that enemy hasn't even noticed the Ranger, he can't dodge that. He's helpless." Or if you're like "while he's distracted, I wanna shoot the sword out of his hand" then, BOOM, you just triggered Called Shot instead of Volley and you get some sweet bonus effects.

This is one of my favorite things about DW!

Ammo is somewhat abstract. If you go through a fight and don't end up marking off ammo that means that you were able to recover the vast majority of your shots. If you do mark off ammo (through your choice on a 7-9 or a GM move) then you've permanently lost out—some arrows broke, fell down a ravine, etc. As always, fiction first: if you're firing arrows into a fire elemental the fiction says you're not getting those back, so the GM can totally say "ranger, mark off one ammo at the end of the fight, everything that the fire elemental touched is toast."

Wild empathy and camouflage are huge benefits because they change what moves trigger. Camo, for example, leads into one of the simplest examples—when you attack an enemy who can't defend themselves you haven't triggered a basic move (you may have triggered Called Shot, but that's a very beneficial move) so we just follow through on the fictional effects: you deal your damage.

Wild empathy, likewise, can be huge. The bandits who stole your cache under the floorboards of the inn made sure no person saw where they went, sure, but you can talk to the sparrow who saw them pass by, the rabbit who's mate they killed, and the rest of the creatures to find where they went. No man has left the necromancer's lair alive to tell you what to expect, and it's shielded to magic, but the rats come and go freely—talk to them if you want to know what awaits you.

Definitely. Any move that provides a new ability within the game fiction is a Big Deal. DW characters are, by default, competent folks. Once you start expanding their repertoire... look out!

Ok, between your explanations and the last session, now i've less doubts.
thanks a lot.

Two more questions
1) last night an enemy was fleeing giving us his back.
I made a called shot but only to deal damage; from what you have said i should only have dealt damage without using called shot move (ok, mechanically it was the same thing); if I wanted to knock him down or let him drop the gold, however I should have made a called shot, right?

2) a couple of villain in the woods; unaware of us. The first shot -to the back - is a called one (Ranger had camuflage): the man is dazed (CS to head) and the other one is engaged by the Palading from the opposite side of where the arrow came.
The ranger shot to the second man; GM and Player agreed that it was another called shot as he cannot see the Ranger and was engaged by the opposit side by the Paladin.
Was that right?

Both of your examples sound just fine to me, but there's something really important I wanna stress: just because you're shooting at an enemy's back doesn't always mean automatic success, nor does it mean using Called Shot over Volley. The GM should decide each time, according the particular circumstances. Is there any form of danger going on? Sure, the guy's back is turned and he's running away, but are you chasing him? Maybe you could trip and fall, that's a danger! Maybe the guy is dodging and weaving and trying to lose you in a forest. Maybe anything! Every circumstance is unique and can lead to different interpretations!

You know how in D&D, if you're Flanking then you get +2? No matter what, always? Dungeon World isn't like this. Dungeon World wants you to look at the particulars of the situation and say, "yes, this makes sense" or "no, this doesn't make sense." For example, if you're flanking Bob the Useless, then one of you is probably going to just deal your damage, no roll necessary (because that dude is useless, geez). But if you're flanking Bill the Master Swordsman? He doesn't care about your dumb flanking manuever and he can fight both of you at once, no problem. He's a master swordsman, that's child's play! The GM gets to decide if an enemy is "helpless or surprised," always, based on what he knows about the enemy and situation.

So, bottom line: Did the decisions make sense to the whole table? If everyone nodded, like "yeah, that seems right" then you guys made the correct decision, no matter what it was! If half the table was like "that seems weird to me..." then you made the wrong decision. Easy as that!

Crystal Clear!
And right decision ;)

And if half the table goes "this seems weird…" usually the answer is to clarify what's going on. Most of the time they think it's weird because we had different unstated assumptions about what's actually happening. Like you didn't quite understand just how skilled Bill the Swordsman was, so you though that splitting his attention would give an advantage, but the GM knows Bill is one of the best swordsman ever. The problem there isn't anyone making the wrong call, it's just that some things haven't been communicated very well. So we might take a step back, clarify some things, and get back to the action.