Beta questions

The primary driver of XP in AW is being Cool or Hot or Weird, or whatever, that translate specifically into a list of appropriate moves.

You can also get XP for accepting guidance, manipulation, etc.

Those things work in AW.Which is about a group of people dealing with scarcity trying to bring hope back to a fucked up world. The sources of XP fit well with the MC's agenda and principles.

DW, to me (and I readily admit this is my preference) is different. It is about adventure and risk taking, for treasure and glory and stuff like that. That seems to fit with the GM's agenda and principles of making the world fantastic and filling their lives with danger and playing to find out what happens.

Is there room for some xp from character interaction? Sure. But what's the focus?

Yikes! Totally hadn't meant to open a can of worms with that one ;)

I've no issue with XP coming from Parley per se. My players were doing it a bunch, half because a few of them were being just plain disagreeable, and half because one player in particular was trying to game being disagreeable to gain more XP. Said player, the party Cleric, was largely holding out on healing until folk supplicated his evil god of suffering and blood. CLW was his leverage over allies, trying to get them to do more and more worshipful activities, and he was trying Parley any time there was resistance to it. Largely to game XP for his allies. In addition, he was also having his character be a stick in the mud about pressing onward in a couple ways in the hopes that he would be reciprocally Parleyed.

Again, after I mentioned "Er, guys, we've been playing for an hour and you've been asking every couple of minutes to Parley, can we get on with the adventurin'?" the amount of disagreeableness went down and it wasn't an issue so much.

All in all I was just curious about that XP grab sticking out there when the ways to get XP had been significantly hacked down to more theme addressing things. I saw mention above that 15-20 XP a session wasn't uncommon in some parties, so the drop to "1-4 plus however many times you twig alignment; oh, and Parley," just made the XP mine of Parley seem a little... out of place. I don't see easily better options for it either, outside of ditching it and bringing back "Order Hirelings" or something as a replacement. I like having Parley, though, so I'm not too concerned.

Anyway, off to make some Dungeon Fronts for Keep on the Borderlands. Cheers :)

To solve problem with XP from Parley, maybe there could be set limit on how much XP you can get? For example, max 1 XP from Parley per player in one session. Keep carrot for the first time, and no carrot for future cases in this session.

Aaron, that's AWESOME. I thank you for your actual play inference of this little xp trait of the game. Oh and an evil cleric using CLW as leverage to gain more worshipers in the party? Absolute gold. Sets a specific tone, sure, but why on earth would you want to discourage that sort of 'playstyle' as unexpected in DW? I think you handled it evocatively and with a style we could aim towards in our GMing. 'Just get on with the adventurin' dammit!' Bravo!

Can't wait to see your fronts for the Keep if you are willing to share? Cheers :)

Aaron, I think the whole dynamic of the cleric holding out healing unless the other party members supplicated his god could have just as easily ocurred without a Parley move.  It would still be great role playing, and add a ton of terrific flesh to the fiction.  I just don't see what the actual Parley move adds to this whole dynamic, other than an XP-mine which encourages meta-gaming.

Also, why should a PC gain XP by caving into the demands of an evil cleric?  That's not a very heroic thing to do.  I would rather give them XP for standing up to the cleric and not caving.

Aaron, I think the whole dynamic of the cleric holding out healing unless the other party members supplicated his god could have just as easily ocurred without a Parley move.  It would still be great role playing, and add a ton of terrific flesh to the fiction.  I just don't see what the actual Parley move adds to this whole dynamic, other than an XP-mine which encourages meta-gaming.

Same here.

Also, why should a PC gain XP by caving into the demands of an evil cleric?  That's not a very heroic thing to do.  I would rather give them XP for standing up to the cleric and not caving.

And same here.

Aaron, I think the whole dynamic of the cleric holding out healing unless the other party members supplicated his god could have just as easily ocurred without a Parley move.  It would still be great role playing, and add a ton of terrific flesh to the fiction.

Well, I know that in this particular case, it just wouldn't have happened without Parley being a move. My players saw the direct advantage in being a little obstinate with each other and seized on it. Had it not been for Parley, the player of the cleric told me he'd've just healed folk with his own supplications, and had it not been for the fact that one player was being a bit of a douche that night he'd have gotten a nice chunk of experience for going along with things.

I just don't see what the actual Parley move adds to this whole dynamic, other than an XP-mine which encourages meta-gaming.

I've nothing against metagaming when it leads to plot, as the above did. I just realised that I needed to keep a tighter rein on things.

That makes alot of sense.  The fact that the Parley move added to the story is good.  But don't you find it odd that a PC should gain XP by succumbing to an evil cleric and supplicating their god?

I'm also very curious how you would have handled the "Defy Danger" if the other player said, "no way - your evil god can kiss my a$$"!

Actually, on the first time he was Parleyed with a 10+, he said "fuck it, and fuck you". So he rolled Defy (with will, Defying his better judgement with anger), bombed the roll, and I went with a good ol' Seperate Them. I told him he stormed off, furious with the stupid Cleric and his stupid god, and wandered into a group of Kobolds who'd been cowering from previous events. And we all know how terrified animals react when cornered ;)

If he'd rolled 7-9 I'd've given him -1 forward, since he's just kinda ranting to himself in his head and distracted.

Adam and I have been talking about this. Here's our current feelings:

Manipulate in AW works because having the players at cross purposes is part of the game. You aren't a party, probably. You each have your own goals, so when it comes to talking to each other you need to have that mechanic so it doesn't always turn into a fight. It also flags pc v. pc as a valid thing.

That's not so true in DW. The default should be a party that gets along and has the same general goals. Sure, there can be strife and problems, but the baseline should be getting along and worrying more about the big problems you're facing.

So we're planning on removing the vs. PC clause of Parley from the next version (Beta 1.2 or Beta 2, depending on if we need a point release). It flags something we don't want to flag in DW.

Yes, thank you.

(I lobbied for replacing the move entirely, but I'll take what I can get.)

Aaron, thanks for the reply, it's interesting to hear how you handled it, well done I think.  And sage, I'm glad to hear that aspect of the move will actually be removed.

(I lobbied for replacing the move entirely, but I'll take what I can get.)

What's wrong with Parley as is?

It's not a move I need to play Dungeon World.

I can see something like a reaction roll (to set initial conditions when you run into a monster) or a charm move for a bard or a spell effect. But manipulating someone with a conversation is just not a thing that happens in a game like this.

It works in AW, obviously, but didn't need to be ported over, IMO.

Ah, okay, I'm fine with disagreeing about that.