Beta questions

EDIT: Cross posted! Thanks Aaron for your description of AP (I was only postulating) and I'm with Sage, I think Parley is totally within the 'worldview' of DW. The removal of the PC vs PC clause is fine within the context of Heroic Adventure. In my mind you just go straight to the Defy Danger part of the move.

Well, I know that in this particular case, it just wouldn't have happened without Parley being a move. 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.

System matters. Sure, DW merges old Skool mechanic sensibilities with indie authoring 'rights', but the result allows for just the story that Aaron's group ended up playing to find out. The cleric's player keep 'pushing' through roleplay until the other players said 'nope' to all the evil supplication. He then decided that his Cleric's persusive evangelism combined with the leverage of CLW was far more enticing and invoked the parley move. Mechanical re-inforcement of the character's abilities that has to be described through the fiction. Pure DW awesomeness.

It could've easily turned out more 'Heroic' had the wounded player chosen to defy danger (and encouraged another whole move snowball and the chance for Aaron to make any number of GM moves).

Glitch, the XP for succumbing is likely a one off deal. It fictionally represents the character sacrificing their own alignment 'ethos' for the advantage of some nether-world healing (which I would certainly presume comes at some sort of fictional cost). Once committed, there is no need for the Cleric to parley with them again unless the leverage changes. This is a huge defining moment for the healed character, and the players have to take every advantage to fictionally describe it. To do it do it, fiction first and all that.

Don't forget that in the absence of 'bennies', XP is both a representation of character growth and player reward. In this context the award of an xp for the PC makes perfect fictional and mechanical sense. The player is awarded for roleplaying (in the same vein as alignment and bond triggers) and we have learned something remarkable about the character, with is now embedded within our unfolding story.

OK, I can't speak for Aaron, but I like your postulation of the character defying danger to resist the evil evangelism of the cleric as he stands wounded and at death's door. How would I handle it? First I'd ask lots of questions, embedding the mechanical iteration deep within the story.

'OK cool, you are resisting the rather persuasive hankerings of the the Evil Cleric to give you the benefit of his god's healing if only you will bow down and supplicant yourself. The Danger here is that you are on the edge of death. How do you defy that? with what aspect of yourself?'

So say the player goes with 'through mental fortitude' describing their resistence is through a stoic resolution to their own alignment beliefs. Note could have easily been any of the stats,  they could have powered through or got out of the way or acted fast, or endured or used quick thinking, or turned the tables on the cleric; using their own charm and social grace... the player just has to narrative their reasoning. Its worth noting that the Cleric is risking the narrative ramifications based on this defy danger move by Parleying in the first place!

Say we continue my initial postulation that the player goes with defying through their strength of will and mental fortitude, rolling Defy Danger +WIS. If they get a 10+, the threat is meaningless to them, the character is strong in their own beliefs and stands firm. I would be curious as to how they would seek healing based on their wounded state (given they are refusing the clerics CLW), and ask the player just that.

On a 7-9 the move gets rather interesting, and I have to remember that to make my move powerful I must not state its name, address the character and go with the fiction first. So say its the party's good Wizard, all Dumbledorey. I offer him an ugly choice.

'Your impressive will is tenuous against the evil machinations of the cleric's god as sibilant whispers slide into your mind. You can resist his parley, but in doing so you will forget one of your prepared spells....'

If he misses his defy danger, well. I get to make as hard a move as I like. It could simply be that the character caves and accepts the healing (and supplicates to the evil god - perhaps changing alignmnent and marking xp), or I have a Dungeon Move or GM move I really want to make. For instance I could be HARD, deal damage and say that 'despite shielding your mind against the cleric's suggestions, the strain has opened your wound and its bleeding profusely. You only have a few minutes before you slip into unconciousness and death, what do you do?'

Here's why I think Parley belongs:

I feel like, with a little work, adventurers can get people to do what they want with words. The Bard's better at it, sure, but everyone can give it a shot.

Turning warring tribes against each other. Convincing an angry ghost that you're here to help. Bargaining for help from extraplanar entities. These all seem like D&D things to me.

Without Parley the situations where Parley would apply would likely play out in a very similar way. The players have taken the goblin relic, the toe of their god Gob'ul, captive and they want safe passage through the goblin caves. Without parley the GM portrays the world and probably makes a soft move (since everyone is looking at them to find out what happens). My personal GMing would probably be to tell them the requirements and ask or offer an opportunity with cost. That ends up looking a lot like Parley, I think: the players have to agree to something in return (the safe return of the relic, probably) and maybe provide assurances.

Parley encodes the GM moves into something that the players can see and do. I think we're keeping it.

Parley also reminds players that negotiating is an option.

I think John wants to make a different game. A more old school one. That sounds awesome, but it's not what Adam and I are making.

I like the idea of Parleying with NPCs staying in the game, but I think the "promise" wording in the move is causing some problems. In the Walking Eye AP, Kevin wouldn't let Troll Parley with Grundloch even though it sounded to me like Troll had leverage. In my own DW Basic play, near the end of a big fight with some lizardmen, I had my fighter say to the last one standing something like "if you run now, I'll let you go." I rolled the middle Parley result and the GM started roleplaying the lizardman talking with me trying to get me to articulate some more specific deal. I found it kind of silly since I had every intention of following through on my offer to let him go but I was playing my character as kind of gruff so I was more inclined to just kill the thing if he was going to make a big production out of it. I think "promise" wording makes the move hard to work with.

The few PC to PC parleys I did seemed pretty artificial in terms of the "leverage" I had (they tended to boil down to "I'll be grumpy if you don't do it my way") so I don't think the game will be losing anything important by taking away PC to PC Parley.

Keeping Parley also gives CHA a basic move other than Defy Danger . I know there is the special move of Outstanding Warrants, but probably recieves far less potential use than parley. I think parley's retention is also systemically important as it stops CHA from being the 'neglected stat'.

Maybe I'm not understanding the example, but I imagine the exchange between lizardman and McGruff the fighter to be:

McGruff: Drop your weapon, foul beast, and leave.
GM: You've got leverage (killing him), something you want (him to leave), and he can understand you. Sounds like Parley.
McGruff rolls a 7.
Lizardman: You'll let me live? Turn and return to the battle and I'll turn and leave.
McGruff: Feh. Enjoy my back, lizardman, if you ever see my front again you'll die.
McGruff turns and returns to the fight, the lizardman flees.

The lizardman asked for a promise ("You'll let me live?") and a concrete assurance (turning your back on him and rejoining the battle). Is that not how the move got used? Or was the problem that you felt the promise was already stated but the GM tried to draw out a new one, like this:

McGruff: Drop your weapon, foul beast, and and I'll let you live.
GM: You've got leverage (killing him), something you want (him to leave), and he can understand you. Sounds like Parley.
McGruff rolls a 10.
GM: Cool, and I think the promise he wants is the one you offered: letting him live.
Lizardman: You'll let me live? Better than dying here.
McGruff: Ha! Some brain in there somewhere.

I've added some to the move discussion about the parleyer offering a promise. In cases like this, where as part of the parley you offer a promise, the target can accept that promise as part of the move (with assurances based on the roll) or can ask for a different promise instead.

McGruff: Drop your weapon, foul beast, and I'll let you live.
GM: You've got leverage (killing him), something you want (him to leave), and he can understand you. Sounds like Parley.
McGruff rolls a 7.
Lizardman: If I flee I'll be killed as a coward. Give me your dagger, so I can claim I killed you, and I'll leave.

Keeping Parley also gives CHA a basic move other than Defy Danger . I know there is the special move of Outstanding Warrants, but probably recieves far less potential use than parley. I think parley's retention is also systemically important as it stops CHA from being the 'neglected stat'.

We would make sure it still had uses. I wrote up a move based on the AD&D reaction chart that would replace Parley, if we ever chose to get rid of it.

Yeah, Sage, I want to make a different game. I guess. I'm usually confused about exactly what D&D experience DW is trying to capture.

Here are some Charisma moves I should probably write:

When you charm, trick, or beguile...

When you make first contact...

Also, your price lists with [Cost - CHA] are totally awesome. Best use of Charisma ever. :)

GM: You've got leverage (killing him), something you want (him to leave), and he can understand you. Sounds like Parley.

When it sounds like parley, ask the following questions:
What is their leverage over them?
Is there something you want from them?
Can they understand you?
If you can answer all three, roll parley.

Maybe I'm not understanding the example, but I imagine the exchange between lizardman and McGruff the fighter to be:

A little more like:

McGruff: (after killing a bunch of other lizardmen) If you want to run, I'll let you go.
GM: You've got leverage (killing him), something you want (him to leave), and he can understand you. Sounds like Parley.
McGruff rolls a 7.
Lizardman: Do you promise you'll let me go?
Dan (thinking): This is stupid. I already told him I'd let him go, if he wants to get away he should be running. If I had just killed him instead of offering to let him escape I'd be done with him by now.
Dan (out loud): I'm not going to say anymore to him than I've already said. If that's not good enough for him then I'll go kill him.
GM: Well I need some concrete assurance...
Dan: I think he should be able to tell from my body language that I meant what I said. I'm not going to say more than that. If that's not good enough for him then I'll just go kill him.
GM: Uh, OK, I guess... He runs away.

From my POV I had already given him concrete assurance by stopping the fight to talk to him in the first place. It seemed like the GM felt like the weak hit result meant he was compelled to explicitly negotiate something but that felt really silly to me, like the lizardman wouldn't take yes for an answer. Maybe it would have been different if he had asked for something else, but the way it actually played out really took me out of the game and made me regret trying to engage this part of the mechanics.

Yeah, I've encountered this situation before too. That 7-9 result almost seems to assume that the character is trying to trick the NPC. Sometimes that's the case, but when it's not, it feels weird.

It may be a problem of trying to lump both an "Intimidate" style move and a legitimate "Parley" style move into this one move.  When I think of Parley, I don't think of it as shoving the sword into their faces.  It's more of, "let's talk about this ... we have this you might like ... why don't you let us pass ... etc."

Maybe a "going aggro" style move is what DW is missing?

You could do some kind of go aggro move, but again, that feels very AW, where violence is stylized and often manipulative (and there's a scarcity of NPCs, so violent encounters in which someone runs away or hides are ideal).

Dungeon adventurers don't need to posture or threaten. They slaughter their way through 100 goblins and now they're gonna have a chat about handing the idol over? Pfff.

You kill them and take their stuff.

(I'm only slightly joking. Some kind of morale thing so all fights aren't to the death is good.)

Yeah, I've encountered this situation before too. That 7-9 result almost seems to assume that the character is trying to trick the NPC. Sometimes that's the case, but when it's not, it feels weird.

To me it seems more like it's assuming that the NPC thinks the character's pulling a fast one, whether or not they actually are. So the reaction to "Give me idol and I'll throw you the whip!" could be "Sure thing!" on a 10+ or "Throw me the whip first" on a 7-9. And really, fair enough. Generally speaking, whatever NPC with whom you're Parleying probably has every right to be suspicious of you. You're an adventurer. Odds are pretty good you're lying.

See also: "We'll pay you 2,000 now, and 15 when we reach Alderaan."