Running Chases

Hi folks,

I'm a new member of the forums and a Dungeon World n00b - I've played two sessions so far. Last session we had a scene where the PCs were chasing a bunch of fleeing, non-fighty orcs to prevent them from warning a bunch of giants about their presence, and I got a bit stumped for how to run a chase scene using the DW rules. I was looking for something a bit crunchy, but the only move which seemed even remotely applicable was Defy Danger, with the "danger" being the giants got warned. That seemed a bit lame - I ended up allowing the PCs do each do damage once before the orcs got to the giants, taking out as many as they could in a single move.

Still didn't feel right. How do you run chases in DW?

Cheers,

Sarah

Yeh, i must admit i was surprised that there wasn't a move for chases as well, considering its a staple of almost every game session.

I would a defy danger with a stat appropfiate to the fiction. 10+ you can close/ attack if.close enough, 7-9 you are just keeping up/ attck if close enough but fall behind after, 6- you fall behind.

Give them a short but reasonable amount of fictional time before their prey gets to where tgey are going.

in essence improvise

Hi! Welcome to the DW forums, glad to have you about.

My advice would be to NOT think of different 'scene mechanics' for various common fantasy adventure tropes. Think your specific story instead.

Thus, its not a generic chase scene, its the intrepid heroes desperately trying to chase (and presumably thwart) the orcs from warning their giant allies yes? Just keep having the conversation until a move crops up...

Defy Danger is a great all round 'big picture' move that could encapsulate that scene with one roll as you've described, but you could also zoom in... What do the PC's want out of the scene? Ask lots of provocative questions, announce impending doom, address specific characters with immediate issues / problems and ask 'what do you do?'.

That way you can break the action up into immediate, consequential moves, where each roll can lead to all sorts of outcomes and possibilities for you to make moves as GM and the players to respond to the unfolding situation in different ways. You know as GM that the orcs are trying to warn the giants, and presumably the players do to (since they are chasing them) as you've revealed an unwelcome truth, so as they get the leap on the monsters and scarper after them, maybe you tell them the consequences and ask?

'Ok so you pelt after the orcsies, but they cunningly split into two bands, obviously trying to confound you! Smart little buggers! What do you do?'  - This could lead to Discern Realities or Spout Lore or some kind of playbook move, which then steamrolls with the moves snowball...

Or maybe you change the dungeon environment, or present riches at a price? Describing the orcs sprinting past a treasure trove on their way to the giants... The PC's can stop and fill their pockets, but the orcs will surely have alerted their giant companions by then... What do you do?

Just follow the fiction, rather than trying to make a move 'fit' a mechanical generality (such as a chase). If you want more 'crunch', just zoom a little and make the consequences as hard as you like each and every time.

The problem with ju following fiction is that the players know they will catch them as long as they don't get distracted.

Uncertain results add tension.

I agree, it really depends on the context, but also what the PCs want out of the chase. Splitting the group of orcs is a great way to challenge the PCs (as well as Use Up Their Resources/Separate Them). Other things to think about are things that change the dynamics of the immediate situation, like what if some of the orcs turn to fight while the rest keep going (knowing that they'll likely die to help their allies get through)? Or maybe the orcs start throwing obstacles in their way? Look at chase scenes from movies and literature for ideas. Look for moves within those and try to read what the conversation between the parties involved is.

As I've become more familiar with running DW, one of the things that I'm starting to do more and more (to some increasing benefit) is to snowball my moves. I don't choose to deal damage as often as I used to, instead I set up something for the future. Notably this helps for when the PCs roll 10+ and I can't necessarily turn something back on them in the moment. Instead I get to pull from something I've already insinuated into the narrative (Reveal an Unwelcome Truth/Signs of an Approaching Threat) to keep things interesting. Maybe they've just barely succeeded in squeezing through a tight spot in a crowd, and hear the crash of steel on stone. There's no obvious evidence of what that was in the chase, but eventually they may find out it was the portcullis closing ahead of them, forcing them to get inventive in how they handle it, and all legitimately explained ahead of time.

And yeah, the players should know that they'll catch the ones they're chasing, but it doesn't mean the characters know, or that they  won't have to get creative in order to make it happen. We still need to be fans of the characters, but it doesn't mean it has to be easy.

Thanks for the replies, everyone. :-)

Yeah, I get that we could "just" resolve everything in the fiction. In the same way, we could "just" resolve fight scenes, or parleys, or whatever, in the fiction, too, without ever making recourse to the dice. However, the dice are there to add excitement, tension, or unexpected results to a situation.

Now, I wouldn't call a chase a mere mechanical generality; they're a dramatic staple of fiction of all types, and rightly so; they're exciting, dramatic, cinematic. So, without adding lots of distracting deviations from the core element, I'm trying to consider a way a PC could stop an NPC from running away, catch them up, etc. The mirror of Defy Danger.

I guess in a sense there's a top-level, unnamed "Stop the NPC!" type move "above" moves like Hack & Slash and Volley, both of which aim to 'stop' an NPC using STR or DEX. You could certainly use Volley to stop the fleeing orcs in my example. So perhaps my "Stop them Orcs!" is an instance of this; I could likewise imagine doing a kind of "Stop the NPC" Move using INT to represent fast talking an NPC into silence, using CHA to represent winning an NPC's favour (not simply Parley), and so on. I'd use STR to wrestle an opponent to the ground (one possible option for the chase sequence, depending on the narration), DEX to run and tackle someone, even CON if it was a long-distance chase where endurance, etc, was a factor.

For results, I'd probably go with:

10+ : you achieve your goal, stopping the NPC
7-9 : you're making progress, or you achieve your goal, but at cost (soft move, such as you attract attention, drop some gear, incur a -1 forward, etc). This implies, like Volley and Hack & Slash, that the move may be repeated, narrative depending - that's kind of nice, as it plays to the attritional nature of chases without being overwhelming. There may also be some mileage in putting some choices in here, as with Volley.
6- : your quarry eludes you, or you catch them but they attack (narrative depending, probably a hard move)

I'm thinking that kind of "Stop the NPC" notional move might easily translate into improvised moves like "Pursue", "Debate", etc. Like I say, kind of like Volley or even Hack & Slash, but without the HP damage. :)

EDIT: thinking about this some more, I guess the "Stop the NPC!"-type move is actually a version of the Aid / Interfere move, but where the target is an NPC rather than another PC. It might be interesting to tackle it like that, especially as it implies there's also an "Aid the NPC!" side to it, too. :)

Cheers,

Sarah

The thing is, a chase is never a flat-out race. You have to look to the danger. Find the danger, and you'll find the challenge. Often these will require Defy Danger to overcome, but not always.

Think about what intelligent humanoids would do to prevent people from catching up, think about the dangers the players could face during their chase:

• Danger of Getting Lost: Could be a labyrinth, a series of caves, the back-alleys of a major city, the twisty paths in a dark forest. As long as the prey knows the terrain better than the PCs, they can lead the PCs on a merry chase and lose them. Usually the players will Defy Danger using Int to keep track of them and not loose sight of them, but one could also Spout Lore about shortcuts, and a Ranger can make great use of his Tracking
• Danger of Getting Hurt: Could be traps the humanoids know about that the PCs don't, could be collapsing ceilings, dislodged stacks of barrels. Anything that will injure the players, whether its the prey's doing or just something happening at the same time. The players will have to dodge or plow through these dangers, Defying Danger with Strength or Dexterity, though creative spellwork could also come in handy.
• Danger of Getting Bogged Down:This might be a bridge the prey cut/burned behind them, a dense crowd getting in the way, a bunch of tangled roots and brambles, rising waters, etc. This is especially useful if the enemies are more adept at navigating the terrain than the PCs (i.e. chasing lizardmen in a swamp or thieves in a busy marketplace). Defying Danger with Strength or Constitution would be called for in most cases, though Charisma could be used in the case of crowds, as the Paladin's I Am The Law to get people to get the heck out of the way.

There are surely other dangers, too. The point is, it's the GMs job to provide challenges/dangers, to antagonize the players. A flat-out race over a straightaway is gonna be dull. A clambering, weaving and barreling chase through narrow, winding city streets, under carts and over fences and through crowds while crates are dropped and pack animals are untethered to stampede in the street... that's a chase.

I've done a single chase scene while running DW so far, but it was the reverse of your situation, SarahNewton; the characters were trying to get away from a pack of Winter Wolves. There were on only one or two Defy Danger moves resulting in misses, and the characters got surrounded. Oops. Although your situation is different, I don't really think you need to create a custom move (although I too love making them), as Defy Danger already covers everything your Stop the NPC move does.

Basing the custom move on the Aid/Interfere move works too, but unless the character has a Bond with the entity they're chasing, the player will always just roll+0. That's not a bad thing, it just seems harsh to me (like the Last Breath move). Also, as NPCs never roll dice, you have to find another way to give them the bonus or penalty that might result from the move. Monsterhearts does this well with it's Advantage/Disadvantage mechanics.

I'd also respectfully disagree with AmPm and samuraiko a bit. The players shouldn't know that they will catch the Orcs simply because you're leaving it to the fiction. If the fiction dictates that the PCs will catch the Orcs with little to no trouble, then why have the chase scene at all? If, for example, the GM has described the Orcs as being heavily wounded or otherwise slowed down, then the GM could just narrate the characters catching up with the Orcs and go from there. The chase isn't important. What is important is what happens next. If you really wanted to make a move, Defy Danger could be used to see how well the Orcs prepare themselves (if at all) before the PCs get within striking range.

Conversely, if the Orcs have been described as being excellent trackers and woodsmen or being in territory they know well, then they'll probably get away from the PCs if left to the fiction. That's where another Defy Danger move can be used as the characters attempt to find shortcuts, predict where the Orcs are headed, or just try to put on an extra burst of speed. My point is, you don't know who is going to win the chase, unless you've established that one side or the other has a commanding advantage. Play to find out what happens, remember?

Also, as Archangel3d said, chases are rarely just a simple race. There's all kinds of dangers and problems to deal with. noofy is dead on with the suggestion to "zoom". You could resolve a week long chase with a single Defy Danger move, or you could zoom way in and have characters make moves for each  "comic book frame". What dictates the "scope" of the action is player enjoyment. Sometimes we want to see each and every little thing that happens, other times we want to get right to the resolution.

I'd mostly handle it like Noofy said: stay focused on the fiction, asking specific players what they do and letting the moves flow naturally from they're responses.  Sprinkle that with a liberal amount of GM setup moves (telling requirements or consequences and asking, showing signs of approaching threats, showing downsides of class/race/gear, using monster/danger/location moves, etc.), and you've got a good chase scene. 

With that said, I find the wording of Defy Danger to sometimes leave me hanging on the 7-9 results.  Here are a couple custom moves that might be helpful & evocative in a chase scene:

When you race against time, roll +Int (if you're thinking quickly) or +Dex (if you're acting quickly). On a 10+, you make it with time to spare. On a 7-9, there's not a moment to lose. The GM will present a final obstacle, threat, or cost. Deal with it or let time run out.

When you pursue your quarry, describe how you do it and roll. If you do it...
...with agility and fleetness of foot, roll +Dex
...through dogged endurance, roll +Con
...by following the signs of their passage, roll +Wis
...by asking around after them, roll +Cha
On a 10+, you corner your prey or catch them in the open. On a 7-9, the GM picks one:
--You've almost got them, but there's an intervening obstacle or challenge
--They've gone to ground; you know where they are but it's a challenge to get to them
--They turn unexpectedly and attack

Note that neither of these "stop the NPC."  You might race against time to get to the doorway before the orcs can run through it, or to get within fighting range before they reach their giant allies.  But once you do that, you still have to say *how* you prevent the orcs from continuing to flee.  Stab them?  Shoot at them?  Tackle them?  Parley? 

If you think about chase scenes that *don't* involve one side getting away, they always end with some kind of confrontation or conflict. The chase just gets the pursuer close enough to force that confrontation.

Letting the fiction entirely determine what's going to happen is basically just GM fiat. At that point why even have rolls? Just determine it all with the fiction.

I like a healthy balance of die rolls and narrative. Situation example "Ok, the orcs split up, what do you do", players split up, "Alright, you split up to chase the orcs, some head for the kitchen the others head towards a guard tower." Players respond with narrative that ends with dead orcs. Done, chase over. OR you can toss in a die roll, that way they can fail and NOT feel cheated by your decision that they should get caught, and if you are going to just let them win anyway, whats the point of playing since there is no challenge.

Now I know my opinion doesn't have to be yours, and that's fine. We have our own tables. But I would much prefer a setup like this.

"The orcs take off in different directions, some head straight for the kitchen doors, the others run off towards a guard tower. What do you do."

Players, "We split up and chase them" Insert descriptive narrative about their attempts. "Ok, roll *insert skill*. Well, looks like you catch up to the orcs running toward the guard tower, however only one of you chasing the orcs toward the kitchen manages to catch up to them, what do you do?"

What follows is probably some Volley/Hack'n'Slash/spellslinging or if no resistance just killing them from behind. It adds some unknown and chance to the situation making it, in my opinion, more interesting. Obviously for longer chases involving more variables you should have more rolls. Defy Danger to avoid barrels or low hanging branches, to cross rivers, jump gorges, jump horses over things, etc.

What a game should never be is entirely decided by the GM or the players.

"The orcs take off in different directions, some head straight for the kitchen doors, the others run off towards a guard tower. What do you do."

Players, "We split up and chase them" Insert descriptive narrative about their attempts. "Ok, roll *insert skill*. Well, looks like you catch up to the orcs running toward the guard tower, however only one of you chasing the orcs toward the kitchen manages to catch up to them, what do you do?"

Why not just have the GM use their moves according to the GM principles? "Okay, you go tearing off after the two orcs that bolted for the kitchens. Florian, you can definitely catch them if you sprint but Baldor's heavy chain is going to slow him down some. Do you go after them full bore, or keep the group together?" And "Augustine, so you're in hot pursuit of the two that ran down the stairs. Suddenly from further down the corridor you hear the steady beat of the goblin war drums. Heartened, the two orcs start calling out to their brethren and pick up speed. Do you give chase?" Or "Avon, you run after the Orc as he heads deeper into the labyrinthine tunnels. After a number of twists you're not sure you you know the way back to the others. You're lost and alone in the goblin kingdom. But on the bright side, you're definitely gaining on that puny Orc. Do you keep going deeper into the dungeon?"

The thing is, a chase is never a flat-out race. You have to look to the danger. Find the danger, and you'll find the challenge. Often these will require Defy Danger to overcome, but not always.

The thing is, sometimes a chase is a flat-out race. :D In the example which cropped up in our game, it was exactly that: there was no danger of getting lost, getting hurt, or getting bogged down; we simply needed to determine whether the PCs were able to catch up with the orcs (and maybe force a fight) before they alerted the giants. As simple as that. It literally was a very long corridor with a door at the end, and the PCs chasing the orcs. The chase *was* the challenge.

Sure, I could have tried throw lots of other stuff at them, split them up, had bad guys turn up, have the orcs turn and fight instead of run away, trying to turn the fiction into something else which I knew the rules coped with, but that felt really bogus, like I was rewriting the scenario and the locations and not allowing a certain set of events to occur because the rules had a blind spot. Saying, "no, we can't narrate it that way, the rules don't support it" is not my preferred way to play an RPG. ;-)

Now, as I said, I *could* have re-phrased the fiction so that the PCs were trying to stop the orcs before the giants saw them. That *kind of* works, although it's a bit funky and feels like I'm fudging the narrative to fit the rules. That would have been a straight Defy Danger roll, although at the time it felt a bit too meta: the danger was the giants finding out they were there because the orcs had told them because the PCs hadn't been able to stop them... ;-)

So, I don't think the DW rules do have a blind spot; I just think the kind of action where the PCs are stopping the NPCs from doing something isn't explicit in the current rules book, unless you zoom out so much to find an eventual Danger to Defy that the action you wanted to handle becomes somewhat irrelevant anyway - *except* of course for physical combat and class moves such as magic, etc - and, like HyveMynd says, when it's the other way round (PCs escaping from NPCs), Defy Danger works fine anyway. It's a bit like how there's a thief move for *detecting and disabling* traps, but not setting them ("attacking" using a trap - although there is a thief move for creating poisons...) Those areas where the rules are explicit clearly use dice rolls to resolve; so why not those areas where they're not explicit? Hell, I don't think it's even a custom move - it's simply something currently not explicitly covered but which is implied. Jeremy's "Race against Time" and "Pursue Your Quarry" moves cover the same ground as the notional, top-level "Stop the NPCs' Move" I was wondering about being "behind" Volley, Hack & Slash, etc, so it's clearly something that's cropped up in other games. I think it's a useful Move to have in the GM arsenal for instances like this, rather than forcing the fiction to be something else.

Cheers,

Sarah

Quote from: AmPm on January 05, 2013, 12:09:07 AM

"The orcs take off in different directions, some head straight for the kitchen doors, the others run off towards a guard tower. What do you do."

Players, "We split up and chase them" Insert descriptive narrative about their attempts. "Ok, roll *insert skill*. Well, looks like you catch up to the orcs running toward the guard tower, however only one of you chasing the orcs toward the kitchen manages to catch up to them, what do you do?"

Why not just have the GM use their moves according to the GM principles? "Okay, you go tearing off after the two orcs that bolted for the kitchens. Florian, you can definitely catch them if you sprint but Baldor's heavy chain is going to slow him down some. Do you go after them full bore, or keep the group together?" And "Augustine, so you're in hot pursuit of the two that ran down the stairs. Suddenly from further down the corridor you hear the steady beat of the goblin war drums. Heartened, the two orcs start calling out to their brethren and pick up speed. Do you give chase?" Or "Avon, you run after the Orc as he heads deeper into the labyrinthine tunnels. After a number of twists you're not sure you you know the way back to the others. You're lost and alone in the goblin kingdom. But on the bright side, you're definitely gaining on that puny Orc. Do you keep going deeper into the dungeon?"

That only works if you have already established that his chain does slow him down, or that for some reason you are chasing a lone orc through goblin infested tunnels. Sometimes, you just don't want a scout to get away to warn others, even if they are miles away.

Writing a narrative that is either counter to earlier fiction or just doesn't make sense to fit a lack of rules is just stupid. Also, leather is apparently as heavy as chain and as effective. I'm not going to make a chain wearing player slower simply because that is the fictional look he had on his character sheet instead of the equally effective leather. Even worse, if you look at the rules your average fighter can carry a load of 28 before getting slowed down at all, so why is that armor that weighs at most, 1/7th of his typical load BEFORE he even feels the effects now suddenly slowing him up?

A similar situation would be using 1 Hack'n'Slash roll to determine if you win or lose an encounter.

I think that in this kind of an instance you need to have a roll, just because the game is a narrative game does not mean I or the players should know every outcome.

I don't agree that you have to establish that a big guy in chain runs slower than some nimble dude in light armor before you make a move. And the details I provided were just my details out of my head. Your game will be filled with your details derived from the fiction you've created.

But none of that's really the point. The point is DW handles chases just fine. There's no gap in the rules. You don't need a custom move for it, unless that excites you. Chases come up a lot and Dungeon World handles them the way it handles all character actions. Depending upon whats already in the fiction it will either be a move (frex Defy Danger) or it wont.  If it triggers a move the GM calls for a roll, if not, there's a lull in the conversation where everyone is looking at the GM to say what happens next. The text says that's the GM's time to step up with a move, following GM principles, that fulfills the GM's agenda.

Here's a custom chase move: When you give chase where theres no danger being defied and the GM can't be arsed to make a move but the players are keen on leaving it up to chance, Roll+Dex. On a 10+ you catch em no problem. On a 7-9 you can catch em but you have to buy the GM a beer. On a miss, flip a coin but you're buying the GM a beer either way.