Running Chases

James is succinct and wise. His suggestions are far from stupid and make perfect fictional sense. Have a roleplaying conversation, if a situation comes up that triggers a move, you make it. Do do it, do it yeah?

I never said you need to make a customer move, you could, it doesn't change the mechanics of the game at all.

What I am saying is that you need to force rolls if you want an intensive chase. You can't just say, well, you are faster than this guy, you catch him. There should be some roll+dex/str/con/int rolls in there, no matter if you call it a Defy Danger if the move results in something outside the norm it's pretty much a custom move.

No high intensity player/npc scene should be played out in only 1 roll. Zooming out is for things like how well do you traverse a section of field. Like a perilous journey, if the players decide to route things over a gorge or river or up a cliff there should be a scene for that. A travel montage if you will. Same goes for a chase scene, you should go clip to clip to clip at a high pace focusing on the actions of each character in pursuit of the target. This means multiple rolls over the course of the chase.

I'm also curious how you can say a man in chain with an incredible strength who is very used to wearing it will be slower than someone else, perhaps wearing leather which weighs the same who might naturally be a slower runner. Those are all up to player description of their characters and are arbitrary.

Why are you interested in my hypothetical big guy in heavy armor and how fast he can hypothetically run? Seems to be a distraction.

I'm totally interested in discussing DW and how it handles chases. For example, I think you can get plenty of intensity from the GM following the Agenda Make the characters' lives not boring, with moves like Take away their stuff, Put someone in a tight spot, Announce future trouble, Activate their stuff’s downside, Inflict the natural consequences of their actions, Use up resources. If the players trigger a move, of course the GM should call for a roll. But if what the players do isn't a move, the GM isn't required to make them roll for something, they've got tons of their own moves to jack up the intensity.

But if you've got examples of cool intense chases that resulted from forcing rolls in DW, I'm all ears.

noclue neatly summed up what I was trying to articulate before; that leaving the decision of who wins up to the fiction doesn't automatically mean that the PCs will win. You're supposed to "Play to find out what happens" and to "Fill the characters' lives with adventure". Additionally, as the GM you're allowed to "disclaim decision-making" as stated in the Apocalypse World book.

Also, I don't think that anyone is saying to ignore previously established fiction, AmPm. If it's already been established that one side is indeed faster/slower than the other then, unless something changes in the fiction, in my opinion it makes perfect sense for that side to win/lose. No one's saying to suddenly make the Fighter's chain hauberk heavier than it's been before, or to have the Orcs magically sprout wing on their feet and be as fast as the Flash. Sometimes you just have to make up stuff on the spot that hasn't been established yet. Has the Fighter been in a footrace while wearing chainmail before? If not than I don't see it being a problem to have them Defy Danger with either STR or CON to keep up. Again, this all circles back to the "Fill the characters' lives with adventure" agenda. If the action being taken doesn't have any possible chance of danger either a) you aren't looking hard enough, or b) the action isn't worth making a move over.

All that being said, if it's been established that the PCs and the Orcs are both relatively the same speed and the Orcs have a huge lead down a perfectly featureless hallway, I don't see the PCs having much of a chance to catch up.

GM: "The orcs run down the corridor, you know tehre are giants ont he other end, what do you do?"

Players: "We stop them!"

GM: "Ok, how are you gonna do that?"

Ranger Player: "I take a shot at them as they go."

Fighter Player: "I run to catch them, hacking any I come near"

Wizard Player: "I cast sleep on the furthermost."

Thief Player: "I go with [Fighter], throwing daggers when I get a chance.

GM: "Ok, the ranger's arrows and the wizard's spells will determine how many orcs will remain for the chase, so we will resolve those first.

In this case you got two players chasing, two attacking. Wizard rolls casts a  spell, Ranger uses volley or called shot (I would go with this one here), Fighter and Thief roll defy danger, I would go with Dex for both.

For the defy danger rolls my stakes would be:

10+ The fighter and the thief reach the orcs, I would allow them to describe how they are attacking and see how fiction goes from there, depending on how many orcs are left.
7-9 The party stops the orc right as they open the door / shout out for help/ reach the giants, depending on how the warning will be given.
6- The orcs that remain outrun the party, warning the giants.

You can make a lot more rolls for larger chases, but defy danger here works for me. The structure of the mvoe is kinda simple:

Danger they want/need to avoid: The orcs warn the giants
How they are doing it: by acting fast (+Dex)

Changing the scenario is only a bad choice if the players already know how it is, otherwise it is just you making things more interesting, you don't have a commitment to your prep, but with the fun of the game, whatever is already established though, should not be changed.

In general chase scenes are always at the danger of loosing your mark, if you want to zoom to micromanage then you can even make a simple system of counts and tell those to the players: any character who scores a 6- on a chase action (defy danger) or doesn't chase looses a point toward the mark, they can take another action but any 10+ is treated as 7-9, any who roll 10+ while chasing gets a point and can take an action if they want, without chance of being slowed down unless they stop running (they can get creative on trying to stop the mark), on a 7-9 they don't get closer and can take an action, the new action can slow them down on a failure)

They get to -3 they lost the mark, they get to +3 they catch the mark.

In this scenario they would be rolling defy danger every time they don't stop running, and they could take other actions like cast spells, throw things, shoot arrows, try to get above or below the mark and so on.

roll defy danger, I would go with Dex for both.

For the defy danger rolls my stakes would be:

10+ The fighter and the thief reach the orcs, I would allow them to describe how they are attacking and see how fiction goes from there, depending on how many orcs are left.
7-9 The party stops the orc right as they open the door / shout out for help/ reach the giants, depending on how the warning will be given.
6- The orcs that remain outrun the party, warning the giants.

Total agreement. And Defy Danger with Dex works perfectly fine with the situation you've created because you're making moves that follow from the fiction (is that in DW or am I pulling in an Apocalypse World principal?). Although, keeping in mind the Defy Danger move, remember that on a 10+ the characters take +1 forward into the fight with the orcs and on a 7-9, you can choose from:

You expose yourself to danger
You’re knocked down, surrounded, or cut off
You’re forced to make a hard choice

So, you need not stop with just the opening of the door. You can let the players know just what kind of shit they've gotten themselves into. Do they have a choice to make? Are the giants right there and ready to make with the gigantic smack down? Are they lying sprawled on the ground with a swarm of orcs around them? so many good choices...

Yeah, I was a bit generic because I didn't have more information about the fiction, but the fiction would not stop. ever.

My idea of the 7-9 is that the giants are warned to something, but creativity might even put them out of alert.

I'm curious when we all started to think Dex = speed...kinda like Strength =/= Bulk

Completely off topic but interesting to note.

Anyway, so basically you suggest using Defy Danger with custom consequences based on the scenario....so the exact same thing as a custom move based on a stat of choice with an outcome that fits the fiction...

AKA: The exact same thing as just making up a move for it.

Eh, if you want to look at it that way AmPm, that's fine. But as written the Defy Danger move is already open ended. The 10+ result is "You do what you set out to, or the threat doesn't come to bear." The fictional result will always be "customized" based on the situation that triggered the Defy Danger move. The text of the move even calls out the fact that this is a catch-all move for "when it seems like you clearly should be rolling but no other move applies."

Fair enough. I discounted Defy Danger in my original post 'cos it seemed too much of a zoom out for the immediate fiction - too meta, like resolving a whole combat in a single roll - but if that's the only real solution I can handle it. Basically you're redefining DD to be generic contest resolution - full success, partial success, fail - which is as AmPm says the same as a custom move. Imagine the same situation without the giants, the 'danger' being 'the orcs get away', and it's clear can the 'danger' doesn't need to be dangerous at all - it's just 'you fail at what you're trying to do'.

I think that's pretty much what I've been gleaning from play - if there's no clear move, roll 10+ for complete success, etc. I was originally looking for something a little more attritional for chases, hence the 7-9 result upthread.

I'm curious when we all started to think Dex = speed...kinda like Strength =/= Bulk

Well, I took the act fast choice for choosing Dex straight from the rules written in defy danger, specially because they are not defined in DW aside from that move in particular.

Completely off topic but interesting to note.

Anyway, so basically you suggest using Defy Danger with custom consequences based on the scenario....so the exact same thing as a custom move based on a stat of choice with an outcome that fits the fiction...

I think my advice is more akin to use a move that is done and ready to use instead of spending time to create a custom move that will work for a single situation or get so generic it will end up being defy danger written for chases, meaning two moves that do the exact same thing.

But if you prefer to have a specific move for this, go for it, I just don't see the need to make a move that I already perceive as existing in the game, that is all.

AKA: The exact same thing as just making up a move for it.

Yup, the exact same thing, so, why make a new move then.

Fair enough. I discounted Defy Danger in my original post 'cos it seemed too much of a zoom out for the immediate fiction - too meta, like resolving a whole combat in a single roll - but if that's the only real solution I can handle it.

My suggestion of using a given number of "counters" is directed at the notion that you can only use defy danger to completely resolve an entire situation, this kind of zoom in will work great for some situations, and how hard you want it to be is how many counters they need to accumulate.

It is not built in the rules, mind you, but very little rules have that kind of counting in the system, and I have used and seen it used quite frequently.

Basically you're redefining DD to be generic contest resolution - full success, partial success, fail - which is as AmPm says the same as a custom move. Imagine the same situation without the giants, the 'danger' being 'the orcs get away', and it's clear can the 'danger' doesn't need to be dangerous at all - it's just 'you fail at what you're trying to do'.

I don't see myself redefining anything, in a system when I need to create an ad hoc rule I usually look for similar rules, I suppose most people do the same, Defy Danger doesn't write itself for this kind of situation, but is easily used in it, if a custom move would just have the same structure I prefer to avoid the time spent on a new rule when I can just tag one the players and myself are familiar with and it can solve things well.

I think that's pretty much what I've been gleaning from play - if there's no clear move, roll 10+ for complete success, etc. I was originally looking for something a little more attritional for chases, hence the 7-9 result upthread.

The system is not meant to prolong specific actions, and I can see how that can become a problem, it is entirely based on the idea of failure generates a new situation, incomplete success and success changes things, as you say.

The 7-9 options upthread are nice, but the entire move there seems like a specific instance of defy danger, the 10+ result also resolves the entire sequence, the 7-9 follows up into the chase and the 6- ends with an unsuccessful chase or a successful one, something I find mind boggling.

By using the counters idea I effectively created more attrition, moving out of the one roll solve it all part, you can look at it as hp applied to a scene, the characters are burning the hp when they succeed and the opposition is healing the hp when the party fails.

I treat Defy Danger exactly like the Act Under Fire move in Apocalypse World.

Whenever a character does something that obviously demands a roll, but you don’t quite see how to deal with it, double check first whether it counts as doing something under fire. Come here first.

On a 7–9, when it comes to the worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice, you’ll need to look at the circumstances and find something fun. It should be easy to find something; if there weren’t things to go wrong, nobody’d be rolling dice.

That last emphasis is mine. If there really and truly is no danger or consequence being risked, then you probably don't need to require a move at all.

You could absolutely use a single Defy Danger move to resolve the entire chase if that's what you want to do. It totally works, as the danger being defied in that case is 'the Orcs get away'. If that's too "zoomed out for you" you could break the chases into several smaller legs, each requiring a separate Defy Danger move. There's no right answer here other than which one you prefer. It's worth pointing out though, that each Defy Danger move you require for the chase needs to have some sort of consequence. It could be as nebulous as 'the Orcs are farther down the hallway' as Nifelhein suggests, or it could be something like 'you need to drop item X to keep up'.

I say this a little differently. With each Defy Danger roll either they Defy the danger no prob., or the GM chooses from the list, or the GM has an opportunity to make a move of their liking. What that means is, If you want to have a lot of DDs, you just don't setup the danger as "the orcs get away" where a 10+ means they don't. Let the players chase the orcs and then throw dangers at them to be defied.

If you don't want to zoom out, then don't zoom out.

Describe the situation. Be specific. Ask what they do. Stay zoomed in, moment to moment. When there's danger (of harm, missed opportunity, loss of position, etc.), ask what they do, then roll Defy. They deal with that specific danger, which colors how the chase is going, what opportunities remain, etc. etc.

In other words, the danger doesn't have to be "they get away" if you don't want to zoom out like that. Chase scenes are full of lots of little dangerous moments and split-second outcomes. Stay zoomed in and let the chase develop organically. When they defy any danger, they roll it.

Novices think this is just "rolling defy danger over and over again" but it isn't. It's the GM saying what's happening, the players saying what the characters do, and moves being triggered by the fiction -- not because the GM is "calling for a roll to resolve it" the way you do in some other games.

Although, keeping in mind the Defy Danger move, remember that on a 10+ the characters take +1 forward into the fight with the orcs and on a 7-9, you can choose from:

You expose yourself to danger
You’re knocked down, surrounded, or cut off
You’re forced to make a hard choice

Wow, not sure what version of DW I pulled up on this one. I blame sleep deprivation!  That and playing to many beta versions and other AW hacks. Oops!

Anyway, the point remains the same. The GM still has wonderful choices on a 7-9.

And +1 on what John said.

Edit: Yeah, I will hang my head in shame now. That version of Defy Danger dates back to Tony Dowler's Dungeon World.