Custom Move Feedback

Threat 1
IS CALLED: The Burn Flats
KIND: Furnace (Landscape)
IMPULSE: To consume things
DESCRIPTION & CAST: The Burn Flats are the waterless wastes around The Oasis (the Hardhold the PCs live in), which represents the only reliable fresh water for miles and miles around.
CUSTOM MOVE: When you spend 6 hours on the Flats, roll+sharp. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7-9, choose 2:

• You're making OK time
• You're not lost
• Your water supply is holding up
• You come across something helpful

I'm making a Thirst-based Front, and I just put this Threat together between sessions 1 and 2 (the description is all stuff established in session 1). What do y'all think about this custom move? It's basically the seize something by force template. Is this maybe vague or confusing in any way? Some way I can punch it up, make it more interesting or just cooler?

While I'm at it, I have another Threat, in another Front, that's supposed to be this, uh, resource that two hardholds in the region are fighting over. The idea of it is that it's supposed to be a trap though: It seems like it'll be good to control, but it's not as useful as it seems and it's not defensible, etc. The drawback might change from person to person; it's tied into the Maelstrom, I reckon.

Threat 4
IS CALLED: Ippin Dep
KIND: Mirage (Landscape)
IMPULSE: To entice & betray people
DESCRIPTION & CAST: This shipping depot used to be the hub of commerce in the region. Now, it's choked with sand and mostly buried or ruined. There might still be some good shit in there.
CUSTOM MOVE: When you go hunting in Ippin Dep for cool shit, roll+sharp. On a hit, find oddments worth 1-Barter. On 10+, choose 2. On 7-9, choose 1:

• You find it quickly
• You find it with reletively little trouble
• It's fancy (+1 Barter)
• It's not dangerous in some way

I cribbed from one of the example custom moves in the book, but I feel like this doesn't really capture the "it's a trap" vibe. I really want the PCs to get a taste of what those two hardholders feel and why they're fighting over it: It seems like there should be some epic shit in there that'll really make the difference, but the place is basically cursed. Halp?

The burn flats move doesn't really tell me what I'm doing.  Am I trying to go somewhere?  If so, and I hit the roll, I ought to get there.  Also, you might be able to collapse some of the entries as basically the same thing.  You're lost, you're not making good time, and you're out of water are all striking at the same purpose.  On the burn flats time is water, water is time, and you're running out of both.

In my jungle apocalypse I made salt one of the important scarcities and I made the players add salt countdown clocks to their character sheets.  Then when time passes in the game I can tell them all to fill in another block on their countdown clocks.  When they're hugging the river and hanging around hardholds, especially near the coast, it just means they have to buy when the clock is getting near midnight.  In the jungle, though, salt is time and getting lost or injured is going to run down their salt clocks.  If the salt runs out I'll give them -1 ongoing and start dealing harm over time.

So maybe something like this?

When you navigate to a landmark in the burn flats, roll +Sharp.  On a 10+ you make good time and arrive at the landmark before the sun gets too high.  On a 7-9 you're lagging.  Act under fire to push it to the landmark before the hot time or spend the day camped out on the flats.  On a miss you're lost or you suffer some disaster.

That way you can ding their water countdown clock once if they're on track, twice if they have to camp on the flats, and if they miss the roll you can make a move (vehicle breaks down, attacked by slavers, stumble onto a golden age military facility, whatever).

For Ippin Dep, what's the theme of the curse?  Or, if you figure it's tied to the maelstrom, what's the theme of the maelstrom in your game?

I have a "cursed" place in my game, too.  It's a rusted, decaying city where the jungle mysteriously doesn't grow, called Boney Downs.  It's a haunted, menacing place and people who spend too long there go all feral and become the dingo men, hunting in packs and killing with bits of scrap.  If you're more sensitive to the maelstrom, you're more vulnerable.  People keep going there, though, because you can find amazing scrounge that hasn't been consumed by the jungle.

When you spend a day in the Boney Downs, roll +Weird.  On a miss, you're okay.  On a 7-9 the place makes you edgy, irritable, and uncomfortable.  Take -1 Ongoing until you leave the Downs.  On a 10+, you develop a real fucking bloodthirst and it's all you can do not to kill somebody.  You automatically miss all tests that don't roll +Hard until you've inflicted 3 harm on somebody.  You can do all the harm to one person or one harm to three people or whatever, and then you'll feel much better.

When you scavenge the Boney Downs for something, roll +Sharp.  On a 10+ you find what you're looking for, more or less, and choose 2.  On a 7-9, just choose 2.

• You find something useful.
• The day is accident-free.
• You don't meet anybody.

Hope those are inspiring!

Yeah. The theme of the curse is, I guess, greed (we haven't established the theme of the maelstrom yet, and I don't want to just invent it on my own)? I kind of envision it being like the Holy Grail from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: It seems super valuable, but bad things happen to those who have it. In my case, both mundane (others covet your shiny thing) and malestrom-ey ("I don't know, man, but ever since I got it, bad things keep happening."). The cost almost always outweighs the benefit, basically. I definitely want the bad tied directly to the stuff (as opposed to your Boney Downs, where they're loosely related).

I think rolling+weird is an interesting idea. That would definitely give it a more sinister and active feel.

As for the Burn Flats, I had intended for it to be able to cover more than just travel (like if you crashed a plane and were working on building a new one from the scraps or something). But one thing I really like about your wording is that it can expand and contract in time, like other moves. Hmm hmm.

Thanks for the feedback and ideas. Helpful food for thought so far. :)

So what did you end up doing?

Neither move ended coming up in play (they got involved in a thing about an 18-wheeler cab and then we learned about how much getting shot sucks). But I changed Ippin Dep to be roll+weird and switched out "It's Fancy (+1 Barter)" for "No one gets hurt". Since it hasn't come up, I'm open to further tweaks if anyone has any feedback. Or I might adjust it further. Was kind of thinking maybe "It's rare or valuable (+1 Barter), but it's dangerous in some (possibly not obvious) way." to play into the whole "great loot, but at a cost."