Ran my first game

A few questions

1) My ranger had an animal companion

Hunt, search, scout, guard, fight monsters, perform, labor, travel

It could do things like that, do I make a roll when my ranger tries to have his animal companion perform these actions? He had a rat and chose search so he wanted to use the rat to search the dungeon and have the druid in the group translate. I had him roll for when he wanted to do this.

2) How does armor and piercing work and do I always have to add a players sheid to their armor bonuses if they haven't lost it?

3) How long should combat take and if a character is engaged in melee combat can I have him defy danger to avoid attacks , like a dodge? I'm assuming I can.

4) On defend

Redirect an attack from the thing you defend to yourself
Halve the attack’s effect or damage

If an enemy attacks a player and deals damage, does the other player have to be already defending the player or can he defend the damage off of him or halve it still?
5) Is this how combat should go?

Enemy shoots an arrow at the group members, group members that are being shot at directly roll defy danger to avoid the arrows.
 If a group member rolls say a 7,8,9 in his defy danger roll, does this prompt a soft or a hard move against that group member? Does he still take damage?  If not, I can say he misses but the enemy is closer now, do I have him have to roll defy danger to avoid the next hit? And if he rolls a 7 8 or 9 on his defy ranger, does that mean the character gets another swing at the hero, and the hero has to roll again to avoid that attack, and if they roll a 7 or 8 or 9 again they dodge the move but are setting themselves up for yet another soft move against them by the goblin, who happens to swing again, repeating  until the group member cleanly evades or takes the hit ?

Hi,

1) the move states:
   Your animal companion is trained to fight humanoids. Choose as many additional trainings as its cunning.
Then -
When you work with your animal companion on something it’s trained in…
and you do something as indicated in the list, you add bonuses as written.
SO: the ranger descrives his move (as always), stating how he works with his companion, then he rolls (or takes damage) adding the relevant bonus.
Scouting the dungeon may be Defy Danger or Track, but the ranger must partecipate. HAving the druid to translate is so funny!! I wouldn't even require a roll.

2) you subrtact the ARMOR value from the damage you take. A hit having the "Piercing X" tag, counts armor as X points lower. You don't permanently make armor less effective. You treat it as X lower for THAT hit. A shield gives its bonus, period. BUT, if it'd be fictionally impossible or illogical, you could discard the bonus. The GM doesn'r rule this out. The fiction does.

3) Combat should take any amount of time as not to be boring, or useless. There's no fixed amount of time. Keep in mind that if it's your first game, you take a bit to get used. It's quite common.
As for Defy Danger, THE PLAYER describes what he does, then, if it triggers a move, that's it.

Player: "I move fast through blows, dodgind like wind, to do[...]"
GM: "Ok, sounds like a DEX Defy Danger."

4) If the damage come from a hard move, there'sno usually means to avoid it. If It's a soft move, AND the defending player CAN act, he can choose to intervene in the conversation, saying "I step in between and raise my weapon!". That would be good for me.

5) GM" The enemy shoot at you, arrows coming as rain; WHAT DO YOU DO?".
Say, the players state that they scramble somewhere, it could be a Defy Danger. If they roll a 7-9, the GM OFFERS a series of bad things, as per the rule. The enemy being closer is a valid option.

Players roll WHEN they trigger a move. If the move says they take damage, that's it.

The GM is not committed to play step by step. If someone fails, you say the enemy hits you. Take damage. Or, the enemy misses, but it's closer, now it'has a clearer shot.
And always: "Wat do you do?"

Remember, DON'T call for rolls. THE MOVES trigger the rolls, not the GM.

This post here has maybe all advice on animal companions and should explain all you need

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MCAVL9DzB3EZqbzRb57YQgzZkuhE32x89vvSzVZ8Ke0/edit?usp=sharing

Ran my second game, this time with some new members and the old. We ran The Slave Pits of Drazhu, which is awesome and I wish there were more like it as it makes things much easier on the DM. The Pit-slave character is awesome.

My question is regarding monster moves like for example "Rend flesh with infernal magic" How do I decide what this does when I want to pull this monster move, and am I understanding it correctly that I would only use monster moves when they roll a 6 or below?

Also do you always have to offer them a hard bargain or an ugly choice on a 7-9? I want to but it's kinda hard, but this is more of a GM fault. For example, my players were fighting cave trolls and they'd try and roll defy danger to jump on their backs to do damage, would they have to roll just a defy danger to jump on their backs to backstab it for damage, or both defy danger to close in and climb on the back and hack and slash to deal the damage (and get thrown off when they roll a 7-9 , particularly into a bad spot to be thrown to) I know I asked a similar question in my first post but I figured i'd reask.

Also should I never deal damage when a player rolls a 7-9. Say a player wants to run past one cave troll to defend a player being attacked by another cave troll. He rolls a 7-9, instead of having him take damage, I had him trip and have his weapon slide over to where the Cave Troll has ownership of it. I try to only deal damage on a 6 and below, but should I have instead given the player who ran past the cave troll the option to either trip and lose his only weapon (fucking him over on a 7-9 pretty bad) or another option, which I cant really think of right now, maybe hit as hes running be and be dealt damage, that way they have the option of taking damage or loosing a weapon?



Oh yeah a wizard who was really far from the fight missed his magic missile spell at a cave troll the players had surrounded, he missed and I think he knocked over a column and pinned a player under it. I could have made it a soft move and had the player try and defy danger to avoid the falling column, also  I guess I could have had the spell misfire and actually hit another player directly or hurt the wizard himself, but I often dont know what damage to roll, the same damage as the magic missile spell, probably.

The game went well and the players seemed to enjoy it.

I couldn't think of any special hard moves for the cave trolls so I just gave them 10 hp and gave them like 1 natural armor on top of that, but they did some cool things like attacked pillars causing splash rock damage and taking the players weapons from them to wield.

Edit: these captcha questions are hard

The N_____ Core?

My question is regarding monster moves like for example "Rend flesh with infernal magic" How do I decide what this does when I want to pull this monster move, and am I understanding it correctly that I would only use monster moves when they roll a 6 or below?

You make monster moves whenever you look at the list of moves and decide to pick that one. When they roll a miss is a good time for a hard move, but really you make moves when there's a lull, or something happens that means the GM is the only one who can say what happens next. A miss is just one of those times.

Also do you always have to offer them a hard bargain or an ugly choice on a 7-9?

I'm assuming you mean when they're Defying Danger, because that's the only move that has that wording. Other moves have different 7-9 results. Also, remember it's hard bargain, ugly choice or worse result.

For example, my players were fighting cave trolls and they'd try and roll defy danger to jump on their backs to do damage, would they have to roll just a defy danger to jump on their backs to backstab it for damage, or both defy danger to close in and climb on the back and hack and slash to deal the damage (and get thrown off when they roll a 7-9 , particularly into a bad spot to be thrown to) I know I asked a similar question in my first post but I figured i'd reask.

Well, it kinda depends on what's going on. They want to jump on the troll's back. Are they close enough? No? Then maybe they need to work their way closer first. Yes? Well, then okay, they jump. That might be a Defy Danger. So, now they're on the troll's back. The troll's going crazy trying to get them off, flailing around. Maybe that's another defy danger to stay on for dear life by one hand while they get their dagger out. Then they plunge their blade into the troll's back...you might just have them roll damage at that point. They're not hack and slashing by then, they're just stabbing. Or you could just have the troll go down with a blade in its skull.

But that's just one man' stake on how it could go down. Your game will have its own set of circumstances.

Also should I never deal damage when a player rolls a 7-9.

Never is not a very useful word in this regard. Did you want to deal damage? Would it have made the game better?

Oh yeah a wizard who was really far from the fight missed his magic missile spell at a cave troll the players had surrounded, he missed and I think he knocked over a column and pinned a player under it. I could have made it a soft move and had the player try and defy danger to avoid the falling column, also  I guess I could have had the spell misfire and actually hit another player directly or hurt the wizard himself, but I often dont know what damage to roll, the same damage as the magic missile spell, probably.

I probably would have called for Defy Danger with Dex, but sounds like it was a cool moment.

The game went well and the players seemed to enjoy it.

Then WIN!