Noob Question: Carpet Bombing Moves

Hi all --

What prevents players from repeatedly "spamming" or "carpet bombing" moves until they work?

For example:

Player 1: I think back about my long talks with my sage mentor.  He mentioned this dungeon a couple of times.
DM: Sounds like Spout Lore to me.
Player 1 (rolls): Nuts, a 4.
DM: You were much too young and distracted by girls to remember anything the old man said about this place.
Player 2: There was an adventurer that would frequent my father's tavern.  He would talk about this place.
DM: Make your Spout Lore roll.
Player 2 (rolls): A 7.
DM: You recall that the adventurer had one hand, speaking often about the traps that were all around this place.
Player 3: Oh, yes -- One Arm Owen!  I remember that guy!  I robbed his house one time.  I snagged a manuscript, seems like he was writing a book about this place.
DM (sighing): Okay, make your Spout Lore roll, too...
Player 3 (rolls): A 10!  Those pages held some useful information, if I remember right...

And so it goes around the table...

What prevents players from each attempting to Spout Lore, Discern Realities, etc. until they're successful?  Seems kind of a cheat to me.

In a word, you.

I don't play Dungeon World myself but just as a general rule, you'd probably want to direct your question at just one person. I think if this 'carpet bombing' is a frequent thing, you'd simply state from the start:

DM: Now, which one of you is most likely to know about this dungeon?
Player 2: Sure, I think my mentor told me about this...

And so on. You could arbitrarily say 'now hold on, only one of you can roll about this place' too if you like or alternatively 'I think it's high time we move on to you guys getting to the dungeon'. As the DM, you can set the pace, which includes skipping over people's rolls. Part of the challenge lies in the mystery and I presume the players would want this too.

I assume you are talking about a hypothetical situation here. I'd expect, most of the time, people roll for situations as they unfold rather than presciently; this is certainly true in my experience. If we change the example to say, disarming a trap, similarly carpet bombing moves wouldn't work because each action would presumably have a component reaction which would change the situation.

One important thing to note though is that in the case of NPCs, they shouldn't just be fonts of knowledge that you can simply read like a book. Whilst sometimes the players may be able to tell you the motivations and information they can glean from NPCs, it should mostly be entirely your discretion as to who these people are. As far as robbing the house of One Arm Owen goes; to my mind, that's kind of going against the spirit of the game. If the player says they really did rob the house of One Arm Owen, then cool but they don't just get to say 'I got away with it, no one caught me and I also got these very useful scraps of information'. Why not play the actual robbery out and see how it went? What information did they obtain and so on.

The whole discussion is pretty interesting and you might find this page interesting for more information.

What prevents players from repeatedly "spamming" or "carpet bombing" moves until they work?

A 6- result does not mean "nothing happens". It means "the GM makes a move." See the section starting on page 166 of the rulebook.

On a 6-, you can reveal an unwelcome truth. "I think back about my long talks with my sage mentor.  He mentioned this dungeon a couple of times." "You realize some of the things he told you about this dungeon were way too specific. You think he may have designed it. Which means, given how crafty he was... it's probably full of magical traps."

On a 6-, you can outright deal damage to a character. "There was an adventurer that would frequent my father's tavern.  He would talk about this place." "The guy with one hand? Yeah, that probably happened in this very room. A weighted blade falls from the ceiling, take (rolls) 4 points of damage, less armor."

You can put them in a spot, separate them, make them expend resources, throw monsters at them, just about anything that moves the story forward. Pretty much the only thing you *can't* do on a 6- is say "okay, nothing happens. What do you do?"

I'll add two more points. 1) the GM decides what constitutes a move, not the player. The player says some adventurer told him about this place. That's not a Spout Lore unless you say it is. Just nod and make your own move instead. Like Reveal the unwelcome truth that he didn't know shit about anything. 2) that's the second point, GMs get to make moves, not only players.

No "Let It Ride" in DW?

No "Let It Ride" in DW?

No, not really. But the GM can just shut shit down with Reveal Unwelcome Truth ("it's not possible to climb the wall from here.") So, you don't really need LiR.

Thanks everyone for the tips -- it makes sense.

:)