New GM - Paying Nature's Price

Elemental Mastery

When you call on the primal spirits of fire, water, earth or air to perform a task for you roll+Wis.

? On a 10+ choose two.

? On a 7–9 choose one.

? On a miss, some catastrophe occurs as a result of your calling.

The effect you desire comes to pass
You avoid paying nature’s price
You retain control

So I just got all my stuff, and I'm starting the first session in a week (very excited), but I feel like someone will pick Druid for sure, and although I feel confident enough in handling other abilities and whatnot, I'm worried a PC will pick this power and immediately put ME in a spot by rolling bad and me sitting there without a good consequence for them. 

I've looked around for ideas but none have fully satisfied me.  To me, nature's price is something inflicted upon the self - the easiest example is fire burning through and taking a limb of some sort (whether temporary or permanent), but the other elements can be more difficult.  I had the idea that earth could perhaps make the PC part plant in some way, but I can't figure out a good way to implement that to be honest.  For water and air, I have a much harder time figuring out what harm could come to the PC specifically by those elements without straight up killing them (drowning for example). 

My question then, is does anyone have any ideas to build off what little I have? Any other interpretations? Water and air is the biggest struggle for me here, help on those would be greatly appreciated.

If someone wants to play the Druid, they probably have good ideas about it! I would ask them how they interpret the price and riff off of that.

Well, I understand that, and I plan to, but I'm not 100% they will have a good answer for me - this is basically the one thing I just don't get - for everything else, the vagueness of the instructions make sense to me, as it means everyone can create their own worlds with different interpretations depending on whom you play with... I've already had a bit of fun imagining different adventures down the road and different classes that I might create (or how to modify existing ones) down the road when we're more comfortable with the game.  The style of the game really appeals to me, it's just that this line just throws me for a loop honestly.

One thing that springs immediately to mind for me when talking about elemental magics is the concept of balance. So for instance, making something hot makes something else cold, creating water here causes something over there to dry out, etc. That's an aspect you might be able to use in a variety of circumstances.

That's a good one! Thanks, I'll have to think about that one, that could be a good way to take things!

Another way of seeing it is to have each element have some thing it "wants" and have the druid either perform that as a quick "ritual" unless they choose to avoid it. Like, if you want fire to do something for you, you need to give fire what it wants which might be e.g. more fuel. This might be weird in fast-paced combat situations, but otherwise maybe you need to sacrifice a bush or a tree or something, and only then will the fire spirits do your bidding (e.g. forge a sword for you, or burn someone's house down).

If you really want to you could make it a debt thing; you can have the druid be the guy who always says "c'mon spirits, I'll make it up to you later!" Then during downtime, he'll actually have to let fire loose on a tree, or bury a few coins in the ground, or make a burnt food offering where the smoke reaches the air spirits, or spend the whole night meditating by the forest pond, or whatever. Ideally you'd do this without having to keep a tally of "favours owed" for each element; if the druid in question said "yeah, that's the way it works" I would pretty much limit them to one unpaid debt per element at a time. Effectively, if they owe the fire spirits something, they must choose "you avoid paying nature's price" if they ask fire for another favour before paying back.

That's a specific type of druid though, and it might be harder to mix and match with other types of "nature's price".

For more general ideas, make the elemental spirits have personalities. If the druid asks the earth spirits to block the door, tell them this particular mountain is very greedy and requires them to sacrifice some gold. If the druid asks the wind spirits to ease their fall, tell them these wind spirits are very vain and will tear away their fine clothes. If they ask the water spirits to bring up water for them to drink while they're trapped in the cave-in, tell them the waters of this area abhors fire, so they need to put out all torches before the water will comply. In general, give the spirits something concrete they want, that doesn't have to fit into what all water always wants - it's what this particular water spirit wants.

A general problem with the option of "paying a price", I think, is that it sort of has to be something physical and concrete in order to work in an immediate "I do it in order to cast" sense. If the price is that you return an stolen artifact, that's cool and all, but you end up a) creating a future obligation that you'll have to remember, and b) introduce the option of not making good on the deal later. Of course, if the druid starts ignoring their obligations the spirits might come for revenge later on, but that's still a "note down for the future" which is a whole other flavour of the move. If you like it, it's cool though.

Those are good ways to look at it.  I'd considered the debt idea, but I can't see it fitting well with the game I imagine my friends will be playing - we're a more casual crowd.  The idea of what spirits want could be interesting, although I still feel like the consequences will have to impact them in some meaningful way in order for them to care.  Now that I think of it though, the idea that maybe the wind spirits want to blow free and now they have to walk through gale winds creating another danger of some sort? I'll have to think about it.

On another note, I've been spending a small amount of time experimenting with custom moves and classes, and it would seem this move is poorly designed, based on much of the advice I've seen online - I can't imagine a scenario where you would roll to use this move and not pick the option 'the effect you desire comes to pass'.  Am I missing something? That will always be a gimme, and then you pay a price afterwards regardless of how well you rolled.  If you roll a 7-9 you just give the GM a choice of how to mess with you - a 10 just lets you pick in what way.  If you're not willing to pay consequences of some sort, you wouldn't use the move in the first place, right?

I'm a month late to the party, but I'm new to DW and learning, too, so I thought I'd give my take on the question.  But the first thing I thought was...

Oh, hell yeah!  This is rife with storytelling possibilities!   They're elementals!  The most powerful force in the world (or so they think!).  And this puny human thinks he can just conjure them up and give them orders?  As if! 

I admit that when I first read your question, I immediately thought as you did -- "why would you ever choose to not have the effect?" *

But I think that the rule is saying that calling on the elemental powers is dangerous and unpredictable.  And if you play it that way then you will see players choosing to abort the effect they want just so that they can avoid the consequences.  Really, they are going to be hoping to roll 10+ in order for the thing to work and avoid having to pay one of the consequences.  If they don't get that 10+, then they can abort altogether or take the consequences.  The player's choice is going to tell you a lot about what they want from you in terms of the adventure.

In other words, play the elemental like an office temp with a bad attitude and he's being forced to work late.  On prom night.  Without any supervision.   And the player is the owner of that business.

Think of how terrifying "paying the price" and "retaining control" just became.  To continue the metaphor, I'll riff off Office Space. On a 10+ you get the TPS report out on time but the company's funds are embezzled.  So then the choice for the player is -- exactly how badly do you want this report?  And if they only get the 7-9 -- maybe they say the report just isn't worth it.  Maybe it is.  Either way, it's advancing the story.

(Just out of curiosity - why were you thinking of limiting it to harming the caster?  If fire is "out of control" then personally I wouldn't see it discriminating.  But even with that stipulation - is harming something or someone the caster cares about harming him?)

So let's take the 16 HP Dragon scenario and see what happens with an Air example:

The effect desired is to down-draft the dragon and force it to land so that the rest of the party can attack... 
Paying the price - ...and the tremendous wind also flattens the nearby town.  The villagers might be grateful the dragon is gone but not so happy about the damage.
Paying the price - ...and the wind blows sand into the eyes of the party and blinds them.
Out of control - ...and the wind flames the buildings set on fire by the dragon and a firestorm erupts, burning the town to the ground.     
Out of control -- ...and the party is also tossed about for damage

And you can certainly go the "debt" route as well -- if the druid hasn't paid the debt, then maybe the elemental doesn't show up at all -- or maybe it demands a much higher price.

If you play those elementals to the hilt, I think you're going to have a lot of fun.  If the other player's aren't shouting "for the love of god, no more elemental magic" then push harder.  :-)
(In other words, I would treat them like demons in Sorcerer for those who might have played that game)

Best,
Nick

* I do kind of agree about what you said about the stakes, though.  It seems kind of weak.  And I'd certainly be tempted to tweak it by just dropping the "and you get what you want".  So a 10+ has no real consequences, but the 7-9 certainly does.