Hey all,
I had a pretty fun moment in a recent game and I thought I'd share.
Our Angel, Jane, has an infirmary. She's got Partridge there under constant surveillance for 36 hours, and she wants to start a project. She wants to push Partridge to the brink of death to better understand its relationship to the Maelstrom and her Touched by Death move. So I give her a choice from the workspace rules. "OK, to do it you're going to need help from The Teacher" and I'm referring to our Hocus who she trusts not at all. "OR, it would mean exposing yourself to serious danger." She picks the danger, of course.
Her weird is at -1 so activate her stuff's downside and tell her to open her brain to the maelstrom. Naturally she blows the roll. In the maelstrom, I tell her she sees a bubbling whirlpool and in it are the souls of people she's lost. Partridge is circling down into the whirlpool. I give her an opportunity with a cost and tell her she has a chance to save him, startle his consciousness before he's consumed, but she has to mind her step because that whirlpool has hands coming out and grabbing at the air.
So Jane runs to tackle Partridge away from his imminent demise and hits her act under fire with a 9. So close. I give her an ugly choice. I tell her she has a split second to decide whether to follow through or let him perish. If she jumps over that pool, though, one of those hands will grab her for sure. She chooses to save him. She feels a cold hand on her ankle but she crashes into Partridge and the two of them startle awake.
Partridge cries and turns away saying she should have let him die because he's emo like that. Then Jane hears a voice chime in, one she recognizes. "One of those lost souls boosted a ride out. They're stuck inside your head with you." I ask whose voice it is and Jane says it's Pierre, her former traveling companion. The voice in her head is a permanent addition, so I give her the move Norman from the faceless book, except it's Pierre talking, of course, instead of a mask.
Just a fun example of letting the game's cause and effect drive the fiction. This was actually from our first session. I had no idea any of that was going to happen, it just snowballed.