Should I be giving moves to players depending on what happens in the story?

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Is it good or bad to give moves to players because of what has happen in the story so far?

The story:
I have an angel in my game who has acquired 2 people who work under her (I guess you can call them nurses) and I have had a situation where the Angel has been barking orders (mainly moving and keeping an eye on people) in this situation I just made them do what she asked.

Do you think having just those two people is justifiable to give that player pack alpha (or a custom move in that manner for the Angel ) or do you think I should leave it for another session and see if the basic moves do the job?

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Munin

  • 417
A move like pack alpha exists not because you have a bunch of people working for you, it exists because you have a bunch of people gunning for your job. If your Angel's nurses or orderlies or whatever don't have the desire (or what it takes) to really take over the Angel's job, then cribbing a move from the Chopper playbook isn't appropriate.

Usually, I handle stuff like this in the fiction. I've had Savvyhead, Angel, and Hocus characters who've had groups of followers or employees or sidekicks or whatever who've treated them very differently, but a custom move isn't really necessary, because the role-play interaction is always giving you fictional clues about "what happens next."

So if your Angel is barking orders and treating her people like crap (especially in a situation outside the context of a medical crisis, where barking orders might be appropriate), then you start using your MC moves to respond to that in the fiction; you announce future badness, maybe describing how Moxie starts coming into work late, or hung over. Or not at all. You set things up by activating their stuff's downside - Moxie has taken to using recreational drugs and is getting in trouble outside of work. Or you take away their stuff - you used to have 5 Stock. Now you have 3. Shit, Moxie's habit has gotten so bad she's stealing from you to pay for her fix. Or using your narcostabs as her fix. And if you've set up the fiction and the player persists in ignoring the changing situation, you can make increasingly harder moves (because you've done your set-up): your Angel has berated Moxie so much that she's a fucking basket-case, all nervous and jittery, probably high even as we speak, and flubs assisting during a procedure - so your Angel takes -2 forward from effective interference. Even if the Angel managed to avoid flubbing the resulting roll and killing Dremmer's most trusted lieutenant on the table, I'm gonna guess she and Moxie are probably going to have a pretty frank conversation.

But as long as what the character is asking of his or her NPC "employees" is both 1) reasonable and 2) not hazardous, then they'll probably just do it. Because having a job is better than having no job.

Remember, those "employees" are people, and like any other NPC, they should "follow their parts," pursuing their own goals and responding to the situation around them like actual people.

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noclue

  • 609
If the Angel wants a gang, then the Angel can take Pack Alpha on an advance. Until then, these are just a bunch of PCs who the Angel is bossing around. The GM moves got you covered.
James R.

    "There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which can not fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance-that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
     --HERBERT SPENCER

Re: Should I be giving moves to players depending on what happens in the story?
« Reply #3 on: September 04, 2016, 03:45:34 PM »
Hm, I don't think I agree completely with the two answers above.

If you get a bunch of people that do as you say, and you have them fight for you, they are a gang, with stats depending on their fictional facts. A medic's two orderlies, not used to combat, would maybe be a-guy-or-two 1-harm 0-armor green or something. But if you "have" a gang in the fiction, you have a gang, simple as that.

Getting pack alpha, on the other hand, says something about your character's leadership style, rather than what her underlings are like. When the character's gang says, "no way we'll do that, boss, that's suicide", the character with pack alpha will just smack them until they know their place, while a character without has to reason with them, use some sort of leverage to get them to do what she wants, probably rolling manipulate, but possibly going aggro.

So, getting pack alpha is the character getting a new schtick, and I'm pretty sure I'd make her spend an improvement to get a move from another playbook to get it.

But getting a gang, go ahead, persuade 60 people to follow you into danger and you have a large gang, no sweat.

The thing with having gangs on your sheet that are either a central part of your playbook or that you get from an improvement is that it's a bit of cheating on the MC's part to take them from you too forcefully or too directly, because that often means taking away what makes the character cool, and that's no fun.

Those 60 bastards you just manipulated into following you into an ill-advised raid? No such considerations, so watch your back! :D

Re: Should I be giving moves to players depending on what happens in the story?
« Reply #4 on: September 08, 2016, 04:47:38 AM »
I say it depends on the moves; leadership and pack alpha to me speaks about the abilities and attitudes of the character, so I wouldn't give them the moves just because they have a gang following them around.
If it seems like it would be fitting to have a move other than the basic moves, I would make a custom move.
Maybe something like a combination of fortunes and pack alpha.

Speaking of, I wouldn't hesitate to give fortunes to a character with people following her, because the move only concerns itself about the followers and not about the character.

Wealth is tricky, because it concerns itself with both the hold and character ability and attitude. It seems natural in many situations that a character who becomes leader of a settlement should get a wealth-like move. 
Somewhere on these forums Vx suggested a custom move for an operator who had gained a hold in the fiction: Roll +cool, and a 10+ counts as 7-9 and a 7-9 counts as a miss. (iirc) That seems to me to be a good solution.

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Ebok

  • 415
Re: Should I be giving moves to players depending on what happens in the story?
« Reply #5 on: September 10, 2016, 12:55:53 AM »
Two people working under a person hardly constitutes fortunes either. It's exactly what it says it is, two people that are working for the angel. A simple, non-session based custom move could be appropriate, but so is just having them act according to who they are. The rules are fairly thorough in regards to this.

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noclue

  • 609
Re: Should I be giving moves to players depending on what happens in the story?
« Reply #6 on: September 10, 2016, 03:34:52 AM »
Hm, I don't think I agree completely with the two answers above.

If you get a bunch of people that do as you say, and you have them fight for you, they are a gang, with stats depending on their fictional facts. A medic's two orderlies, not used to combat, would maybe be a-guy-or-two 1-harm 0-armor green or something. But if you "have" a gang in the fiction, you have a gang, simple as that.

I don't dispute that they are a gang. I'm not sure exactly what "you have a gang" means in this context. They are a gang. They appear to be fighting for you. But, you don't really have them. They are a gang of NPCs and NPCs have simple needs and NPCs are threats. Will they continue to fight for you? Well, until it runs counter to the GM's Agendas and Principals. If you had Pack Alpha, you'd impose your will and that would settle things, or not. But, now?
James R.

    "There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which can not fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance-that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
     --HERBERT SPENCER

Re: Should I be giving moves to players depending on what happens in the story?
« Reply #7 on: September 10, 2016, 08:32:39 AM »
Quote
Two people working under a person hardly constitutes fortunes either. It's exactly what it says it is, two people that are working for the angel. A simple, non-session based custom move could be appropriate, but so is just having them act according to who they are. The rules are fairly thorough in regards to this.

Yeah, I wasn't clear about that: Two people working for the Angel don't constitute followers in most scenarios, so I would just go with basic moves and your agenda and principles, tackti.

However in a more broad sense, once a character takes responsibility for a group of people following her, providing her with barter or other stuff and counting on her to solve their problems, I would write them up as followers and give her fortunes. Not so with pack alpha, leadership or probably even wealth.