Wednesday, July 29, 2015

About putting characters at disadvantage

The two characters are trying to escape from a Roc and both are riding on the same horse:

But now they weren’t out of harm’s way yet, they had to outrun the Roc and another time the battle brothers saved themselves thanks of the horsemanship of the veteran (who got another 10+ on his Face Danger+edge test).
NOTA : I’ve got a question here : I think I should have given him maybe a -1 to Azim face danger test as they were riding double. How do you deal with this kind of drawback in general? I believe that in DW you could do that but I’m not entirely sure.

I wouldn’t give a penalty for riding in two by default: the fact that both were in danger is enough.
If you think they’re at disadvantage, give a -1 to their Advantage Die.

The above is what I wrote on the G+ comment, but I think I can add something more: you don’t give -1 or -2 to the rolls for difficult actions. What you do, is to give maybe a -1 to the Advantage Die if the characters are somehow at disadvantage, and you make GM moves.
A move is not “take -1 to riding both of you on the horse”.
A move is instead for example to announce some peril: the Roc attacks the two of them and they need to Face Danger to hold steady on the horse and get away.

Do you see the potential for something very interesting if they get separated?
In case of a failure in the roll, have one of them fall from the horse.

You see no interesting potential in the story for giving them troubles while they ride together?
Let them go, don’t ask for the roll.

Also, remember that you have the Face Death move (but I will discuss that in a separate post).