Dungeon World GM-help

[regie]

Hi, I have played RPG´s and been a GM for some time. I am going to GM a Dungeon World campaign, though I have not played it before.
One of my players and I have a disagreement about the rules, and I was hoping that someone in here could help us.

The player is convinced that monsters/NPC´s can´t make the first move in combat against the players.
This means that any monster I make has to wait for the players to engage in combat to be able to attack.
The players will also be able to just walk past any NPC´s/monsters they meet.

The player says that it is not stated anywhere in the Dungeon World Handbook that monsters can physically begin a fight!

I would say that a story could go kinda like this:
"The ogre smashes through the trees of the forest, and takes a swing at you(then, of course, they can choose to react), and hits you(if the dice is high enough)"

But if the player is right then it would be kind of like this:
"The ogre smashes through the trees of the forest, and stops in front of you, what do you do?:smallannoyed:

Is it true that the ogre wouldn´t be able to make the first hit? This would make it extremely hard to follow a storyline and next to impossible to play out bad encounters.

I am not looking to be mean toward the player. I respect and look up to this person a lot. This is just a disagreement that we can't seem to solve by our self.

Btw. English is not my native language (in case if horrible gramma)

[Morty]

Your player is wrong. It's entirely possible for monsters or NPCs to take the first action that the players then have to react to. Your player seems to have taken Dungeon World's lack of initiative rolls to an absurd conclusion.

[Kadzar]

Dungeon World isn't really a game about taking turns. It's more about the world reacting to what the players do (or sometimes what they don't do) and primarily follows the fiction of the game. If you haven't already, you absolutely should read the GM section of the book before you run, because Dungeon World goes over a lot of what you're meant to do as a GM to run the game properly, but here I'll just focus on what it says for when you make a move.

So page 166 of Dungeon World says:


When to Make a Move
You make a move:
•When everyone looks to you to find out what happens
•When the players give you a golden opportunity
•When they roll a 6-

The first one is basically about you as a GM describing what happens in the world, as you would in any other game. Then, when applicable, you're meant to make whatever move relates to the fiction you've established (this follows one of your Principles: "Make a Move That Follows"). For this first situation, you're encouraged to make a soft move, meaning one without immediate, irrevocable consequences.

Probably a good example of this would be the move "Show Signs of an Approaching Threat". In this case, something bad is going to happen unless they do something about it. So this would be like your example:

"The ogre smashes through the trees of the forest, and takes a swing at you(then, of course, they can choose to react), and hits you(if the dice is high enough)"though the "and hits you" part would actually be the "Deal Damage" move, made in reaction to them either rolling poorly to dodge out of the way or choosing to do nothing about it (well talk about that more soon).

The next two situations are where you make hard moves, ones which do have immediate consequences.

So, the second situation, "When the players give you a golden opportunity", is when you clearly show to the players that there is a present danger, and they, for whatever reason, choose to simply ignore it. So if an ogre pops out of the trees, swings it's club down at a character, and the player decides not to dodge out of the way because they believe only players are allowed to begin fights, they're going to have to take some damage before they get a chance to use "Hack and Slash" as a great big ogre club comes down on them. Or if they try to get past an ogre that's standing in their way, and they don't try to "Defy Danger" or something of the sort, they're going to suddenly find themselves flying backwards several paces as the ogre decides to use the person that just ran straight up to it as batting practice.

Then the last one, "When they roll a 6-", means that, when a player rolls a miss, you get to make a hard move against them. That's why they get XP on a miss, it's to make up for that fact that things are about to go bad for them, and there's nothing they can do to avoid it. Another important thing about misses is that the hard move that happens to them, while being a consequence of their failure in game terms, doesn't really have to be a consequence in the fiction. That may have been a little confusing, so here's an example:

Say a player is in a forest, trying to recall a bit of lore about how to find the type of mushroom they're looking for. They roll on "Spout Lore" and roll a 6 or less, a miss. Then, suddenly, as they're pondering this, an ogre comes crashing out of the trees and knocks them on their feet with it's club.

In this example, the ogre showing up wasn't caused by them not knowing about the mushrooms in the fiction, but, in game terms, the failed roll did bring it about. Now, you could say that maybe they were distracted while pondering and were an easy target for the ogre, but the consequences of a miss don't have to happen immediately. The GM could have held onto that miss and brought in the ogre at a later time when the character wasn't trying to recall mushroom lore. Sure, it's nice to make the consequences for a failed roll seem like they have consequences from the fiction, but it's not essential.

One last thing I'll say is that the book says you have a chance to make a hard move (like with a gold opportunity or a miss), you can alternatively decide to just make a soft move instead if it fits the situation better.

[Balmas]

I'll admit, most of my experience is with Apocalypse World, and I'll be quoting from that system's rulebook in my answer, but the principles shoud be relatively the same.

Remember that when you're gming, you're making moves, but you're also trying to make the world real. Lemme quote you real quick from the A*W chapter on MCing:

Here are guidelines for choosing your moves:
Always choose a move that can follow logically from what’s going on in the game’s fction. It doesn’t have to be the only one, or the most likely, but it does have to make at least some kind of sense.

Generally, limit yourself to a move that’ll (a) set you up for a future harder move, and (b) give the players’ characters some opportunity to act and react. A start to the action, not its conclusion.

As a general rule, when you're throwing a threat at your players, you want to give them an opportunity to react. F'r'instance, there are several spots in the rulesbook where the example MC says something along the lines of "X opens fire, what do," or "III comes at you, fists balled and swinging, what do." There's no hard-and-fast rule saying you can't inflict harm without giving them a chance to react, but you really shouldn't.

Unless they miss a roll, or don't react.


However, when a player’s character hands you the perfect
opportunity on a golden plate, make as hard and direct a move as you like. It’s not the meaner the better, although mean is often good. Best is: make it irrevocable.

When a player’s character makes a move and the player misses the roll, that’s the cleanest and clearest example there is of an opportunity on a plate. When you’ve been setting something up and it comes together without interference, that counts as an opportunity on a plate too.

So, in the example above, here's how I'd play it. I'd describe how, I dunno, a troll comes barreling out of a forest, swinging a millstone around as a club. What do you do?

The players can now try to do something.

Trip it? Run away? Maybe possible, Act Under Fire to find out.
Try to bargain with it? Probably not going to work, this thing doesn't look that intelligent, but roll Manipulate.
Stand and fight? Okay, roll +Hard, let's see those dice, but remember that it's going to get some hits in on you, and that thing's massive, you're talking 4-harm at the very least.
Do nothing? Okay, the troll swings its millstone around and batters Charlie, sending him flying across the clearing and into a tree. That's 4-harm, and roll me +harm to see if anything worse happens.


Remember, not acting is also an action. If there's a threat there and the players aren't stopping it, you Inflict Harm (As Established.) That's part of making the world feel real, which is also part of your job as MC.

[Silva]

Instead of "The ogre hits you", adjust it to "The ogre swings it's club at you, what do you do?". Voilá. In other words: start things with soft moves, then proceed with hard moves if the player fails the roll or don't do anything. Soft moves are prompts, things that players can react to. Hard moves are unavoidable.

[soft] "The Ogre swings madly at you, what do you do?"
*player fails the roll*
[hard]"It hits you hard in the face. You feel the pain in your nose and a bitter taste in your mouth. Take 2D8 harm".

[soft] "The guards are distracted laughing and telling jokes to each other, what do you do?"
*player tries to sneak past and fail*
[hard] "halfway through you notice the laughing and rowding stopped. When you look over your shoulder you see the guards there, eyes wide open looking at you as if they saw a ghost, one of them already pulling the alarm bell rope."

EXCEPTION: when it seems reasonable from the fiction that the player can't react to a given situation, go straight HARD on them. Ie:

[hard]"You open the door and come face to face with a goblin, crossbow in hand and a grim on his face. It's an ambush: take 2d6 harm from the bolt at your chest. What do you do now?"

[regie]

thank you, everyone, for your replies.
I think I understand soft and hard-moves now.


[soft] "The Ogre swings madly at you, what do you do?"
*player fails the roll*
[hard]"It hits you hard in the face. You feel the pain in your nose and a bitter taste in your mouth. Take 2D8 harm".


What I understand is that I can choose to initiate a fight with a soft-move, the ogre swings at you, then if they chose not to react their action will have consequences and it will most likely hit them. And if they roll 6- I make a hard-move: it will hit them. roll 6+ they successfully do their counteraction (dodge etc.).

Also in any other context if they fail a roll I´ll make a (soft)consequence. The monster around the corner notices them, the tree you are leaning against falls over, etc.?

[Silva]

What I understand is that I can choose to initiate a fight with a soft-move, the ogre swings at you, then if they chose not to react their action will have consequences and it will most likely hit them. And if they roll 6- I make a hard-move: it will hit them. roll 6+ they successfully do their counteraction (dodge etc.).
Yup, that's the overall idea. But notice there's an actual Fight move for that (Hack-and-Slash?). Follow it in this case.


Also in any other context if they fail a roll I´ll make a (soft)consequence. The monster around the corner notices them, the tree you are leaning against falls over, etc.?
Actually when player fails a roll (6-) you go Hard, not Soft, no matter the situation. But notice what's Hard or Soft ultimately depends on the player intention and whats at stake behind each attempt.

A monster noticing you may be Hard if that's all the player wanted to avoid, but Soft if he wanted to infiltrate the whole nest and said monster can still be killed silently to avoid alerting the nest.

So again: it all depends on intention and what's at stake. That's why it's important to follow the GM advice: "Before each roll, ask the intention, tell possible consequences and ask: What do you do?". This way you'll always pinpoint the player exact intentions, making it easier to think possible outcomes, both Soft and Hard.

[Kadzar]

Yup, that's the overall idea. But notice there's an actual Fight move for that (Hack-and-Slash?). Follow it in this case.If the player is initiating the fight, they roll Hack-and-Slash. If an ogre comes up to them and is about to slam a club in their face, that's when they need to react or deal with a GM hard move. The trigger for Hack-and-slash is "When you attack an enemy in melee", and it's a player-facing move, so you here refers to the player.

[Silva]

Makes sense Kadzar, thanks for the correction.

[Cluedrew]

I believe if they are on the defensive it is Defy Danger.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I'm actually not a big fan on making a distinction between "soft" and "hard" moves or saying that you have to play a setup minigame; I far prefer the Apocalypse World dynamic of "make as hard of a move as you like". Often, feeling you like "have to" set up a hard move with a soft move winds up taking all the punch out of the scene because players get tons of space to act in.

(Side note: you can totally make a soft move in response to a failure! It'll just feel weird when you do that all the time. The most important thing about a failure result is that the narrative twists in a way the player wasn't gunning for, and a failure should reshape the landscape in some way.)

Just make a move that makes sense in the situation, and understand that making harder moves or making softer moves will have consequences. A lot of times, for example, you can use move hardness to convey a tone. Choosing "You feel something smash you on the side of the head, and as you turn around, you see an ogre raising a club over you, take d6 harm." as your opener versus "You hear a bellowing sound from the forest, sounds like a big, nasty ogre!" will lead to entirely different types of stories, especially if you veer towards one more than the other.

That is to say, I totally think you can initiate a fight with a hard move, but if you're doing that, it's definitely going to be a grittier game than baseline Dungeon World. That, or it signals that this particular fight is bad news compared to your run-of-the-mill stuff. Like a dragon that just lays down a blanket of fire the instant you come within sight.

Above all else, soft moves often mean pulling your punches, and that can dangerously de-escalate the game. It might not seem fair that you can pull a hard move out of nowhere, but that's why the various GM principles/Agenda exist. You still have to be a fan of your players, and you still have to say what honesty demands. Sometimes, that's revealing an unwelcome truth by dropping an ogre on top of your player.