SUDDENLY OGRES
What to do on Spout Lore and Discern Realities misses
by Vasiliy Shapovalov. Special thanks to the Dungeon World Tavern community, Mike Harvey, Radaghast Kary, Alex Valuishko, Anthony Gulotta, and Mike Burnett.
I find Discern Realities and Spout Lore to be the hardest moves to react to as a GM. Telling a truth on a hit is easy and awesome, but I often had no idea what to do on a miss. So I gathered here every trick I used myself or have read about in online discussions.
First thing to remember is that players do not just roll. Moves are always triggered through fiction. Discern Realities and Spout Lore are pretty straightforward in this sense: you need no elaborate descriptions for sounds, smells or memories.
This simplicity makes it hard to come up with a move on a miss. Not much can go wrong when you’re recalling lessons of your mentor. That’s why I never ask players to roll for simple things: everything that is easy to spot or remember I say right up front.
A move is triggered only after a character makes an effort and is clear about it: looks under the rock, climbs the highest tree, puts an ear next to the door, sneaks closer to the guard, checks if that snake’s back is red or green.
You should keep in mind that a miss is not necessarily a failure; a miss is trouble. Failure is just the simplest and the most boring option you’ve got. Most often it adds nothing to the fiction and makes PC look incompetent. Consider these examples:
I never interpret a miss as a simple failure, without a twist of some kind. I prefer to use one of the tricks below.
Tell the character an unwelcome truth about what she wants to know. Most of these other tricks are annoying when used too often, thus requiring you to alternate, but this one is not. It strongly follows the fiction and looks very diverse in practice.
Ask a question, then craftily twist the answer. That’s my personal favorite. You’ve got some player input to jump off and players know that the problem is co-created and generally won’t feel like you’re trying to screw them.
Turn it into a quest. This is a great tactic because it redirects and delays the question, and it adds to the story. The important thing on a miss is to make it interesting.
While the character is examining something, it takes notice of her. What exactly happens depends on what she’s examining and the way she does it. Maybe it was too long, or too obvious, or just the place was wrong.
While the character is looking for one thing, something different makes a strike. That’s a solid one, but don’t overuse it. Being caught unaware all the time makes character seem incompetent and many players don’t like it. Also, if you keep hitting them with new dangers every time, it may feel like a deus ex machina.
Don’t answer the question, change the subject… forcefully. Works every time. Just throw them into combat, you don't even have to explain or justify it. Play to find out why! Don’t overdo it, though; your move must follow the fiction, remember?
Character spent too much time contemplating and investigating instead of acting. Or was too concentrated to notice important things around her. This trick is often combined with others: concentration and spent time are not bad per se, but only when there are other threats around. This is a good one, albeit it tends to become boring if overused. Very often this trick comes first to your mind, but take some time, there might be a better choice.
Exploration took the character away from the rest of her group. It’s a good time to throw in the threat that would be easily defeated otherwise.
Sometimes, action the character takes in order to gain information is dangerous by itself. Think of what can go wrong when the character acts. Another way to phrase this would be "When the player endangers himself using Spout Lore, make that danger happen."
Think of what could go wrong before and how the problem would remain unnoticed. Don’t overuse it, as players may begin going into too much detail to keep their characters safe. It is useful when someone rolled a miss before and you saved it for later for whatever reason.
That’s when you tell a lie and the players suspect it. Either because you’re making it obvious or because the players don’t believe what you say. They will be suspicious when you’ve got a hard move to make.
Personally I don’t like this trick. It’s against the principles - you have to say what the truth demands, remember? More importantly, it’s not that fun for all the trouble. Now your group has two imaginary situations to track: the “real” one and one that the character thinks to be “real”. Also using it makes players suspicious about what you say. I never force this trick on players, but use it from time to time on their initiative, like “Oh crap, 6. What if I believe that the path is clear?”. Also, if you use that trick a lot, you’ll have a hard time actually deceiving your players.
Tarrasque’s weak spot? You somehow think it’s the abdomen.
Whose coat of arms is that? It’s your ally’s. Tell him everything.
On a miss, the GM makes up some wrong fact and tells the player it’s wrong. But if the PC acts on the information or makes someone act on it, she gets 1 XP. Sometimes it leads to a fun game of crossing each other up. This trick was introduced in previous versions of Dungeon World.
Tarrasque’s weak spot? Mark XP if you go for abdomen or make another PC do it.
That’s when you deceive your players for real. You can do it and still stick to the principles: say truth, but not all the truth. I like it as a player - it makes you, a player, share the miss with the character and helps to commit to the game. But it’s hard to pull off as a GM, and you need to use it sparingly at most. Wait until players get comfortable with their delusion (up to a few game sessions, maybe) and then come clean when a golden opportunity arises. If you want players to react emotionally, you’ll need them to build quite a story on a not-so-true foundation. You have to be truly devious: make it look like another kind of miss.
Whose coat of arms is that? That’s Duke Dupont’s man, you've had a deadly feud with him and his family for generations. [if they kill the guy, you’ll tell them it was their only ally after some time passes].
If a front or a dungeon move fits the picture, you can use it as well.
So you’re spying on an orc horde? They are numerous and strong, warriors are battle-scarred and shamans are literally sparkling with power. No sane man would mess with such force. (you’re making “perform a show of dominance” move from Wandering Barbarians front).
If nothing comes to your mind, you can tell the truth and then make the move offscreen. I like my move to follow the fiction directly, though.
Who’s in control at that masquerade ball? Duke Dupont’s lackeys are serving the food (meanwhile, Duke Dupont makes his monster move “issue an order” offscreen - he commands every exit blocked, so that no one could escape the slaughter).
You may also be interested in: In defense of Discern Realities by Jeremy Strandberg
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