Major Arcana: The Nhing Codex

Over on the Dungeon World Discord, Razorkiss asked this interesting question:

Imagine you're trying to model scary Mythos tomes in DungeonWorld. Y'know, we're talking about The Necronomicon here. You want to create a custom move that represents the dangers of reading it, the dangers of gaining knowledge at the expense of sanity. I feel like the first instinct would be that this is a +WIS move, because, y'know, the Will save and all of its attendant baggage. But... is that the way you'd really want to go? It's basically saying, "Y'know, Wizard, you'd think you'd be the person who would be all over this custom move, but it turns out your buddies the Ranger, Druid, and Cleric are better-suited for this job..."

When you read the obviously evil book, roll +???

Queue discussion about whether it'd be an INT roll or CHA roll or whatever.

And my first instinct was to treat it the way I treat major arcana in Stonetop. 

(discussion after the break)

"Parley" in Stonetop and Homebrew World

In both Stonetop and Homebrew World, I've rewritten the Parley move to be at least as much of a "gather info" move as a "convince them" move. What follows is the text of the revised move and a draft of the "discussion" write-up for Stonetop.  

The evolution of this move was... involved. It started with a post from Johnstone Metzger (a very sharp dude whose stuff I strongly recommend), which was sadly lost to the Google+ vortex. If you're interested, you can read through the various drafts (and surrounding discussion) here:

• Initial draft (discussion here and here)
• Second draft (discussion here and here)
• Third draft (discussion here and here)
• Fourth draft (discussion here), leading version 4.5
• More-or-less final version discussed here

My gripes with the standard version of Parley boil down to:

• The trigger ("When you have leverage on an NPC and manipulate them...") requires too much processing and too many decisions. By the time we've figured out whether or not the PC's action counts as leverage, the roll feels superfluous or (worse) contradictory.
• The 10+ result and the 7-9 result often just don't work in the kinds of situations that adventurers find themselves.  At least, not without elaborate mental gymnastics.

Ultimately, what I like about the Stonetop/HBW version is that:

1. It's easy to recognize when a PC is pressing or enticing someone, and from there whether a roll is necessary.  You don't have to consider "is this leverage?" You just consider "are they resisting?" 
2. The question posed by the move isn't usually "will they do what you want?" but rather "what will it take to convince them?" The move is basically an opportunity for you to tell them the requirements, and in so doing, reveal the NPC's personality and motivations.  
3. The 7-9 results are quite easy to work with. I'm particularly fond of the "distasteful" option.
4. It's very flexible, and works in a wide variety of situations. 

Also, these revisions led to a PC-v-PC approach that I think works pretty well.  

Parley (vs. NPCs)

When you press or entice an NPC, say what you want them to do (or not do). If they have reason to resist, roll +CHA: on a 10+, they either do as you want or reveal the easiest way to convince them; on a 7-9, they reveal something you can do to convince them, though it’ll likely be costly, tricky, or distasteful.

Defy Danger, Restated

For Homebrew World v1.5, I've rewritten Defy Danger as follows:

I've been thinking about this move a lot the past few weeks, inspired largely by this post on the Gauntlet Forums, but also this old post from the PbtA G+ Community. 

I think the salient points of those conversations boil down to:

• Defy Danger's trigger is incredibly broad and thus can arguably be triggered by just about any action with a modicum or risk
• The move itself doesn't necessarily prompt players to say or do interesting things. It just serves as a fallback task resolution mechanic.
• It sort of gives license to players to try ridiculous things, with the presumption that on a 10+ it'll work with no consequence. 
• The 10+ result doesn't really do much to change the situation. It more deflates tensions ("phew") than pushes the game in a new direction. 
• It'd arguably be more interesting if the move wasn't there at all, and when a character did something risky or dangerous that otherwise wasn't covered by another basic move, the GM presented a hard bargain or ugly choice, or just say what happened and follow up with another soft move, escalating until move is triggered.

I can see where a lot of where this is coming from. I do think it's easy (especially for newer GMs) to over-invoke Defy Danger, calling for a roll when the stakes aren't very interesting (I know I've done it).  I think it might be nice if the move somehow encouraged more dynamic or surprising outcomes (the way that Keep Your Cool does in Monsterhearts 2e) or at least more interesting actions (e.g. if "I dodge out of the way" wouldn't trigger it, but "I duck under his blade and dart inside his guard!" would).  

This revision doesn't get all the way, but I'm not entirely certain that any revision could get there without significantly restructuring the game. The move is simply doing to much. Instead, I'm going for: 

• A clearer trigger
• Better descriptions of when to use each stat
• A more reasonable 10+ description
• A 7-9 result that provides better guidance
  

The trigger

So, here's the original trigger for Defy Danger:

When you act despite an imminent threat or suffer a calamity, say how you deal with it and roll.

And here's mine:

When the stakes are high, danger looms, and you act anyway, roll...

This is basically just rephrasing "when you act despite an imminent threat," but I think it's better because it clarifies that the stakes need to be high before the danger matters. If I'm walking a tightrope, there's an imminent threat that I fall off it. But if it's only 5 feet off the ground and no one's chasing me and I'm not trying to impress anyone and I can just try again... well, whatever? Don't roll. Right?

For experienced players and GMs, I don't think this would change how or when Defy Danger gets triggered. But for newer players and GMs, I hope it will at least push play in the right direction, towards high stakes and danger looming and awesome characters acting anyway, rather than toward... skill checks, I guess. 

You will notice that this version of the move doesn't have anything like the "suffer a calamity" clause that the original version does. Mostly, it's because I don't think it's necessary.  If you suffer a calamity (your arm is cut off, you fall down a slope, your caught in a gout of dragonfire, you're poisoned, whatever), then whatever you do next, the stakes are almost certainly high and danger is almost certainly looming.  I.e. you're going to Defy Danger anyhow, unless you just lay down and die.  So why do we need this move?

A couple folks I talked to suggested that the "suffer a calamity" cause is there to determine just how bad an injury or other calamity is.  Like, if you get stabbed by a poison dagger, Defy Danger with CON to see how badly the poison affects you. 

To which I respond: meh. I guess if your GM move was Deal Damage and you knew the enemy had a poison dagger, that maybe would make sense and work?  But Deal Damage is a Crap Move, and in HBW it's replaced with "Hurt Them."  If my move was "Hurt Them" with a poisoned dagger, I'm going to hurt them:  "That cut on you arm is burning, way worse than it should, and you start to feel your muscles seize up, your vision is going blurry... you've been poisoned, you're sure! What do you do?"  And then whatever they do next, the stakes are high and danger looms, so Defy Danger, yeah?

That stat descriptions

In the original Defy Danger: 

...say how you deal with it. If you do it...

• ...by powering through, +Str
• ...by getting out of the way or acting fast, +Dex
• ...by enduring, +Con
• ...with quick thinking, +Int
• ...through mental fortitude, +Wis
• ...using charm and social grace, +Cha

In this version, it's:

...and you act anyway, roll...

• +STR to power through or test your might 
• +DEX to employ speed, agility, or finesse
• +CON to endure or hold steady
• +INT to apply expertise or enact a clever plan
• +WIS to exert willpower or rely on your senses
• +CHA to charm, bluff, impress, or fit in 

It's mostly just a rephrasing, but I think these do a better job of reflecting how the stats actually get used. For example, every GM I've ever played with has called for DEX to Defy Danger by moving silently or hiding in shadows... even though it isn't covered by "getting out of the way or acting fast."  It would be covered by agility or finesse.

On a 10+...

In the original Defy Danger, the 10+ clause is:

On a 10+, you do what you set out to, the threat doesn’t come to bear.

I think the wording is pretty weird, but the real problem, I think, is that implies that a 10+ is consequence-free: "the threat doesn't come to bear."  I haven't seen it much myself, but I can easily imagine that leading to declarations like "He swings the club at me?  I just grit my teeth and take it!" with the assumption that a 10+ means he'll be fine and shrug off the blow.

Now, obviously, this is the sort of place for player-level conversation and GM moves like tell them the consequences and ask.  "You're just gonna take the hit?  I mean, okay, but you'll be Defying Danger with CON and it's gonna be like d8+3 damage even if you get a 10+. You sure?" 

But it'd be better if the move itself tempered expectations. Hence:

On a 10+, you pull it off as well as one could hope.

I guess you could get into some annoying conversations like "well, I can hope for quite a lot!" But at the very least, it's setting an expectation of "within reasonable limits."

On a 7-9...

In the original Defy Danger, the 7-9 clause is:

On a 7–9, you stumble, hesitate, or flinch: the GM will offer you a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice.

Oof.

Okay, first of all:  "stumble, hesitate, or flinch" has always been my least favorite line in any of the basic moves. It describes a fictional outcome, and then implies that said fictional outcome leads directly into the worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice. Well, first of all: stumbling, hesitating, or flinching doesn't make sense as a fictional outcome in many of the cases that involve Defying Danger.  I mean, yeah, you can make it fit, if you really try to. But it's work. And in my experience, when I've tried to keep stumble/hesitate/flinch in mind, it's actively made it harder to come up with good, interesting results that are still fundamentally a success.

The "stumble, hesitate, or flinch" clause makes a lot more sense in Apocalypse World's Act Under Fire move. But that move is all about keeping your cool, as opposed powering through/acting quickly/all the other ways to Defy Danger. And even in AW, the example 7-9 results ignore the "stumble, hesitate, or flinch" part and just go straight to worse outcome/hard bargain/ugly choice.

So: gone. It's actually been gone from both Homebrew World and Stonetop from almost the beginning. 

More importantly:  the "worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice" part of the move has never felt like it offered particularly good guidance to GMs.  The number of G+ conversations, Reddit posts, conversations on the old Barf Forth forums, etc. that have stemmed from that phrasing are numerous. 

My take on it has always been:

• Worse outcome: you do the thing, but the outcome isn't as good as you'd hoped. 
• Hard bargain:  "You can do it, but..."  Basically, tell them the cost or the consequences and give them a chance to back off.
• Ugly choice:  They do it, but it doing it, they have to pick between two or more consequences or costs.  

The distinction between "hard bargain" and "ugly choice" is fuzzy, and not necessarily helpful to the GM.   Also: it's easy for a new GM or player to read "worse outcome" as "worse than you when you started" and not "worse than what you were hoping for" and that's not right at all. It's important to remember that a 7-9 is still fundamentally successful. 


Both the hard bargain and the ugly choice involve costs or consequences, or maybe a lesser successes.  So... why not just say that? But there's still value in those "you can do it, if" and "well, you can do it, but either __ or __."  That led me to this:

On a 7-9, you can do it, but the GM will present a lesser success, a cost, or a consequence (and maybe a choice between them, or a chance to back down).

This wording:

1. Establishes that they can do the thing (fundamentally a success, right?)
2. Replaces "worse outcome" with "lesser success" (clearer, reinforces that that it's still fundamentally a success)
3. Puts the cost or consequence right in there, in plain language
4. Keeps the possibility of a hard bargain or ugly choice. 
   
   

In summary

I don't think this really changes Defy Danger significantly. I hope that it makes it clearer, and easier to use, and helps set appropriate expectations.  

Homebrew World v1.5 (gear & inventory updates, Defy Danger rewrite)

I just posted version 1.5 of Homebrew World.  You can find it here:

Current version

If you aren't familiar with this project:

• It's a revised version of Dungeon World that's pared down for one-shots and short-run (2-4 session) games. 
• It features a lot of changes that would I'd include in a 2nd edition of Dungeon World were I the one in charge of it:  advantage/disadvantage (instead of +1/-2 etc), tweaks or straight-up rewrites to many of the basic moves and classes, backgrounds & drives instead of racial moves & alignment, and some significant changes to gear. The document itself has a more comprehensive list.

New (Final?) Gear & Inventory System

The original gear & inventory system was okay, but a little unintuitive. It had a lot of hidden features, and didn't actually generate as much scarcity as I wanted it to. 

So I replaced it with this version. Some feedback on Reddit and conversations on the DW Discord server confirmed some fears I had with that system. Mainly: the v1.4 system was trying to combine both an encumbrance system with the "producing gear" system and when characters started dropping things or moving items between them, it got weird. You could mark up to (e.g.) 4 diamonds, but it wasn't clear what happened if you marked an item to produce a thing and then dropped it.

Here's what the new version looks like:

from the Thief

from the Cleric

At the start of play, you can assign a number of diamonds to specific items or to "Undefined."

During play, you can Have What You Need:

So as the Cleric, I might chose to start with a cudgel and Supplies (two diamonds), and mark 3 diamonds in Undefined. 

During play, when a fight breaks out, I might declare that I'm wearing a chain shirt (and move a diamond from Undefined to the "Leather cuirass or chain shirt" item). 

Later, I decide to produce a lantern, so I clear an Undefined diamond, mark one under Other items, and write in "Lantern."  I could then spend a use of Supplies to produce a tinderbox (a small item). 

After a few hours of exploring, the lantern's oil burns low and I replenish it with a use of Supplies (to produce lamp oil, which I don't bother writing down because whatever). 

I've got one Undefined diamond and one use of Supplies remaining.  

Every class also has a Max Load (the same as the max number of diamonds you can start with). This should be fairly obvious, but to be clear:

• If you pick up a new item in play (by looting it, buying it, another character giving it to you, etc.) then it gets added to your inventory. Unless it's small, it counts against your Max Load.  
• If you drop an item during play, or use it up, or it's destroyed, then you erase it--it no longer counts against your Max Load.  
• If you give something to another player (even an Undefined diamond), erase it from your inventory and add it to theirs--it no longer counts against your Max Load, but does count against theirs. 
• Undefined diamonds count against your Max Load.

Doesn't this encourage players to put everything in Undefined and then have exactly what they need in play?  Yup! That's largely the point.  In practice, it seems that players assign enough gear to get a clear picture of their character, and leave the rest undefined.

So what changed?

The biggest differences between this version of the gear system and version 1.4 are:  

• There's no more choice between "Light" vs. "Normal" vs. "Heavy" Load. Each class has a set number of diamonds they can mark at character creation or during play. 
• There's a specific place to track "Undefined" diamonds, distinct from the total number of diamonds you can carry (Max Load).
• As a result, there's no need for the Loot or Manage Inventory moves, or any other detailed explanation of how specified gear interacts with quantum, undefined gear. 

In my initial playtesting, this system has worked very well. Players grocked the "Undefined" thing immediately. The only real confusion stemmed from players Having What They Need, and whether they needed to assign an Undefined diamond or expend supplies. I found they were more likely to burn up their diamonds, even on things I thought was pretty obviously small.  

I also added a couple class moves that played in this design space. A few classes have moves that increase their Max Load and starting diamonds. The Fighter (Veteran of the Wars) gets +1 diamond (7 total) and an extra use from Supplies.  The Barbarian has a Max Load of 3 by default, but Musclebound increases it to 5. And the Ranger has a Max Load of 3 by default but an advance that can give them +2 diamonds. 

Other changes

The other big change is in the wording of Defy Danger:

My hope is that this wording makes it clearer when to trigger the move (high stakes + danger + action) and that the 7-9 result provides GMs with more useful guidance.  It's still fundamentally the same move, though.

There are also some minor tweaks here and there:

• The Bard >> Wandering Folk: previously, it basically gave three times the Bard could take advantage on a roll, with the relatively simple requirement of making it relevant to their People's traits.  Now, they can do that once, and then their heritage needs to cause trouble before they can use it again. 
• The Cleric: fixed a mistake in their inventory. Replaced the wizard's spell book (ha!) with a Sacred Text ([][] uses, slow, cast a spell that's not prepared).
• Some minor tweaking of the I Know a Guy optional move and the Thief >> Operative's background move, so that the Thief move is definitely better.
• Also some tweaking to the Run Away optional move; I didn't quite like the results or modifiers, and I had to rethink it anyway to deal with the new gear system.   

Deal Damage is a Crap GM Move

I posted this essay on the G+ back in June of 2017. I still feel this way, and in Stonetop and Homebrew world, have replaced the GM move "Deal damage" with "Hurt them." It's not much of a difference, but I find that it better matches how I play. Fair warning: if you ever play DW (or a variation of it) with me running it, expect to be losing HP very often.

obligatory "wounded man" image

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When I've played DW with less-experienced GMs—and certainly when I started GMing DW myself—I've seen this sort of thing happen a fair deal:

"Okay, you got a 7-9 to Hack & Slash the orc? Deal your damage. 3? Okay, he's still up. But he stabs you back. Take 1d8+1 damage.  You still up?  Okay, what do you do?"

The strawman GM in my example is making the GM move deal damage, but they aren't following the principle of begin and end with the fiction.  As a result, the whole thing is flat. The player reduces their character's HP total. We vaguely know that the PC landed their blow, and the orc landed one back. But we've got no sense of the actual fiction, the details, the momentum. Who hit whom how? When? And Where?  Is the PC's axe still stuck in the orc's shoulder? Does the orc up close and personal, stab-stab-stabbing you with his rusty knife?  What the hell is going on?

Now, you can blame that on the GM (obviously: they aren't following their principles).  But you've got literally a dozen principles always competing for your attention, and it can be tough to keep them all straight.

You can also lay a lot of blame at the feat of the Damage and HP and "down at 0 HP" system that DW inherited from D&D.  But if you start tinkering with any of those things, you end up changing basic moves, and class moves, and how you make monsters, and equipment, and spells, and pretty much the whole mechanical economy of the game.

So what about the GM move itself:  Deal Damage.  I'd like to argue that this move—its name, its description, the fact that it exists at all—is part of the problem. And maybe an easier one to fix.

Of all the GM moves, it's the only one that maps most directly to a purely mechanical outcome. "Take 1d8+1 damage."  The GM must evaluate the fiction a little to determine how much damage you should take, but not much… you can just look at the orc's damage die and say "you're fighting an orc, take 1d8+1 damage."  And because the result of move (the roll, losing HP) is so mechanical and abstract, it's easy to forget to return to the fiction and describe what that damage actually looks like.

(You don't see this issue nearly as much in Apocalypse World, even though it basically has HP and has basically the same move: inflict harm as established. I think there are two reasons. First, the way NPCs suffer harm is much more handwavy than in DW… each level of harm corresponds to a rough description of trauma, and it's GM fiat to determine if the NPC is still standing. Thus, the GM has to decide on the specific trauma, in the fiction, in order determine if the NPC is still a threat. It's pretty brilliant.  Second, against PCs, there's the Suffer Harm move, which can generate all sorts of interesting fiction.)

Compare deal damage to use up their resources. When the GM uses up resources, they must decide which resources to use up. If they decide to "use up" your shield, then the natural thing to say isn't "you lose your shield, reduce your Armor by 1" but rather "it smashes through your shield!" or "you feel the strap on your shield snap and the thing goes flying, what do you do?"  Even if the GM uses up an abstract resource (like adventuring gear or rations), it's pretty easy and natural for everyone to visual your pack getting smashed or torn open or whatever.  HP are such an abstraction that it's easy to just decrement them and move on.

Every now and then, the conversation crops up that you just shouldn't use the Deal Damage move, or that you shouldn't use it very much.  Other GM moves are more interesting, etc. etc.

Another relevant detail:  on page 165, there's this gem that often gets forgotten:

Note that “deal damage” is a move, but other moves may include damage as well. When an ogre flings you against a wall you take damage as surely as if he had smashed you with his fists.

With a sidebar of:

If a move causes damage not related to a monster, like a collapsing tunnel or fall into a pit, use the damage rules on page 21.

So… could we just remove "Deal Damage" from the GM's list of moves?  If it just flat-out wasn't a choice, and instead you always had to make a different GM move (or monster move), one that might also happen to deal damage, would that help GMs begin and end with the fiction?

Or would it just confuse things? Or not make a difference?  After all, you'd still have the GM move Use up their resources, and you HP are really nothing more than a resource.

It's entirely possible that I'm just overthinking this, and the "solution" to this "problem" is just learning to "begin and end with the fiction."

Discuss!

Now, for some selected comments from the post:
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Aaron Griffin:  I like the idea of removing it, but you'd need to have some more coaching about "on the fly"/improv monster moves.

In your orc example, I doubt the orc has "hit with sword" as a move. A novice GM with a strict reading of the rules might not understand that the orc can swing that sword even if it doesn't say it.


Me:  I'm actually thinking you would NOT replace it with "attack" moves for monsters.  But rather, any time the monster attacked, it'd be a different GM move that happened to also inflict damage.

E.g. when the orc "makes an attack against you," if I don't have "deal damage," I'd be forced to pick do something like this instead:

Use a monster move >> the orc's Fight with abandon : "So, you like run it through, but it doesn't seem to notice. It just pushes itself onto your blade, hacking at you and your shield over and over with that vicious meat cleaver thing, scoring a number of blows before it expires. Take d6+2 damage and your blade is stuck right in the thing's gut. What do you do?"

Reveal an unwelcome truth:  "You gut the orc, but he scores a scratch on your arm, not a big deal but holy shit does it burn, take a d6+2 damage. And you're like, uh oh, what's that greenish oil coating this dead orc's blade?"

Use up their resources: "You slash it across the chest, and it reels back, then follows up with just this reign of blow after blow. Take a d6+2 damage and your shield is just in splinters, it hauls back for another chop, what do you do?"

Separate them:  "So, yeah, you run the orc through as it leaps at you but its momentum carries it into you, knocking you down the ravine in a tumble. Take d6+2 damage and you land in a heap, a dead orc on you, the fight up top.  Ovid, you see the Hawke and the orc go tumbling off the cliff and another one comes swinging at you, what do you do?"

Put someone in a spot: "Oh, yeah, you totally slice this orc's throat open and goes down in a gurgle, but the other two rush in on you and hack away, take d6+3 damage (+1 cuz of the extra one, right?). And they keep reigning blows on you, herding you back toward the pit, it's just a few feet away, what do you do?"

Etc. etc.

I.e. there's no replacement for the "Deal Damage" move, no general monster moves like "stab them."  So whenever a foe makes an attack, the GM must make a different GM move, one that makes no sense unless you begin and end with the fiction.

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Greg Soper:  I really like this. I think that there should still be references to damage, but just push it through the general-Damage dice lens (scrapes and bruises = 1d4, etc). So GMs can still be liberal with dealing damage, but just as a result of other moves, and never just as an automatic response to a 7-9 Hack & Slash or a missed Defy Danger.

Me:  oh, I still think there's a lot of value in having distinct Damage values for monsters. It's part of what establishes the "difficulty" of fighting (e.g.) orc bloodwarrior (d6+2) vs. an orc berserker (d10+5!!!).  

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Wright Johnson:  I think the problem with deal damage is actually the name.  As you said, the move itself is the only one written purely in the language of game mechanics.  Inflict harm as established is not a phrase which rolls off the tongue outside the context of Apocalypse World, but it's also consistent with the mannered way the rest of the AW game text is written.  DW is written in natural, conversational English, so the shift into purely mechanical jargon stands out.  If the move was called something like hurt them, I think it might be less jarring.

Asbjørn H Flø:  That was my first instinct too​, with that exact wording. Making hacks and rule changes strikes me as too much work, but rewording it to hurt them opens it up sufficiently to remind you to consider the fiction and your options.

Jason “Hyathin” Shea:  Aside from removing the option entirely (a valid solution, IMO) hurt them is a great option. As I've been reading comments that phrase has been rattling around my head, and it leads me to say, "okay, so how am I going to hurt them?" I don't think that way when I read "deal damage."

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There were also a number of comments around the idea of introducing versions of AW's Suffer Harm player move, discussion of Paul Taliesen's A Descriptive Damage Hack for Dungeon World, and so forth.

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In the end, I've replaced Deal Damage with Hurt Them in my Dungeon World hacks, along with these instructions to the GM: 

When you make a GM move that involves someone getting banged up, knocked around, hurt, or injured, then deal damage as part of that move. If the damage is caused by an established danger, deal damage per its stats. Otherwise, what would it do to a normal person?

• Bruises & scrapes; pain; light burns d4  
• Nasty flesh wounds/bruises/burns d6  
• Broken bones; deep/wide burns d8  
• Death or dismemberment d10

Debilities are ongoing states reflecting the tolls the characters have taken. Inflict them as (or as part of) a GM move. They are:

• Weakened: fatigued, tired, sluggish, shaky (disadvantage to STR and DEX)
• Dazed: out of it, befuddled, not thinking clearly (disadvantage to INT and WIS)
• Miserable: distressed, grumpy, unwell, in pain (disadvantage to CON and CHA)

Debilities might also cause someone to Defy Danger to do things that are otherwise safe.

Yes, those are different debilities than core Dungeon World. That's a post for another time.

Rewriting Defend

I've been thinking about the Defend basic move a lot lately. I posted a number of polls about the move to tease out public opinions, and I've spent a fair amount of time discussing the issues that those polls brought up.

For Stonetop and Homebrew World, I'm rewriting the move as follows:

DEFEND

When you take up a defensive stance or jump in to protect others, roll +CON: on a 10+, hold 3 Readiness; on a 7-9, hold 1 Readiness. You can spend Readiness 1-for-1 to:
• Suffer an attack's damage/effects instead of your ward
• Halve an attack’s damage/effects
• Draw all attention from your ward to yourself
• Strike back at an attacker (deal damage, with disadvantage) 

When you go on the offense, cease to focus on defense, or the danger passes, lose any Readiness that you hold.

Compare that to the original text and discussion, available here.

I think this leaves the move in the same basic design space as the original, but cleans up a lot of the potential ambiguity and traps that original text introduces. This is pretty close to how I've always used Defend in play anyhow, even though I know it's not how everyone else uses it.

a defensive stance?

The Trigger

 The first change is the trigger. This...

"When you take up a defensive stance or jump in to protect others, roll +CON"

...instead of this...

"When you stand in defense of a person, item, or location under attack, roll +CON"

My goals here are to:

• Make it clear that you don't have to be defending someone (or something) else to make the move
• Make it clear that the move can be either proactive (taking up a defensive stance) or reactive (jumping in to protect others)
• Remove the reference to being "under attack," because "attack" gets used inconsistently throughout the rest of the game and I've had... let's say lively discussions... about what exactly that means and how it applies to the trigger. 

I think this revised wording does all of that.

There's still going to be ambiguity, times when you have to ask the player what they're really trying to accomplish and you all discuss whether this is Defend or Hack & Slash or Defy Danger or whatever. But I think that the intent of the move's trigger is much clearer this way.  

Readiness

The next change is to name the hold. So you get this...

"On a 10+, hold 3 Readiness; on a 7-9, hold 1 Readiness."

...instead of this...

"On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7-9, hold 1."  

It's a pretty minor change, but it's something I try to do whenever I write a hold-and-spend move. I find that players understand "hold 3 <Currency>" much more quickly and intuitively than just "hold 3."  Of course they do. It's more natural language.

For a long time, I used "hold 3 Defense" instead of "hold 3 Readiness." But I like Readiness better, because of what it implies a state of preparation, being ready to jump in and intervene.  I think it communicates the ongoing, stance-like nature of the move better.

"Readiness" is a little off when you use Defend reactively, jumping in to protect another. But if you roll a 10+, hold 3 Readiness, and spend only 1 or 2... you still hold Readiness. And I think that correctly communicates that, yeah, you're still ready.

Spending Hold

In this version... 

"You can spend Readiness 1-for-1 to
• Suffer an attack's damage/effects instead of your ward
• Halve an attack’s damage/effects
• Draw all attention from your ward to yourself
• Strike back at an attacker (deal damage, with disadvantage) 

 Compared to the original:

"As long as you stand in defense, when you or the thing you defend is attacked you may spend hold, 1 for 1, to choose an option
• Redirect an attack from the thing you defend to yourself
• Halve the attack’s effect or damage
• Open up the attacker to an ally giving that ally +1 forward against the attacker
• Deal damage to the attacker equal to your level"

Obviously, I changed the options themselves, but what I want to focus on right here is: there's no more trigger ("when you or the thing you defend is attacked") limiting when you can spend hold. Instead, 3 of the 4 options are rephrased to only make sense when an attack has already been established (using an instead of the).

This is a pretty minor difference, but I think it makes the move simpler to process. You hold Readiness. You spend Readiness to do one of these things.  Oh, there's an attack?  I spend Readiness and halve its effects.  Oh, I got attacked?  I spend Readiness and hit the attacker back. It's fewer words, fewer when-then conditions. It's also more in line with how other hold-and-spend moves work. You spend the hold, you do the thing.

This rephrasing also means that I can have an option ("Draw all attention from your ward to yourself") that isn't in direct response to an attack. And that opens up design space; class moves/advanced moves/etc. can add other such options.

(Note that "As long as you stand in defense" is also gone, but I'll address that later.)

Taking the Hit and Drawing Aggro

In the original Defend, one of the options is this:

• Redirect an attack from the thing you defend to yourself

Seems straight-forward. Except... it could arguably be used in either of these two circumstances:

1) The GM makes a hard move, dealing damage or otherwise inflicting badness on the Defending player's ward.  The Defending player spends 1 hold and goes "nope! it hits me instead!"  This is awesome and heroic. It might also be a very sound tactical decision, especially if the Defending player has more hold to spend and/or good armor.

2) The GM makes a soft move announcing an attack at a character.  The Defending player spends 1 hold to become the target of that attack.

#1 is awesome.  #2... well, I'm just made of questions about #2:

• Why does the Defending player need to spend 1 hold to become the target of the attack? The GM made a soft move, setting up badness but giving the player(s) a chance to react. Why can't the defending player just say "I step in and take blow!" If the fiction would just justify the spending of 1 hold to do this, the fiction would also justify just doing it. 
• What happens after the Defending player redirects the attack to themselves? Based on the examples given in the Dungeon World text, the GM escalates the soft move into a hard move when one character Defends another. (That also appears to be the opinion of about 1 in 4 people on this poll.)
• But why should the Defending player take damage?  Why should the GM escalate to a hard move when one player spends hold to redirect an attack towards themselves? If the Defend move didn't exist, the player could say "I step between the horde of zombies and Avon, and lash out with my hammer at the nearest one!" and he'd be triggering Hack & Slash... which could result in him not taking any damage at all!  Or he could say "I pull Rath behind me and put my shield up, deflecting the arrows" and he'd be triggering Defy Danger.  Why should the character definitely take damage because he rolled a success on Defend and chose to spend hold?

I think that the presence of this option (and the examples in the game text) lead players to think that they have to spend 1 hold to redirect a soft-move attack, even though they only really should need to spend it if the GM's already made a hard move (or a hard move is definitely coming) and they want to interrupt up the action and take the hit themselves. 

My solution is to rephrase the first option to this:

• Suffer an attack's damage/effects instead of your ward

So now, the hold is useful when damage or attacks's other effects are already on the table. You can suffer it instead of your ward, implying that the ward was already suffering it. No reason to spend Readiness to redirect an attack that's still in motion, that hasn't yet connected--just say that you do so.  

Of course, the vagueness of the original option ("Redirect an attack from the thing you defend to yourself") also meant it worked (more-or-less) for "pulling aggro."  In this poll, for instance, a full 50% of the respondents voted that spending the hold would ensure that the fighter held the orcs' attention so that the ranger was in the clear, while the fighter got to then Hack & Slash at the orcs.  And in this poll, there's a bit of talk about Defending/spending hold to buy time for the paladin's allies to escape.  I've seen that in play in my own games, too.

I think that there's value to this. I big tough character should be able to pull aggro and "tank" for the other party members, giving them an opportunity to act freely. That led me to add this option:

• Draw all attention from your ward to yourself

That seemed to overlap quite a bit with the original option of "Open up the attacker to an ally, giving them +1 forward against the attacker."  It's not a 100% line-up, but if you draw all attention from your ward to yourself, you're basically giving them (and probably other PCs) a fictional opportunity or opening that's at least as good as a +1 forward.  (Also, I don't think that I've ever seen a player choose the "Open up the attacker to an ally" option. So... screw it.)

Hitting Back

The 4th option for spending hold is now...

• Strike back at an attacker (deal damage, with disadvantage) 

...instead of...

• Deal damage to the attacker equal to your level"

I've always found the idea of dealing damage "equal to your level" very, very strange. No other move directly references "your level" like that, except for Commune and Spellbook and Prepare Spells, and then it's in reference to something else that also has levels, so it makes more sense there. Dealing damage equal to your level is a pretty terrible choice at levels 1 and 2 (because the weakest foe has 3 HP), and at higher levels it becomes terrifyingly effective.  Given how often folks play DW as a one-shot or short-run series, an option that is nigh-useless at 1st level seems like a bad idea.  

The "ramping up" of this option also makes a pretty weird fictional assertion: that high-level adventurers are more effective/deadly when attacked than they are on the offense. Which, while kind of a cool idea, isn't really in line with like anything else in the game. 

So: let's continue using the damage die but make it not-as-good as what you'd get with a dedicated attack move (Hack & Slash or Volley). Disadvantage means "roll the damage die twice, take the lower result." It doesn't (inherently) ramp up with your level, and it means that a fighter or paladin on the defensive is more dangerous than a wizard on the defensive.  It also means that tags and other damage modifiers more clearly apply.  

Losing Readiness (Hold)

The final clause in the revised move is:

When you go on the offense, cease to focus on defense, or the danger passes, lose any Readiness that you hold. 

If anything, this replaces this clause in the original move:

"As long as you stand in defense..."

Which implies (but doesn't outright state) that you can't spend your hold if you cease to "stand in defense." The explanation of the Defend move says "When you’re no longer nearby or you stop devoting your attention to incoming attacks then you lose any hold you might have had." But that's not exactly clear from the move text itself.  

So, I wanted to just come out and say "this is when you you lose Readiness" right in the move's text.  

I also wanted to make it clear that you can still do "defensive" moves and keep your hold.  Like, I think you should totally be able to Defy Danger against an attack and spend hold to mitigate the results of a 7-9 or a miss... and/or to strike back a the attacker.  

It's still a bit unclear whether you can Hack & Slash and continue to focus on defense (and thus hold readiness). Given the way that I've revised Hack & Slash for Stonetop and Homebrew World, I think you can Hack & Slash on the defensive and still keep your Readiness, but it'd be very contextual. Basically, if you fight reactively (cutting them down as they approach rather than closing on them or chasing them down), I think it's okay.  

But I also wouldn't say someone was wrong if they thought "nah, if you Hack & Slash, you're by definition going on the offense."  

Tinkering with Hack & Slash

There's a lot a like about Hack and Slash, but it's always bugged me how utterly mechanical the player side of the move is. You "deal your damage," and maybe evade the enemy's attack, but the move is silent regarding the momentum of the fight itself.

The move relies on the GM "reading the tea leaves" and interpreting a lot of details, such as...

• the PC's damage roll
• the monster's damage roll (if any)
• the armor & remaining HP on each side
• the tags of the weapons/monsters involved
• the PC's fictional action 
• the PC's intent
• GM principles (give every monster life, begin & end with the fiction, be a fan of the PCs, etc.)

...in order to determine what happens during a Hack and Slash and what to do immediately thereafter. Plus, you can deal like crap 3 damage to a foe with 2 armor and 8 HP and it's easy to be like "why did I bother."  Even one of the examples of the move in the game text (Jarl and goblins) is pretty flavorless exchange of numbers with no meaningful change to the fiction. 

I've tinkered with changes to Hack and Slash before (for example, see here).  But I think I might have hit on something I really like:

When you fight in melee or close quarters, roll +STR: On a 7+, you make your attack (deal damage!) and suffer the enemy’s attack; on a 10+, also pick 2; on a 7-9, also pick 1 (but not the first one).

• You evade/counter/prevent the enemy’s attack
• Your attack is powerful/fast/brutal: add +1d6 to your damage
• You hold the initiative or give it to an ally; say what you do next, or who gets to go next

It's largely the same as standard Hack & Slash, but there's a new parameter: initiative.  

If the PC chooses to hold the initiative, then, after the Hack & Slash move (and the monster's attack) are resolved, the PC gets to immediately follow up and say what they do. The GM doesn't get to make another move, not even a soft one.  The Hack & Slasher can either go themselves, or they can pass the spotlight to another PC and let them go, without the GM making a soft move.

So imagine the Fighter just rolled a miss on Volley and my move was for the ogre to smash his cross bow and grab him by the right arm and heave him up! (take something by force). The Cleric is on the ground next to them, reeling from a previous move, so I stay on the Fighter, hanging there by his right arm, the ogre clearly about to use him to bludgeon the Cleric. "What do you do?"  

"I draw one of my many knives with my left hand, heave up, and stab this thing in the wrist before it use me as a club!"  Cool, sounds like fighting in melee, so the Fighter rolls Hack & Slash.

On a 10+, he gets 2 picks.  If he picks:

• Evade attack + extra damage, he'd do d10+d6 and let's say he gets 9. Not enough to drop the ogre, but I think he hacked it's hand off!  "Yeah, not only do you stab it in the hand, you like chop it's hand clean off at the wrist, and it howls and you land in a heap."  But because the Fighter didn't hold the initiative, now I make a GM move.  "Before you can roll to your feet, though, you hear this horrible wood-snapping & crunching noise as it snatches up a sapling and starts swinging it down at you like a club, what do you do?"
  
  Now the Fighter is in reaction mode, right?  He might still pull of a clever Hack & Slash in here, but it's probably a Defy Danger. And regardless, he's reacting to me!
• Evade attack + hold initiative:  Only d10 damage, let's say 4.  "You stab it in the wrist and it drops you." But now the Fighter has the initiative, so he gets to go.  Maybe the Fighter asks "what's it doing," and I'll say it's clutching it's wrist in pain, what do you do?  And then the Fighter gets to decide: charge in? run away? go the Cleric's aid?  It's his call, and while there's still clearly a danger, there's no immediate peril he has to react to.
• Extra damage + hold initiative:  Does d10+d6 damage, let's say 9 again.  Chops the ogre's hand off, drops the ground, but because he's exposed to the ogre's attack. I decide to separate them violently. "...but before you can roll to your feet, it just punts you in the side and sends you flying. Take 1d10+1 damage and you come rolling to a stop maybe 15 feet away."  And now, the Fighter has the initiative, so I'm like "what do you do?" So the Fighter is like "what's the ogre doing?" and I'm like "standing there, doubled over, howling and holding it's bloody stump."  And the Fighter's like "Cleric, you go!"  And we switch to the Cleric, who's not far from the ogre, and now he gets to cast fear or entangle or get up and smash the thing on the head (another Hack & Slash) or get the hell out of there (probably not even triggering Defy Danger).  

On a 7-9, the Fighter picks 1 (and can't pick "evade their attack"). If he picks:

• Extra damage: it's like above (9 damage from the fighter, lops its hand off, gets punted away 15 feet) but instead of me turning to the Fighter and saying "what do you do?" I get to make a move. I've just sent the Fighter a ways away, and the Cleric is still nearby, so I'm like "Cleric, you see the Fighter lop the ogre's hand off and get booted, and the thing howls in rage and starts flailing about and it's beady hate-filled eyes set on you and just stomps toward you with it's good hand, clearly trying to grab you and throttle you, what do you do?"
  
  I took the initiative, and I'm making the Cleric react.  Also, I took the spotlight off the Fighter.
• Hold the initiative:  stabs the wrist (doesn't chop it off), gets booted, and ask the Fighter "what do you do?"  "What's it up to?"  "Grabbing it's wrist in pain. What do you do?"  "Cleric, you go!"  And then the Cleric gets to go!  

I think I like this a lot.  The fact that we have to think about the initiative means we have to imagine the situation and the momentum of it. The GM has explicit guidelines on whether to make a soft move after the Hack & Slash exchange.

It does make H&S a little "better" for the PCs, because you can do the extra d6 damage on a 7-9, or on a 10+, at the cost of ceding the initiative. 

And I guess that there would be some cases where the Fighter or whoever is pretty sure they'll drop the one foe on this one hit, so they go all in for extra damage and gleefully give up the initiative. 

But holding the initiative is really, really powerful, and I think that, once players started to see it in action, it'd be something they thought carefully about giving up.

Biggest concern, really, is spotlight hogging, right?  A player H&S's, keeps getting 7+ and keeps holding the initiative, and keeps saying what they do.  But even that isn't such a big deal, because you as the GM can let them declare what they do (without making a move at them) then put a pin in it and switch over to another player in a different part of the fight, and ask what they do.  I think that'd work, but the spotlight hog is definitely the part that bugs me the most.


EDITED TO ADD:  
here's a pretty substantial write-up of this move being used in an example scenario. So if you want a better idea of how it might play out, give it a read.

click to read all about fighting ghouls

Drowning & Falling

From Shel Kahn's gorgeous Orin and the Dead Man's Sword

"Drowning & Falling" is my collection of custom moves for Dungeon World, covering situations that absolutely don't need custom moves, but that come up enough that you might want them.  I've tried to include design notes, relevant examples of GM moves, and variations as much as possible. You don't need these moves, but maybe you'll find them helpful.

It's sort of a perpetual work in progress. Some of these moves have made their way into my other projects, most notably Stonetop and Homebrew World.  I've got vague plans to polish it up and finish it some day, but I wouldn't hold your breath. (Get it?)

You can find it here:

Click me!