I spent some time tonight thinking about different methods of handling conflict in Ironsworn, influenced by other...

I spent some time tonight thinking about different methods of handling conflict in Ironsworn, influenced by other PbtA games that I've played. I doubt there's anything really new or original here, but it might be helpful for people that haven't played a PbtA game before!

Also, I realized that I'd like to have a place to keep all of my Ironsworn related thoughts in one place, so I created The Ironsworn Diaries to keep my AP reports and musings on rules mods and stuff (it's easier than digging through old G+ posts when I'm trying to find something I'd said :P)

Lastly, do we think there's any market for an Ironsworn Discord group or something? A way for community members to communicate in realtime, set up games and stuff? (I'm just a sucker for discord)

https://ironsworndiaries.blogspot.com/2018/04/snipers-sneak-attacks-handling-conflict.html

Comments

  1. Justin GordonApril 9, 2018 at 8:56 PM

    Thanks for the inspiration Benny Tsai

    ReplyDelete
  2. Shawn TomkinApril 9, 2018 at 9:26 PM

    Hey, Justin Gordon. Thrilled to see this blog, and that's a really insightful and helpful first post. There's a bunch there, in fact, that I could do a better job making more explicit (versus implicit) in the rulebook.

    Using Face Danger and avoiding moves altogether as additional dials for physical conflict is great stuff. I tend to use the Battle move versus Face Danger for this purpose (even against a single opponent), but framing it as Face Danger works great since it's actually sometimes a better fit. You are right -- Enter the Fray and Battle do imply a situation which doesn't necessarily reflect some actions or scenes. I actually took note of this with the tree climbing scene in your actual play.

    Your thoughts on adjusting challenge ranks based on your readiness (and that of your foe) in the fiction is also great advice. I would personally reserve this for circumstances which have some focus in the fiction, ala the example in the book of forming an alliance to reduce the rank of an epic foe, but it's a pretty flexible dial to adjust to your liking. I thought you did a great job in your actual play of talking through the narrative justification for your foe's ranks.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Justin GordonApril 10, 2018 at 5:01 AM

    Shawn Tomkin glad you enjoyed it! The only reason I shy away from Battle for some of these one shot encounters is that a miss on Battle REALLY HURTS, and I feel like it's too much consequence for the situation. In Dungeon World terms I want to follow up a miss with a less hard move.

    In these cases, narrating the enemy as an obstacle rather than a true foe (especially for long range combat where the foe can't really fight back) matches the fiction better without sacrificing narrative tension

    ReplyDelete
  4. Shawn TomkinApril 10, 2018 at 7:48 AM

    Great point, Justin Gordon, and your actual play gave me some pause on this as well.

    How about this for a revision to Face Danger under the "Other Moves in Combat" section?


    https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/LIQy1KIXGdtumXjRwxOSLVmRPXqcfydK1f9Y2gjkwReKbUZYYEgMiYMopfwK0m_2x-SyKMnhrX3JWx_UI6vhds5XlxtWCkqjsSU=s0

    ReplyDelete
  5. Justin GordonApril 10, 2018 at 8:07 AM

    Right on! That's exactly how I use it!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Shawn TomkinApril 10, 2018 at 8:15 AM

    Cool! I really like this addition. It offers another lever for dealing with physical conflict, and I think it's helpful to make it explicit as an option.

    Needs a bit of fine-tuning, but I'll have it in this weekend's update. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment