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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 7141126" data-attributes="member: 6696971">So you have some procedural questions and some GMing ethos questions.  I'm going to use your enumeration with "also" being 3.1)  PBtA systems generally don't condone preemptive, discretionary GM calls of "take -1" or "take +1" as inputs tomoves for when the GM thinks something is difficult or easy.  The game's maths are designed specifically for the bell curve outcome (making the 7-9 predominate), so fiddle with that at your peril.  You will use it in very rare circumstances, but it should be extremely remote.  "Take -1" or "take +1" will be outputs/move results (that then become components of subsequent resolution), but not preemptive, process-sim inputs.  "Take +1" will also occur modify moves in scenarios where players deploy resources (Adventuring Gear, Bags of Books, etc) to do so.What you will do, in its stead is make clear what the fictional positioning is (if its not obvious) before the move is resolved.  Dungeon World handles this informally through conversation, while Blades in the Dark handles it formally through Position adjudication; Controlled (Set up for success - good results will be lovely while bad results will be bearable), Risky (default), Desperate (Serious danger or a reach - good results will be hemmed in a bit while bad results will be brutal).  So take the below example:Dashing Bard:  "I know she is loyal to the innkeep, but I've been emptying drinks into her and wooing the barmaid pretty good all night.  I feel like she is a couple sheets to the wind and hanging on my every word.  I know she has the map of the smuggling route down her bustier.  I'm going to lean in for a kiss and "cop a feel" and see if I can't extract it!GM:  I agree with you.  There are a lot of potential suitors around and a lot of unfriendly eyes...but you're a in private booth and she is definitely in the palm of your hand (thus signaling the equivalent of a Controlled Position in BitD).  Go for it (Defy Danger Cha).So if the player were to somehow get a 6- result, you aren't going to throw a punitive Hard move at them (if you make a Hard move at all...you're certainly in your right to make a Soft move, given the Position).  You aren't going to have her freak out, take offense, slap him and run out screaming.  You aren't going to have an interloper charge in and attack the Bard.  You might have him pull the map out of her bustier, but she is so wasted that she falls out through the curtains of the private booth and onto the taproom floor unconscious.  He has the map but now he has a bunch of parishioners looking at a situation that needs to be explained (which, if subsequent moves and the fiction snowball, might ultimately lead to the attention of the Innkeep who knows she has that map...and confrontation).Make sense?2)  Encounter difficulty is trivially easy to intuit.  a)  The inputs are minimal and mostly first order.  The real dangers are (i) large numbers of dangerous obstacles/enemies, (ii) dangerous tags like Messy, and (iii) bad fictional positioning for the players (the equivalent of Desperate in BitD).  b)  The way multiple attackers on one target works is - Roll highest damage dice of the group > if any of the attackers has piercing n or ignores armor, apply it > +1 damage for every attacker after the first.c)  The fictional positioning + the results of player moves + Monster Tags/Instincts/Moves govern what they do.3)  I haven't really experienced much disagreement on my moves in actual play, but I did have  @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=23935" target="_blank">Nagol</a> feel that I didn't go punitive enough in a play anecdote I relayed in another thread.  So I'm sure there are situations at tables that arise where players feel the GM hasn't done a good enough job of signaling the state of the fiction (and the PC's position in relation to it) when a move was made, such that the output was too strong or too meek.  If Nagol was a player at my table and felt the way he did, then either (a) he is right or (b) we (the group) didn't do a good enough job shoring up the fictional state of things before move was made.I'd just say do your best to be as clear as you can, listen to your players (they certainly might be right, we aren't perfect!), and maybe even deploy Blades Position tech in DW if you feel like you need more formalization of fictional positioning.</blockquote>

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