Too much complications?

[Gwion]

My players often fail their rolls, I come with interesting complications related to their BIT, but we are maybe starting to accumulate too much complications. The players feel buried under complications and now they are afraid to use their traits because they don’t want to add new complications.

I am starting to be tempted to just say yes to some of their intention to avoid adding a new complication, but I don’t like ignoring conflicts and I don’t want to rob them of tests for their advancements.

Maybe my players are just unlucky or bad at using their resources and skills to get what they want. Like in my last session, while being wounded at -2d, a player attempted to make a beginner roll in a scene related to one of his belief. Naturally he failed and complications added up.

What happened:
Ada the witch came back to visit her village. One of her belief is to learn about her past and to discover why she was abandoned as a child. Also after loosing a DoW, she agreed to steal some books hiden in the church for a chiroptera sorceror (a complication). She know that the villager are suspicious about her, but a young acolyte like her and want to bring her back to the faith (a other past complication). She use the acolyte invitation to visit the church as a occasion to look around for the books. She fail her inconspicuous test and the consequence is that the priest surprise her just before serving the mass. He want to talk with her, but only after the mass, folk are getting seated and leaving the church would look very bad since her already suspicious reputation (beeing a lone woman who dont frequent the church) (again a complication). People are already whispering about her presence.

During his sermont the priest talk about the vanishing of children (the work of Koscista Noga, this was already introduced), and the capture of a great wolf by the baron's men (a challenge to one of the other player belief). He say that the great wolf is a creature of God and that he should be released or his kind will come looking for him. But the villager are afraid and angry, the witch Koscista-Noga is stealing their children. The great wolf beeing a ally of the players, Ada stand up and talk in favour of the wolf and ask the villagers to listen to the priest, she say she can help them calm the wolfs (the player was hoping to help the other player with his belief).

So beginner luck of oratory (and she is wounded)… I say if you fail a woman stand up and accuse you of stealing the children, and the villagers vent their anger at you, some people will try to protect you, but it will get ugly. The player fail his roll and during the "riot" fail a speed roll to try to reach to priest to hide behind him to get his protection and Ada is taken by the villagers and kicked out of the church, only the presence of the young acolyte saved her of beeing lynched. It was kind of a let down for the player since he was trying to address one of his belief. After the scene I said, why you dint use one of your traits in the church, like a little crazy and believer in the old faith, it would have been great. The player answered:"but thing alway get complicated, I dont want to complicate them myself or I will never be able to do anything". And I was "yeah but look what you have tried, I was hoping that after the service you would have been able to have a good talk with the priest about your past".


A other (short) example: we said during our set-up that the forest is a old, immense, dark and dangerous forest. You really don't want to get lost in there, people are afraid of it. All the players have belief about peoples or locations deep in the forest. So I often test them with outdoor skills when they try to reach those people or locations to address their belief. They fail many of those tests. I come up with complications related to their BITs or the situation, but it may feel like it clog down the game with complications, I don't know anymore. I like it that the forest is a dangerous place haunted by ancient spirits. But the players fails a lot of test and they get a lot of complications so I am starting of just wanting to say ok you find the place.

[luke]

Yeah, I slide down this rabbit hole as well. As a GM, it's important to strike a balance between complications and just simply moving the story along (and not dwelling on every single failure).

[Paul B]

Yeah. I think it's an important skill to learn the difference between creating a complication every chance you get, versus creating complications that more directly address the point of the game (which is to pursue your Beliefs and endure hardship along the way).

[Rafe]

Yeah, I need to gloss over some failures more. Tough to do in a solo game, but I still need to work on that.

There's also no real reason that something can't be a "simple" failure in that the complication isn't huge or it's restricted just to what's happening: "You fail to be Stealthy and you're noticed." Nothing overly crazy there.

Or do a Gift of Kindness sort of deal: "You pick the lock... but break your lockpick wires off inside the lock. Now it can't be re-locked and someone will notice. But hey... you're inside." I find those kinds of failures are really handy because the situation moves forward, but there's an issue with the success.

[Gwion]

There's also no real reason that something can't be a "simple" failure in that the complication isn't huge or it's restricted just to what's happening: "You fail to be Stealthy and you're noticed." Nothing overly crazy there.
Or do a Gift of Kindness sort of deal: "You pick the lock... but break your lockpick wires off inside the lock. Now it can't be re-locked and someone will notice. But hey... you're inside." I find those kinds of failures are really handy because the situation moves forward, but there's an issue with the success.
Maybe I am thinking too much that every failure must be a complication that the player REALLY dont want to hapen. Sometime I come up with some cool complication, but after I have some doubts and I am like "ho no the player could actually like it and wish to fail, it need to be something more dreadful, more bad, it got to hurt hard, etc".


Yeah. I think it's an important skill to learn the difference between creating a complication every chance you get, versus creating complications that more directly address the point of the game (which is to pursue your Beliefs and endure hardship along the way).
Sometime it hard to identifiy wich one are just complicating the situation and wich one are adressing the point of the game.
I am re-reading your posting about using traits for faillure complication for the point C:

c) If you can't get a Trait involved, then it's probably time to Say Yes to that particular intent.
Maybe I could say yes more often. I think I will go re-read the related discussion on storygames.

[Sam W]

I'm not sure if this is stating the obvious, but for me a big breakthrough occurred when I realized I could effect belongings and property as failure consequences. Suddenly a failed climbing test doesn't have to mean injury or worse, perhaps a weapon is simply lost as they struggle to make it up the cliff. I've also found it helpful to try and sense when things are escalating towards a big deal. That's when the intense, gut wrenching failures should be on the line.

[Gwion]

Suddenly a failed climbing test doesn't have to mean injury or worse, perhaps a weapon is simply lost as they struggle to make it up the cliff.
This make me think, during a storm abord a ship, one of the character climbed on the main mast to bring back a feral rat-catcher child (a fey-blooded kid with orcs claws & fangs) who had escaped and refugied herself on the mast. When he climbed down with the child I asked for climbing test, his character was already wounded and I din't want him to fall and to get hurt (boring) so I decided that the consequence for failing de roll was that the child will help him climb down and would now want to protect him and will never leave him alone. The player liked my complication and nearly wished to fail, he failed and it was fun. But afterward I was wondering If I had done well with choosing a failure consequence that was tempting for the player. I think I need to let myself to use "positive" complications that dont hinder the pacing when I need it. Like for example puting a character in trouble by giving him too much of what he wanted in his intend.

[Rafe]

There's a difference between a good failure complication and one that is good for the character. In your example, it doesn't really look like either, unless he had a Belief around being left alone, keeping a secret or eradicating all Orcs (or something). In fact, if no Belief was at play or anything, no roll was really needed. He goes up and gets the kid.

Again, we have no context to say whether your example is an example of a good failure complication because we don't know why the kid was up there (or if the kid was even relevant to any of the characters), we don't know the character's BITs, and we don't know his intent in going to get the kid from the mast.

[Gwion]

There's a difference between a good failure complication and one that is good for the character.
Good point. :)

In my example the player had a belief about finding from where the kid came from and to bring her there to set her free. We established that fey-blooded people alway find their way back to their fey origin. So during the magical storm, the kid climbed the mast to escape from the sailors and to try to look at the strange island that is attracting her. When he climbed down I wanted the kid to get attached so that she wont want to leave him and to be set free when they will reach the island.

As for asking for tests on the mast, I wanted to see if the character was ready to risk his neck for the child. I think I asked for like 3 different skill tests during this scene. When he climbed down, I asked the climbing test because I though this had to be dangerous because of the storm (and because the player was already dreading himself the consequence of having been crazy enough to go up there). I think I asked too many tests during the mast scene since I was thinking that the situation was very dangerous, but also because I was feeling that the scene was dramatic because of his belief toward the child.

Often the players get in situations that address a belief but that are also dangerous or ripe with obstacles. And so maybe I slip on those obstacles and I ask for tests before we get to directly challenge the belief. So complications related to the situation come up before we get to strongly interact with the belief and complicate things too soon. Or in my scene with the mast, I tested the character uselessly after we had addressed the belief. At least I managed to come up with a complication related to his belief.

[Rafe]

Cool, thanks for the context. Her being up there made sense, as did him going up there to get her. The complication was a good one. It reminds me of a custom in some places where saving someone's life makes you responsible for them. She might have that sentiment towards the character, becoming a kind of oath.

Yeah, sounds like too many tests for that one scene. I'll often distill a bunch of stuff down into "Okay, what's the real or final intent? What's the scene about?" and take the one test that makes it all work, saying yes to get up to that point. Or I link test that bee-atch with one other test, if really relevant. (I like linked tests.)


Or in my scene with the mast, I tested the character uselessly after we had addressed the belief.
Or before. I do the same thing. I'm still getitng used to the idea of going right to the action where something's really at stake or there's a crossroads (or forcing a situation that leads to that). It's funny, because I'm quite a good Dogs In the Vineyard GM and work well with the pacing and saying yes there. I just can't seem to translate that properly to BW. I think part of it is players wanting tests for advancement, so I try to keep parts of a scene relevant and test-worthy.

So yeah... too many tests on my side, too.

[Paul B]

Test-mongering poisons the BW well so bad. Which is weird because advancement is baked right into the game as an incentive. It's like advancement is meant to be only slightly incentivizing.

In AP with my local crew, actually, it is only "slightly incentizing" -- it's usually that last test, the one that's gonna make something pop, that actually drives player behavior. All the tests leading up to that moment are kind of shrugworthy. We also play with my patented Advancement Log, which makes people log tests separately and do their advancement homework when it's not their scene.

[TheWhaleShark]

I've definitely learned that not every roll needs to have a crazy consequence. Sometimes, just failing is bad enough, particularly with Linked tests. In fact, Linked tests are one of my favorite things because they have a built-in consequence (making someone else's life harder) that doesn't necessarily complicate the game any further. It also lets you roll more than one character into a single consequence, instead of always having to come up with and keep track of a bunch of consequences unique to each character.

[noofy]

What Waleshark said.
Plus: rather than striving for the complication that gets the character into a whole lot of trouble, I've been attempting to make the failure consequence create opportunities to advance one of the other players BITs at theexpense of the rolling players Intent. You don't get your intent, but hey, it just so happens to make so-and-so one step closer to their Belief as long as you endure the complication!

This has the rather nifty effect of engendering juicy inter-party conflict via the results, creates opportunities to award artha and also steers the story back into the direction of one of the player's beliefs.