Looking for advice on how to handle a performance scene

So it shouldn’t be all that surprising that it may, on the surface level, be “challenging” to progress with this “Obstacle.” It’s a pretty atypical obstacle for what Dungeon World anticipates. Look at the Basic and Special Moves of the game and you’ll see that DW anticipates frequent procedures involving:

• Fighting things
• Learning new information
• Manipulating people for personal gain
• Earn and spend loot

That said, just because it isn’t covered by a Basic Move doesn’t mean you can’t “do it.” It just means there probably won’t be many Player Facing Rolls to mechanically support their fictional approach (which is fine!). The most likely mechanic they will trigger may be Defy Danger (although, Discern Realities, Spout Lore, and Parley are all also equally possible). *Be very discerning about what Move they are triggering! If it ain’t Dangerous- it ain’t Defy Danger. If their manipulative approach would just do the thing without question- it ain’t Parley. “Looking around” isn’t Discern Realities.

So, given that many of their approaches may not trigger many Player Facing Moves, it is highly probable that a lot of stuff will be resolved in the fiction by itself:

• They’ll do a thing
• Follow the fiction to determine A) If a mechanic is needed, B) If a mechanic is needed, which specific mechanic, and C) How that mechanic changes the fiction and keeps the Conversation at the Table Flowing
• If there is a Player Facing Mechanic: Resolve It and they look to you to see what happens next, so you make a GM Move and we press forward
• If there isn’t a Player Facing Move, they still look to you to see what happens next, so you make a GM Move and we move forward

Personally, with the information given, I can’t see this being a particularly “problematic” Obstacle, but I’ll at least try to add the fantastical to it... Basically, I’ll Provide Opportunities, With or Without a Cost, something like:

• Okay, so the Children won’t be satisfied unless they get to play Hide and Seek a few miles away near the Lake of Temptation or they get to watch someone Wrestle with Uncle Dern, who happens to be the Top Pugilist in the known land. Surely to make them doubly happy, accomplishing both would net you a pretty payment. Of course the former is incredibly risky- as drowned and dead children in a Hexed Lake will probably net you all being attacked on sight. What’ll it be?

If I wanted to be a little more open ending with this party, and somehow this Obstacle is notably complex (it’ll take great effort to please the Crowd), I’ll start a Scene Clock (I stopped using Fronts a long time ago). This means that I have mostly settled on this Obstacle being too Complex to Resolve in a Move or two for this Scene. I can’t see this Obstacle being any more than a Scene- I’m not anticipating it being a Session Clock (which means the Obstacle is too complex to resolve in a Scene or two).

Being a Scene Clock, I’ll assume these people are Hard to Please, so I’ll give it a Magnitude of 4 Segments. It’ll take 4 Significant Things during this Scene in order to Please the Crowd. It may be getting a 7+ on a Significant Move or just a Fictionally Relevant Approach- but even a 6- can warrant ticking the Clock in the right circumstances. Basically anything that would move towards significantly pleasing the crowd nets a Tick on the Clock.

To add some pressure, I’ll Race this Clock with a Mounting Problem. Again, using a Scene Clock here means that this Mounting Problem won’t just happen in a Move or two. I’ll call this “Crowd’s Impatience” and we’ll give it 3 Segments. 3 Significant Slip-Ups (Maybe a 9- on a Move, a Fictionally Significant Flub, maybe even a 10+... it all depends) and the Crowd drives them away. Bottom Line: anything that would move towards significantly pissing off the crowd nets a Tick on the Clock.

Remember that a PC doesn’t just do something and “Gets a Tick on the Clock.” The Clock isn’t the Obstacle: the Crowd is. The Clock is a visual aid to denote transparency of progress on a Complex Obstacle or Mounting Problem. Instead, focus on what happened in the Fiction and let that Fictional Moment be represented by a Tick on the Clock:

• So who woulda thought there would be a Succubus as part of the Family? Anyway, since you opted to ignore their temptations- which didn’t really require any dice rolls (yet)- and focus on Juggling to please the kiddos, let’s represent that with a Tick on the Pleased Crowd Clock, eh? However, the Crowd wants to up the ante and they want something riskier and the Succubus raises a hand and steps forward and requests that you juggle Molotov Cocktails, what do you do?

The other option for this whole shebang is maybe a Custom Move to determine how well you please the Crowd (I suck with Custom Moves, this is the best I can come up with):

When you set to work to please the Crowd, roll+

• 1 if you were able to keep the kids entertained and out of the adult’s hair
• 1 if you kept the Adults entertained and/ or otherwise inebriated
• 1 if you pleased the head of the Household
• -1 if you angered the head of the Household
• -1 if you bored the kids
• -1 if you annoyed the Adults

On a hit (7+), you pleased the Crowd and earn your payment. On a 10+, also choose one:

• You get paid double
• The Family Owes you a Favor
• Some members of the family join you as Followers. One per PC.

That would be my 2 Cents, hope that all makes sense and hope that helps.

Ooh, why not a custom move?

The advantage of PbtA/Dungeon World over D&D 5E imo is the narrative flexibility you get with moves.

You could customise moves for different roles in the performance troupe.

I once ran a cooking competition in Dungeon World with bespoke moves for the sous chef, the maitre'd, the fry-cook etc, assigning different roles to each key attribute.

Off the top of my head:

Juggler: When you engage in high-stakes juggling with dangerous objects, roll+Dex.

On a 10+, pick 3. On a 7-9, pick 2.

- You impress an important person

- You don't hurt yourself in the process

- You wow the crowd

Maybe it would help to express the audience as an adventure front?

I think this is a fantastic idea. Right now, everything seems rather vague. There are audience members who want things and if they don't keep them happy, they'll "move to put the players in a bind or move the performance in their preferred direction." There's very little meat on that bone for anyone to help you. But, Create 2-3 dangers, Choose an impending doom for each danger, add a few grim portents and then Write 1–3 stakes questions...now you're cooking with gas.

Then just make GM moves until the players do something that triggers a move, likely a defy danger, but Lore and Discern Realities should be bouncing around all over the place too. Some Parley for good measure.

Personally, I would totally dive deep into the narrative and have the crowd respond based on the players' narrations. I would make the players work fornthier accolades. If (big IF) there were any parts of the performance that might be dangerous, then Defy Danger.

I think you might be answering your own question with your mention of narrative depth. By which I mean - it's not narratively interesting to go "I try to walk the tightrope" (roll) "you succeed!", it's in setting stakes for what walking the tightrope means. That's the attitudes of spectators, and how the performers are going to use their skills to affect them.

Do they know which are the key people? maybe you need to discern realities on the crowd, spot the ones who'll applaud most, the notable with the influential laughter. What do you do, Dancer, to hold the eye of the Baroness' advisor? what do you risk? What do you do, Juggler, when the bored bodyguard tosses his dagger into your cascade of clubs? What difficult trick have you promised to perform to secure this gig?

I think you'd struggle with a front, in that there isn't a sense of the doom that would happen if the PCs didn't intervene. I'm not sure I'd measure it, I'd trust the feel of the narrative -- but if you want to, you could maybe use an Apocalypse World clock. Have the audience start at 6 (tepid) and for every impressive thing done you get to move up toward 12 (impressed) - and for every blunder slip back toward 0 (not getting paid, you impostors).

There's a Leverage episode where they try to use a magic performance to achieve other narrative elements; might be worth finding that and stealing its tropes.

edited to add - oh look a bunch of people already answered since I loaded the page. I like that there's a lot here that I seem to be echoing!

The way I've taken to handling the Wizard's ritual by letting the Wizard walk me through the intended ritual before I state the conditions, and then only if I think it's still a bit weaksauce, I throw in some additional conditions. When the ritual starts, I ask the Wizard to "emcee."

While it's true that the Ritual move itself requires no rolls, constituent components might require some Cast A Spell ("You'll need help from Crassus the Cleric to Bless the instruments") or Defy Danger ("The floor shakes as the warding circle opens into the ground. As a terrifying demon rises amidst fumes of brimstone, you hear a faint splash behind you. A bottle has tipped over on the table, spilling its contents, dripping onto the floor. The liquid washes across the stone floor towards the circle. If it touches the runes, the circle will be broken! What Do You Do?")

The performance is not unlike a ritual. Perhaps the party could walk you through it? If you want some dice rolling, they can always Defy Danger of ruining the performance at a crucial moment.

I also really like u/Imnoclue's suggestion of representing the various audience members/factions as fronts. That cuts down on the "blank page anxiety."

Here's an idea for a custom move that might help.

Performing Arts

When you put on a show, describe what you do and roll:

• If you use your acrobatic skills, +DEX
• If you rely on your muscles, +STR
• If you're creative, +INT

[This might be extended with options for other stats but I can't think of how they would be relevant]

On a 10+, you really impress a member of the crowd, take +1 forward against them. You also smoothly transition into your next move, take +1 forward to Performing Arts if you use it again immediately.

On a 7-9, you still impress someone, but just at the end you stumble or make a mistake. Choose one:

• You put yourself in a dangerous situation
• You mess up your transition into your next move, take -1 forward to Performing Arts (this option is available only if you are about to use Performing Arts again)

EDIT: on a miss (6-), you can obviously do any GM move as usual, but I have two particular suggestions:

1. Put them in a dangerous situation (obviously), if what they are doing is already a little dangerous this should be easy.
2. Make someone they had previously impressed no longer impressed due to their screw up. Then they'll have to try to impress them again (you can think of this as using up their resources).

Also, you could have it so that particular members of the crowd particularly like a certain move/kind of move. So to impress the Governor (for example), he might particularly like stuff that shows off strength, so you would need to do a feat of strength to impress him.

Sounds like Custom Moves would be good here, ideally a move for each stat they might roll.

Making the Audience a Front (or more precisely, a Danger) seems like a very good idea. You could pick the closest Danger type, then re-write the GM Moves for that Danger to better reflect what the audience might do (e.g. instead of "Attack from a distance", you might write "Throw rotten vegetables at the performers").

Here's a custom social move I wrote to enhance the social parts of DW beyond what Parlay can do. The goal was to give them social options when they don't have "leverage" (which is required for Parlay).
There are also corresponding INT and CHA custom social moves, but they don't apply so well to performing.

When you use rhetoric and presentation to evoke emotion in an NPC, state the emotion and roll+Wis.
Emotions: Anger, Fear, Envy, Desire, Sadness, Shame, Joy, Excitement, Sympathy, Satisfaction, Calm, Disinterest, or some other specific emotion.
On a 10+, they feel what you intended and will act on those feelings.
On a 7–9, they feel it, but choose one:

• The feeling is fleeting

• The intensity is modest
• They will act impulsively or indiscriminately
• It will take them a long time to act
• After they act, they will realize you manipulated them

This would work well with your "define key NPCs in the audience so that they are invoking responses in the audience. Again, this won't "plug and play" for your exact situation, but it's a starting point for thinking about custom social moves.

Also: very cool idea!

Something similar came up in one of our DW Campaigns and it was decided to not it tie it down to any rolls. The GM "ranked it" based on how much it appealed to that specific audience. Granted, much of it was a front for what happened next.

Fun fact: It took our GM 5 minutes to figure out that we were acting out Star Wars

At first glance, this doesn’t seem to need a roll, since they are performers doing what they have been trained to do, so we need to add a twist. Here are some ideas that jump to mind.

(1) Add complications beforehand. The characters need to go out of their way to find out what the birthday boy (or his parents) will enjoy, or to obtain Elvish spinning daggers to juggle, or to convince someone important (to them? to the birthday boy?) to attend. (‘Elvish spinning daggers’ has a nice ring to it ... I think I may introduce them to my own game!)

(2) Set it up so that one or more performers need to hold the audience’s attention while the rest are negotiating with one of the birthday boy’s relatives, who is otherwise inaccessible.

(3) Put them in a position where they will have to perform something that is outside their usual repertoire. The picture I have in my head is of asking a card-magician to saw his assistant in half. He knows it can be done ... what he doesn’t know is whether he can do it.

(4) I second the others’ suggestions about custom moves, especially since it sounds like the characters will be performing regularly.

Hopefully there’s something amid all that that is useful to you!

Huh, I would have handled the situation that way, that as this is a childrens birthday party, the children are all bored by those peak performances of athlethism and demand something comedical. But the players have to find that out and it ends in a cake throwing situation or other improvised clowning.

Which would then lead to a bloodbath in the long term, but I know how to gently escalate such groups