Expanded Relation Mechanics

I like the rules for Relations in the KULT Corebook. They're pretty awesome. 

Relation moves are fun, and just varied enough to cover a few distinct situations that are likely to come up now and again... yet at the same time simple and unobtrusive enough to stay out of the way when not needed.

There are just a few things that irk me about these rules, as written.

 

For one, +0 Relations seem to be pretty useless. 

I mean, the section about Relation moves in the Corebook even points out that those same moves only apply to Relations of +1 or better - so one could ask: Isn't it kinda pointless to even have the +0 ones in the first place?

So I mostly just ignore these. Any old NPC the characters meet could become a +0 Relation pretty much anytime they wanted them to. It just doesn't do anything, mechanically.

If they want to create truly meaningful Relations, they have to get them at a value of +1 (or better). To this end, I let players use the same rules that allow you to modify an existing Relation value by +/-1 at the end of each session - and just let them turn an established NPC (or a newly invented one, sometimes) into a new Relation at +1, if they want to.

 

However, I do like that the "intensity" of Relations comes in three tiers, going by RAW. So what I did after de-facto "losing" the +0 tier, was that I introduced a new third tier. 

Yes, you guessed it, I have Relations range from +1 to +3 now.

 

This allows me to bring a little bit more granularity to the descriptions of how important someone (or something, someplace, etc.) is to any given PC. The new categories can look roughly something like this:

+0    someone you know, but don't really care too much about either way

+1    a friend, helpful colleague, sympathetic neighbor, former lover, or distant relative

+2    best friend, lover/spouse, close relative (e.g. parent, child, sibling)

+3    soulmate, sole surviving relative, oldest & truest friend since childhood...

 

The Relation moves stay unaffected by these changes, as I find that they work just fine with this new scale.

Yes, that means that you'll have to Keep it Together at -3 in order to bring yourself to actively harm a Soulmate-tier Relation of yours... and that you'll lose 3 Stability if they're hurt or harmed (and 6 Stability if they die)... But that seems fair enough, in fact. 

In return, you are also able to regain up to +3 Stability when having scenes of closeness and affirmation with them.

 

As for Start-of-the-Game considerations, I let players choose either one +2 and two +1 Relations at the start of the game, or one +3 and one +1 Relation. 

The idea behind the latter being that, if there is someone that important to you in your life, you'll have little time, energy, and emotions to spare for other people of minor importance besides this one predominant affection.

 

Negative Relations

Sometimes people have asked me about these. Can you have Relations going below zero? And if so, what would that mean?

Here's how I have handled that in the past.

Note: I don't always use the below mechanics as a general rule in every game, mind you.

But if a player specifically asks for it, and it makes sense in the fiction (and let's face it, The Avenger is the prime suspect here, tbh. It has also sometimes crept up with The Doll or The Broken... and it could theoretically come from anyone...), then I may draw on these ideas.

It's mostly just about doing two things:

Expand the Scale Downwards

This one is easy. Decide whether you want to go all the way down to -3, or to cap it at -2, and inform your players of the new range of values y'all can now play with.

PCs with Disadvantages such as Oath of Vengeance, Nemesis, Rival, Wanted and the like, may express a desire to choose one negative Relation right out the gate, at the very start of the game. If they ask for that, let them.

For anyone else, just introduce NPCs during the course of the game as normal, and watch your players' reactions to these various people. Later, for example when asking the players at the end of every (or some) session(s) whether they'd like to modify any of their existing Relation values, you can also ask (or suggest to) them if they want to gain a newly introduced NPC as a negative Relation.

Perhaps ideally start most of them off as just a -1 Relation, unless that NPC has already ruined the players' plans especially disastrously, committed unspeakable atrocities against their loved ones, or similar horrors.
Normally, however, you can still let them drift their favorite antagonists gradually to the very bottom of the sympathy scale, all in good time.

 

 

Inverted Relation Moves

This one is hardly any more complex - it just requires an inverted reading of the existing Relation Moves.

So, for example, Wish no Harm becomes Wish Them Harm, where you have to Keep it Together in order to hold back from hurting your Relation (or sabotaging their plans etc - the move explicitly points out "indirect harm" as part of its trigger) when you have an opportunity to do it but it would be impolitic to seize it right now. 

On a success with complications (10-14), you may hold back from harming your enemy, but in addition to the normal outcome of the KiT move, you also take a +Relation penalty to any other moves you make during the same scene.

On a failure (-9), in addition to the normal outcome, you cannot control your hostile impulses and must harm your Relation, going about it as viciously as possible.

 

Regain Stability turns into something perhaps better named Insufferable Presence. 

In a scene where you must endure your Relation's proximity and are subjected to their gloating, mockery, spite, or other form of mental and emotional torment, your Stability is decreased by a number of steps equal to the strength of the Relation value.

 

Lose Stability, on the other hand, becomes more like Schadenfreude or Vengeful Glee. 

If a negative Relation of yours is seriously injured, your Stability is improved a number of steps equal to the strength of the Relation value. Double that number if the Relation dies.

(In the above, note that "seriously injured" can, especially depending on the context of your particular campaign or scenario, be fulfilled by things other than purely physical harm. A business rival's ability to antagonize you could be "seriously injured" by you burning down one of their factories... or setting the IRS on their trail under forged pretenses of tax fraud. Your former abuser who wants you back in their filthy clutches could be "seriously injured" by getting the court to finally have that restraining order issued. That lictor which has foolishly kept making enemies of your PCs could be "seriously injured" by the PCs ripping open a sizeable portal to Inferno right there in the city / district / building it was supposed to be guarding against just such intrusions...)

As I said in the beginning, I really like the rules for Relations in K:DL - and I like even more to expand, modify, and twist them around! I hope I have shown you some ways in which this can be done, and given you ideas to use in your own games.

Kult in Space - the Void at the Centre of All Existence

 

 

Science lied to us, wittingly or not, about planetary cores consisting of super-heavy molten minerals and metals. In Truth, as we have found on every single world we visited - and our own Earth as well, once we learned how to look for it - there is a Black Hole at the centre of every planet. 

And unknown to most, fiercely kept from the public, since the knowledge itself heralds nothing but existential dread and raving madness, it is the same Black Hole we find in all of them. 

Meta-scientists have since figured out that that's also where gravity comes from - it is merely a physical manifestation of the inescapable pull of oblivion itself. Pulling us ever downwards, inwards, into Nothingness. 

But, you may ask, what about the Black Holes we first observed? The ones out there in space?
There used to be planets around them, too. Those were the worlds where Achlys has already won.

 

 

 

 

 

Collection of Trigger Warnings for KULT Scenarios

 

In this post, we gather the trigger warnings that apply to many (eventually perhaps all) of the KULT scenarios that are available out there. 

It is intended predominantly as a resource for GMs when contemplating which game of KULT to run next for their group - but could also be consulted by players. Though if you desire to remain spoiler free, do not mark over the blue boxes.

I'll start with a list that user Japicx made over on discord. Slight edits and additions by me.

Let's expand this more!

La Cena
alcoholism, adultery, familial abuse (the entire scenario is about toxic family dynamics) 

Oakwood Heights
mental illness, mass murder, suicide, child endangerment, abusive therapist (one of the pre-made PCs), parental abuse, alcoholism 

The Laraine Estate
masochism, mutilation, sex cult
(this one is rather tame by Kult standards) 

The Island of the Dead
torture, sexual assault (including a sexual assault attempt towards a PC), gore, "cannibal native" tropes, unrelenting violence and death

The Atrocity Exhibition
gore, death and rot
(one of the more surreal scenarios, so the GM has a lot of leeway in what they include or exclude) 

Gallery of Souls
extortion, gore, body horror
(this one is also relatively tame)

It Started And Ended With Screams
bullying, physical and emotional abuse, claustrophobic environments, mental illness, gaslighting, sexual harassment, addiction & substance abuse, corrupt and malicious authority figures, all with regard to underage characters 
(this one is not to be taken lightly. Make sure to have solid safety techniques implemented.)

 

 

 

 

 

Homebrew Move: A More Cinematic Helping & Hindering Variant

 

Freshly ripped from the Vortex, and viciously channeled through the nightmare realms of Togarini and Malkuth, I bring to you:

Helping

When you support or assist another player character’s Move, explain how you do it and roll +Attribute, where the Attribute may or may not be the same that the helped player is using.

15+    Your assistance allows the other PC to increase the result of their roll by one tier (fail → partial → success). If they already rolled a full success, the GM may at her discretion allow them to pick one more question, edge, or option than normal. 

10-14    You face a hard choice of how deeply to invest yourself in helping your fellow PC. Choose 1:

- Increase their result by one tier, but suffer a cost or complication for it.

- Your help remains inefficient and adds nothing to their result.

-9    This went wrong badly. Choose 1:

- Reduce the other character’s result by one tier.

- Hurt yourself or get in trouble in the course of your supporting actions. The GM makes a Move against you.

Hindering

When you try to hamper or prevent another player character’s Move, explain how you do it and roll +Attribute, where the Attribute may or may not be the same that the hindered player is using.

 

15+    Your interference forces the other PC to reduce the result of their roll by one tier (success → partial → fail). If they already rolled a fail result, the GM may at her discretion make a harder Move on the character than she normally would have. 

10-14    You face a hard choice of how deeply to invest yourself in sabotaging your fellow PC. Choose 1:

- Reduce their result by one tier, but suffer a cost or complication for it.

- Your hindering remains inefficient and removes nothing from their result.

-9    This went wrong badly. Choose 1:

- Accidentally improve the other character’s result by one tier.

- Hurt yourself or get in trouble in the course of your interference. The GM makes a Move against you.

Commentary:

Possible Costs and Complications

You can use any of the standard repertoire that seems to fit the particular situation and characters involved. You hurt yourself or someone else, draw unwelcome attention, lose something important, get yourself (or someone else) in a bad spot, destroy something valuable, use up resources, leave traces, etc. 

Reasons for Using This

If you're unhappy with the Corebook move only offering some simple numeric modifiers, and would like more interesting things to happen when the spotlight shines on characters trying to assist (or sabotage) one another - use this. 

It has a greater chance of affecting the outcome of the helped/hindered PC's roll than the Corebook version, so you get a bit more bang for your willingness to use up your spotlight "merely" in support of a fellow PC.

Reasons Not To Use This

If you want to keep things fast-flowing, and not detract attention from elsewhere in a tension-ladden scene - probably don't use this. 

There is a clear caveat to this variant move: It can tend to derail things a bit, as the helping/hindering character is prompted to make choices, weigh consequences against each other, and so on. Additionally, as soon as costs and complications are to be chosen, the GM must take care to maintain a tight reign on the scene's direction and pacing - keep in mind that the most important thing to focus on should still be the acting (not the helping/hindering) PC's move, and that should resolve dominantly in the narration. 

Whatever cost, hurt, unwelcome attention, bad spots, or loss of resources the other person has to deal with as a result of their interference, should probably be handled later - or alternatively very briefly - in order not to muddy the waters of your fiction too much. 

This variant houserule is being playtested in a game I'm in right now, so there may be additional insights to share about it some time down the line. In the meanwhile, comments and opinions are welcome, especially (but not exclusively) if you should feel inclined to playtest it yourselves, definitely let me know your thoughts!

This Paradise Prison: Keep the Wrong Ones Out

this page is unfortunately 

under construction 

blame the lictors!

  

Historical Weapons and Combat Rules for K:DL

Inspired by a new game I'm playing in - GMed by Mr. Kultist, using the rules for K:DL but taking place in a fantasy setting - and sort of as a continuation of this post of mine, I have developed a few guidelines for adapting the tools of violence to different (i.e. earlier) time periods.

In many historical settings, the ratio of melee combat vs. ranged combat is likely to be inversely proportional to how it is in modern times. That is to say, the vast majority of violent conflict will probably be sorted out at close range. Melee aggression (and defense) therefore warrants a little bit of extra attention

To this end I've come up with a few new rules:


A New Range Increment

The reach of weapons is measured by their Distance attribute in K:DL, providing a rule of thumb for how close or far a given weapon or attack could feasibly hit its target. These are not overly granular, and they don't have to be. But for historical combat, one thing seemed to miss for me. 

We're adding a new range increment, called Grapple. It joins the existing ones at the top of the list, i.e. above Arm, Room, etc, and is defined as: 

    ◊ Grapple: When you are close enough to hug, strangle, or bite someone.

The Broken has had it with The Careerist's constant bullshit

Unarmed attacks are by default at Grapple range, while Edged Weapons may variously be judged as attacking at Grapple (e.g. knives, daggers, garrote, claws, teeth, stake) or Arm range (e.g. rapier, florett, javelin)

Closing or Increasing the Distance

In melee combat, the distance between opponents combined with the reach of their weapons may produce an delicate dance of death. Longer weapons are usually at an advantage against shorter ones - unless the enemy manages to maneuver themselves inside of your longer weapon's ideal range, whereupon the advantage goes to them instead.

When you wield a weapon with longer reach than your opponent, the GM may give you +1 on your attacks until the opponent manages to close the distance.

When your opponent wields a weapon with considerably longer reach than your own, the GM may require you to close the distance before you can attack.

If your opponent manages to decrease the distance lower than your weapons ideal reach, the GM may demand that you need to increase the distance before you are able to Engage in Combat again (otherwise you are limited to Avoid Harm).

The Avenger has returned from the other side to reckon with The Veteran for his crimes

To close or increase the distance is an Act under Pressure, with the opponent's weapon as the pressure. Advantages that let you spend Edges or choose Options to evade blows, block attacks, or move past enemies (e.g, Body Awareness, Daredevil, Death Drive, Genius, Ice Cold, Lightning Fast, Martial Arts Expert, Parkour or Streetfighter) can be used to close in or increase the distance in combat instead of having to Act under Pressure.

Using the Existing Weapon Types

The basic weapon types offered in K:DL are solid, and should be used as much as you possibly can.

Edged Weapons include knives, daggers, stilettos, rondel, zai (all Distance: Grapple) as well as rapiers, floretts, spatha, gladius, scimitars, javelins etc. (all Distance: Arm)

Chopping Weapons include meat cleavers, hatchets, axes, falchions, scimitars, kukri, wakizashi/katana, etc. (usually all Distance: Arm)

Crushing Weapons include clubs, maces, hammers, staffs etc. (usually Distance: Arm, though staff or longhammer could be judged Room perhaps?)

Notably, swords are one of the most successful weapon designs across many eras of history, since they are very versatile in their use. From a shortsword to a bastard sword, scimitar to katana, perhaps the most elegant way to represent this is to allow these arms to be used as either edged or chopping weapons.
The sword's wielder can freely decide to use the attack moves provided by either category. 

This would seem to make sense for weapons such as the gladius, spatha, saber, scimitar, falchion, katana, etc.

in case negotiations should turn aggressive...

Adding a Few New Weapon Types

There are certain kinds of armaments that cannot adequately be represented by the existing categories.
Let's add:

Great Weapons

Examples: battle axe, greatsword, warhammer.

Distance: Arm

Attacks:

    ◊ Mighty Swing [3] [Reduce Armor (-1)]

    ◊ Lunging Strike [3] [Distance: Room]

Drawback: Slow [when going against someone with a smaller, more agile weapon, you are at risk of losing the initiative. Upon first engaging such an opponent, you must Act Under Pressure before you can Engage in Combat. On a (-9), you may only Avoid Harm.]

Polearms

Examples: spear, halberd, poleaxe, trident, scythe.

Distance: room

Attacks:

    ◊ Stab / Slash [2]

    ◊ Keep at Bay [-] [Keep an opponent at Distance: Room, if they come closer than that you take +1 to your next move against that target.]

Drawback: Long and Unwieldy [Close confines (narrow corridors, low ceilings, dense vegetation) or opponents inside the weapon’s effective range may require you to Act under Pressure before you can use it efficiently.]



Ranged Weapons

Bow

Distance: room/field

Attacks:

    ◊ Combat shooting [2] [-1 Ammo]

    ◊ Volley of shots [1/3] [hit either a handful of targets standing in a close group for 1 Harm each, or hit one target for 3 Harm] [-3 Ammo]

Ammo: O O O O

Crossbow

Distance: room/field

Attacks:

    ◊ Combat shooting [3]

Ammo: special (see below)

Drawback: Reload [You need to wind up the weapon anew for every new shot. Doing this under time pressure or adverse circumstances (nasty weather, slippery ground underfoot, a fight going on around you) is an Act under Pressure. However, there’s no need to track Ammo for this weapon - as long as you have a fistful of bolts with you, you’re extremely unlikely to run out during any given combat scene.]



Rare and Exotic Weapons

Some Weapons are so rarely found that mastering them requires the user to buy this ability as a separate Advantage. These involve artful and fancy techniques, and are often less useful in actual combat and more utility tools that can do certain things, such as tormenting or capturing an opponent, or knocking them out at a distance.

Examples of such weapons include the whip, lasso, net, bola, boomerang, and discus. In order to be truly proficient with any of these, the Exotic Weapon Skill Advantage needs to be acquired.

Exotic Weapon Skill

You are trained in using one or more rare, exotic, and/or weird weapons. This proficiency allows you special maneuvers or attacks in combat when wielding that particular type of weapon(s).

When acquiring this Advantage, choose two of the moves below, and declare which weapon you can do them with. You can buy this Advantage more than once, every time adding two new moves (and possibly a new weapon) to your repertoire.

◊ Searing pain [2*] [Distance: Room, victim is struck in a very painful spot and is momentarily crippled by agonizing pain. PC victims must Keep it Together or double their wound penalty from this injury.]

◊ Entangle [-] [Distance: Room/Field, victim is immobilized until given some time to free themselves. PC victims may Act under Pressure to get free.]

◊ Disarm [-] [Distance: Room/Field, the victim loses a handheld object. PC victims must Avoid Harm to keep it in hand.]

◊ Knock down [1] [Distance: Room, Field. Victim is knocked to the ground, PC victims must Endure Injury and on anything less than (15+) are struck prone in addition to any other result.]

◊ Knock out [1] [Distance: Room, Field. Victim is knocked unconscious, PC victims must Endure Injury and on a (-9) are struck unconscious.]

◊ Returning projectile [-] [When it doesn’t hit its target, the weapon flies in a wide circle and returns (close to) where it was thrown from.]

◊ … []

◊ … []

(Note: In some cases, it can make sense to make the player choose one of the given Distance values. For example, someone using a whip might Disarm or Entangle an opponent at Distance: Room only, while someone with a bola could conceivably do the same things at Distance: Field.)


DEFENSIVE GEAR

PCs who wear armor receive a positive modifier to their Endure Injury roll. NPCs who wear armor subtract their armor rating from the amount of Harm they take each time it applies.

Armor    Rating      Examples

Light           +1       padded vest, gambeson, leather, hide, a choice few metal bits 
                               (e.g. pauldrons / knee caps / bracers / helmet…)

Medium      +2       chainmail, chestplate + bracers, reinforced leather + metal bits, 
                               boiled leather cuirass, scale mail…

Heavy         +3       plate armor, heavy chain + metal bits

pictured: medium armor, light armor, large shields, helmets

Shields 

Hybrid objects that act partly like defensive weapons and partly like passive armor, shields are a mainstay of warfare throughout virtually all epochs and cultures. 
All of them convey a certain bonus to attempts to Avoid Harm, and allow at least one (in some cases several) maneuvers to be executed with them.

Buckler             +1 Avoid Harm                      shield bash [1]

Small shield     +2 Avoid Harm                      shield bash [2], tackle [1], block open & strike [*]

Large shield     +2 Avoid Harm, +1 Armor     shield bash [2], tackle [1], block open & strike [*]

Tower shield     +3 Avoid Harm, +2 Armor     tackle [2]


Shield maneuvers

Shield bash [x] 

You can use your shield as a Crushing Weapon of the given [Harm] value, albeit at a -1 to Engage in Combat due to its comparatively bad ergonomics for that purpose.

Tackle [x] [Distance: Arm, victim is pushed up to Distance: Room and/or knocked over] 

is an attack that combines properties of the Shift and Knock Down attacks.

When successfully (10+) using your shield to shove and push an opponent in this way [Engage in Combat], you may choose to either move them up to Distance: Room, or to then knock them down. 

On a full success (15+) you may choose both of these options. 
PC victims can Avoid Harm to prevent being shoved and suffering the attack's Harm in the first place, or failing that, may Endure Injury against getting knocked down.

Block open & strike [*]
When you Avoid Harm with a (15+), you can use your shield to not only catch the blow but also sweep or push the opponent's weapon off to the side in the same movement, opening their defense for your next strike. Take +1 to your next attempt to Engage in Combat.

Note on Armor and Shields: With these rules mods, it is possible for well-protected NPCs to accrue up to 3, 4, or even 5 Armor. At the same time however, The greatest damage you can inflict with weapons is still around 3 Harm, mostly (not counting certain Advantages).

For example, even a greatsword or warhammer (with its -1 to armor) may be mathematically unable to hurt an especially heavily armored knight with a large shield. And regular melee weapons may seem ineffective even against someone in leather & shield, or an opponent simply wearing chainmail.

Keep in mind these rules are merely very rough abstractions, however. They work well enough where they give PCs the bonus to their Endure Injury rolls. Against NPCs on the other hand, feel free to use the same Armor values, but:

• Allow PCs to creatively use maneuvers, tactics, and stunts to circumvent (or reduce) the effectiveness of an opponent’s armor. The AuP, OaS, IO, and RaP Basic Moves can all conceivably be used to detect and create openings for injuring someone more efficiently than what the sheer numbers would have to say about it.

• Various Advantages, both of the kind that focus on acrobatics / mobility, and those dealing with manipulating / tricking someone, may also be allowed to reduce the efficiency of armor by a point or two.

• Allow PCs to always inflict at least 1 Harm on a (15+), regardless of the victim’s Armor rating. Or alternatively, modify the (15+) result of EiC to say:

“You inflict your weapon’s Harm +1 on your opponent, and avoid counterattacks”.

The above are three quick and easy to implement mods. 

Here are two more things you could hack in. They are a little more involved, but you and your players might appreciate the additional options they offer:

• Add new close combat Advantages, or modify existing ones, to offer Edges which grant +1 Harm, -1 Armor, ignore armor, ignore shield, or similar boons. The +/-armor game is not an aspect of the rules that K:DL focuses a whole lot upon, but attention to such options may be increased in a more historically-minded hack of its ruleset.

• Give each armor type a certain weakness, for smart and resourceful PCs to exploit. For example, soft armor (i.e. fabric-, hide-, or leather-based) is weak against cuts… chainmail and scale mail are weak against stabbing attacks… solid armor (i.e. plates, whether of metal, boiled leather, bone etc.) is weak against crushing weapons…

          Against attacks that exploit the armor’s weakness, its value is reduced to [1], except if it

          was already that, then it goes to [0].

GM Hyperfocus: The Investigate Basic Move

The Investigate Basic Move is a bit of a tricky beast. It's something of an odd one out amongst the other Basic Moves, and while it may not be immediately apparent from reading it on paper at first, I've seen several GMs stumble over its practical implementation in-game. Why is that?

The biggest reason I have determined is that it uses a slightly altered process for handling how the information that this move yields is given out, compared to other, more widely familiar, PbtA-based "information gain" moves.

I too was thrown off by it at first. In fact I even resolved to hack it to something different for my own personal games... much like I did with Observe a Situation, over here... but I have since figured out how (I believe) it is actually intended to be used. 

And as it turns out, I find it is quite good when played RAW like that. Trust me, it will all make sense once you follow me all the way down this rabbit hole! 

But let's start at the beginning. 

In the following I'll render some quotes from people I've seen wondering about this move that I came across on discord, reddit, facebook, or other places. These 'quotes' are not 100% faithful, in fact I'm gleefully twisting and butchering them to make them fit my purpose here. But they're all based on stuff I've really seen or heard asked.

The move does seem really narrow in scope - should a Basic Move even be dealing with something as specific as criminal investigations, or is that just bad design by the K:DL developers?

The name might be a tad misleading, but this move is not only for crime scene investigation and other police procedures. In fact there is a whole separate that Advantage focuses on this particular application of it:

unsurprisingly, it's called Crime Scene Investigator (check it out on p.110) 

However, Investigate can be used equally well for academic research, ear-to-the-streets information gathering, solving logical or mathematical riddles, figuring out how to open cursed puzzle cubes, jury-rigging ancient alien machines into functionality, finding the hidden visual code in an antique painting, or otherwise examining puzzles and mysteries of all sorts. Like all good Basic Moves in PbtA, it is broadly applicable and highly flexible in its uses.

The images I have added to the rest of this article are intended to show just some of the ways this move could come into play. You can scroll down to browse them real quick, to get an idea of its considerable spectrum.

My text however will discuss the move only in the most general terms, the naked mechanics as it were. I have indulged in lengthy example-giving in other posts of mine on here, but for this one I decided that would certainly exceed the frame of this piece. I trust you to fill in the detailed applications in various concrete situations, as needed. 

Let's move on to our next puzzlement:

The Clues

Okay, but so... what's the point in rolling for this move, in the first place? It says the player gets all the clues anyways. Doesn't this kinda beat the idea of "playing to find out"?

Understandable first impression - but read more closely: It doesn't actually say that! 

What it does in fact say: "On a success, the player gets all direct leads". Slight difference, you might think, but a meaningful one nonetheless.

"On a success" here means on 10+. So either a partial success or a full success will yield all relevant direct leads, and by "relevant leads" it means 'the sort of stuff needed to avoid plot-bottlenecks.'

(And by "plot-bottlenecks", I mean the kind of situation where the whole scenario stalls because if you fail to [pick this one lock / solve this one riddle / interrogate this one person], the PCs are stuck and have no way left to advance. It goes without saying you should almost never use these in your scenario designs - but that's perhaps more the stuff of another article altogether.)

So taking this into account, you can - and should - still play to find out!

A fail result (-9), on the other hand, may or may not yield the required leads to continue investigating (GM's discretion), and will additionally not allow you to ask any of the questions listed in the move. (We'll get to those in a moment.)

So here the GM is free to either let a plot bottleneck arise, i.e. let you hit a dead end to your research, inquiries, or puzzling...

...or the GM could gracefully let you find a single clue (or however many s/he deems appropriate / necessary / whatever). But if you do, it'll most likely happen at a cost or complication, as the move's fail result specifies.

The Questions

These seemed extremely weird to me at first glance. They're strongly unlike the list of questions you get for ostensibly similar moves like Read a Person or Read a Situation, and to be honest felt eminently useless to me in most cases I could actually imagine.

I mean, moves that follow the "Question Move" pattern are very well established throughout most - if not all - games that are based on PbtA rulesets - so it would seem only reasonable to assume that Investigate would follow a similar structure, right?  

Wrong.

It does its whole own thing with the questions instead. 

And it does tend to confuse people familiar with PbtA games especially, since it's such an unexpected deviation. See, the questions here aren't the main thing that the move is concerned with. They're not really what it consists of in the same ways as RaP and Oas do. That main thing is in fact the move's clue/lead management, as discussed above.

The questions, then, are just a bonus - very much in the sense of like a hidden bonus level in a video game, you could say. They unlock extra content, in this case in the form of additional info about the investigated mystery at hand. 

Importance-wise, they take the place of that +1 when acting upon the answers in the OaS move. A nice carry-on for the player to cherish, but not the main purpose of the move in question.

Absolutio in Veritas: The Divine Path to the Truth

So here's my take on what the GM should be doing when this move is invoked:

Unfortunately the corebook text is a bit, uhm... bad at communicating this. I understand that they went for brevity over detailed explication in their writing of the moves themselves. Yet without some explanatory text to elaborate on the underlying design ideas, I have to admit it took me a while to puzzle it out. 

I'll try to unravel (my take on) it for you. Here's a step-by-step of things happening chronologically in a game:

0.    [Fiction happens, fiction happens, fiction happens...]

1.    [a character does something that triggers the Investigate move]

2.    Have the player roll +Reason, and check the result.

3.    Do not ask the player what questions they want to ask!

       Instead,

on (10+) give them at least one direct lead (or maybe more than one) that is useful for their continued research / the plot to progress.

on (-9) perhaps do the above, but add a complication or cost. Or let them fail, and find nothing.
Additionally, in both cases, you can make a GM Move.

4.    After revealing any and all clues you're gonna reveal,
       now ask the player about which question(s) they want to ask.

The three questions neatly cater to three basic impulses a player might have at this time:

- Shit, I'm gonna need more intel than that!

- Uuh... what does my intuition say about all this?

- Uuh... what does my logic say about all this?

5.    If they ask it, tell them. Honestly and without too much obfuscation.

6.    ...then ask them "What Do You Do?"

7.    [resume fiction happening, leading to more fiction happening, moves being triggered, the conversation moving forward...]

You see, the questions only make sense when building on the revealed leads, so you have to move asking them to after the clues are already revealed. Otherwise, you'll find yourself tempted to answer the questions in ways that don't really fit their scope, and when you then try to hand out "additional" direct leads afterwards, they runs a high risk of feeling weird and oddly uncalled for.

Therefore, doing it the way I described above makes, in my experience, for a much smoother flow of narrating the move's results and leading the conversation back into the general fiction afterwards.

As a general guideline, I try to make the information flow conform roughly to this:

"Here's what you find. Here's what you think about it. Now what do you do with that?"

Here's a final thought: 

If you write your own scenarios, you can design investigative scenes (or, y'know, potentially investigative scenes) from the ground up with these processes and questions in mind!

Some guidelines, perhaps:

> What essential, necessary, important, direct leads are here to be found?

> What additional sources of knowledge or insight could help make a more complete picture than what is here alone? Where else could you look, who else could you ask, what other approach could you try?

> What emotional or intuitive vibe does it give off? What about it feels weird, disturbing, scary, or enticing?

> What problems or hiccups would a viewpoint of rational analysis run into when examining this? What about it doesn't add up, seems self-contradicting, irrational, or plain impossible?

If you do this, you will never be caught unprepared when your players start asking you for clues and leads and answers to those additional questions. 

You'll already have thought them up beforehand and can now simply dole them out as needed, without the system becoming awkwardly at odds with the organically unfolding fiction.

I think that's it. This is my wisdom on the Investigate move.

Now you've seen the Truth. Now you know what we must do! 

I told you it would all make sense once you followed me all the way down here!