Burglars attract locked doors - how character builds shape the game

Burglars want to burgle

My group and I have been playing some Fellowship recently. One of our characters was the Heir, a noble face of the group. Usually our GM plays most NPCs very respectfully since we don't like being mean to one another. However, when the Heir took a Move called "How Dare You", things had to change.

How Dare You lets the Hair do some cool stuff, but in order to trigger the Move, they have to be insulted to their face. This now meant that in order to facilitate the player being able to use their cool new Move, the GM had to have the NPCs insult them semi-regularly, not to be mean, but to let them use How Dare You and shine when they do it. This is a simple example of how character classes, builds and so on should shape the game.

Letting your players shine

One advice I don't see often brought up in books is the idea that you should help your players shine by tailoring the adventure to what their characters are good at. Sure, you hear it in the large sense of having player-driven games, but less so for sprinkling something for the characters to ace.

When you have a burglar character in your game, you want to give them locked doors to unlock more often than if you had a party without a burglar. If you have a character that invested heavily in linguistics, you want languages to be an important part of the game. If you have an Heir that has some cool Moves for when they get insulted, you want to insult them.

Introducing new struggles

Just as some powers may introduce cool new ways for a character to shine, there are also character builds that may introduce new struggles into the game. A Fellowship Remnant can take the Move Boogeyman that's all about being a horror to anyone that's not in the light:

When a player takes that Move, they essentially communicate to the GM that light is now an important part of the game, and whether some encounter takes place at day or night can make a large amount of difference to them. This Move can be rather powerful, so there may be some push and pull between the GM and the Remnant as to whether the situation favours them or not, and how they can manipulate the environment to their advantage.

Similarly, the Heir may take Parry! Counter! Thrust!, which will make them really strong at one on one melee duels:

Now the player will want to engage in more duels, while the GM will want to push against that a bit to make it harder for them to get into duels than if they didn't have that Move so as not to make things too easy.

Of course, you do want Boogeyman and Parry! Counter! Thrust! to trigger every now and then to once again let the players shine, but because they are so strong you don't want them to be a default for every encounter, hence why the GM ought to do some pushback against them every now and then for the players to get their way.

Being mindful of their foibles

Just as various characters have their strong suites, they also have their foibles one should be mindful of when GMing. For example, if you want to stump Fellowship's Swamp Ogres, challenge them with fire:

Other foibles and weaknesses might be less explicit - maybe the party doesn't have a burglar, so presenting them with a locked door is enough to create an issue for them. Maybe a character doesn't have any strengths when it comes to talking with people, so you might want to Put Them On The Spot in some situation where they have to talk their way out of a situation.

Of course, you don't want to do this all the time. Being challenged with a weakness should be a way for the character to shine or maybe for someone else to step in and take the spotlight, it shouldn't be an excuse to do some arms race.

Keeping it all in mind

One of our takeaways from realising the above concepts in our Fellowship games was that it would be useful for the GM to have a handy spreadsheet listing everything the players need to shine, what struggles they are engaging in, as well as how to stump them as needed.

Of course some idealised version of a GM would always remember such things, but we are all human and everyone needs help sometimes managing their mental loads with handy references.

Conclusions

Keep in mind (or on a reference sheet) ways various characters in your games want to shine, what struggles they bring with them to the game, and how to stump a given character as needed. Refer to those things often, give your players opportunities and challenge them as appropriate to get the most out of the game you're playing.