“Get Unstuck” move for Starforged RPG
A new custom Session Move for the “Ironsworn: Starforged” solo roleplaying game. May work for other Powered by the Apocalypse RPGs as well:
GET UNSTUCK (Session Move)
When you realize you feel stuck, anxious, or not excited about your current narrative situation, and don’t know how to progress with your narrative, mark this place in your session as a highlighted “rewind point”. Make a note to yourself that you can later Take A Break and/or Change Your Fate “rolling back” to the “rewind point”. Then, consider one or more of the approaches below:
- If you are facing a confusing, cloudy, or overwhelming choice, pick from its options the one that feels the most exciting to you, or make a D6 roll with each option assigned the same chance. (If applicable and you like it, include a “both” option as well.) Move on with the result. Interpret the emerging narrative as an answer to a: “What if [roll result]?” question.
- Jump ahead: suspend the narration, then envision your character at a later point in time, in a new situation (either a safe and peaceful haven, or a moment of respite, or middle of the action a short time after, or a brand new inciting incident much later). The resolution of the previously challenging situation is currently unknown and shrouded in mystery, and the character is reluctant to talk about it, or describes it in a way that tends to raise listeners’ eyebrows. You may revisit that part of your character’s history at a later time when you get new inspiration or otherwise feel excited about it, but it is not mandatory — a person’s life is too detailed to ever know everything about it, even if they were fully open about it and had a perfect memory, which rarely happens completely. If the jump ahead is long, review your vows and clocks, suspending any of them by marking as “shrouded in mystery”.
- Reflect on whether you are enjoying the current narrative situation your character is in. If not, envision your character in a brand new situation that would be exciting for you to narrate. Change Your Fate to make your character be in the exciting situation, possibly jumping ahead (see above). If nothing comes to your mind, Ask The Oracle for inspiration, re-rolling until the resulting prompt sparks some idea that feels exciting to you.
- Reflect on whether you are enjoying any of the possible resolutions you think of for the character. If yes, choose the most exciting resolution, or roll amongst all the exciting ones assigning them equal chance, and move on. If you are not enjoying any, or don’t see any resolutions at all, envision your character in a brand new situation that would be exciting for you to narrate. Describe a path taking your character to the exciting situation, possibly jumping ahead (see above) or Changing Your Fate. If nothing comes to your mind, Ask The Oracle for inspiration, re-rolling until the resulting prompt sparks some idea that feels exciting to you.
- Steal from your favourite media: remember a similar situation occurring to a character in a movie, book, story, or other narration that you like, and envision how the resolution employed there could apply to, or inspire, your character’s future.
- Ask for help, advice and/or support on r/ironsworn and Take A Break.
- Take A Break and/or Change Your Fate.
After resolving the situation in some way, take +1 momentum, corresponding to your character emerging victorious from a mysterious invisible entanglement of fate paths.
(If you like the above enough to consider copying it somewhere, I’d be super grateful if you could attribute it to me, as u/akavel, and could do it under the terms of the rather liberal CC BY-SA 4.0 license.)