The Burglary Move in Monster of the Week

One of the playbooks in the roleplaying game Monster of the Week is The Crooked, a former criminal that now uses their larcenous abilities to battle supernatural monsters. I recently played The Crooked in a run of the game GM'd by Blake Ryan under the auspices of the Gauntlet online roleplaying community.

As my character's signature criminal move I chose Burglary, here's the move text:

Burglar. When you break into a secure location, roll +Sharp. On a 10+ pick three, on a 7-9 pick two:

• You get in undetected
• You get out undetected
• You don’t leave a mess
• You find what you were after

This came up in the game when we broke into a house looking for clues about the were creature we'd tracked down there. The problem I hit was that although you make the move when you first break into the house, you pick things that affect future events like getting out undetected. How do you reconcile that with playing through or describing the burglary itself?

This move is great if you want to resolve the whole scene with one roll and it's done, but in the game we wanted to play through the burglary and have the character react to what he found. Fortunately PBTA games have a mechanic that allows that - hold. Here's a reformulation of the move in this way:

Burglar. When you break or slip into somewhere you’re not supposed to be, roll+Sharp. On a 10+ hold 3, on a 7-9 hold 2. During the intrusion you may spend your hold 1-for-1 to do the following without having to make another move:

• Get in clean.

• Avoid or disable a trap.

• Avoid detection until danger passes.

• Have exactly the right tools or equipment.

• Clear up evidence of the intrusion.

• Get out and clear.

I had a chance to test this out when I ran a fantasy PBTA game I'm working on and it worked really well.