How do I fix a cleric spamming Divine Guidance and slowing down the game?
The DW book doesn't limit that move, and there is no roll for the outcome, but I have been tempted to limit spammed moves like this to their levels as a number of uses and recharges when they meditate.
I don't want to break the rules or spirit of the game, but having the cleric constantly ask for Divine Guidance to ask for an answer instead of making character decision, is clogging up the flow, short-circuiting the narration and sucking the fun for the rest of the group.
EDIT: The player chose What Lies Beneath and Gaining Secrets
The specific adventure had the group delving burial catacombs to ensure that a cursed knight was still imprisoned in his secretly hidden tomb. The cleric kept using the move by stating, "I meditate and ask my deity for guidance. If I go/do X will I find the knights tomb" At one point he was approached by a tortured priest who offered a deal to work together, and the cleric used DG to ask, "If we trust this priest, will it work in our favor"
I am a very experienced D&D DM, but am new to DW.
I think their attempt at being concise may be the root of the issue. DOMAIN: What Lies Beneath, PRECEPT = PETITION: Secret Knowledge. PRECEPT is a general rule governing behavior or thought, the word PETITION can be missed because it looks like it's used simply as a "type" of cleric, Petition: Gaining Secrets. Petition is defined as "a request to do something". WHEN YOU PETITION YOUR DEITY ACCORDING TO THE PRECEPT OF YOUR RELIGION. The PRIEST is requesting the deity to grant him secret knowledge or a boon according to the rules of the religion governing the priests behavior. So the idea may be really that Gaining Secrets needs to be thought of as a little bigger than a DW version of Google. A true religious mystery… ??
Best Answer
You've got the petition backwards. Petitions are the things the cleric does to worship, not what the cleric gets from worshipping.
Petitioning by Gaining Secrets means learning a new secret for the cult, not being given one by the god. To petition What Lies Beneath via Gaining Secrets, the cleric needs to learn a secret for What Lies Beneath. This cannot be spammed, because it's limited by what the cleric can personally uncover in the world. One new secret discovered on their own = one new chance to use Divine Guidance to learn something else.
How it works is like this:
What you've been doing instead though is:
… which would be inherently spammable. And that's why the move doesn't work that way.