A Hit and a Miss

I have a huge-mongous family vacation coming up at the North Carolina shore. Last week, I took a peek at the weather forecast and was horrified to see wall to wall rain starting on the day that we got there, and ending on the day that we leave.

Not to be deterred, and since my own, and my middle sister's sub-families are all gamers, I figured this was merely an opportunity in disguise, and doubled the number of games I was bringing. In addition, I made a quick run out to my favorite game store to see if there was anything new and noteworthy I wanted to grab.

Amidst the purchases I made that day, there were two new books that I had heard about (one here on Enworld, and one at a party a few weeks earlier).

The first was Dogs in the Vineyard published by Lumpley Games. I had seen it mentioned here, easily a hundred million times, but have somehow over the last decade, never actually heard what the game was about. Up until this past weekend, I had assumed that it was about a bunch of dogs living in a vineyard. My brain had even gone so far as to have imagined an actual cover for the game which involved a stylized image of Aesop's fox caught mid-leap, attempting to snatch up mouthful of grapes. What I didn't realize, was that the game was actually about a cadre of gunslinger paladins wandering the Wild West, and that I would love it to the teeny tiniest of pieces. The setting is awesome, the mechanics look like they're going to by insanely fun, and the kind of conflict and story telling it encourages is exactly what I like.

The second was a book called Apocalypse World (also published by Lumpley) which as I mentioned earlier, had been talked about in passing at a party where we were discussing indy RPGS we had never had a chance to play. At first glance, Apocalypse World reminded me of a sort of Fetish Ball meets Road Warrior kind of game. Mechanically, I found it to be interesting till I got to the following paragraph:


I read the paragraph again looking for the joke. Then realized the laugh must be in the next paragraph. When I couldn't find it there I read the first paragraph again, then flipped ahead to the character classes.

In my defense, I am honestly not a prude. But finding out 20 some odd pages into the book that it was basically a game of Swingers Club set against a post apocalyptic backdrop, especially after being so blown away by Dogs, was kind of a let down.

I know that the mechanics from Apocalypse World are used in a couple of other games. Has anyone here played any of these? Do they all have that run of "these are the wacky tantric super powers we use on each other while our characters are sleeping with each other" mechanics built into them? Am I that far off base on this?

Sorry, can't help. I haven't played those. Chess would be on my list on the rainy day.

Dungeon World is a great game. I've played it for several weeks now, online mostly. It does NOT have the "feature" you mentioned, and no one in the DW gooogle+ forum has so much as hinted at such behavior in their games; I think it must be an Apocalypse World only thing. It certainly would kill the game dead for me, if I'd been at all interested in it to begin with!

I honestly had a very similar problem with Apocalypse World (AW). I loved Dogs but playing only with a group of straight dudes I balked at the concept of sex explicitly in the game at first (as well as I wasn't interest in post apocalyptic games).

But then I discovered and loved Dungeon World (DW) which doesn't have any of these special sex moves and finally decided to get and play AW. That's when I discovered AW was not a 'Swingers Club' type game.

When you see a good movie there is tension. That tension could be built on action, violence or it could be social. Dogs in the Vineyard is a game for adults, because it is really about finding the limit of what a character can do. There is action and violence tension, but as you play it more it you discover it becomes a game of pushing limits - so social tension. Will your character draw a gun on a pregnant evil sorcerer? Their own Aunt? A child possessed? This makes a truly amazing and challenging game, but if you take the game to these places you find it is designed and intended as a game for adults.

One of the most important social tensions is love triangles. Dogs doesn't have this baked in for the PCs, but it could be an NPC tension. AW is also a game designed for adults (check the rating at the front), so instead of shying away from a great place for tension, AW puts it in the game. But because it is a true post apocalyptic game it doesn't just put romance on the table, which would be a half measure, it has the courage to put sex in the table - in the same way a true post apocalyptic movie for adults would.

It's not that there is a lot of sex in most AW games. In fact, in my experience it is pretty rare. And when it happens, like in a mainstream movie, the actual sex happens off-screen with no details. Mad Max / Road Warrior doesn't shy away from scenes related to the characters having sex, but of course it doesn't include pornography. It's just the potential for sex makes it more intense, like the potential for death makes a violence tension more interesting.

You could have detailed descriptions of sex if you wanted, but there are no rules for the detail and I've never seen this done. Just like you could also describe detailed sex scenes in any other game, but this rarely happens.

So if you don't want mature social tensions to come up, then I would avoid both Dogs and AW and play something like the still brilliant Dungeon World instead. But if you are playing with people mature enough and are interested to push some boundaries of in-game social tension then Dogs and AW are two of the best games you could play.

In summary Apocalypse World is a great game, like Dogs in the Vineyard, but like Deadwood or Mad Max these games are designed for adults so expect challenging social situations. But don't worry about AW becoming a 'Swingers Club' unless you bring that yourself and would do that with any RPG. I wouldn't play either game with children, but I'd play both at the drop of a hat.

Nytmare said:

"special sex moves"​

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Wightbred said:

In summary Apocalypse World is a great game, like Dogs in the Vineyard, but like Deadwood or Mad Max these games are designed for adults so expect challenging social situations. But don't worry about AW becoming a 'Swingers Club' unless you bring that yourself and would do that with any RPG. I wouldn't play either game with children, but I'd play both at the drop of a hat.

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To be taken at all seriously by me, they would have had to come up with a better name for these moves. The quoted text reminds me way more of the Inbetweeners than Mad Max.

In my mind, challenging social situations are not introduced by attaching nonsensical mechanical benefits to sex acts? How does "f you and another character have sex, nullify the other character's sex move." lend it self to mature role playing?

Vyvyan Basterd said:

To be taken at all seriously by me, they would have had to come up with a better name for these moves. The quoted text reminds me way more of the Inbetweeners than Mad Max.

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In the game they are just called 'Special Moves' and 'Moves' is the general name for character abilities. Everyone online seems to call them 'Sex Moves' for the obvious reason we aren't used to abilities about sex.

Wightbred said:

In the game they are just called 'Special Moves' and 'Moves' is the general name for character abilities. Everyone online seems to call them 'Sex Moves' for the obvious reason we aren't used to abilities about sex.

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I'm looking at the book and they use the term "sex move"all over the place.

Nytmare said:

In my mind, challenging social situations are not introduced by attaching nonsensical mechanical benefits to sex acts? How does "f you and another character have sex, nullify the other character's sex move." lend it self to mature role playing?

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In a movie the director puts scenes in for a reason. When those things happen the situation changes somehow. So if there was sexual tension between two characters and then they finally have (offscreen) sex then the situation between them changes. A movie where sex doesn't mean anything might well be pornography.

It's the same in AW - sex has a point in the game. Having (offscreen) sex means things are different. So Special Moves do things like: (Chopper) change the strength of your interpersonal relationship; (Brainer) give you an insight into the other character; (Skinner) give you a benefit to a later action; (Operator) have to try and keep them happy; (Hardholder) give them something they want; or (Driver) make you freak out and leave. One character (Battlebabe) has a Special Move where they cancel the other's because this fits the emotionally untouchable nature of the character. These are all things that I've seen happen after (offscreen) sex in movies.

A heads up I'm not planning to come back here and defend this game. It is not a game for everyone, I won't recommend it for everyone, and whether you eventually like it like I do is not that important to me. But my experience is: I felt icky about this and didn't buy but once I played it I really liked it. I'd recommend following the path I did: Dungeon World is a great game without any Special Moves I would recommend to anyone (and you can get it free) so do this anyway. And if you like DW and would like to play a post apocalyptic RPG with other adults have a look at AW because having the potential for (offscreen) sex is not as weird and creepy as it might first sound.

Nytmare said:

I'm looking at the book and they use the term "sex move"all over the place.

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OK - I stand corrected. It's not on the character sheet or in the index, but I didn't re-read the book. (Although the word "sex" appears in describing the move for obvious reasons.)