Vincent Baker on mechanics, system and fiction in RPGs

[AbdulAlhazred]

The rulebook is crystal clear. I've already quoted it upthread!

Going aggro is . . . for direct threats when the character can and will follow up with violence. . . . Bluffing counts as seducing or manipulating, using the threat of violence for leverage. It’s legit for you to ask the player whether the character’s bluffing before letting her make the roll. (p 197)​

And p 194 even has a worked example:

Wilson corners Monk. “I scream at him, shove him, call him names. ‘Stay THE <HELL> away from Amni, you creepy little <person>.’ I’m going aggro on him.” “Cool,” I say. “Do you pull a weapon, or is it just shoving and yelling?” “Oh, yeah, no, it’s just shoving and yelling.” “Well, that’s fine,” I say, “but if he forces your hand, he takes 0-harm. I’m pretty sure that’s what he’s going to do. Do you want to roll for it anyway? Do you want to bring a weapon to bear after all? Oh hold on — I think you’re actually using the threat as leverage, you’re manipulating him, not going aggro. Want to roll+hot for that?” “Oh!” Wilson’s player says. “Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Right on.”​

There's no dilemma.

I assume your reference is AW 1e, it is a bit more clearly spelled out in 2e.

When you try to seduce, manipulate, bluff, fast-talk, or lie to
someone, tell them what you want them to do, give them a reason,
and roll+hot. For NPCs: on a 10+, they’ll go along with you, unless or
until some fact or action betrays the reason you gave them. On a 7–9,
they’ll go along with you, but they need some concrete assurance,
corroboration, or evidence �rst. For PCs: on a 10+, both. On a 7–9,
choose 1:
• If they go along with you, they mark experience.
• If they refuse, erase one of their stat highlights for the remainder of
the session.
What they do then is up to them.

On a miss, for either NPCs or PCs, be prepared for the worst.
Seducing someone, here, means using sex to get them to do what you
want, not (or not just) trying to get them to naughty word you.

Asking someone straight to do something isn’t trying to seduce or
manipulate them. To seduce or manipulate an NPC, the character needs
leverage, a reason: sex, or a threat, or a promise, something that the
character can really do that the victim really wants or really doesn’t want.
Absent leverage, they’re just talking, and you should have your NPCs agree
or accede, decline or refuse, according to their own self-interests.

There's a whole page or so more beyond that breaking down the sorts of arrangements and emphasizing that you need leverage to make this move work, it isn't just 'diplomacy', you have to actually have something the other guy wants, or is afraid of, etc.

Here I'd note this is a big difference from Go Aggro, you don't need ANY particular fictional position to trigger Go Aggro, you just say something that indicates you are trying to force someone to do/not do something by force, actively; where the force MAY not be carried through on if the goal is achieved (else just use In Battle).

Just to expound a bit more, cause its me and I love to talk, DW also made things a bit more explicit. You can 'Parley' with someone, IF YOU HAVE LEVERAGE, otherwise its just chit chat. It is basically a version of Manipulate/Seduce. Because DW is less about violent interpersonal conflict than AW it lacks an exact equivalent to Go Aggro. You can Hack & Slash of course, but there's not really a move for resolving "this guy is strong enough that I can't manipulate him with a threat, but not too strong to potentially frighten." In that game, which deliberately emulates old-school D&D, you can talk, or Parley, or you can hack! Its a different game, different agenda, the tone is different, so similar but not identical move architecture. This is where all of VB's exposition of the PbtA architecture gets more than theoretical. Some designers have a good feel for what moves will produce that narrativist experience, some don't. Some PbtA games are solid narrativist designs, some bend more into Neo-Trad territory, or whatever. I think maybe @Umbran 's objection to VB stems from this, you can read all the articles you want, he can't make you into a game designer with a good feel for game design. If he could you and I would be running kick starters, lol.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It is not about timidness, it is about wanting to actually roleplay the situation and taking what happens into account in your character's actions. Wanting to know how the person you threaten reacts before you decide to blow their brains out doesn't seem like particularly weird or unreasonable desire to me.

Making the decision when the gun is pulled seems reasonable to me. Am I willing to pull the trigger if I need to or am I bluffing?

Seems simple.

What you want is everything broken down into micro-moments so that you can dodge making the decision if any factor that renders it the “non-optimal” path manifests.

The issue though with roleplay, thats different from improv theater, is that ideally, at least for some of us, we want to accurately portray realistic consequences to our actions.

That’s an interesting take on it. It sounds to me like you want to apply the level-headedness of a person sitting in a chair surrounded by friends playing a game in place of the hot-blooded, adrenaline jacked behavior of a person with a gun to someone’s head.

Yeah… that sounds natural and realistic!

 

[Aldarc]

You still are not an moderator. If @pemerton feels that I was misunderstanding or mischaracterising their positions, they certainly can clarify. But to me it seemed that their approach skipped both an in-character decision point, and reacting to another character's response, deeming those otiose.

I'm not a moderator. I'm not your mom. I'm not your dad. But regardless, I thought you were pretty disrespectful. Perhaps you should have considered asking for clarification of their position first before insinuating that they fail to understand in-character roleplaying or what NPCs are saying/doing. I doubt that you would appreciate it if people made similar insinuations about you.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Making the decision when the gun is pulled seems reasonable to me. Am I willing to pull the trigger if I need to or am I bluffing?

Seems simple.

What you want is everything broken down into micro-moments so that you can dodge making the decision if any factor that renders it the “non-optimal” path manifests.

It has nothing to do with optimal, it is about inhabiting a character and making decisions from their perspective in real time. So of course how the person being threatened responds is a huge deal, and ignoring that seems utterly absurd to me.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Whether it is a dilemma, obviously depends on one's preferences. But what I want is the moment the character has to decide the thing and when the player has to decide the thing to be in sync, and I want to avoid having meta discussions about it.

There's no meta-discussion here!
GM: What do you do?
PL: I smash him in the face until he does what I want!
GM: Roll Go Aggro...

Now if you said "I raise my fist like I might hit him." then you're trying to Manipulate. If the opponent is a big tough guy, forget it, he's not afraid and he probably laughs in your face, but if you actually have some leverage there? If, for whatever reason, the other guy doesn't WANT to fight? Well, then you can toss your Manipulate dice. I mean, GENERALLY I would think the proper approach here, where violence is almost always at least a mildly credible threat, that the GM would just trigger the Manipulate check and let that settle the issue of how afraid the other party is, but my point is, your 45Kg Brainer is probably not going to intimidate some big tough and I don't think a roll to produce a result that is absurd is needed there.

The point is, YOU CHOOSE, will you hit him, or are you just bluffing? If you're going to follow through you need to decide because realistically once something like that starts you aren't changing your mind an instant later. If what you REALLY wanted was to push it and not actually attack until you know exactly where its going? Well, you CAN threaten, that's one move, and then when that fails, you can always go back and follow through! This is going to play out as the character CHANGING HIS MIND, see?!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

After the threatened person has responded.

Then you have NOT DECIDED TO FIGHT and you can't use Go Aggro, simple as that! Nothing could be more clear. Do your Manipulate check, and then if you later, like an instant later, decide you WILL follow through, then go make another check! Remember though, this sort of indecision has a potential cost, the GM is going to respond to your failed Manipulate, he owes you a move now, and given your treatment of the other character in question, and their now explicit willingness to not back down, it may not be a FUN move for you! That's the cost of indecision.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It has nothing to do with optimal, it is about inhabiting a character and making decisions from their perspective in real time. So of course how the person being threatened responds is a huge deal, and ignoring that seems utterly absurd to me.

Who’s ignoring anything?

Are you saying that when the character draws the gun, or raises their fist, or whatever violent threat they make, they don’t know if they will follow through?

If you know that yes, you will follow through, then it’s Go Aggro.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Who’s ignoring anything?

Are you saying that when the character draws the gun, or raises their fist, or whatever violent threat they make, they don’t know if they will follow through?

No, they don't know it for sure. Because the person being threatened could say something that makes their resolve falter.

 

[hawkeyefan]

No, they don't know it for sure. Because the person being threatened could say something that makes their resolve falter.

Then it’s not Go Aggro!

See how easy that is?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Then you have NOT DECIDED TO FIGHT and you can't use Go Aggro, simple as that! Nothing could be more clear. Do your Manipulate check, and then if you later, like an instant later, decide you WILL follow through, then go make another check! Remember though, this sort of indecision has a potential cost, the GM is going to respond to your failed Manipulate, he owes you a move now, and given your treatment of the other character in question, and their now explicit willingness to not back down, it may not be a FUN move for you! That's the cost of indecision.

This makes sense, but it is not what anyone else is saying. Also Go Aggro explicitly is about making threats, and then we have separate In Battle for combat, so to me these moves seem confused. Again, why don't we just have Manipulate for threatening and combat moves for actual violence? What's the point of Go Aggro?