Recurring silly comment about Apocalypse World and similar RPGs

[pemerton]

Wait… so the answer to this whole Discern Realities and searching for a secret door was addressed… in the book?!?!?

And more seriously:

This is why I can take @AbdulAlhazred's comments seriously: they are based on having read the book, plus extensive actual play experience, that includes having to think about, in play, whether or not some declared action constitutes close study of a situation.

Whereas random conjecture that is not based on knowledge of the rules, nor on play experience, but is just projecting D&D play expectations onto quite different procedures of play, in my view doesn't add very much to our collective understanding of DW and how it plays.

 

[Manbearcat]

I think what we’re uncovering here (to what should be the surprise of no one) is the following:

* Gaming culture (which tends to have bleed into media critique) has an issue with when to atomize vs when to abstract and when to focus on process/details and when premise/theme are “the relevant bit.”

* There are a subset of gamers who have their atomize dial set to 11.

Here is the thing for a game like Dungeon World contra exploration-centered D&D:

* You don’t go “hunting for situation in DW.” It’s not a procedural, (intentionally designed) paranoid exploration game of sussing out “situation signal from nothingburger noise (and then carefully defuse the “situation bomb” with your rote S.O.Ps. to perpetually optimize risk reduction).”

Situation is perpetually onscreen in DW (or, rather, it’s supposed to be).

* Following from the above, look at the questions in AW’s Read a Sitch/Person and DW’s Discern Realities. Well, if situation is always onscreen, one or more of those questions are always going to be relevant. And taking +1 forward and uncovering an important piece of fictional positioning (like the aforementioned Threat Impulse in social conflict) is always extraordinarily valuable in (a) broadening your prospective lines of play and (b) amplifying the gambit you ultimately settle upon.

Hence why Read/Discern is basically the game’s meta and why you see Vincent prodding players about it in his text!

 

[pemerton]

It’s not a procedural, (intentionally designed) paranoid exploration game of sussing out “situation signal from nothingburger noise

That's some apt alliteration!

 

[MichaelSomething]

Why is all this talk about dungeon crawling??

Does anyone have complaints about Monster Hearts???

What dungeon can compete with the horrors of High School??

 

[soviet]

Why is all this talk about dungeon crawling??

Does anyone have complaints about Monster Hearts???

What dungeon can compete with the horrors of High School??

I haven't looked it up or done any kind of research but I'm confident that Monster Hearts is a game about people with dilated cardiomyopathy and it goes against everything d&d stands for.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The notion that there is a conflict between the PCs "inevitably" meeting Grishnak, and player agency, rests on a premise: that choice of location/direction/travel matters; and that that mattering consists, importantly and perhaps primarily, in the choice of location/direction/travel being a key determinant of what scenes the PCs are framed into.

In many of the RPGs that I play, perhaps most when I think about it, that premise is false, and hence the player choice to go left or right is typically just colour.

In the RPGs that I play, the typical determinant of what scenes the PCs are framed into is an interplay of (i) formal or informal player flags about what matters, plus (ii) whether the last roll made by the PCs succeeded or failed.

Well, that's a key difference between the types of RPGs we play. Those things absolutely matter to us, and discounting them would affect player agency for my players, to whom those things also matter. No one is talking about "scene framing" or "formal or informal player flags" or similar jargon at my table. Instead, we pretend we are characters in a fantasy world and do our best to behave as if that world possesses a similar external reality to our PCs that the real world has to us.

If instead, we prioritized narrative beats and telling the best collective story that we could, of course our priorities would be different. This is why there are different kinds of games for people who want different things out of their play.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why is all this talk about dungeon crawling??

Does anyone have complaints about Monster Hearts???

What dungeon can compete with the horrors of High School??

None. It is, as was said by the legendary philosopher Matt Groening in School is Hell, "High school is the second-deepest pit of Hell."

Junior high is of course the deepest pit of Hell.

 

[pemerton]

Well, that's a key difference between the types of RPGs we play. Those things absolutely matter to us, and discounting them would affect player agency for my players, to whom those things also matter. No one is talking about "scene framing" or "formal or informal player flags" or similar jargon at my table. Instead, we pretend we are characters in a fantasy world and do our best to behave as if that world possesses a similar external reality to our PCs that the real world has to us.

If instead, we prioritized narrative beats and telling the best collective story that we could, of course our priorities would be different. This is why there are different kinds of games for people who want different things out of their play.

No one at my table talks about "narrative beats" or similar jargon, nor about "scene framing" or "flags" - we are playing a RPG, not designing or analysing one; and part of that is pretending to be in a fantasy world and doing our best to behave is that world possesses an external reality.

You keep making posts that imply things about others - and me, in particular! (or, at least, those are the implications I'm most sensitive to) - that are simply not true.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Probably. I think maybe it's because it seems self evident?

Like, if someone asked you to cite the corresponding rule in D&D, it might not be obvious exactly what they're requesting.

To be fair. I’ve never found that or any rule in D&D to be self evident. I always make sure to fully explain it to new people.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

No one at my table talks about "narrative beats" or similar jargon, nor about "scene framing" or "flags" - we are playing a RPG, not designing or analysing one; and part of that is pretending to be in a fantasy world and doing our best to behave is that world possesses an external reality.

You keep making posts that imply things about others - and me, in particular! (or, at least, those are the implications I'm most sensitive to) - that are simply not true.

As someone who does think about story beats and narrative flow and stuff like that…yeah I don’t think anyone talks like that?

We just drop into character headspace or not as fits the mood, and pretend to be heroic fantasy weirdos, instead of mundane real life weirdos.