Help Me Get "Apocalypse World" and PbtA games in general.

[Reynard]

As a follow up to my "help me get FitD games" thread, I wanted to start once about PbtA games in general and Apocalypse World (2E) in particular. We played a successful first session of Scum and Villainy and will be picking it back up once all of those players' summer schedules settle down, but in the meantime I want to give PbtA an honest try. I will be running 2 sessions of AW in concurrent weeks in the middle of August.

I bought Apocalypse World 2E. Between my (admittedly nascent) familiarity with FitD and this video, I think I have a pretty good idea how the basic mechanics of PbtA work. However, I am still kind of at a loss at exactly what the MC does for "prep". I think it is mostly jotting down ideas and formalizing threat between sessions, but I am not entirely sure. So the first thing I could use help on clarifying is what the role of the MC is in PbtA games is specifically in regards to how much or how little to "prep."

NOTE: I understand that you don't prepare adventures, with plots and things. That's not my question. My question is more about how much world building and hook slinging do you do, as compared to, say, a sandbox D&D game. Sometimes the text seems to suggest that the amount is "none" but other times it tells you to use your "prep" to ask and answer questions.

We'll start there, anyway.

Also, lest it need be said, this is not a thread to rail against PbtA games. I am trying to understand AW well enough to run it and see if it for me, so it isn't helpful to list all the things you hate about it. Similarly, even if you are extolling its virtues, it is much more helpful to do so ina way that explains how it is intended to work and what the play procedures are. With example.

Thanks.

 

[Fenris-77]

The core prep element there is the threat (or threats) and the threat map. This is mentioned briefly on p92, and then in some detail (obviously) in the Threats chapter (p106 and following). A key passage is this one:

 

[Reynard]

The core prep element there is the threat (or threats) and the threat map. This is mentioned briefly on p92, and then in some detail (obviously) in the Threats chapter (p106 and following). A key passage is this one:

View attachment 254168

I did read that, which kind of increased my confusion at the time.

So, defining threats and updating the threats map is pretty much the intended extent of "prep" in AW?

 

[Fenris-77]

I did read that, which kind of increased my confusion at the time.

So, defining threats and updating the threats map is pretty much the intended extent of "prep" in AW?

I guess you could put it that way. I suppose what people actually do vis a vis threats and threat maps might be a little different. As I was paging through AW, which I haven't read in ages, I realized that my conception of what I did with PbtA threats is very informed by how Dungeon World describes them, where they are called Fronts.

Dungeon World takes threats and organizes them into two basic kinds of fronts, smaller ones called adventure fronts, and larger campaign fronts.

Portents here refers to a rough list of things that will happen as a front/threat goes unresolved. These are indicators to the party that the world around them is in motion regardless of their decisions. The narrative of the game is, of course woven around player decisions, but that doesn't mean that nothing happens in the world that doesn't stem from player decisions, which is an important distinction when it comes to explaining, playing and running any PbtA game. Monster of the Week has a similar mechanic with things happening at intervals as a threat continues to go unresolved.

 

[Reynard]

@Fenris-77 I actually own Dunegon World (I bought it before my one ill fated experiment with it as a player) but I have not read it since starting this. A lot of folks online (mostly reddit) suggest that DW is not a good choice with which to understand PbtA since it isn't a "pure" PbtA game. The excerpts you present suggesta much more "traditional" form of GM prep than it seems AW is implying.

 

[Fenris-77]

@Fenris-77 I actually own Dunegon World (I bought it before my one ill fated experiment with it as a player) but I have not read it since starting this. A lot of folks online (mostly reddit) suggest that DW is not a good choice with which to understand PbtA since it isn't a "pure" PbtA game. The excerpts you present suggesta much more "traditional" form of GM prep than it seems AW is implying.

Yes and no. I was suggesting the idea of fronts notionally to help grok how to organize and then use threats. AW world doesn't codify threats to the extent DW does, but I find the idea of fronts very useful in terms of what and how I prep for PbtA generally.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

@Reynard Here's an example of the kind of prep that works well in a lot of improv-heavy games, but particularly in PbtA (I think). The post is by the designer of Brindlewood Bay and The Between, and the Gauntlet's current publisher.

The 7-3-1 Technique

by Jason Cordova I often get credit for being a good improvisational GM. The players can take the story in whichever weird, unpredictable direction appeals to them and I can quickly adapt to that...

www.gauntlet-rpg.com

Also, the idea of fronts isn't universal in PbtA, at this point. Most of what we talked about in the FitD thread applies, as far as doing over-arching prep (nailing down elements of the setting and NPCs, etc.), but there's no single approach to prep in PbtA games. Each one really can be very different. For example, I'm running Brindlewood Bay right now, and the prep you do is

-Looking over the two-page mystery to familiarize yourself with the overall scenario, the murder victim, the suspects, and the provided list of clues.

-If a mystery is already underway, refreshing your memory about the state of the investigation.

-Generally steeping yourself in murder mystery narratives and cozy mysteries in particular. This is optional though, and depends on your previous experience or lack thereof with stuff like Murder She Wrote.


But if I were to run Monster of the Week, I'd probably set up "arcs," which are very similar to fronts, though maybe (iirc) with more direct ties to specific playbooks. MotW also has individual "threats," with some neat guidance for creating and using differet types of monsters:

• Beast (motivation: to run wild, destroying and killing)
• Breeder (motivation: to give birth to, bring forth, or create evil)
• Collector (motivation: to steal specific sorts of things)
• Destroyer (motivation: to bring about the end of the world) • Devourer (motivation: to consume people)
• Executioner (motivation: to punish the guilty)
• Parasite (motivation: to infest, control and devour)
• Queen (motivation: to possess and control)
• Sorcerer (motivation: to usurp unnatural power)
• Tempter (motivation: to tempt people into evil deeds)
• Torturer (motivation: to hurt and terrify)
• Trickster (motivation: to create chaos)

That's way more guidance than you get for creating monsters/opponents in Brindlewood.

 

[Manbearcat]

As a follow up to my "help me get FitD games" thread, I wanted to start once about PbtA games in general and Apocalypse World (2E) in particular. We played a successful first session of Scum and Villainy and will be picking it back up once all of those players' summer schedules settle down, but in the meantime I want to give PbtA an honest try. I will be running 2 sessions of AW in concurrent weeks in the middle of August.

I bought Apocalypse World 2E. Between my (admittedly nascent) familiarity with FitD and this video, I think I have a pretty good idea how the basic mechanics of PbtA work. However, I am still kind of at a loss at exactly what the MC does for "prep". I think it is mostly jotting down ideas and formalizing threat between sessions, but I am not entirely sure. So the first thing I could use help on clarifying is what the role of the MC is in PbtA games is specifically in regards to how much or how little to "prep."

NOTE: I understand that you don't prepare adventures, with plots and things. That's not my question. My question is more about how much world building and hook slinging do you do, as compared to, say, a sandbox D&D game. Sometimes the text seems to suggest that the amount is "none" but other times it tells you to use your "prep" to ask and answer questions.

We'll start there, anyway.

Also, lest it need be said, this is not a thread to rail against PbtA games. I am trying to understand AW well enough to run it and see if it for me, so it isn't helpful to list all the things you hate about it. Similarly, even if you are extolling its virtues, it is much more helpful to do so ina way that explains how it is intended to work and what the play procedures are. With example.

Thanks.

1) Your prep in AW is meant to always give you interesting things to say ("make moves" and "ask provocative questions") which observes the Agenda and Principles of Apocalypse World. Here are those again just for thread reference:

AGENDA
• Make Apocalypse World seem real.
• Make the players’ characters’ lives not boring.
• Play to find out what happens.

ALWAYS SAY
• What the principles demand (as follow).
• What the rules demand.
• What your prep demands.
• What honesty demands.

THE PRINCIPLES
• Barf forth apocalyptica.
• Address yourself to the characters, not the players.
• Make your move, but misdirect.
• Make your move, but never speak its name.
• Look through crosshairs.
• Name everyone, make everyone human.
• Ask provocative questions and build on the answers.
• Respond with “effery” and intermittent rewards.
• Be a fan of the players’ characters.
• Think offscreen too.
• Sometimes, disclaim decision-making.

---

2) Your prep helps you do the above (1) and do the below (3). You've got a world of things (both sentient like NPCs and gangs and even non-sentient like terrain) that have Archetypes (Kind) and Impulses and Connections/orientation (to the PCs mostly, but also orientation to other stuff, like emerging places and active Threats, in Apocalypse World). This stuff will tell you what they are, why they do what they do, who/what they're connected to, where they are (both the nature of the question "where" and abstract proximity/orientation). Threat Maps, Custom Moves, and Clocks will help you keep track of that stuff.

If you've read Dungeon World, Stakes questions and Clocks in AW are the Grim Portents/Impending Doom (and Stakes Questions obviously); they serve the same purpose. "What happens with this stuff as play unfurls (PC intervention or not and the nature of the intervention)?"

So you've got nature +orientation (in all ways) of challenges/opposition and you've got some thoughts on "what happens if..." and then you've got a means to mechanically track that "if..." and give it life during play.

---

3) The next thing prep (and improv) does (and its entwined in the above) is it helps you make moves that might provoke the two highlighted stats of each PC (one of which you find interesting and one of which another player does), that might provoke relationship changes (see End Session move and Hx), and that might provoke a playbook move.

The way reward cycles/advancement works in games will tell you "what the play of this game is about/expects/incentivizes" as much as anything else. For players, Apocalypse World is about "what you do and how you do what you do" (playbook xp and highlighted stats) and "your conflicted and conflicting relationships" (Hx changes toward zenith/nadir and hitting them).

So when a D&D GM says "milestone xp" that tells you as much about the nature of that game as Apocalypse World's (3) above and DW's End of Session + Alignment +Bonds.

---

Keep asking provocative questions and use the answers so you know what is interesting to the participants at the table and to yourself. Give the interesting/provocative stuff life via (1) and (2). Provoke (3) out of the players with (2).

EDIT - @Dannyalcatraz , @John R Davis was presumably helping me out. I c/p a from AW and bright in a curse word with it. I edited but forgot to formally “EDIT - hat tip them”. I’ll do so now. Hat-tip @John R Davis .

 

[kenada]

@Fenris-77 I actually own Dunegon World (I bought it before my one ill fated experiment with it as a player) but I have not read it since starting this. A lot of folks online (mostly reddit) suggest that DW is not a good choice with which to understand PbtA since it isn't a "pure" PbtA game. The excerpts you present suggesta much more "traditional" form of GM prep than it seems AW is implying.

It’s worth noting that Apocalypse World 1e has fronts (only 2e has threat maps). Personally, I think AW does a better job of explaining them than Dungeon World does. It clarifies home front better (e.g., it’s where front-less threats are put), and there are some nice examples of fronts with no clocks as well as one with multiple clocks. AW also ties fronts into its themes by giving them a fundamental scarcity. I’m not suggesting using fronts over a threat map, but if I were considering them for AW, I’d be inclined to look at how the first edition handled them.

 

[John R Davis]

If you are cutting and pasting from AW ensure you blank out the rude words.
( It was written on a very sticky keyboard!).

I really struggle to play PBTA style games. I also don't get it ( many of my chums love it). Maybe it's not my genre!