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

[MarkB]

My limited experience of Dungeon World was that class balance was all over the place. I played a druid, and had a ludicrously good time being the swiss-army-knife of problem solving, with an animal form for every situation. Another player was playing a playbook that appeared to be straight-up broken and I'm not sure was an official one, though it was featured on the game's website. But a couple of players struggled to find useful ways to apply their characters' capabilities to situations.

 

[Reynard]

My limited experience of Dungeon World was that class balance was all over the place. I played a druid, and had a ludicrously good time being the swiss-army-knife of problem solving, with an animal form for every situation. Another player was playing a playbook that appeared to be straight-up broken and I'm not sure was an official one, though it was featured on the game's website. But a couple of players struggled to find useful ways to apply their characters' capabilities to situations.

Yeah I have been warned off DW for various reasons, hence why I decided to start with AW. It doesn't hurt that Fury Road is one of my top 3 movies of all time.

 

[dragoner]

It's weird to not see descriptions of the actual mechanics, I mean for me, that is one of the initial angles by which I try to understand a game.

 

[Fenris-77]

It's weird to not see descriptions of the actual mechanics, I mean for me, that is one of the initial angles by which I try to understand a game.

The mechanics in PbtA don't really feed into notions of prep as outlined in the OP. Well, other than pushing back (real hard) against any notion of planned plotlines or any other kind of linear plot prep that's common with other games. If this were a more generic How do I play PbtA? thread you'd see a lot of stuff about the mechanics of course.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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

Mod Note:

If there’s a genuine issue of concern that needs to be addressed, speak plainly. Otherwise, given the lack of “rude words” in the quoted passages and the crack about sticky keyboards, I can only assume you’re just stirring the pot here.

Don’t do that.

 

[andreszarta]

Well, first, if you are thinking of doing only two sessions of the game like you said on your post, I suggest you give a read to Vincent Baker's tips for running AW as a one-shot: Running Apocalypse World in a Con Slot – lumpley games

While the blog post talks about running it for a con-slot, I think it's advice is very applicable for a short term game that might not be a campaign necessarily. In particular I think this passage might be extremely relevant:

During the break, start a threat map, so that as people come back, you’re at the table working on it. Hey check this out, I want to show you what it looks like from the GM’s side. This is my threat map, here’s you all at the center, here’s Dremmer. You don’t know this but here’s the death ray satellite that Dremmer’s got Jackabacka working on to figure out the controls… Or whatever apocalyptica you’ve dreamed up.

When it comes to AW, per the book, the only prep you really need to do is to dream up some apocalyptica and also work and update your threat map. Incorporate what happened in the previous session and then think logically about how everything and everyone's moved based on that.

Your prep should definitely not focus on setting on world-building beyond the minimum amount you need to create your threats, and that should be less than a line or two of "backdrop". What we want is for the setting to emerge organically from how the situation develops and that should happen collaboratively at the table.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Well, first, if you are thinking of doing only two sessions of the game like you said on your post, I suggest you give a read to Vincent Baker's tips for running AW as a one-shot: Running Apocalypse World in a Con Slot – lumpley games

While the blog post talks about running it for a con-slot, I think it's advice is very applicable for a short term game that might not be a campaign necessarily. In particular I think this passage might be extremely relevant:

When it comes to AW, per the book, the only prep you really need to do is to dream up some apocalyptica and also work and update your threat map. Incorporate what happened in the previous session and then think logically about how everything and everyone's moved based on that.

Your prep should definitely not focus on setting on world-building beyond the minimum amount you need to create your threats, and that should be less than a line or two of "backdrop". What we want is for the setting to emerge organically from how the situation develops and that should happen collaboratively at the table.

That quoted bit from Baker is also a great illustration of the notion in AW (and PbtA more generally) of making information as open and player-facing—but not necessarily always PC-facing—as possible. Which I think feeds back into the low/no prep nature of a lot of PbtA games, where you're coming up with a lot of stuff on the fly, and revealing most of it just as quickly, rather than crafting an elaborate puzzle box narrative ahead of time and only doling out glimpses as needed.

 

[dragoner]

The mechanics in PbtA don't really feed into notions of prep as outlined in the OP. Well, other than pushing back (real hard) against any notion of planned plotlines or any other kind of linear plot prep that's common with other games.

Sort of, unless one is an improvisational master we found some prep goes a long way to speeding up the game. Still the mechanics give the feel for the way any game interacts with the table.

 

[Manbearcat]

It's weird to not see descriptions of the actual mechanics, I mean for me, that is one of the initial angles by which I try to understand a game.

So there actually are mechanics mentioned above, they may just not be as easy to spot as something like task resolution in D&D. I mentioned several above, but I'll pull them out and highlight them again.

* XP TRIGGERS - Again, in terms of prep, you're thinking on provocative situation (circumstances, pressure-points, developing NPC actions/impulses) and you're asking questions directly to the players about the same. Each PC has two attributes that have been highlighted (cool, sharp, weird, hot, hard), an Hx rating with people (relationship value between +4 and -3), and thematic moves (typically a playbook move) that say "mark xp" when triggered. You've got these mechanics in mind when investing the game with life by (a) making soft moves with this stuff and then possibly (if the play of the game reveals that there is "meat on the bone"; interest + developing conflict) (b) systemetizing them into actual Threats.

* THREAT CLOCK - You've got 4 wedges. You make a soft move (telegraph potential badness happening if not addressed). If its not addressed, you fill in a wedge and something happens (just like a soft move turning into a hard move at "the local level" lets call it). If the whole thing fills, it goes "boom" and whatever happens, happens.

* THREAT CUSTOM MOVE - The great thing about PBtA games is that the move structure is very well engineered and transparent. Its a straight-forward deal.

Thematically appropriate trigger in the fiction (eg "when Motley Marion lays her hands on you in The Pit roll +weird") > Roll 2d6 +mod > 10+ = you get what you want, 7-9 = you get some of what you want or all of what you want but with a cost/hard choice, 6- = things go bad.

So you have a Threat. You have a thematic trigger for when the PCs interact with the threat (this might be interact period or interact under particular circumstances...it just depends upon the trigger). Dice are rolled. New gamestate and fiction post dice rolled (possibly with a choice in the middle if the result is 7-9).

---

These are all both (i) areas of GM prep and (ii) (important) game mechanics.

If you're taking on being an MC in AW, be very familiar with all of the above. Know it well and ruminate upon it between sessions (and systemitize Threat stuff if play warrants it).

 

[Reynard]

Well, first, if you are thinking of doing only two sessions of the game like you said on your post, I suggest you give a read to Vincent Baker's tips for running AW as a one-shot: Running Apocalypse World in a Con Slot – lumpley games

Thanks. that's helpful. For the record I am not really doing a "one shot" so much as "starting a campaign that isn't going to finish" -- so I want to do a 1st session as explicitly detailed in the book, then a second session as detailed in the book, without a worry about a 3rd session. Besides, hey, maybe everyone will fall in love and we will just keep going. This is different to me than a con slot. I run a lot of con games and they are definitely a different animal than "let's test out this game."