D&D 5E Consequences of Failure

[Charlaquin]

Can I raise a practical question at this point?

Why can't a consequence of failure be that the PCs miss a clue that would make their ongoing task (whatever it may be) considerably easier than it'll now otherwise be? The thing is, this consequence will not be apparent right now, and - depending how things play out down the road - may never be. Doesn't make it any less significant.

There are a few reasons. One is that this is the kind of failure state that kills momentum. Like the example earlier in the thread where my friend who’s learning to DM called for a Perception check to find a location that we needed to find to progress. Being more experienced than my friend, I build my adventures in such a way that if one avenue gets cut off there are other ways to proceed, but these situations can still really take the wind out of the players’ sails.


Not knowing something is also a dissatisfying end state, because it only maintains the status quo. It’s the same outcome as if you just hadn’t rolled, except that I guess now you know you don’t know. If failure only means “no progress,” I prefer for the attempt to consume a resource, and an in-universe resource, not a metagame resource like a limited number of attempts or a building penalty on repeat attempts.

And for me, anything like remembering the stones and-or their significance would require a check of some sort. Deciphering the runes would require at least one of: a) someone in the party to be literate in that language, or b) a Thief to succeed on a Read Languages roll (in 1e), or c) someone to cast Comprehend Language.

In my games, if a PC is literate with the script and fluent in the language it’s written in, they can read it with no uncertainty. If they know the script but not the language (not typical, but can happen with exotic languages that use the same scripts as common languages, and when the writer intentionally used a different script to disguise their message), that can be translated with enough time, and a successful check if time is a limited resource. The translation will be imperfect, however - I’ll give the general meaning of the message, but not the specific phrasing.

 

[pemerton]

@Charlaquin, the 5e example of play is found in the opening pages of the Basic PDF:

Spoiler

Here's the dialogue:

Dungeon Master (DM): After passing through the craggy peaks, the road takes a sudden turn to the east and Castle Ravenloft towers before you. Crumbling towers of stone keep a silent watch over the approach. They look like abandoned guardhouses. Beyond these, a wide chasm gapes, disappearing into the deep fog below. A lowered drawbridge spans the chasm, leading to an arched entrance to the castle courtyard. The chains of the drawbridge creak in the wind, their rust-eaten iron straining with the weight. From atop the high strong walls, stone gargoyles stare at you from hollow sockets and grin hideously. A rotting wooden portcullis, green with growth, hangs in the entry tunnel. Beyond this, the main doors of Castle Ravenloft stand open, a rich warm light spilling into the courtyard.

Phillip (playing Gareth): I want to look at the gargoyles. I have a feeling they’re not just statues.

Amy (playing Riva): The drawbridge looks precarious? I want to see how sturdy it is. Do I think we can cross it, or is it going to collapse under our weight?

Dungeon Master (DM): OK, one at a time. Phillip, you’re looking at the gargoyles?

Phillip: Yeah. Is there any hint they might be creatures and not decorations?

DM: Make an Intelligence check.

Phillip: Does my Investigation skill apply?

DM: Sure!

Phillip (rolling a d20): Ugh. Seven.

DM: They look like decorations to you. And Amy, Riva is checking out the drawbridge?​

About 10 lines later, the following text appears:

The DM creates adventures for the characters, who navigate its hazards and decide which paths to explore. The DM might describe the entrance to Castle Ravenloft, and the players decide what they want their adventurers to do. Will they walk across the dangerously weathered drawbridge? Tie themselves together with rope to minimize the chance that someone will fall if the drawbridge gives way? Or cast a spell to carry them over the chasm?​

I'll leave it to others to discuss to what extent 5e supports exploratory play when compared to (say) Moldvay Basic. But the dialogue and the further explanatory text refer to navigation of the hazards by the characters played by the players. The example actions are all about gaining information about the situation presented by the GM, where - it seems - the GM presents that information on the basis of the adventure that s/he has created for the characters.

The example of play does not incude any conflict or drama, and the further text doesn't mention or point to such things.

The AW example of play, which I mentioned by way of contrast, goes for several pages in the middle of the rulebook under the heading "Moves Snowball". It also has a lot of language that board rules do not permit. Here are some choice board-compliant extracts:

Spoiler

Here it is:

Marie the brainer goes looking for Isle, to visit grief upon her, and finds her eating canned peaches on the roof of the car shed with her brother Mill and her lover Plover (all NPCs).

“I read the situation,” her player says.

“You do? It’s charged?” I say.

“It is now.”

“Ahh,” I say. I understand perfectly: the three NPCs don’t realize it, but Marie’s arrival charges the situation. If it were a movie, the sound track would be picking up, getting sinister.

She rolls+sharp and hits with a 7–9, so she gets to ask me one question from that move’s list. “Which of my enemies is the biggest threat?” she says.

“Plover,” I say. “No doubt. He’s out of his armor, but he has a little gun in his boot and he’s a hard [individual]. Mill’s just 12 and he’s not a violent kid. Isle’s tougher, but not like Plover.” (See me
misdirect! I just chose one capriciously, then pointed to fictional details as though they’d made the decision. We’ve never even seen Mill onscreen before, I just now made up that he’s 12 and not violent.)

. . . [skip details of partly frying Isle's brain] . . .

Plover thinks she’s just leaning her head on his shoulder, but she’s bleeding out her ears and eventually he’ll notice his shirt sticking to his shoulder from her blood. Do you stick around?” I’m telling possible consequences and asking. . . .

“I go home, I guess.”

“So you’re home an hour later?” See me setting up my future move! I’m thinking offscreen: how long is it going to take Plover to get a crew together? . . .

“Having tea?” Ask questions like crazy!

“No tea. Pacing. I have my gun and my pain grenade and the door’s triple-locked. I wish Roark were here.” . . .

“So, Marie: at home, pacing, armed, locked in, yeah? They arrive suddenly at your door with a solid kick, your whole door rattles. You hear Whackoff’s voice: ‘she’s expecting us I guess.’” I’m announcing future badness.

“I go to the peep hole,” she says. “There are three of them?”

“Yep,” I say. “Whackoff on your left, Plover and Church Head are doing something on your right, Plover’s back’s to you — and you hear a cough-cough-rrrrar sound and Plover’s at the door with a chainsaw. What do you do?” I’m putting her in a spot.

“I read the situation. What’s my best escape route?” She rolls+sharp and . . . misses. “Oh no,” she says.

I can make as hard and direct a move as I like. . . .

“You’re looking out your (barred, 4th-story) window as though it were an escape route,” I say, “and they don’t chop your door all the way down, just through the top hinge, and then they lean on it to make a 6-inch space. The door’s creaking and snapping at the bottom hinge. And they put a grenade through like this—” I hold up my fist for the grenade and slap it with my other hand, like whacking a croquet ball.

“I dive for—”

Sorry, I’m still making my hard move. This is all misdirection.

“Nope. They cooked it off and it goes off practically at your feet. Let’s see … 4-harm area messy, a grenade. You have armor?”

“1-armor.”

“Oh yes, your armored corset. Good! You take 3-harm.”​

The following bit of GM-oriented rules text explains the meaning of misdirection as it is used in this example:

Make your move, but misdirect. Of course the real reason why you choose a move exists in the real world. Somebody has her character go someplace new, somebody misses a roll, somebody hits a roll that calls for you to answer, everybody’s looking to you to say something, so you choose a move to make.
Real-world reasons. However, misdirect: pretend that you’re making your move for reasons entirely within the game’s fiction instead.​

I think the following quote from Campbell highlights the key point of contrast (as I see it) between the two examples/instructions:

The reason I associate the GMing techniques of a game like Apocalypse World with a heightened sense of drama and tension is that a significant part of your agenda is to stir it up.

Other points of contrast are (1) that the AW approach is far more player-and-character-centric, with the MC (referee/GM) responding to and following the players' leads in a way that isn't evident in the D&D example, and (2) that as part of (1) the GM is authoring more fiction spontaneously than the further explanatory text in the D&D rules appears to contemplate. (This is a feature of misdirection.)

These are all techniques that, at one-and-the-same-time, reduce the element of exploration while increasing the element of drama.

 

[Charlaquin]

Fair enough, but for "knowledge checks" do you just auto-succeed or auto-fail and move on in your game? I'm trying to get at a case where there might be a meaningful consequence for failure and hence a call for a roll. And, I agree, "You don't know" is not meaningful and falls flat after a roll.

The very idea of “knowledge checks” I think relies on a mental scaffolding that conflates checks with actions. The players want knowledge, they gotta make a check. That’s not how it works in my games. There are no “knowledge checks” in my games, there are only checks made to resolve actions, the goal of which occasionally happen be to uncover knowledge. More often than not, PCs either know something or they don’t, and no check is required to determine that. Intelligence checks are sometimes used (among other things) to resolve actions the PCs take to try and learn something they didn’t know. Common consequences for such actions are time spent studying, observing, or researching without making progress, or dangerous side-effects of experimentation.

 

[pemerton]

Also on the practical side, he did ask that question in the context of playing 5e and using a specific approach to adjuducating actions in 5e. You posted an example from a different game.

A game that also uses goal and approach (under the label intent and task). I'm not saying that @Elfcrusher is under any obligation to reply, but it is an actual play example that addresses the question asked.

 

[Charlaquin]

@Charlaquin, the 5e example of play is found in the opening pages of the Basic PDF:

Spoiler

Here's the dialogue:

Dungeon Master (DM): After passing through the craggy peaks, the road takes a sudden turn to the east and Castle Ravenloft towers before you. Crumbling towers of stone keep a silent watch over the approach. They look like abandoned guardhouses. Beyond these, a wide chasm gapes, disappearing into the deep fog below. A lowered drawbridge spans the chasm, leading to an arched entrance to the castle courtyard. The chains of the drawbridge creak in the wind, their rust-eaten iron straining with the weight. From atop the high strong walls, stone gargoyles stare at you from hollow sockets and grin hideously. A rotting wooden portcullis, green with growth, hangs in the entry tunnel. Beyond this, the main doors of Castle Ravenloft stand open, a rich warm light spilling into the courtyard.​

​

Phillip (playing Gareth): I want to look at the gargoyles. I have a feeling they’re not just statues.​

​

Amy (playing Riva): The drawbridge looks precarious? I want to see how sturdy it is. Do I think we can cross it, or is it going to collapse under our weight?​

​

Dungeon Master (DM): OK, one at a time. Phillip, you’re looking at the gargoyles?​

​

Phillip: Yeah. Is there any hint they might be creatures and not decorations?​

​

DM: Make an Intelligence check.​

​

Phillip: Does my Investigation skill apply?​

​

DM: Sure!​

​

Phillip (rolling a d20): Ugh. Seven.​

​

DM: They look like decorations to you. And Amy, Riva is checking out the drawbridge?​

About 10 lines later, the following text appears:

The DM creates adventures for the characters, who navigate its hazards and decide which paths to explore. The DM might describe the entrance to Castle Ravenloft, and the players decide what they want their adventurers to do. Will they walk across the dangerously weathered drawbridge? Tie themselves together with rope to minimize the chance that someone will fall if the drawbridge gives way? Or cast a spell to carry them over the chasm?​

I'll leave it to others to discuss to what extent 5e supports exploratory play when compared to (say) Moldvay Basic. But the dialogue and the further explanatory text refer to navigation of the hazards by the characters played by the players. The example actions are all about gaining information about the situation presented by the GM, where - it seems - the GM presents that information on the basis of the adventure that s/he has created for the characters.

The example of play does not incude any conflict or drama, and the further text doesn't mention or point to such things.

The AW example of play, which I mentioned by way of contrast, goes for several pages in the middle of the rulebook under the heading "Moves Snowball". It also has a lot of language that board rules do not permit. Here are some choice board-compliant extracts:

Spoiler

Here it is:

​

Marie the brainer goes looking for Isle, to visit grief upon her, and finds her eating canned peaches on the roof of the car shed with her brother Mill and her lover Plover (all NPCs).​

​

“I read the situation,” her player says.​

​

“You do? It’s charged?” I say.​

​

“It is now.”​

​

“Ahh,” I say. I understand perfectly: the three NPCs don’t realize it, but Marie’s arrival charges the situation. If it were a movie, the sound track would be picking up, getting sinister.​

​

She rolls+sharp and hits with a 7–9, so she gets to ask me one question from that move’s list. “Which of my enemies is the biggest threat?” she says.​

​

“Plover,” I say. “No doubt. He’s out of his armor, but he has a little gun in his boot and he’s a hard [individual]. Mill’s just 12 and he’s not a violent kid. Isle’s tougher, but not like Plover.” (See me​

misdirect! I just chose one capriciously, then pointed to fictional details as though they’d made the decision. We’ve never even seen Mill onscreen before, I just now made up that he’s 12 and not violent.)​

​

. . . [skip details of partly frying Isle's brain] . . .​

​

Plover thinks she’s just leaning her head on his shoulder, but she’s bleeding out her ears and eventually he’ll notice his shirt sticking to his shoulder from her blood. Do you stick around?” I’m telling possible consequences and asking. . . .​

​

“I go home, I guess.”​

​

“So you’re home an hour later?” See me setting up my future move! I’m thinking offscreen: how long is it going to take Plover to get a crew together? . . .​

​

“Having tea?” Ask questions like crazy!​

​

“No tea. Pacing. I have my gun and my pain grenade and the door’s triple-locked. I wish Roark were here.” . . .​

​

“So, Marie: at home, pacing, armed, locked in, yeah? They arrive suddenly at your door with a solid kick, your whole door rattles. You hear Whackoff’s voice: ‘she’s expecting us I guess.’” I’m announcing future badness.​

​

“I go to the peep hole,” she says. “There are three of them?”​

​

“Yep,” I say. “Whackoff on your left, Plover and Church Head are doing something on your right, Plover’s back’s to you — and you hear a cough-cough-rrrrar sound and Plover’s at the door with a chainsaw. What do you do?” I’m putting her in a spot.​

​

“I read the situation. What’s my best escape route?” She rolls+sharp and . . . misses. “Oh no,” she says.​

​

I can make as hard and direct a move as I like. . . .​

​

“You’re looking out your (barred, 4th-story) window as though it were an escape route,” I say, “and they don’t chop your door all the way down, just through the top hinge, and then they lean on it to make a 6-inch space. The door’s creaking and snapping at the bottom hinge. And they put a grenade through like this—” I hold up my fist for the grenade and slap it with my other hand, like whacking a croquet ball.​

​

“I dive for—”​

​

Sorry, I’m still making my hard move. This is all misdirection.​

​

“Nope. They cooked it off and it goes off practically at your feet. Let’s see … 4-harm area messy, a grenade. You have armor?”​

​

“1-armor.”​

​

“Oh yes, your armored corset. Good! You take 3-harm.”​

The following bit of GM-oriented rules text explains the meaning of misdirection as it is used in this example:

Make your move, but misdirect. Of course the real reason why you choose a move exists in the real world. Somebody has her character go someplace new, somebody misses a roll, somebody hits a roll that calls for you to answer, everybody’s looking to you to say something, so you choose a move to make.​

Real-world reasons. However, misdirect: pretend that you’re making your move for reasons entirely within the game’s fiction instead.​

I think the following quote from Campbell highlights the key point of contrast (as I see it) between the two examples/instructions:
Other points of contrast are (1) that the AW approach is far more player-and-character-centric, with the MC (referee/GM) responding to and following the players' leads in a way that isn't evident in the D&D example, and (2) that as part of (1) the GM is authoring more fiction spontaneously than the further explanatory text in the D&D rules appears to contemplate. (This is a feature of misdirection.)

These are all techniques that, at one-and-the-same-time, reduce the element of exploration while increasing the element of drama.

Ok, I see what y’all were trying to express now. I don’t like the terms “exploratory” and “heightened drama” for these two styles, as they imply that the former is necessarily not dramatic and the later doesn’t allow for exploration, neither of which are true in my evaluation. The goal of the latter may be to focus on drama, but I don’t think that’s actually what makes it meaningfully different. In order to focus on drama, the latter employs different techniques than the former, and that makes them different, but there is nothing stopping the former from arriving at drama from a different angle. Likewise, there is no reason the latter couldn’t be used to explore an unknown environment, it would just do so differently than the former does - sort of co-creating a mutually unknown environment rather than the players gradually revealing an environment that is known to the GM and kept hidden from them.

I think the issue I take with this terminology, as well as the “DM-as-referee” vs. “DM-as-entertainer” framework is that it focuses on the goals rather than the techniques. I think drama is a valid goal for D&D style play and exploration is a valid goal for AW style play, so calling them “exploratory” and “dramatic” is misleading. They should instead be looked at in terms of how they go about trying to achieve their goals.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

The very idea of “knowledge checks” I think relies on a mental scaffolding that conflates checks with actions. The players want knowledge, they gotta make a check. That’s not how it works in my games. There are no “knowledge checks” in my games, there are only checks made to resolve actions, the goal of which occasionally happen be to uncover knowledge. More often than not, PCs either know something or they don’t, and no check is required to determine that. Intelligence checks are sometimes used (among other things) to resolve actions the PCs take to try and learn something they didn’t know. Common consequences for such actions are time spent studying, observing, or researching without making progress, or dangerous side-effects of experimentation.

So in the scene I presented, the PC is examining the standing stone and gives some backstory to aid the DM in determining why she might be extra good at said task. In this way, perhaps it is not a strict “knowledge check”, but an Investigation with the player option to flavor it as History or Nature or Religion...

One possible adjudication:
DM: I’m going to ask you for an Intelligence check here. What proficiency would you like to add?
Player: My PC will use her History proficiency because [reasons]
DM: sounds great. This will be a DC 17. If you succeed the task will not take much time and I’ll tell you what the stones say. If you fail, the task will take longer and I’ll tell you what the stones say as the grove reacts to your lingering presence.

 

[Bawylie]

@Charlaquin, the 5e example of play is found in the opening pages of the Basic PDF:

Spoiler

Here's the dialogue:

Dungeon Master (DM): After passing through the craggy peaks, the road takes a sudden turn to the east and Castle Ravenloft towers before you. Crumbling towers of stone keep a silent watch over the approach. They look like abandoned guardhouses. Beyond these, a wide chasm gapes, disappearing into the deep fog below. A lowered drawbridge spans the chasm, leading to an arched entrance to the castle courtyard. The chains of the drawbridge creak in the wind, their rust-eaten iron straining with the weight. From atop the high strong walls, stone gargoyles stare at you from hollow sockets and grin hideously. A rotting wooden portcullis, green with growth, hangs in the entry tunnel. Beyond this, the main doors of Castle Ravenloft stand open, a rich warm light spilling into the courtyard.​

​

Phillip (playing Gareth): I want to look at the gargoyles. I have a feeling they’re not just statues.​

​

Amy (playing Riva): The drawbridge looks precarious? I want to see how sturdy it is. Do I think we can cross it, or is it going to collapse under our weight?​

​

Dungeon Master (DM): OK, one at a time. Phillip, you’re looking at the gargoyles?​

​

Phillip: Yeah. Is there any hint they might be creatures and not decorations?​

​

DM: Make an Intelligence check.​

​

Phillip: Does my Investigation skill apply?​

​

DM: Sure!​

​

Phillip (rolling a d20): Ugh. Seven.​

​

DM: They look like decorations to you. And Amy, Riva is checking out the drawbridge?​

About 10 lines later, the following text appears:

The DM creates adventures for the characters, who navigate its hazards and decide which paths to explore. The DM might describe the entrance to Castle Ravenloft, and the players decide what they want their adventurers to do. Will they walk across the dangerously weathered drawbridge? Tie themselves together with rope to minimize the chance that someone will fall if the drawbridge gives way? Or cast a spell to carry them over the chasm?​

I'll leave it to others to discuss to what extent 5e supports exploratory play when compared to (say) Moldvay Basic. But the dialogue and the further explanatory text refer to navigation of the hazards by the characters played by the players. The example actions are all about gaining information about the situation presented by the GM, where - it seems - the GM presents that information on the basis of the adventure that s/he has created for the characters.

The example of play does not incude any conflict or drama, and the further text doesn't mention or point to such things.

The AW example of play, which I mentioned by way of contrast, goes for several pages in the middle of the rulebook under the heading "Moves Snowball". It also has a lot of language that board rules do not permit. Here are some choice board-compliant extracts:

Spoiler

Here it is:

​

Marie the brainer goes looking for Isle, to visit grief upon her, and finds her eating canned peaches on the roof of the car shed with her brother Mill and her lover Plover (all NPCs).​

​

“I read the situation,” her player says.​

​

“You do? It’s charged?” I say.​

​

“It is now.”​

​

“Ahh,” I say. I understand perfectly: the three NPCs don’t realize it, but Marie’s arrival charges the situation. If it were a movie, the sound track would be picking up, getting sinister.​

​

She rolls+sharp and hits with a 7–9, so she gets to ask me one question from that move’s list. “Which of my enemies is the biggest threat?” she says.​

​

“Plover,” I say. “No doubt. He’s out of his armor, but he has a little gun in his boot and he’s a hard [individual]. Mill’s just 12 and he’s not a violent kid. Isle’s tougher, but not like Plover.” (See me​

misdirect! I just chose one capriciously, then pointed to fictional details as though they’d made the decision. We’ve never even seen Mill onscreen before, I just now made up that he’s 12 and not violent.)​

​

. . . [skip details of partly frying Isle's brain] . . .​

​

Plover thinks she’s just leaning her head on his shoulder, but she’s bleeding out her ears and eventually he’ll notice his shirt sticking to his shoulder from her blood. Do you stick around?” I’m telling possible consequences and asking. . . .​

​

“I go home, I guess.”​

​

“So you’re home an hour later?” See me setting up my future move! I’m thinking offscreen: how long is it going to take Plover to get a crew together? . . .​

​

“Having tea?” Ask questions like crazy!​

​

“No tea. Pacing. I have my gun and my pain grenade and the door’s triple-locked. I wish Roark were here.” . . .​

​

“So, Marie: at home, pacing, armed, locked in, yeah? They arrive suddenly at your door with a solid kick, your whole door rattles. You hear Whackoff’s voice: ‘she’s expecting us I guess.’” I’m announcing future badness.​

​

“I go to the peep hole,” she says. “There are three of them?”​

​

“Yep,” I say. “Whackoff on your left, Plover and Church Head are doing something on your right, Plover’s back’s to you — and you hear a cough-cough-rrrrar sound and Plover’s at the door with a chainsaw. What do you do?” I’m putting her in a spot.​

​

“I read the situation. What’s my best escape route?” She rolls+sharp and . . . misses. “Oh no,” she says.​

​

I can make as hard and direct a move as I like. . . .​

​

“You’re looking out your (barred, 4th-story) window as though it were an escape route,” I say, “and they don’t chop your door all the way down, just through the top hinge, and then they lean on it to make a 6-inch space. The door’s creaking and snapping at the bottom hinge. And they put a grenade through like this—” I hold up my fist for the grenade and slap it with my other hand, like whacking a croquet ball.​

​

“I dive for—”​

​

Sorry, I’m still making my hard move. This is all misdirection.​

​

“Nope. They cooked it off and it goes off practically at your feet. Let’s see … 4-harm area messy, a grenade. You have armor?”​

​

“1-armor.”​

​

“Oh yes, your armored corset. Good! You take 3-harm.”​

The following bit of GM-oriented rules text explains the meaning of misdirection as it is used in this example:

Make your move, but misdirect. Of course the real reason why you choose a move exists in the real world. Somebody has her character go someplace new, somebody misses a roll, somebody hits a roll that calls for you to answer, everybody’s looking to you to say something, so you choose a move to make.​

Real-world reasons. However, misdirect: pretend that you’re making your move for reasons entirely within the game’s fiction instead.​

I think the following quote from Campbell highlights the key point of contrast (as I see it) between the two examples/instructions:
Other points of contrast are (1) that the AW approach is far more player-and-character-centric, with the MC (referee/GM) responding to and following the players' leads in a way that isn't evident in the D&D example, and (2) that as part of (1) the GM is authoring more fiction spontaneously than the further explanatory text in the D&D rules appears to contemplate. (This is a feature of misdirection.)

These are all techniques that, at one-and-the-same-time, reduce the element of exploration while increasing the element of drama.

Yeah, the 5E example of play is okay but not good. I think some of us intend to move away from the standard example with players asking 20 questions and DMs asking for inconsequential rolls in order to refine, improve, and accelerate our games. To dither less and play more.

At least, that’s what I’m trying to do. I think @Elfcrusher is too.

Now as for AW, I don’t share that experience. I’ve played quite a bit of *world games and d&d. I find really little difference in the amount of party drama, rivalry, and teamwork. I wouldn’t say my *world games lack exploration in any sense.

Ultimately I’m not too convinced the system matters too much at all, except to the extent that the rules interfere with the playing of the game. I wonder if people are just writing different content in different games based on their overall impressions of those games’ aesthetics.

 

[iserith]

The very idea of “knowledge checks” I think relies on a mental scaffolding that conflates checks with actions. The players want knowledge, they gotta make a check.

Right, the thing to examine is "Why do I feel like there should be a check for this at all?" And when one starts picking away at that, people often arrive at "Well, that's how it was done in D&D 3.Xe and D&D 4e..." or that's how they were trained by tables that internalized those procedures, even if they didn't play those games specifically. Then it's just a matter of retraining oneself to not think that way for this game. Different games demand different approaches.

 

[pemerton]

Whenever the players look to the GM they are supposed to make a GM move. This comes in 2 varieties : soft moves (threats) that imply something in the fiction is about to change irrevocably and hard moves (follow through) that make that change a reality. Balancing the two is the core skill of an Apocalypse World GM.

Running Apocalypse World is like sparring with the players. You throw a jab and if they don't respond or if they leave their guard open you are kind of obligated to throw the cross. You like them and do not want to hurt them, but it's like the only way they get better. It's constant move and counter move. Keeping a good tempo is really important. Knowing how hard to hit back is a crucial skill.

The "fiat"-like character of hard moves seems rather distinctive. In other systems the notion of "hardness" plays out in different ways - eg how many saving throws are allowed? (One to dodge the swinging pendulum, one to grab the edge of the pit, one to land on a ledge, . . .?)

Maybe the overall idea is what makes a really meaningful consequence a fair one in the context of this game at this moment of play? If the game assumes a non-"telegraphed" consequence is fair (which can be the case in some versions of D&D eg you force open the door and trigger the yellow mould spores) then the exploration-type stuff you mentioned upthread is going to loom larger as a game activity.

As well as avoidability and/or the possibility of anticipation, there's also the issue of the "subject matter" of the consequence that makes it meaningful. Who gets a say in this? Is it set by the GM? The player? As a premise of the game? I think classic exploratory D&D adopts the last approach (meaningfulness pertains to player survival and player XP/loot acquisition). 5e seems a bit less unequivocal in this respect.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I feel like this example is presented as if I'm the player and then I'm asked to adjudicate the proposed action as DM without knowing anything about what's really going on with those stones. What does my prep say?

This is an entirely fair point, both because it can't be adjudicated without knowing more, and because answering examples give fodder for people who just want to argue.

On the other hand, taking the scenario as a starting point and then filling in the prep details in order to illustrate different techniques (which is what I attempted to do) can stimulate conversation.