thoughts on Apocalypse World?

[mythago]

Try-hard edgy is exactly right. AW is just horribly, horribly written, and I keep hoping some other PbtA game will become the default first read for someone interested in what's probably the biggest shift in game design in decades. Maybe the Avatar RPG will fill that role once it's out? Because AW is just about the worst brand ambassador you could ask for.

You mean like Masks, which not only takes the PbtA engine and runs with its strengths, but does so in a popular genre (superheroes) that still manages to work the 'relationship moves' mechanics in a less R-rated way?

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

What's been said about tropes in PbtA is right on the ball. You don't have to prepare a specific scenario with lots of stats, NPCs and maps (although you can). You just need to know the tropes of the genre you're playing in. The players will help the GM (or MC) to make stuff up that fits the tropes. The moves will play into the tropes. And those playbooks will definitely play up those tropes.

 

[J.Quondam]

Does someone have a recommended gaming stream/podcast that's an especially good example of how any of these PbtA games work mechanically?

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

+1 Forward

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/+1-forward/id1110623840 RSS: http://1forward.libsyn.com/rss

www.gauntlet-rpg.com

 

[Tonguez]

What's been said about tropes in PbtA is right on the ball. You don't have to prepare a specific scenario with lots of stats, NPCs and maps (although you can). You just need to know the tropes of the genre you're playing in. The players will help the GM (or MC) to make stuff up that fits the tropes. The moves will play into the tropes. And those playbooks will definitely play up those tropes.

While the narrative first approach is great I do find the Playbooks and the limited set of Moves to be restrictive, especially with the way some of them are worded. I prefer FATE Accelerated’s use of Approaches+Aspects across the standard Four Actions.

That said I do like City of Mists which has a few easy to understand basic moves and aspect-like Tags (instead of Playbook moves)

 

[J.Quondam]

+1 Forward

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/+1-forward/id1110623840 RSS: http://1forward.libsyn.com/rss

www.gauntlet-rpg.com

Thanks! I'll check that out.

 

[aramis erak]

I have not played, but did read the book because it's so influential. I found the style of writing to be off-putting in a try-hard edgy sort of way. For example



Like, what is that? Is that part of the post-apocalyptic genre? I don't get it.

It is in certain levels of budget for the movies. inexperienced but hottie types hired not for acting but for the ability to spur lust, and in a setting where their clothes are likely to get ripped.

In other budget levels, the locals may look like the casting director cleared out an NYC "shooting gallery" of its homeless addicts, but the mains (good and bad) will still be smoking hotties. The Karl Urban Judge Dread comes to mind, tho it's a little off genre for AW. Also Tank Girl, Road Warrior.

So, it's not entirely off base for some parts of the PA genre...

Note that other forms of PA don't do that; it's rare in what PA fiction I have read for the characters to be described as attractive, let alone hotties.

 

[Manbearcat]

Vincent Baker is not “try-hard edgy.”

Dogs in the Vineyard and Apocalypse World are written from the perspective of brutality and honesty. Honesty about the disposition of the setting and the members that occupy it. Brutality about what happens when you try to live out and enforce a creed amidst flock of weak souls or claw out a meager existence in a barren, broken world that is only concerned with telling you to go eff yourself.

In the former, you get a lot of “brother x” and “sister y” and “easy now” and “I cast you out.” It’s gun-toting Paladins hiding their fear and fragility under a veneer of formality and Faith.

In the latter you get a lot of Lords of the Flies performative cursing and swaggering (watch any collection of 10-13 year old boys and AW basically plays out before your eyes) variations of “go eff yourself” and “don’t sing it…bring it” and “it’ll cost you.” It’s kinetic, it’s feral, its hard and scared people posturing for their lives in a Jenga Tower one pull away from collapsing. This is not sanitized apocalyptica-ery (should there be such a thing?).


Play the game (right…and play it hard). If you don’t get the prose for Dogs or AW after running it, then the arena of conflicts in those games aren’t for you.

And I’ve run about 100 sessions of Apocalypse World. Sex moves are about relationships in a world that is scrambling to not be reduced to its constituent and rote biological parts. And they’re about power and connection and distraction (same as ever). They come into play as often as your group wants. Perhaps once a session. Perhaps every 2-4 sessions. It’s about what the sex means to the characters of the world and their conception of themselves and each other. It’s not erotica.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Vincent Baker is not “try-hard edgy.”

Dogs in the Vineyard and Apocalypse World are written from the perspective of brutality and honesty. Honesty about the disposition of the setting and the members that occupy it. Brutality about what happens when you try to live out and enforce a creed amidst flock of weak souls or claw out a meager existence in a barren, broken world that is only concerned with telling you to go eff yourself.

In the former, you get a lot of “brother x” and “sister y” and “easy now” and “I cast you out.” It’s gun-toting Paladins hiding their fear and fragility under a veneer of formality and Faith.

In the latter you get a lot of Lords of the Flies performative cursing and swaggering (watch any collection of 10-13 year old boys and AW basically plays out before your eyes) variations of “go eff yourself” and “don’t sing it…bring it” and “it’ll cost you.” It’s kinetic, it’s feral, its hard and scared people posturing for their lives in a Jenga Tower one pull away from collapsing. This is not sanitized apocalyptica-ery (should there be such a thing?).


Play the game (right…and play it hard). If you don’t get the prose for Dogs or AW after running it, then the arena of conflicts in those games aren’t for you.

And I’ve run about 100 sessions of Apocalypse World. Sex moves are about relationships in a world that is scrambling to not be reduced to its constituent and rote biological parts. And they’re about power and connection and distraction (same as ever). They come into play as often as your group wants. Perhaps once a session. Perhaps every 2-4 sessions. It’s about what the sex means to the characters of the world and their conception of themselves and each other. It’s not erotica.

I mean…you don’t hear how pretentious, try-hard, and edge-lord, that all sounds?

 

[Manbearcat]

I mean…you don’t hear how pretentious, try-hard, and edge-lord, that all sounds?

Given that I’m not a pretentious or “edgy” person, if I did think any of things I wouldn’t have written it.

The games are provocative and harsh. The prose reflects that.