hawkeyefan
Legend
Not a fan of Lord of the Flies, eh?
thoughts on Apocalypse World?
- Thread starter Bird Of Play
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Not a fan of Lord of the Flies, eh?
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
It’s a fun read, but not remotely insightful about human nature or the human experience. Completely misses what is going on when groups of boys implode, when kids bully eachother, etc, but it is very quotable!
Campbell
Relaxed Intensity
I do not think the game's assumptions say that at all. I think they point towards that when you live in an environment where violence is the norm rather than the exception that breaking that cycle is much harder than surrendering to inertia. I also think that particular take shows a distinct lack of empathy towards people who commit acts of violence.
Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
Yeah, The story of the Tongan Castaways, six boys between 13 and 16 who got stranded on a remote island in 1965 shows the exact opposite of Lord of the Flies. The boys formed a strong bond and despite deprivations and injuries kept themselves fit and healthy for 15 months.
It could show the huge cultural difference between Tongan and British youth, but a more charitable reading is that humans are a lot nicer and less selfish than Golding and western culture generally expects
aramis erak
Legend
The prose of AW loses a lot of potential users simply because it's too far from the common lexicon.
Dogs was much easier to read and grasp.
Aldarc
Legend
The post-apocalypstic genre isn't really my thing, apart from the weird science-fantasy variety (e.g., Thundarr, He-Man, Titansgrave, Numenera, etc.). I agree that the prose of Apocalypse World is a bit off-putting and obtrusive to the usual tone-neutral RPG rulebook reads, but it fit the tone and style I would have imagined for a hypothetical Mad Max RPG, so I do think it succeeds in that respect. The advice in AW is probably the most solid advice for understanding the PbtA system and its aims. Obviously other great advice can be found in Dungeon World, Masks, Ironsworn, Blades in the Dark, and the like, but often these authors recommend consulting the source (i.e., Apocalypse World) for a richer understanding, and I'm inclined to agree. Even with that harsh prose, it's downright inspirational.
This quote about the Velvet Underground could very well describe Vincent and Meguey Baker's Apocalypse World.
Yeah, I think of it much like the Sex Pistol's gig at Manchester Free Trade Hall - where about 40 people turned up. But amongst those 40 people who went to that gig and inspired by it went out and formed bands were... Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley (Buzzcocks), Ian Curtis and Peter Hook (Joy Division), Mark E Smith (The Fall), Tony Wilson (founded Factory Records and the Hacienda), Morrissey (The Smiths)...
I reckon a few more than 40 people bought an initial copy of AW in 2010 - but probably only hundreds as I don't think many more than that were printed!
AW is still at the top of my list of games I want to run but haven't yet. With my group, I'd be inclined to substitute "intimacy" for sex. I think the nature of the intimacy isn't that material.
I don't agree with this at all. The only other RPG I know of that competes with it for clarity of vision, as expressed by the author, is Burning Wheel. And OK, maybe Over the Edge.
I don't think that AW is as novel as some other posters in this thread. Of course it's brilliant, and hugely influential and important. But it doesn't come from nowhere. The earliest game I know that supports, at least in a loose sense, being run PbtA-style is Classic Traveller. (Except in combat, which is a bit more wargame-y.)
At the heart of AW (and so in my mind of PbtA) is if you do it, you do it - ie certain actions mandate checks, and if those fail then the GM makes a move in response as hard as they like, that (i) follows from the fiction, and (ii) drives things forward.
If I was writing a set of RPG rules it wouldn't read like AW. It would read more like my posts - ie an academic essay tone but with too many dashes and italics used to introduce a vaguely spoken-word feeling.
But I think there' s no denying that AW is written clearly - it tells us how to play, whose job it is to do what (which is well ahead of all but a small number of published RPGs) and also establishes the tone of casual violence and the veneer (at least - maybe it can go deeper) of indifference that are features of the setting.
To be honest, I find a lot of D&D material overwritten and overwrought, but also a bit underdone when it actually comes to explaining the processes of play.
I find it pretty clear as far as the processes of play are concerned.
And I think if people don't like the prose, that's really on them. Vincent Baker is clearly extremely deliberate as a game designer, and I doubt that he wasn't equally deliberate in choosing how to write the rulebook. Sometimes the onus is on the audience to grapple with the work, if they want to engage with what it has to offer.
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