thoughts on Apocalypse World?

[Ovinomancer]

That might be a good way for me to do horror (I definitely follow the situations, not plots idea--if only because plots have so many moving pieces I tend to forget them!). Which PbtA game would be best for that, though? IIRC Dungeon World--and correct me if I'm wrong--leans heavily into restricting race and class, or uses race-as-class, both of which are things I hate with the power of a thousand suns. Even though I run a mostly-human-only Ravenloft, the idea that those restrictions are built into the game anyway bothers me enough to not want to spend money on the system.

This doesn't even make sense within the system. There's no restrictions, because there's nothing to restrict. What DW does is have playbooks, where aren't quite analogous to a class (more an collection of moves for an archetype). You can mix and match moves between playbooks, even. Races aren't really defined, with the idea that the players will define what the race is in relation to the game world for that game. So, if you pick dwarf, then you get to defined what being a dwarf means in this game, which doesn't have to be the same in the next game.

Yeah. I'm not adverse to trying it at all. I just think I need more (preferably written) examples, and specifically with notes as to why things were done that way. The AW book's examples are... lacking. They seem to be written for those who immediately get the idea, not for those who are struggling with the differences.

I have a few other issues with AW. It creates just enough of an implied universe, what with the psychic maelstrom, to make me kind of have to play in it, but not enough to truly paint a picture of what it's like (compare to a game like Troika!--which I also haven't played yet, sadly--where I can just see the golden barges sailing through the hump-backed sky in my mind). The examples in the "Barf the Apocalypse" section don't cause me to imagine what the world as a whole is like.

But the PbtA system itself makes me want to figure it out.

That's because you're suppose to define your game world at the table, with the players. This is core in the concept of ask questions and use the answers -- you create what this apocalypse looks like when you sit down and create characters and establish the initial state of the game. You leave big spaces blank, and fill them in as you need to, often relying on the players to help do this work. The setting is implied enough to give some kind of initial genre push, but the details are up to your table for each game. The setting is specific to the game, which is an inversion of how D&D usually does things, where setting is often agnostic to the game.

Blades in the Dark is another thing I have issues with. Such a beautiful, amazing setting, perhaps one of the most unusual and interesting post-apocalyses I've ever seen... and they're wasting it on heists. Heists are great, but I can do that anywhere. In a setting where the sun is broken, I want to explore the world and deal with the consequences of that, not just steal things and create gangs.

Cool, play a different game, then and use the setting. Blades isn't about exploring the setting -- that's just some nice backdrop to what the game is about. In other words, to me, all of that setting stuff is superfluous to the point of the game, not vice versa. I don't play Blades for the setting, I play it for the game, and the setting is neat. The setting is there to give the backdrop that this is how horrible it is, not as a puzzle to be solved in the game. Admittedly, if you're coming from D&D where such a setting detail is a clear hook to go investigate the GM's story idea (or the setting author, if published), then this is where you expect it to lead and it's disappointing it doesn't.

 

[niklinna]

Blades in the Dark is another thing I have issues with. Such a beautiful, amazing setting, perhaps one of the most unusual and interesting post-apocalyses I've ever seen... and they're wasting it on heists. Heists are great, but I can do that anywhere. In a setting where the sun is broken, I want to explore the world and deal with the consequences of that, not just steal things and create gangs.

Well, the folks who wrote and play Blades in the Dark are quite happy to waste their time on heists. There are many Forged in the Dark (and Apocalypse World) offshoots with different settings & premises, some of them incredibly specific, a trend I don't particularly get into myself—so I can appreciate why you would feel heists are a waste—but there it is.

Anyhow! The activity rules cover just about anything you might want to do pretty well, so nothing prevents you from taking Blades in the Dark and structuring the activity of your group sessions differently. The book describes free play, engagement, score, and downtime as formal phases, and crew playbooks as gangs of criminals. You can rename those phases and crew playbooks, repurpose them, replace them, or ditch them entirely. A score/heist is really just a quest with the assumption that the PCs are criminals after all, and most of the base playbooks would be fine for heroic questing in the cities or wilderness of the Shattered Isles. There's a set of playbooks to play vigilantes, and another for officers of the law. There was a jam on itch.io that produced 100 playbooks of all kinds—check it out!

 

[Faolyn]

This doesn't even make sense within the system. There's no restrictions, because there's nothing to restrict. What DW does is have playbooks, where aren't quite analogous to a class (more an collection of moves for an archetype). You can mix and match moves between playbooks, even. Races aren't really defined, with the idea that the players will define what the race is in relation to the game world for that game. So, if you pick dwarf, then you get to defined what being a dwarf means in this game, which doesn't have to be the same in the next game.

Maybe I read the wrong thing, then. But on the Dungeon World SRD, if I click on the Bard entry, I get a choice of racial Moves--and my choices are Elf and Human. If I click on Fighter, my racial Moves are Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, and Human. If I click on Paladin, I get one option: Human. If I do a search on DriveThruRPG on Dungeon World Playbooks, most of them are new classes (some of which sound rather interesting), but there's also "The Orc" and "The Fae" and other such racial classes. What this means is, I don't get to define what dwarf means in my game, because the game has already done so, using a race/class restriction that I hate. I know that this OSR-style restriction is popular among some, and that's absolutely fine, but I hate it.

Do the DW books say or imply I can just make up new Moves if I want dwarf bards or elf paladins? If so, are there rules for that, or does "balance" not matter in this game? If the books don't suggest I can make new Moves, then what does it mean for my game?

That's because you're suppose to define your game world at the table, with the players. This is core in the concept of ask questions and use the answers -- you create what this apocalypse looks like when you sit down and create characters and establish the initial state of the game. You leave big spaces blank, and fill them in as you need to, often relying on the players to help do this work. The setting is implied enough to give some kind of initial genre push, but the details are up to your table for each game. The setting is specific to the game, which is an inversion of how D&D usually does things, where setting is often agnostic to the game.

Yeah, but that's not the problem. The problem is that the book itself doesn't really inspire me. And I can--and have--defined the game world with my players using other systems, including D&D, Fate, and GURPS. So with Apocalypse World, I'm left with a meh setting and a ruleset that I find, quite frankly, confusing, counterintuitive, and strangely limited.

I'll give you an example. I'm looking at the Moves Snowball, which gives an example of play and maybe you can explain what I'm not getting. We have a situation where the PC Marie is going to "give grief" to an NPC, Isle, and her brother Mill and lover Plover are there as well.

“I read the situation,” her player says.
“You do? It’s charged?” I say.
“It is now.”

Between this and the description for Read Sitch, I learn that it's supposed to be used in scenarios where there's potential danger, either on your part or the part of the NPCs. Does this mean I can't use it in any situation that isn't charged? I can't go into a room where people are just hanging out innocuously and where I have no intention of starting trouble and try to read the room? In comparison to any other game that has an Insight/Psychology/Sense Motive-type skill, this seems seriously limited. Does the game assume that nobody would use this ability unless there currently is or will soon be danger? Or does the game assume that there's always a potential for danger, no matter how peaceful the situation seems? The MC's response here--"You do? It's charged"--certainly indicates that you're not supposed to use this ability outside of potentially threatening situations. Anyway, Marie's roll succeeds and she wants to know who the most dangerous person in the area is:

“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 %@#^. 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.)

So I look up Misdirect.

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

But... this is basically what nearly every practiced GM does. It looks like the point of this Move is to say "go after Plover," but it fails, because the PC attacks Isle instead. Does the MC's failure mean anything? Assuming I'm even correct as to the point of the Move, because the MC doesn't actually say.

Also, I don't know why this is called misdirection, since you're (edit: not) trying to feint or lie here. The MC here is being very clear here and in later dialogue about the fact that Plover is a big bad mofo, and there's nothing to indicate that in reality, either Isle or Mill are secretly the most dangerous one and the PC hasn't found that out yet.

Later on, we get this:

“Cool. Keeler—” turning to Keeler’s player “—you’re passing by your armory and you hear some of your gang people in there. It’s Plover, Church Head and Pellet, arming themselves. What do you do?” I’m announcing future badness.

What? How does Keeler know this? Did the MC here take over Keeler and force him to enter the armory in order to witness this? Does Keeler have X-ray vision and super-hearing? Are his gang members talking really loudly and narrating their actions? Are we to assume a third-person omniscient eye? I kind of hate this. If this were a TV show, I'd be rolling my eyes so hard right about now. Keeler's player should have to go into the armory to know what's going on, and if that means that that Keeler misses out on info if she doesn't, then oh well.

Later on, Keeler's gang decides to attack Marie because she attacked Isle (I guess Plover knows that Marie is a psychic and was able to put two and two together when Isle started bleeding out her ear). The gang cuts open the top of her door at home and drop a grenade in.

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?

What? How is this misdirection? Is this game GM v. Players, but wants you to restrict your GM attacks to what makes sense in-game? It really looks like what this game calls misdirection is what every other game calls "describing what happens." Which would naturally be an explosion if someone drops a grenade at your feet.

So what am I missing? Again, this is a serious question, not a gotcha or anything. I am literally not getting this.

Cool, play a different game, then and use the setting. Blades isn't about exploring the setting -- that's just some nice backdrop to what the game is about. In other words, to me, all of that setting stuff is superfluous to the point of the game, not vice versa.

Yeah, and that's why I don't want to play Blades. To me, the setting is so important because it defines most of what makes my character tick. It's a major disconnect between the setting and the rules, and it makes me wonder why Evil Hat even included the setting in the first place. Why not make it setting agnostic, or make an implied setting, or set it in a more standard location? It feels to me like they had the setting and and the game and decided to combine the two.

I don't play Blades for the setting, I play it for the game, and the setting is neat. The setting is there to give the backdrop that this is how horrible it is, not as a puzzle to be solved in the game. Admittedly, if you're coming from D&D where such a setting detail is a clear hook to go investigate the GM's story idea (or the setting author, if published), then this is where you expect it to lead and it's disappointing it doesn't.

It's not that I would expect PCs to go investigate. It's that I'd use this setting for a completely different type of game. The world outside the city is a crumbling nightmare. It's your job to explore it. Demons and ghosts haunt the dark streets. It's your job to protect the commoners. Things like that.

 

[Blue]

Blades in the Dark is another thing I have issues with. Such a beautiful, amazing setting, perhaps one of the most unusual and interesting post-apocalyses I've ever seen... and they're wasting it on heists. Heists are great, but I can do that anywhere. In a setting where the sun is broken, I want to explore the world and deal with the consequences of that, not just steal things and create gangs.

So your complaint about a system designed to strongly support heist and gang fiction and action is that "the setting is too good"? That then need to desaturate the world and make it uninteresting except where if would impact a heist?

Not every game needs to be a big tent game where you can do anything. And it's okay that other games have interesting settings - just like a short story implies a much bigger deal than just what you read, so can a directed game have a grand vision around it.

 

[Faolyn]

So your complaint about a system designed to strongly support heist and gang fiction and action is that "the setting is too good"?

Kind of? I mean, it's a totally personal complaint, but the last thing I want to do in that setting is plan a heist or form a gang.

 

[dragoner]

Kind of? I mean, it's a totally personal complaint, but the last thing I want to do in that setting is plan a heist or form a gang.

It is similar to my feeling about a lot of pbta games, they handle a narrow focus well, outside of that it's best to switch to something else.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Kind of? I mean, it's a totally personal complaint, but the last thing I want to do in that setting is plan a heist or form a gang.

So do something else. They've published rules for playing vigilantes in that setting, as well as rules for revolutionaries, or even, if you really must, for cops:

Blades in the Dark – Sean Nittner

But you can also take a page out of the various Forged in the Dark games and just tweak things to make a different sort of campaign that works better for you. Play soldiers like in Band of Blades. Adapt Beam Saber's rules to steampunk mechs for high-octane Leviathan hunting or mech-on-mech warfare. Blades/Forged in the Dark is super hackable and flexible.

 

[Blue]

It is similar to my feeling about a lot of pbta games, they handle a narrow focus well, outside of that it's best to switch to something else.

Yes, that's is an intentional point. They are quite focused, and provide a ton of mechanical support for that focus. They are not big tent games like D&D.

Butr for all that said, it's very easy to tweak to a different "small tent" that you want. Look at the proliferation of PbtA and FitD games. They still will not be everything to everyone, but they can be definitely tweaked.

 

[dragoner]

Look at the proliferation of PbtA and FitD games. They still will not be everything to everyone, but they can be definitely tweaked.

Yes, there are a lot out there, so if one is looking for a certain genre, there is a chance someone has made it.

 

[Manbearcat]

Barely paying attention to ENWorld right now (this thread or others), but just seeing this "Blades just does heists."

Holy mother of god is that a misunderstanding of the profound breadth of conflicts that the game supports (and by supports I don't mean bubblegum and paperclips and GM Force...I mean the action resolution mechanics + conflict resolution mechanics + principles + all of the various feedback loops and reward cycles).

I'm running a Smugglers game and a Cult game right now. Between those two Crews, you could name 10 D&Desque conflicts and those 2 Crews have likely run 8 out of 10 as a Score + they've run several other conflict archetypes that most D&D couldn't dream of resolving (through actual resolution mechanics...again, not bubblegum and paperclips and GM Force).

My advice to people who have not run games or played games is to dial up the curiosity and dial back the boldly asserted takes that can't be substantiated (and are empirically not true).

If someone wants to sit in on one of my Blades games...please...just PM me. I'll gladly get you hooked up with the DIscord and you can see what the game entails when played by experienced participants.