thoughts on Apocalypse World?

[Aldarc]

Secondly, I'd also say you're wrong because Blades does tell the players what their job is--they have to pick one of these playbooks, and all of the playbooks are for criminals.

If I may, I think that the point is that the players are picking up the game knowing that they will be playing criminals. The premise is on the box, so to speak. However, the GM is not the one who dictating what their jobs will be (in a more figurative sense), what the characters will do next, or how they are meant to go about their business in this setting. That's ultimately up to the players to decide. The GM may want the players to explore the deeper mysteries of the setting outside the bounds of the city, but that's not their job to push the players to explore those themes that the GM wants the players to explore. The GM doesn't pick the players' Crew Sheet: the PC players do. The GM doesn't decide the PCs' next heist: the PC players do.

And it doesn't even let two people pick the same playbook! One of my current D&D games has two warlocks, and the two of them have such different personalities that it makes for a lot of fun for the party. They couldn't do that in Blades.

The fact that only one person can play a given playbook is a feature of the game and not a flaw. Imagine, if you would, that you are watching a television series with a small cast of characters. Let's say it's a heist show like Leverage. There are likely not three characters who are hackers. There is THE Hacker. There is THE Face. There is THE Heavy. There is THE Mastermind. There is the THIEF. And so on. It's also similar to board games. If we were playing Pandemic, there can only be one person who plays the Scientist or one person who plays the Paramedic or one person to play the Researcher. PbtA and FitD approaches playbooks in a similar fashion. You are playing THE stock character of this archetype for this game. This is not better or worse than with D&D; it's simply different because of how PbtA/FitD approach the game in terms of genre simulation.

I hope that helps.

 

[Campbell]

@Grendel_Khan

It's going to depend on the specific move in question (the move will tell you). For read a charged situation a 7-9 let's you ask a single question from the list instead of 10+'s 3 questions.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

It's going to depend on the specific move in question (the move will tell you). For read a charged situation a 7-9 let's you ask a single question from the list instead of 10+'s 3 questions.

That makes sense. But what about a similar action in a Forged in the Dark game, where most moves aren't laid out like that. So let's say it's Scum and Villainy and you're using Study to figure out that same situation (scene of an apparent kidnapping), which the GM might say is a controlled action with limited effect. Rolling a 4-5 would mean a success with consequence. The list of potential consequences for any action is:

Reduced Effect
Complication
Lost Opportunity
Worse Position
Harm

What you're describing would basically be Reduced Effect. And I could imagine Lost Opportunity (player accidentally steps on clues, preventing them and others from trying to study them). But would a Complication or Harm ever make sense for a success with consequence result in that situation? Or would you really save those for an actual failed roll?

 

[Aldarc]

Question for @pemerton , based on the example you were using of reading a charged situation, though I'd truly love to hear from anybody/everybody about this.

So I fully get the notion of a failed roll in that situation (looking into what's clearly a kidnapping) resulting in the PC getting attacked/captured/etc.

What I'm still less clear on--and this applies to PbtA as well as FitD--is what a success with consequence might look like in that situation. I'm asking because those partial successes are obviously and by design the most common results, but also because I'm properly trained to GM what a failure or a success looks like...but not those mixtures of the two.

Would an example of a success w/ consequence for that action be spotting blood spatter, meaning that, in the fiction, we've now established that the kidnapping victim was also hurt? Or in this situation should the consequence really be directed at the PC doing the action?

Imagine we were playing Dungeon World.

PC: "I run charging with my weapon drawn into the band of orcs, going for the big one with the eye patch, who I think is the leader."

GM: "It's a swarm of orcs who all have their weapons drawn, so it's a tricky situation."

PC: "I don't care. I just want to charge against them head-on."

GM: "It sounds like you are trying to 'Defy Danger.' Could you give me a roll. How about using Strength since you are using your melee weapon?"

PC: "Cool. I roll an 8 in total."

GM: "You have successfully hit the orc, but now the other orcs begin to encircle you and have cut you off from your teammates."

"You have successfully hit the orc, but the orc (or several orcs) is also able to get a hit on you in the melee."

"You have successfully hit the orc, but that wasn't their boss. Their actual boss comes out from the throng of orcs and begins walking towards you."

Etc.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Imagine we were playing Dungeon World.

PC: "I run charging with my weapon drawn into the band of orcs, going for the big one with the eye patch, who I think is the leader."

GM: "It's a swarm of orcs who all have their weapons drawn, so it's a tricky situation."

PC: "I don't care. I just want to charge against them head-on."

GM: "It sounds like you are trying to 'Defy Danger.' Could you give me a roll. How about using Strength since you are using your melee weapon?"

PC: "Cool. I roll an 8 in total."

GM: "You have successfully hit the orc, but now the other orcs begin to encircle you and have cut you off from your teammates."

"You have successfully hit the orc, but the orc (or several orcs) is also able to get a hit on you in the melee."

"You have successfully hit the orc, but that wasn't their boss. Their actual boss comes out from the throng of orcs and begins walking towards you."

Etc.

Those are great examples. However, I should have clarified: What I'm confused about is how to apply a success with consequence in a situation that's more passive, like when you're analyzing clues, or really anything where there are no obvious hostile NPCs or environmental perils around. Pemerton's example of a failure leading to some unseen scoundrel knocking you out as you nose around is a really interesting one for a failed investigative roll. Moves the fiction in exciting ways, and is a million times better than "Welp, you don't see anything!" But navigating those successes-with-consequences in non-adversarial situations is what's giving me cold feet as a new PbtA/FitD GM.

 

[niklinna]

That makes sense. But what about a similar action in a Forged in the Dark game, where most moves aren't laid out like that. So let's say it's Scum and Villainy and you're using Study to figure out that same situation (scene of an apparent kidnapping), which the GM might say is a controlled action with limited effect. Rolling a 4-5 would mean a success with consequence. The list of potential consequences for any action is:

Reduced Effect
Complication
Lost Opportunity
Worse Position
Harm

What you're describing would basically be Reduced Effect. And I could imagine Lost Opportunity (player accidentally steps on clues, preventing them and others from trying to study them). But would a Complication or Harm ever make sense for a success with consequence result in that situation? Or would you really save those for an actual failed roll?

Oh, sure. Compications/Harm could include:

• An enemy sees you snooping around and reports you to their boss. This could be someone affiliated with the kidnappers or somebody else who doesn't like you.
• You trip on something that got scattered in the scuffle and land on something hard.
• Somebody sees you there and assumes you trashed the place.

But, the reason there's several categories of consequences is so you don't have to force such things.

 

[chaochou]

What I'm confused about is how to apply a success with consequence in a situation that's more passive, like when you're analyzing clues, or really anything where there are no obvious hostile NPCs or environmental perils around. Pemerton's example of a failure leading to some unseen scoundrel knocking you out as you nose around is a really interesting one for a failed investigative roll. Moves the fiction in exciting ways, and is a million times better than "Welp, you don't see anything!" But navigating those successes-with-consequences in non-adversarial situations is what's giving me cold feet as a new PbtA/FitD GM.

These are interesting questions. They're interesting, in my mind, because they drive at something fundamental, which I've mentioned in other posts in this thread.

And it comes down to whether it is the player, or the MC, who has determined the purpose of the player character.

If the player has done so ("I need to find my missing sister") then there's really no such thing as a 'passive' roll. Let's say they're searching her last known location looking for clues to her whereabouts - on a failed roll, the MC can make as hard move a move as they like. And it doesn't have to be they don't find a clue - they can find a whopping great obvious sign which doesn't reveal something welcome:
"Uh oh, looks like she's been taken straight to hell!" or
"Oh no, she's to be sacrificed at midnight by the Lord Lieutenant" or
anything else which appropriately challenges the player-authored concept.
If it's a player-authored goal, the options are - literally - limitless, but at the same time bounded by, and dependent on, the player's intent.

It's when the GM has determined the purpose of the player character ("You've been hired to find the missing villagers") then these rolls become passive - because the whole exercise serves no purpose. Looking for 'clues' is a euphamism for 'the GM has already decided where you have to go and what you have to do next'. The player is trying to learn what the GM is going to tell them to do next. It's a waste of everyone's time not telling them but for some reason it gets gated behind a roll and now the roll isn't great and the GM is wondering how they invent something new for the character to do out of thin air, and the player is wondering why we can't just fudge round this thing that just happened so we can get on with rescuing the damn villagers. Awkward. But revealing of the core conceits of play.

So my advice would be to re-evaluate the set-up and premise of character creation, the processes which are being used to create the situations each PC finds themself in, and ask yourself if it's the players who generated the purpose and goals of the PCs. If you have strong characters with clear player-generated goals and obligations and drama around them, you shouldn't get passive moves (although there are too many PbTA games for me to speak for more than a handful).

 

[Ovinomancer]

If I may, I think that the point is that the players are picking up the game knowing that they will be playing criminals. The premise is on the box, so to speak. However, the GM is not the one who dictating what their jobs will be (in a more figurative sense), what the characters will do next, or how they are meant to go about their business in this setting. That's ultimately up to the players to decide. The GM may want the players to explore the deeper mysteries of the setting outside the bounds of the city, but that's not their job to push the players to explore those themes that the GM wants the players to explore. The GM doesn't pick the players' Crew Sheet: the PC players do. The GM doesn't decide the PCs' next heist: the PC players do.


The fact that only one person can play a given playbook is a feature of the game and not a flaw. Imagine, if you would, that you are watching a television series with a small cast of characters. Let's say it's a heist show like Leverage. There are likely not three characters who are hackers. There is THE Hacker. There is THE Face. There is THE Heavy. There is THE Mastermind. There is the THIEF. And so on. It's also similar to board games. If we were playing Pandemic, there can only be one person who plays the Scientist or one person who plays the Paramedic or one person to play the Researcher. PbtA and FitD approaches playbooks in a similar fashion. You are playing THE stock character of this archetype for this game. This is not better or worse than with D&D; it's simply different because of how PbtA/FitD approach the game in terms of genre simulation.

I hope that helps.

There's no limitation on selecting the same playbook in BitD. There is in DW, but that's a feature of that ruleset -- it's a bit of intentional design. In Blades, the entire crew can be cutters, frex, but there's still so much most to choose that they can all feel very different, and grow very differently. Playbooks are just the initial ability and action distribution in Blades.

 

[Aldarc]

There's no limitation on selecting the same playbook in BitD. There is in DW, but that's a feature of that ruleset -- it's a bit of intentional design. In Blades, the entire crew can be cutters, frex, but there's still so much most to choose that they can all feel very different, and grow very differently. Playbooks are just the initial ability and action distribution in Blades.

Good point. I forgot that Blades in the Dark takes a different approach to this than most other PbtA games.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

Looking for 'clues' is a euphamism for 'the GM has already decided where you have to go and what you have to do next'. The player is trying to learn what the GM is going to tell them to do next. It's a waste of everyone's time not telling them but for some reason it gets gated behind a roll and now the roll isn't great and the GM is wondering how they invent something new for the character to do out of thin air, and the player is wondering why we can't just fudge round this thing that just happened so we can get on with rescuing the damn villagers. Awkward. But revealing of the core conceits of play.

It isn't terribly useful comparing PbtA to the worst possible GM running a bad D&D investigative module. I have played literally hundreds of investigative games such as Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu, Night's Black Agents and various Fate games that are nothing like that. The whole "roll skill and if you fail the adventure grinds to a halt" and "the investigative module is a linear path defined by the GM" argument is absolutely nothing like what is happening nowadays.

Your example is literally one that modern games call out to say "don't do this". For example, from the GUMSHOE SRD:

https://gumshoe-srd.com/5-DesigningScenarios/

You’re constructing one way to move through the story to another core clue, not the only way. In play, you may find yourself placing the core clue from one scene in another, improvised scene inspired by the logical actions undertaken by the players. The scene structure guarantees that there’s at least one way to navigate the story, but should not preclude other scene orders. By following the structure you also ensure that you’re creating a branching narrative driven by player choices. This avoids the syndrome of the story driven by the actions of supporting characters, which the players observe more or less passively.

I'm interested in PbtA, but not in comparing it to a stereotypically bad version of a traditional dungeon crawl-focused game. And @Grendel_Khan's comment is one I have struggled with also -- I have played maybe 8 or so PbtA sessions, and while the system has been pretty good for 'active opposition' scenes, it really has felt very turgid and limiting when faced with passive opposition. Almost invariably it has degenerated into players making moves that result in "ask X questions about Y", and choosing one or more of the suggested menu of pre-built options. It has felt formulaic and very meta-gamey to me. And it was clear that other players felt the same.

Let's take a specific example -- I am investigating a room where a crime has taken place and the criminal has fled. My goal is to find information that will help me follow the criminal. Looking at AW, it looks like READ A SITCH is the best option:

READ A SITCH
When you read a charged situation, roll+sharp. On a hit, you can ask the MC questions. Whenever you act on one of the MC’s answers, take +1. On a 10+, ask 3. On a 7–9, ask 1:
• where’s my best escape route / way in / way past?
• which enemy is most vulnerable to me? • which enemy is the biggest threat?
• what should I be on the lookout for?
• what’s my enemy’s true position?
• who’s in control here?
On a miss, ask 1 anyway, but be prepared for the worst.

So I guess I ask one question like "what’s my enemy’s true position?" or "where’s my best escape way past" -- already I'm in meta-mode, trying to match the answer I want to the menu of suggestions. And if I do really well ... I don't care -- I just want the answer to one question, not three.

So for me, it's hard to look at this example and compare to, say, Fate, where I'd make a skill roll (or a Smarts roll in FA) and if I succeed (equivalent of 7-9) simply get the answer I need without going through the hassle of mapping it to a move menu. If I succeed with style (equiv. 10+) then the GM will either volunteer extra info or ask me what more I want from the success. And on a fail I can always get the answer with a consequence (equivalent to "be prepared for the worst").

Now, I am 100% OK with "Don't use PbtA for investigative games" -- I choose specific games for genres, and my current thinking is that PbtA just plain isn't a great fit for investigative games or ones with lots of passive opposition. But I've only played a handful of Apocalypse games, so if anyone can give an example of how PbtA gives a fun, but different experience to what a modern game like Fate does in this genre, I'm very interested.