thoughts on Apocalypse World?

[Fenris-77]

The Between is specifically about a supernatural investigative society in 1880's London, so it's going to be pretty close in a lot of ways, either to use or just steal bits from. It's worth a read at the very least given your goals there. The Between also really shines in terms of making Victorian London and it's people really come alive as a setting (without a lot of setting detail to memorize either) so if that's something you're looking for it's again worth a look.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I hope you don't mind me jumping in to offer a take on this. I'm sure others will have more/different/better advice on this, but a couple of bits jumped out at me. I've not played Scum & Villainy yet, but I do own it, and I've played lots of Blades and several other Forged in the Dark Systems.

1) Based on a roll to learn the terrorist's whereabouts from local criminals--the player rolled a success with consequence on a risky Command action to intimidate them--I figured they were now being led into a trap.

So the success was that the PC learned the location of the terrorists from the local criminals, right? And the complication was that they were heading into a trap?

Was this consequence known to the player? To the character?

I think the consequences have to be known in some way. Either they are immediate and become part of the fiction, or else you start a clock and let the players know about it. And the clock need not be so specific if the situation doesn't call for it. So you had a trap in mind as the consequence, so I would have started a clock called "Trouble with the locals" or similar, and set a total (probably 6 by default) and I would have ticked it a number of times.

Then, that clock is in place, and you can use it for additional consequences on future rolls.

Having it out in the open means the player is aware of the consequences from failed or success with consequence results.

So they took a boat to another area of the city where the target was supposedly staying. This being a one-shot test session, in which I very much wanted a noir-ish moment where the newbie's more experienced partner gets killed, I figured the trap would start big, with an A-Wing attacking the boat from far above--a kind of sniper situation. I said that they could hear a high-pitched keening sound during the boat trip, but my player did nothing (he's also new to playing FitD, though not reading it). When he stepped off the boat I triggered the attack.

I think having a specific goal in mind....like the death of a mentor/ally....is not the best approach. Certainly the older jedi's death as a possible consequence should be on the table, but I don't think actively pushing toward that is really in line with the principles of GMing Forged in the Dark.

At this point I suddenly didn't know what to do, because in theory the Attune action specifically notes that you can use the Way (aka the Force) to "sense unseen danger or killing intent." But the player didn't initiate that action upon hearing the suspicious noise. So we awkwardly decided he could use Attune now to sense the attack and try to get himself and his partner off the boat in time. He rolled a critical success (two sixes) so he decided to pull the boat's driver off as well.

Everything about how I handled this seemed wrong, and in the moment we were left with the sense that if the player just kind of waits out a situation instead of taking action, maybe that's on them, because, as discussed in this thread, passive actions--especially the sort of passive Perception rolls that are almost constant in many trad games--just don't make sense in FitD. But what do you guys think? Was this just a hopelessly trad and off-base encounter from the start? And how do you handle stuff like danger sense or similar unnatural/enhanced perception in FitD, if it seems like an ambush has become part of the story?

As @chaochou has commented, this is where the game may take some time to click with the players so that they'll start to be more proactive rather than reactive. Early on in the learning process, I don't think it's wrong at all to prompt them or to remind them of the abilities/actions at their disposal. So when you introduced the keening sound of the looming a-wing (establishing a threat of some kind) you could say to the player "Do you want to use the way to determine if this sound is a threat? Do you want to take cover? Do you want to do something else?"

2) The player and NPC decided to get to a rooftop to deal with the A-Wing assassin, and here, again, I may have defaulted to a trad situation. I said that as they were running into a building and about to get into the stairwell, a pair of guys entered from the street and immediately pulled blasters and opened fire--evidence that the trap was bigger/worse than expected. The resolution for this was simple and fast and great. But was having these two shooters pop up (to show the escalating danger and stakes) sort of a game-breaking trad intrusion, because it wasn't based on another, post-A-Wing-attack player roll and related consequence? This was, in other words, a GM-first piece of fiction, which would miss the point of FitD, right? Or am I just in my head with this one?

I don't think this was really a misstep. If the crew is working toward their goal (in this case, I believe it is to locate the terrorists), the GM is meant to present obstacles. Now, this also depends on how you handled earlier actions and consequences. For example, if you'd established a clock as I mentioned above, perhaps these guys don't immediately open fire. Give the crew a chance to address this obstacle in more than one way. However, if the "Trouble with the locals" clock as been filled, then sure, have them barge in guns blazing.

Generally speaking, it's okay to introduce new obstacles and threats as needed.

3) Finally, toward the end of the scene/session, the PC and NPC realized they were stuck, with the A-Wing loitering above the roof and a large group of people running up the stairs. How this situation was resolved was, again, very cool to me, and pushed me even harder toward wanting to do lots more FitD. But as with the earlier appearance of the two shooters, this horde of dudes did not appear based on a subsequent player roll or suggestion. Does that once again break the core FitD approach, and make the game about PCs reacting to GM-determined fiction, instead of the other way around? Or am I looking at this in a way that's too zoomed in, and really the whole situation is just flowing from the player's chosen approach for how to find their target, and the consequences that followed?

Yeah, I think all this depends on how the whole session has been handled. But again, generally speaking, I think it's fine to add a new complication to the mix such as the reinforcements coming from below if it makes sense to do so. Even if the jedi crew was able to dispatch the initial guards and the a-wing with nothing but full successes, if they did it with a lot of blaster fire and light-sabering involved, then having reinforcements notice and come makes sense. If they were stealthy and quiet about it then reinforcements may not make sense.

I think you're probably okay in this area; I think as long as you look to the fiction as a guide, you're likely in good shape. Results can come from the fiction without being specifically a consequence of a roll.

 

[Fenris-77]

To build a little on my post above about PbtA design principles, I found the following quote from Vincent Baker that may help some people grasp what it means to change the moves and thus 'direction' of the game:

Here’s Ursula K. LeGuin: “Conflict is one kind of behavior. There are others, equally important in any human life, such as relating, finding, losing, bearing, discovering, parting, changing.“

What would it mean to start with PbtA, but to swap out Apocalypse World’s model of conflict and replace it with…

• A model of relating?
• A model of finding?
• A model of losing?
• A model of bearing?
• A model of discovering?
• A model of parting?
• A model of changing?

How would you design your basic moves so that they don’t create emergent arenas of conflict, but instead create emergent ways of behaving, including conflict as just one among others? So that they don’t (just) clarify and escalate conflict, but clarify and deepen all the ways the characters behave and relate? How would you design your playbooks, what would make this character unique from that character in their ability to relate, their approach to finding and losing, parting and discovering, their capacity to bear and to change?

 

[Aldarc]

The Between is specifically about a supernatural investigative society in 1880's London, so it's going to be pretty close in a lot of ways, either to use or just steal bits from. It's worth a read at the very least given your goals there. The Between also really shines in terms of making Victorian London and it's people really come alive as a setting (without a lot of setting detail to memorize either) so if that's something you're looking for it's again worth a look.

It looks interesting, though some of the playbook descriptions feel a bit too oddly specific for what I'm necessarily going for.

 

[GrahamWills]

OK, a quick(-ish) precis of the Brindlewood Bay mystery mechanics, which are pretty much ported directly to The Between, which is otherwise mostly PbtA in terms of design ethos and mechanics.
...
The Between a very cool system and I have nothing but wonderful things to say about Jason Cordova, the author.

Exactly the sort of thing I was looking for -- puchased!

 

[Fenris-77]

It looks interesting, though some of the playbook descriptions feel a bit too oddly specific for what I'm necessarily going for.

I get that. The playbooks are very keyed to Penny Dreadful. There are another three coming out I believe, and it's not hard to tweak playbooks, especially in terms of making them a little less specific in this case.

There are also a bunch of solid fan-written playbooks (and hacks) available on the Gauntlet Publishing Discord.

 

[Fenris-77]

Exactly the sort of thing I was looking for -- puchased!

They just ran a threat writing contest for The Between so there are something like 30 really cool threats available for free if you pop onto the Discord and check out the Writing Contest channel (including two of my threats but I can't say which ones because the judging isn't finalized yet).

Who doesn't want great free resources?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Glad you have finally realized that this is what I have been looking for and others have indicated. PbtA has been fun in a lot of situations, but, even with fantastic GMs (of which I have had several) it doesn’t work as well in the situation where there is an established fact that a character needs to discover.

Okay? This is like, after explaining how Monopoly plays, being asked, "sure, but how do I invade Australia?" The answer to this is that this isn't something that's a thing in this game. To me, this statement is essentially asking "how do I use this new system to play the same way I play now." The answer is you don't. It's not meant for that, so don't try it.

I only quoted this part, but I strongly appreciate your long description of Monster of the Week plays; I have not read the rules book, only played it, so it was very illuminating.

Maybe I should explain why I’m spending time on this convo; I’ve played and run a lot of systems; probably 30+ or so that I’ve had at least mini-campaigns with, from Rolemaster and AD&D to DitV, Fate, Tri-stat, Doctor Who, Kids on Bikes, and Everway.

If you've successfully run DitV, then there really should be little mystery (heh) to PbtA. Dogs has the same structure, with a premise that's explored and developed through play -- you cannot script a Dogs game and play it as it is presented. You can only prep the town and some of the issues there, but play's going to quickly go in unexpected directions due to the nature of resolution and fallout. It's the same conceptual framework PbtA rests on.

PbtA games look absolutely excellent to me; I love the presentation, the base concepts and the compactness and ease of getting started. Specific sub-systems I have lifted for other games I run. So I have been continually surprised when my play experiences have not been as much fun as I would expect. I’m not in the camp that likes to run one system for all genres — I used Savage Worlds for my Flash Gordon campaign even though I think it’s a bit of a clunky system in general, because it fits the pulp sci-if genre so well. So my goal is to work out when I should consider PbtA.

And this thread has been helpful. I think the quote from @Aldarc might be a good summary — it occurs to me that one-shot investigations, which are typically more about enjoying the mystery and less about the characters might be less good a showcase for PbtA than a campaign, which is typically character-focused (at least for our group).

Yes, you should not use PbtA for a scripted game where the primary point of play is getting the GM to reveal more information about the plot. That's not a dig at that play, by the way, it's exactly how I play 5e so I'm not adverse to it at all.

But I still wish Magpie had picked a different system for Avatar …

Why? PbtA seems excellently positioned to tell the stories one expects from Avatar. Avatar is entirely about the characters and their struggles and not about procedurally solving mysteries. The only difference is if you want a specific plot for the players to follow, then, yeah, PbtA isn't going to support that at all.

 

[Gradine]

Magpie made Masks which is a near perfect match, thematically if not genre-wise, for Avatar. And Masks is damn near the best designed RPG I've ever read.

 

[Faolyn]

I'm not defensive at all. I'm pointing out that your statement makes no sense in the way that storming Australia makes not sense when you're playing Monopoly. As such, the charge that it's a glaring omission is, well, without any weight. I'm not getting my back up, I'm pointing out that you're coming in from left field and making statements that don't really make any sense.

I asked a question, you went into a mini-rant about Monopoly and Risk. I'd call that at least a bit defensive.

Nope. I'm saying that passively investigating a murder scene where there's no dramatic interest pressing on the play is not something that PbtA even cares about.

I played GURPS for a while. That system, bless it's papery heart, tries to include rules for wildly cinematic games, but honestly that's not a genre the system "cares about." It's really a system that wants math, not crazy stunts and high power levels. But GURPS still has rules for cinematic games, as clumsy as they are.

So: does PbtA have rules (even if they're clumsy) that would allow for investigation, or not? And if so, what are they?

(And why would you consider investigation to be only passive? Because all of those examples I gave you have dramatic interest in them. There would be a real driving need to solve the crime before it's too late, especially if it directly affected you in some way (a loved one was killed or is a suspect; the killer has made it personal; the killer will strike again unless you stop it and you don't want any more blood on your hands).

I'm guessing that by what you continue to say, the answer is no.

in the same way that D&D doesn't care about what it's like to be a teenaged werewolf exploring your sexuality and finding out you're deeply attracted to a same-sex vampire even though you're dating the super hot opposite sex succubus cheerleader. This seems like a glaring omission in D&D, yes?

And yet, I can actually play that out in D&D. I don't even need rules for that sort of situation--that's pure roleplaying--but if I did want rules, D&D still has skills, subsystems, and other abilities that could be used, with a little creativity. ("I cast augury. Will I be able to resolve my feelings for the vampire?" The spell says weal. "Is my relationship with the succubus a healthy one?" The spell says woe.) You want a high school drama? There's the Renown and Loyaly subsystems, right there in the DMG. Both of those would useful for high school, and the upcoming Strixhaven book likely has more such rules and it's a school-based environment.

"ok, let's just accept it works that way, can I move my understanding around to make that work?"

Unfortunately, I can't just "accept." I need to know the whys and hows. What can I say? My parents raised me to question authority.

If the answer is, no you can't do investigations with PbtA games unless you do it as pure RP with no mechanics, then just say that. Saying that the game "doesn't care" about it is a non-answer to me, because it's a game; it can't "care" about anything. It either has a rule for it, or it doesn't, or it has a rule that can be used for it even though it's not the rule's primary purpose. Like the augury I mentioned above. It's not supposed to be used to divine one's sex life, but I'd allow it, and I'm pretty sure all of my players would as well, if they were in the GM's chair.

And, click, it locked in and I got it. I still play 5e, and don't bother with this approach at all when I do, because 5e isn't a game that supports this.

Maybe your D&D games are lacking because you haven't tried it.