I am not trying to insist an investigation looks like anything. I'm trying to find out how AW does it.
So why won't you tell me how they're run? How do people look for clues in AW? Do the PCs make the clues up? You keep bringing up Monopoly and Risk, but what I really want you to bring up is how you do it. This'd be, what, the fourth time I've asked? Is there a reason you won't answer? You say "people investigate things in AW all the time." How?
I think this has been explained. You have a scene with a threat or obstacle prominent, the player declares what their PC does, this usually triggers a move, you resolve the move, and iterate. If this tells the story of an investigation, it's an investigation. There's no one way this happens.
When you break the limits of how a game is "supposed" to be played, I find it becomes more fun. Which is probably why somebody on Reddit invented
Riskopoly. (And someone else invented
Settlers of Riskopoly.)
Okay. You seem to be putting a lot more effort into finding a way around the example rather than paying attention to the point it's trying to make.
From what I can tell, in AW, the book tells you how NPCs react to your actions. The only difference is that you get to pick from a list of reactions, right? One of this is you roll 7-9, or 3 if you roll 10+. How is this actually different in the long run? You may get to choose from a list of options, but it all boils down to how well you rolled. Does this mean you'd be happy if D&D had a rule where if you roll above a certain DC, you get +1 renown?
I have no idea what move you're talking about, here. In AW, you have Go Aggro, where you make threats of violence. On a 10+ the NPC or PC can either go along with you or force your hand and suck up the result. On a 7-10, there's a list of possible actions, two of which are the 10+ ones. On a miss, well, it's not going your way. For the move Seduce/Manipulate, you have to give a reason for the to do the thing you want, and the roll determines if they buy it or not and to what degree. These don't work like picking a reaction from a list, they involve the PC risking something (either having to do violence or provide a good reason) and the results are either great, okay, or suck.
Your comparison to a mechanic where you roll for renown is not remotely similar. Nothing is risked, there's no action involved, and there's no consequence for failure.
In probably most games, the player can and will say "I'm going to try to intimidate him so he'll move out of the way/give me the thing/tell me what I want to know/tell his friends I'm really scary."
Yeah, you can do this in AW, it's the move "go aggro." What most games do if you fail this move (and by most games I'm assuming D&D here) is, well nothing. If you succeed, it's up the GM as to what actually happens -- it might fail anyway because the GM has in the notes this NPC can't be intimidated (see the Burgermaster in Vallaki). In AW, though, when you go aggro, something is going to happen that involves you commuting violence because that's what's been offered. Maybe the guy backs down, maybe they force your hand, or maybe you have to make an example to get the point across, or maybe you start a fight that's risky for you and not what you want. Whatever the result on the die, the result in the fiction is going to be felt.
This is a big point of difference in games like AW from D&D -- actions change things, there and then, and create new fictions. The spread is such that your chance of outright success is pretty low, so you'll rarely straight out succeed (unlike D&D games) and complications and issues begin to accrue which then drive play further afield. You can't prep this, you have to roll with it.
I dunno. Maybe all the other games you've played have been, the GM tells you what's up and only lets you do certain actions when it's your turn. But that's certainly not how I've ever played it.
I assure you this is highly incorrect. It's not even correct for D&D, by the rules or how I play it (which is mostly by the rules).
That's so weird. The only time I've played in games where the GM was the sole authority was in this one Changeling: the Dreaming game where the Storyteller was a terrible railroader (because of which, the game lasted one session). Two or three sessions ago in my current D&D game, the players went on a completely different path than anything I prepared for. I certainly didn't stop them. They took authority there. I had to improvise like mad to keep up, but I went with them. As a DM, I tell my players what the world is like and let them do what they want with it.
Nope. 5e features the GM as the sole authority over everything in the game except some character related choices and the ability to declare thoughts, feelings, and actions for PCs. It's right there in the rules. CoC is the same. At no point do players have any authority over framing, setting, or outcomes unless granted by the GM (and equally revocable). The GM retains the final veto and is not actually bound by any rule or player declaration in any way. This is what a game where the GM retains almost all authority looks like. Most people that GM these games are pretty good at sharing, but it's important to note that this sharing is GM to player and exists as sharing because it's in the GM's authority to do so, not the players.
Being open and honest about authority distribution in games is a crucial step to understanding how a different distribution can result in a different game. 4e had a different distribution, as did 3e (at least as played, by the rules the GM still did have explicit rule 0). These games play differently from 5e because of this. And yet, these are all still pretty similar (well, 4e if played with certain principles of play did deviate strongly, but a lot of people played it like older editions anyway). When you get to really different distributions, games are notably different. If you're trying to understand a game like AW while holding on to the idea that the GM is suppose to prep things or have a plan for play and the players are mostly taking actions to uncover that, you're going to find yourself deeply confused about what the game is trying to do. And that's because it's not trying to do anything like that at all.
You can say "don't credit D&D with your work," but that sounds like you're saying that if I ran a good game with AW, I shouldn't credit that system either. If I'm a good GM, then it's not because of the rules I'm using. It's because I'm making a good world to play in and having good players who engage.
No, I'm saying don't credit D&D for work you have to do to come up with new rules or patches or whatever. D&D didn't create your houseruled way to deal with interpersonal affairs, you did. If you're playing 5e by the book, credit should go to 5e. The issue I see is that people take the work they do to houserule the game into a shape they prefer and then say it's D&D. It's not, it's your game, take pride.
So basically, don't do anything unless there's action. No background stuff, nothing to indicate a bigger world unless it directly affects the PCs, no trying to figure out what's going on, no having anything that the players actually have to figure out on their own, no letting characters just talk to each other unless there's a possibility they'll roll dice at each other. It has to be conflict conflict conflict all the time.
Yes, actually. And no. The bigger world is expressed through the complications and moves the GM makes. Fronts are there to express this, and you advance Fronts when it makes sense to or as part of a complication or consequence. I get where you're trying to go here -- it's not an uncommon opinion that if the GM isn't doing solo play with the setting and revealing that to the players that the setting lacks depth and doesn't feel full. This isn't true, and anyone that's grokked these games will refute this statement strongly. So, again, we're at a point where a leap of faith is required -- either we're all stupid and/or lying or it actually does work. I can't help you make this choice.
See, this is really pissing me off. Instead of just answering my questions, you're telling me "no." Just flat-out no. And when I ask why not, you say "because." You aren't providing me with examples of proper ways to play. You aren't even telling me what sort of adventure would be best for AW.
Because there's millions of possible permutations. And there's no sort of adventure that would be best for AW, because "adventure" implies prepped plots or paths, both of which are counterindicated.
In the Blades game I'm playing in right now, we've done smuggling, confronted horrors in the deathlands, released a elder God, fought a vampire cult in a secret war, stolen experimental weapons and sold them back to their rightful owners, taken over a distillery and run it as a business, convinced the paper that we weren't a criminal smuggling organization but instead champions for the downtrodden fighting against a corrupt management class that used gangs to enforce their wants through violent suppression, actually been champions for the downtrodden fighting against a corrupt management class that used gangs to enforce their wants through violent suppression while at the same time being a criminal smuggling organization, dealt with a possessed inspector that was controlling a city council member through sex and was blackmailing us, and a few other things. That's in, what, about 12 sessions? And in the game you stated was just about heists.
This is not how you convince someone to play AW.
I don't care to convince to you play AW. I'm happy to talk about how it works, and help understanding grow for interested people (look at my exchanges with
@Grendel_Khan). But convince you to play it? No.
It is, however, how you convince me not to try to play AW, and to think twice about playing other PbtA games.
I can't help that, really. You've been told a number of times by lots of posters how it's supposed to work, but keep circling back to this one example and insisting that we explain how it does this one thing. It doesn't do it like you're asking. I've said how it does do it, others have said, but you don't think we have. Okay. I'll be happy to try more, but I think you might need to adjust your approach, because it seems confrontational and expecting us to explain it to you in a way you expect rather than how it is. I'll be happy to continue if you're interested, or ask of any of the other posters that have expressed such an interest. It doesn't have to be me.
But, in retrospect, let's note that it's been you that's accused me of being defensive, that you've said my game must be lacking, and that you've questioned my ability to run D&D or even other games. I've done none of these things toward you.
