thoughts on Apocalypse World?

[Ovinomancer]

I remember posting years ago now about a 4e episode where I described a rock formation early on in a fight in the Underdark (the PCs were upper paragon tier), and in response the player of the invoker/wizard declared a Perception check. The check succeeded and so I narrated that he had spotted a roper before it could get the drop on him! Until that point I hadn't had a roper on my encounter roster, but now I added it.

Many ENworlders responded to that with outrage: "gotcha" GMing, railroading,

Hi, I was one of those ENWorlders. Ah, the before times.

 

[pemerton]

I'll be bowing out of this thread now. It's clear this is not the game for me. I'll play it, if someone else offers to run it, but I won't run it myself.

I feel a bit like I've been trolled. You asked questions, and I poster multiple detailed replies with many references to the relevant pages of the rulebook. You seem to have ignored those posts, while continuing to ask the same questions and complaining that no one is answering you.

Hopefully some others might find my replies helpful.

 

[pemerton]

Hi, I was one of those ENWorlders. Ah, the before times.

I think there's only one particular name I could remember. Not yours.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think there's only one particular name I could remember. Not yours.

Not sure if I should be offended.....

 

[Manbearcat]

@Grendel_Khan

Here is the order of operations/cognitive workspace for GMing a Job/Score situation after the initial Engagement Roll obstacle:

1) Regarding the Job/Score:

* What is the Plan (Assault, Deception, Infiltration, Mystic, Social, Transport)?

* What is the Goal?

* Who is the primary antagonists (relevant threat level, nature, assets) and any secondary antagonists?

2) The setting/situation for this moment of the Job/Score:

* Where are we?

* What relevant factors impact the type of obstacles/consequences we can see within this space/time?

* What fiction predated things in total and what immediately predated this moment of the Job/Score?

* What is the present gamestate (Position prior to this and how that interacts with the immediately prior Action Roll outcome...any Clocks out there and where are they at relative to going off?)?

3) The obstacle for this moment of the Job/Score:

* How does it come between the players and their goal (this is extremely important for Consequence handling)?

* Can I use any of the player's thematic material (a particular PC Rival, Vice, Heritage or an established Enemy Faction that is Allied with the antagonist of this Score)?

4) Ask Questions > Use the Answers > Clarify/Focus player Action Roll (s):

* Determine if Position needs some modification based on Action Roll (getting in the face of the Rancor Monster).

* Assess Factors (Potency < > Quality/Tier < > Scale) of Action Roll.

* Keep meta channel open about prospective Consequences.

* Do they want to trade Position for Effect and how?

* Offer a Devil's Bargain (particularly if they're stuck/consternated).

5) Resolve the Action Roll:

* Handle Position/Effect results correctly, consult the Principles and Best Practices, consider all of 1-3 above.

* 2 lesser Consequences are almost always better than 1 single big Consequence (change the situation more dynamically and give them more inputs to the changing situation, Resistance Roll considerations, and subsequent Action Rolls to resolve the new situation). HOWEVER, sometimes Harm 3 or 3 Ticks on the Clock in Desperate is just plainly the right move. If its the right move...just make it. You'll know it when it is.

 

[innerdude]

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?

Heh, I'm chuckling at myself now, because much like the other participants in the conversation, I'm trying to figure out how to actually explain the principles of play in a way that makes sense without just saying, "Play the game and find out."

So I mentioned playing Ironsworn solo earlier, because it's a great way to demonstrate the overall principles when playing PbtA with a group or when you're the GM.

So let's take your scenario you proposed earlier:

"One or more people have died. At least one of those people was known to and cared about by a PC. There's some evidence that the killer murdered this person to rile up the PC. Investigation--whether through talking to people, doing research, or examining the crime scene--will point the PC to the likely identity of the killer (there are multiple ways the PC can find this info). If the PCs take too long, the killer will either murder someone else or disappear (depending on GM whim), leaving the murder unsolved and the victims without justice/revenge.

"Again, these is a legitimately serious question here: Is this plot, such as it is, bad or wrong for AW? If it's not a good plot for the game, why? What would be better for the game?"

So imagine you're playing Ironsworn solo. So you're both the player and GM and the same time . . . but you're playing in a principled manner, and you're using the Ironsworn "Oracles" tables to guide decision points that are uncertain, helping you discover what's happening in the game world right along with your character.

So think for a minute about how you would run a mystery like this.

The existence of a situation around "one or more people have died, likely murdered", wouldn't have been preconceived in anything but the most general terms by you, the player/GM beforehand. Why would you even bother coming up with an elaborate plot your character is going to uncover when playing solo, when the "GM half" of your mind already knows exactly what happened and who's responsible?

Answer is, you wouldn't. It would be boring.

More likely, in Ironsworn, the situation you describe would have arisen as one of many possibilities from a failed roll, or a partial success roll with complications. In the moment, you'd be thinking of complications, obstacles that might arise from the current fictional situation. You made a move earlier, and are adhering to the consequences described.

So maybe you or the Oracle tables present a situationally relevant complication that is now in front of you and your character --- "Some people have died, and it's entirely possible they've been murdered."

Cool, awesome! Something to explore. But the underlying context cannot be pre-authored ahead of time for it to be meaningful to you in play. It can't pre-exist as a GM-authored situation for it to be fun.

Okay, so, next your character goes out and looks for information. Along the way you invoke moves specific to your search, in the appropriate contexts. As a result of the success/partial success with complication/failure, you in the very moment of resolving those moves create contextually appropriate, relevant clues --- oral histories provided by witnesses, blood samples, tattered piece of a cloak, footprints, whatever.

But since you are literally authoring this simultaneously as you are playing, the discoveries follow from the context, the fiction, the moves being invoked, and the principles of play associated with those moves individually and the general ethos/spirit of Ironsworn generally. And depending on how a set of moves play out, some of the relevant context from earlier moves only becomes fully clear as you progress.

Hmmm, why was there a set of hoofprints next to the river, but no sign of tack or offal anywhere? Hmmm, does that mean maybe a local was involved? Ah, that would explain why someone at the stable was so anxious to get me away from there yesterday morning. What was his name? Oh yeah, it was Gregor, right? (And maybe right up until that very moment, there was no character named Gregor in the town, manning the stables, but because it now fits the other moves and clues, it is now part of the fiction).

These are things that arise through your own authoring experience, as you explore the situation and come to conclusions---with the help of the Oracles---that are fully grounded in the fiction, your character's situation, and how those situations apply to your character's understanding of the world.

Now, if that doesn't sound like a satisfying way to run a mystery scenario, fair enough. If you don't think you and your players are disciplined enough or creative enough or fair-minded enough to really let the story emerge this way, hey, it's understandable. It takes a very firm mindset (especially in solo play) to not just author immediate solutions for your character to get everything (s)he wants, when (s)he wants it.

So, now imagine needing to apply that same level of principled play to a GM-led scenario. The only difference when you switch from Ironsworn solo play to GM-led play is that the GM can, at their discretion, occasionally set up some additional flavor, context, and obstacles in the moment during play that should resonate with the players, rather than wholly relying on the Oracles tables.

But this in no way should assume that the GM is creating huge swaths of backstory (more on that below).

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?

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."

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.

Again, it's less about the mechanics and more about the principles involved. For social encounters In PbtA, 1) the level of stakes must rise to being worthy of a check even being made at all, and 2) there are constraints imposed on the GM when you get certain levels of success in your move checks. The GM MUST provide a certain quality of information / interaction / context / value. If (s)he does not provide the appropriate quality of response based on your check, (s)he is violating the principles of the game. In a very real way, if the GM is behaving against these principles, by rules as written (s)he is sabotaging the game.

I don't think that ethos exists at all in D&D. In D&D, it's technically impossible for the GM to do so. GMs are welcome to provide as little or as much information as they desire on any successful information gathering check.

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.

Well, no. But yes. But no. But yes, mostly . . . .

In Ironsworn, the whole "what's going on" isn't really authored beforehand. The whole point is that the GM hasn't even bothered to create most of this backstory beforehand, because the game neither requires it, nor even wants it in the first place.

If there's any "hidden GM backstory" involved at all, it should be largely sweeping generalities, with a few "fronts" that are currently in play that may impact what happens to the characters. The goal is that the GM and players should in 90%+ of cases collaborate on key backstory elements, especially in areas that are germaine to the character's goals and drives.

Again, it's a flipping of the script from traditional D&D / other "trad" games. The goal is to explore what really matters to the character, in this moment, in this context, right now. Backstory only becomes important as it intersects with that principle of play. Until then, it should be left in the shadows, vague and unseen, until such point in time that a critical moment, a critical decision, brings it into the light --- at which point the players and GM work together to hammer down its importance, relevance, and adjacency to the action happening right now.

Hopefully you can see, if this is the assumed play model, that creating huge swaths of detailed backstory beforehand is not helpful. Backstory elements should remain fluid as long as possible---but once they are nailed down, they are nailed down. They are now just as much a part of the fictional framing as anything else.

When I ran Ironsworn with a group, my basic premise was that the PCs were living out their own version of the Vinland Saga in Guy Gavriel Kay's "alternate historical world" of his novels The Last Light of the Sun and The Lions of Al-Rassan. But that was really just to give enough color and baseline "grounding" into what kind of world it was. At no point did I expect any of the characters to have any notion or conception of the events of the novels, nor would they have any interaction with any of the places or characters within the novels.

Other than that basic background, all I set up was a couple of key fronts, an inciting incident, and detailed maybe 5 or 6 NPCs that lived in the immediate dwelling where the game started. That's it.

 

[Arilyn]

I'll be bowing out of this thread now. It's clear this is not the game for me. I'll play it, if someone else offers to run it, but I won't run it myself.

PbTA games really need to be played in order to understand them. I know I was surprised how immersive my first experiences were and how deep the world felt, although very little prep was done by the GM.

The games feel like they'd be awkward and artificial until you play. Players and the GM need to fully engage, however. Nobody at the table can be there just to roll dice and eat Doritos. I hope you'll give it a chance.

 

[innerdude]

That would depend entirely on how the PCs act and who the killer is and, well, how I want the story to go down.

See that bolded part, right there? This is the problem. You MUST let that impulse go in PbtA play.

If you can't let it go, you're not going to like it. 100%, you'll end up fighting the system the whole way.

 

[prabe]

See that bolded part, right there? This is the problem. You MUST let that impulse go in PbtA play.

If you can't let it go, you're not going to like it. 100%, you'll end up fighting the system the whole way.

IMO, "how I want the story to go down" isn't great GMing in D&D-alikes, either.

 

[Manbearcat]

But it hasn't been explained in a way that makes sense to me, and at this point I don't think it ever will be.

I only picked "investigate a crime scene" because I had a question about "Read Sitch." To whit, can it be used in a non-charged situation and if not, what do I do instead. People sort of answered me by suggesting I could just tell the PCs what they want to know, no rolls needed, but then people also said I shouldn't be having situations that weren't charged and nobody should ever have to read the situation unless it was charged or they wanted to make it charged.

When people wanted to know what sort of non-charged situation there could be, the idea of a crime scene came up. It's important to the story (maybe not a PbtA story, but to most games it would be important), and it's not charged because nobody is possibly going to be hurt.

There are two ways to unpack what "charged" means when Vincent Baker uses it:

1) The generic way which is shorthand for "charged with conflict." You will find this in Dogs in the Vineyard. This just mean that someone wants something out of this situation and some other one or some thing is out to deny them it. What does a climber want? They want to ascend. What does the peak want? It wants the climber to fail...and maybe to send a message to future climbers. Same thing in any other matrix. What does the addict really want? To quit the habit. What does the habit want? To maintain the status quo (another drink/hit won't hurt!).

2) The Apocalypse World specific way:

AW 97
Oversee character creation. Answer questions. Open this book to the character creation chapter but put bookmarks in the characters’ moves
and crap chapters.

Go around for introductions, do the Hx thing, highlight stats.

Then I’d just say it outright to your players: “your setup’s easy and now you’ve already done it. Mine’s harder so I’m going to take this whole
session to do it. So no high-tension kick off from me, let’s follow the characters around for a day and get to know them. Cool?”

A couple of you groaned, I could hear you from way over here. Oh great, getting to know the characters, that’s a recipe for will anything ever
happen? Following the characters around for a day and getting to know them, it could mean establishing a whole unwieldy mass of status quo, right?

It could mean that but it doesn’t. Say it with me: there are no status quos in Apocalypse World.

What it means instead: it’s your job to create a fractured, tilting landscape of inequalities, incompatible interests, PC-NPC-PC triangles, untenable arrangements. A dynamic opening situation, not a status quo you’re going to have to put your shoulder against and somehow shift, like pushing a futon up a ladder. No: an unstable mass, already charged with potential energy and ready to split and slide, not a mass at rest.


What should your takeaway be from that?

THE FIRST RULE OF APOCALYPSE WORLD IS THERE ARE NO STATUS QUOS IN APOCALYPSE WORLD.

If you're spending any real, consequential table time on a thing, it should be charged (with conflict); unstable, dynamic, not at rest.

Someone wants something and someone or some thing doesn't want to give that thing up.

So a PC wants something out of investigating this "crime" scene (maybe a PC came to a garage and its an important parley to resolve an evergrowing powderkeg...but its a bloody mess like in Reservoir Dogs).

What does the crime scene want? It doesn't want to give up its secrets (that is what crime scenes want)!

What does the possible causal agents of this mess want? No witnesses? Maybe they wanted everyone who was supposed to attend the meeting dead (oops...the PC showed up late)?

What does the guy on the floor who is mostly dead want? To live? To pass on the secret of what happened to someone else before they breathe their last breath?

What does the pool of gasoline on the floor want? It wants to ignite by way of the precariously hanging, sparking light fixture that is ready to fall to the floor after the calamity.

What does the picture on the dead girl's hand want? It wants to be reunited with the family of this stranger so the ghost can rest. And maybe the family has a relevant dark secret to tell...the picture wants that dark secret told.

---

Fill the scene with charged conflict and awesome stuff. People want stuff. Other people/things don't want them to have the stuff. Play to find out how this whole scene fits together and then wildly blows apart...as_you_play.