thoughts on Apocalypse World?

[prabe]

What I think @GrahamWills is saying (and I'm inclined to agree with him, so maybe it's easier for me to see it) is this:

There are TRPG scenarios in which a dead end (you don't see/hear/find/learn anything useful/interesting) is acceptable/expected.

Apocalypse World is designed not to generate dead ends.

Apocalypse World is incompatible with scenarios with dead ends.

If you're running Apocalypse World, don't run scenarios where you need/want dead ends; if you want to run scenarios with dead ends, don't run Apocalypse World.

@pemerton I don't think that's incompatible with what you're saying, but I don't always understand you as well as I would prefer.

 

[Ovinomancer]

What I think @GrahamWills is saying (and I'm inclined to agree with him, so maybe it's easier for me to see it) is this:

There are TRPG scenarios in which a dead end (you don't see/hear/find/learn anything useful/interesting) is acceptable/expected.

Apocalypse World is designed not to generate dead ends.

Apocalypse World is incompatible with scenarios with dead ends.

If you're running Apocalypse World, don't run scenarios where you need/want dead ends; if you want to run scenarios with dead ends, don't run Apocalypse World.

@pemerton I don't think that's incompatible with what you're saying, but I don't always understand you as well as I would prefer.

There's a difference between a dead end in a mystery -- ie, finding out that the path you've been pursuing bears no fruit -- and a dead end in gameplay. AW doesn't do the latter. The former is up for grabs.

Games where the outcome of a check is "you don't find the important clue due to this failed roll" are presenting both -- a dead end in game play because play has stopped and you cannot progress the mystery. This is often addressed by things like the rule of three (there are three ways to get this important clue) but that's doesn't sidestep the fact that the game hit a dead end and requires that backtracking. AW never does this -- you might find out that what you thought was happening wasn't (mystery dead end) but play is moving forward from that point anyway -- no backtracking or restarting.

That's what I see as the point @pemerton is making.

 

[hawkeyefan]

And I think, for some people, this is a problem with the system. Dead ends are a staple of the mystery genre — it’s hard to find a movie where the protagonist always finds something worth pursuing in every scene. Dead ends are a natural downbeat, and without them a mystery doesn’t really feel like it’s a mystery.

Another issue with the lack of a simple failure is that it rewards ‘loud‘ players; a typical case would be where there are two approaches to an obstacle, and PtbA seems to reward the player who acts first — because their action will not lead to a dead end, the player with the other approach likely never gets a chance to do their thing. Because nothing truly fails, the spotlight goes to whoever acts first. Maybe it‘s a better plan to bribe the guards, but because Jo attempted to sneak past them, that scene generates a complication and the bribery will never be attempted.

A final issue I noted is that it can be tiring for the players never to have things finished. A few times in games I’ve seen players who just want their characters to check one minor thing out before heading to what they consider the main scene. They just wanted to see if there were footprints outside the window before heading to meet up with the rest of the team, and so a simple “you fail to find any useful info” is absolutely fine; a dead end is expected and much preferable to complicating the scene,

So, for me, the lack of dead ends is not a great selling point. It does guard against pointless searches and expenditure of game time, but honestly, if you have a GM happy to let you roll dice and spend 15 minutes doing something pointless, your issue is not with the system. Systems like GUMSHOE guarantee that you don’t waste time like this, but even in more traditional games, competent GMs make sure scenes that go nowhere finish fast.

Summary: Dead ends can be OK

There are two ways of looking at it, as I think @pemerton has pointed out. A dead end in the fictional investigation/mission/job that the PCs are engaged with, and a dead end in play. The former may happen, but the latter shouldn’t.

You mention dead ends as a staple of the mystery genre…but is that really true? Sure false leads and failures occur….but most scenes in fiction will serve some purpose, even if it is not directly connected to the investigation.

I’ve played and run scenes in D&D where the players were searching for information in the wrong location or using the wrong means or whatever. As I said in my last post, there’s no difference in success or failure in this situation. Nothing actually happens. That’s a dead end of play, as well as a dead end in the investigation.

So, when the PCs in a more Story Now game head to a location, the outcome of what will happen there is not predetermined. Maybe they will find something useful to their goals, maybe they’ll find nothing. Maybe they’ll find something but also suffer some setback or complication. Whatever the result, it will he based on the actions taken by the PCs, their intent, and the results of their rolls. The process of play will produce results of some sort.

I think this is a pretty key distinction.

 

[Campbell]

The loud players thing feels weird to me because it relies on all sorts of assumptions that are not true of Apocalypse World

1. That player characters are part of a unified group or party
2. That they declare actions to overcome obstacles or challenges as like the point of play
3. That the GM is addressing the whole group instead of individual characters.

None of that is a feature of playing the game as the text instructs as to. That's smuggling in procedures from other games.

When running Apocalypse World the MC addresses individual players by their characters' names. It's Rurik, What do you do? and not amorphous group what do you do?

The spotlight gets shared because the MC spreads it around by asking different players what their character does.

In Apocalypse World it's your job to play your character with integrity, not to overcome some challenge or find out what the plot is. It's also not your job to have some group pow-wow. When it's your turn to speak you speak for your character.

Apocalypse World is a game about individual characters pursuing their individual goals. They often have to work together, but often also do not work in tandem. The fundamental long term tension in the game is about those relationships between player characters.

I know this probably is not encouraging to folks like @GrahamWills . It does not have to be. People should play Apocalypse World because it sounds cool and they want to play it. Monster of the Week might be a better fit for folks like him.

 

[pemerton]

What I think @GrahamWills is saying (and I'm inclined to agree with him, so maybe it's easier for me to see it) is this:

There are TRPG scenarios in which a dead end (you don't see/hear/find/learn anything useful/interesting) is acceptable/expected.

Apocalypse World is designed not to generate dead ends.

@hawkeyefan and @Ovinomancer have said most of what there is to be said in reply to this.

When I watch a mystery film, and the detective reaches an investigative dead end, that doesn't meant that the film just stops, that frame stuck in the projector for the next half-hour. The story continues.

I have posted, now, three times an example of a completely feasible narration, in accordance with the rules and principles of Apocalypse World, of a PC investigator finding nothing in the billiard room. But I have also pointed out that that would not be the totality of the narration, because nothing happens . . . what do you do? is not a GM move in AW.

The example I gave was of the PC coming back home and finding that their room has been turned over. Now imagine one possible action declaration in response to that: the chopper rounds up their gang, everyone else hops into the driver's car, and the PCs move out! The GM can handle that - they just make a move, probably a soft move, like the rulebook tells them to. Maybe the mystery that prompted the investigation of the billiard room, and maybe the mystery of who turned over the PC's room, never get solved! That's OK. The game will just keep rolling.

This claim that AW can't do mysteries, or that AW can't do unsolved mysteries, or that the answer to mysteries in AW is that the players just stipulate the answers that their PCs discover, is nonsense. It has no foundation in the text - whether rules, principle, or examples. And I've posted, now four times, the imaginary example that illustrates this point.

AW puts no limits on possible topics of fiction. But it does put limits on who can say what when. And it doesn't allow the GM to simply say nothing happens . . . what do you do?

 

[Ovinomancer]

There are two ways of looking at it, as I think @pemerton has pointed out. A dead end in the fictional investigation/mission/job that the PCs are engaged with, and a dead end in play. The former may happen, but the latter shouldn’t.

You mention dead ends as a staple of the mystery genre…but is that really true? Sure false leads and failures occur….but most scenes in fiction will serve some purpose, even if it is not directly connected to the investigation.

I’ve played and run scenes in D&D where the players were searching for information in the wrong location or using the wrong means or whatever. As I said in my last post, there’s no difference in success or failure in this situation. Nothing actually happens. That’s a dead end of play, as well as a dead end in the investigation.

So, when the PCs in a more Story Now game head to a location, the outcome of what will happen there is not predetermined. Maybe they will find something useful to their goals, maybe they’ll find nothing. Maybe they’ll find something but also suffer some setback or complication. Whatever the result, it will he based on the actions taken by the PCs, their intent, and the results of their rolls. The process of play will produce results of some sort.

I think this is a pretty key distinction.

I beat you by 2 whole minutes!

 

[hawkeyefan]

I beat you by 2 whole minutes!

Curse my fat thumbs!!!

 

[Aldarc]

Curse my fat thumbs!!!

 

[aramis erak]

I don't get Dungeon World's presentation of limited race choices for certain classes either, but, it's good to keep in mind that in all PbtA games (that I've seen), playbooks are starting points, not full & restrictive definitions. So the authors say only humans get to be paladins, or only human and elf rangers get special moves. Chuck it! Be a dwarf paladin, make up a special move dwarf paladins get. I think they could have been much clearer about that, but it's just something in the air if you plug in to the community.

Those choices are emulations of AD&D.
D&D 3.x removed a lot of limitations in the core, and told GM's they could impose restrictions if they wanted for their worlds, but the rulebooks no longer would.
From discussions seen when it was being developed, it was OSR fans doing the adaptation.

 

[aramis erak]

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.

The same is true for Sentinel Comics - it's also move driven - but it's also a bit more trad than most of the AWE/PBTA derived families.
THe GM has regular turns for his NPCs, and there is a GM plotline, but in-scene it's move based, and doesn't even have a normal risk of failure.
It has the narrate it to have your character do it, it's move based, and it has 5 basic and 2 special moves; all the various special abilities are combinations of one of those 8 moves. (Special moves require an enabling special ability.)
The SC moves being Attack, Defend, Boost, Hinder, Overcome; the special moves are Heal, and build/summon. Unlike AWE, failure isn't a possibility most of the time; Overcomes can fail, all others simply have quality of success A & D from 0 to 16, B & H having a range from 0 to 4, and overcome has 5 levels that aren't numeric... Fail+Complication (roll<=0), player choice simple fail or success+major complication (Roll 1-3), Success+Minor Complication (roll 4-7), simple success (roll 8-11), Success plus bonus (roll >=12). Not that the ranges on Boost or hinder map to the same ranges.

I found the AWE/PBTA mechanics much more comprehensible after running SCRPG... and there's a reason: SC is strongly influenced by both AW and Cortex Plus. (It's mentioned in the starter kit credits.)
If one needs a way to ease into AWE styles of play, SC can be that first stepping stone... it still has a GM and the GM frames the scene, and it has a victory condition for every scene, and is mission based. But in scene, players narrate until they hit one of the moves, or trigger a special ability they have; if they get to the ability, they can stop narrating and roll the dice; if instead they describe a move but don't see it, the GM can interrupt to have them resolve it.

It's not in the same space as any of the AWE/PBTA games, but it's a big step in the direction, but also only one of several such steps distance.