Help Me Get "Apocalypse World" and PbtA games in general.

[Manbearcat]

@andreszarta and @Manbearcat those were both very helpful explanations.

What the hell is a soft move?

Soft moves are provocative framing or escalation of situation but without IRREVOCABLE and IMMEDIATE CONSEQUENCES.

They're a looming threat. You're pointing to danger. You're foregrounding hostilities and future badness if the players don't intercede.

* Inflict Harm or Take Away Their Stuff. Always a hard move. Irrevocable and immediate consequences (RIGHT NOW).

* Announce Future Badness or Offer an Opportunity, With or Without Cost. Always a soft move. You're provoking or escalating but you're not taking away stuff/rendering irrevocable and immediate consequences.

SOFT MOVE - Provoke action, foreground/telegraph badness, escalate situation. Stuff will happen (maybe very) soon.

HARD MOVE - Irrevocable and immediate consequences (either from player inaction on a soft move or a 6- move result). Stuff happens right now.

 

[Reynard]

Soft moves are provocative framing or escalation of situation but without IRREVOCABLE and IMMEDIATE CONSEQUENCES.

They're a looming threat. You're pointing to danger. You're foregrounding hostilities and future badness if the players don't intercede.

* Inflict Harm or Take Away Their Stuff. Always a hard move. Irrevocable and immediate consequences (RIGHT NOW).

* Announce Future Badness or Offer an Opportunity, With or Without Cost. Always a soft move. You're provoking or escalating but you're not taking away stuff/rendering irrevocable and immediate consequences.

SOFT MOVE - Provoke action, foreground/telegraph badness, escalate situation. Stuff will happen (maybe very) soon.

HARD MOVE - Irrevocable and immediate consequences (either from player inaction on a soft move or a 6- move result). Stuff happens right now.

Ah. I don't think AW 2E calls them soft and hard moves. I can't locate a reference to that terminology anyway, even with ctrl+F

 

[Ovinomancer]

Ah. I don't think AW 2E calls them soft and hard moves. I can't locate a reference to that terminology anyway, even with ctrl+F

Perhaps not, but those terms are very, very helpful to discuss how to operate as a GM in any PbtA game framework. @Manbearcat has very useful and solid definitions above.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

I would also like to make a sidetone that it isn't so much that players tell the MC what they want to do, and then the MC asks them for a roll. Instead players do things in the fiction and if those things happen to trigger a move, then someone, anyone including themselves, calls for the appropriate roll.

This was one of the hardest and subtlest lessons for me to learn when I transitioned from more traditional games.

You see, most of us have come to expect during our time with traditional RPGs that one implicit GM function is to "police" over which things players say actually become part of the fiction, and which need to get somehow "filtered" before they become real in the fiction. This is not the kind of collaboration Apocalypse World asks of us. In Apocalypse World players have authority over their characters and the things that they do within the fictional space. What they say sticks; and as the MC you should not contradict or block what they say but instead respond to it.

This is something I've seen for years, and I'm embarrassed to admit I still don't entirely get it, even after running Brindlewood Bay, where play is framed much less formally than in AW. Obviously the full extent or success of the PC's action isn't set until the dice are rolled—if it's something that requires a move—so how is this different from a player in a trad game just framing their actions confidently, instead of as a question?

 

[Manbearcat]

Ah. I don't think AW 2E calls them soft and hard moves. I can't locate a reference to that terminology anyway, even with ctrl+F

Ah. Could be. I've run so many of these games in the last decade and change it may be that I've just internalized it.

Regardless, that is exactly what it is in AW. Vincent may not say it there (he probably said it on lumply later or in other conversations that I've been privy to), but that is what delineates the soft/hard move dichotomy.

Here is something else that is important. Look on page 272 where Vincent talks about and invokes John Harper's custom AW move (Harper of Blades in the Dark, and other, game design):

When you scavenge in the ruins, roll+sharp. On a 10+, choose two and find an oddment worth 1-barter. On a 7–9, choose one and and
an oddment worth 1-barter:

• You find it quickly.
• You find it with relatively little trouble.
• You find an item that is valuable.
• You find an item that is hi-tech

Now go look at Working Gigs on 153 and Barter on 160.

See the similarity? Apocalypse World zooms in and out. You'll have conflict resolution that resolves a lot of play space and then you'll zoom in very tightly on the action. Scavenge Ruins, Working Gigs, and Barter are conflict resolution where you're resolving a lot of play space and zooming out.

I think you said you played some Dungeon World? If so, look at it like Dungeon World's Undertake a Perilous Journey or Paladin's Quest or Wizard's Ritual. Procedurally, architecturally, and purpose-wise, its the exact same stuff as these moves above:

Players trigger a move that covers a lot of play space > we go to the move and resolve (this might entail further conversation like Working Gigs or it might be straight to dice like Scavenge Ruins) > we change the gamestate/fiction and zoom back in (go to my (1) of the core loop above).

Apocalypse World is actual modular, exception-based design (unlike some games that claim it but aren't remotely so) where you can beautifully and trivially take stuff out and add stuff in, zoom in and zoom out, detach and reset architectural components of play where it won't reverberate and cause unforeseeable knock-on effects downstream of it. Its transparent, elegant, intuitive.

 

[Ovinomancer]

This is something I've seen for years, and I'm embarrassed to admit I still don't entirely get it, even after running Brindlewood Bay, where play is framed much less formally than in AW. Obviously the full extent or success of the PC's action isn't set until the dice are rolled—if it's something that requires a move—so how is this different from a player in a trad game just framing their actions confidently, instead of as a question?

In form, not at all different. In how it works, there are some pretty big differences. In Trad games, even if a player confidently states the action for their PC, it's still a question to the GM because the GM has to, in effect, "ratify" the action declaration. And this makes sense because the GM is the arbiter of both the open and secret situation and setting information. It's entirely proper for a GM in a Trad game to block an action because of something the player doesn't know yet.

A very simple example of this is a door. The player announces their PC opens the door. In a Trad game, the GM has a note that says the door is locked, but this hasn't been openly established yet. However, it's fully proper for the GM to then just announce that the action fails and reveal that the door is locked, thus blocking the action by the PC. Totes normal here. But, in a PbtA game, the GM can't use such a note because it's information not yet established in play. The GM's option here is effectively say yes to the action or challenge it with a roll, and they should only ever challenge it if there's some stakes around the action (shouldn't frame it unless there's stakes, for that matter, but this is a toy example). The GM cannot block the action with unrevealed information -- they MUST go to the mechanics or just say yes.

The above assumes everyone's following the principles of play, of course.

 

[chaochou]

The Core Loop

1) Establish the situation...

So I think it's worth focusing just on this as a thing in its own right.

Because if I buy Curse of Strahd, that establishes situation, right? But that's not how we play AW. There are many ways to 'establish situation'. One of them is for the GM to write down lots of things which have happened and lots of things which will happen. This is not how AW is played... so how is it played?

My method has always been to collectivise the worldbuilding, as a group with everyone a creative equal. So we start with a generic statement:
"There's been an Apocalypse of some kind, not sure what, but the world is a harsh, fragmented, ruined place where our ideas of civilisation have broken down... what does that look like?"

That's the springboard for everyone to enthuse about ideas, whether it looks like baking, bleached desert, or crumbling ruins overgrown with toxic plants.

And all that then feeds into our immediate ideas of situation because it starts telling us what's scarce in the game. AW is about scarcity, and the 'no status quos' is about putting pressure on both what is scarce and what appears abundant.

So in the desert, where do you get water from? What is there to eat and how to you obtain it? So where do those materials for trapping and hunting come from? Or how do you find your way through the thick vegetation? Is there old coloured cabling marking trails? Who lays that down? Is there an antivenom for the plant toxin? Where does it come from? Who has the knowledge to make it?

These are the vibrant and interesting questions at the heart of the character's survival. Making them front and centre in the initial conversation about place and setting, is what builds situation which the players have an implicit understanding of and an investment in. Once everyone at the table has had an equal say and can visualise the place, with all its attendant perils and weaknesses... then you're through the opening step of 'establishing situation'.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

A very simple example of this is a door. The player announces their PC opens the door. In a Trad game, the GM has a note that says the door is locked, but this hasn't been openly established yet. However, it's fully proper for the GM to then just announce that the action fails and reveal that the door is locked, thus blocking the action by the PC. Totes normal here. But, in a PbtA game, the GM can't use such a note because it's information not yet established in play. The GM's option here is effectively say yes to the action or challenge it with a roll, and they should only ever challenge it if there's some stakes around the action (shouldn't frame it unless there's stakes, for that matter, but this is a toy example). The GM cannot block the action with unrevealed information -- they MUST go to the mechanics or just say yes.

This example kinda confuses me though.

If the GM were to say "You reach the front door, which is locked," then sure, everything's established. But let's say the PC is trying to be stealthy, so there's no assumption that they're checking every door handle they come across. Or maybe the GM just didn't think to mention that it was locked, but in the fiction it makes sense that it would be. In that moment, how does it violate the game's principles if the player says "I open the door" and the GM says, "It's locked—what do you do?"

 

[Manbearcat]

This is something I've seen for years, and I'm embarrassed to admit I still don't entirely get it, even after running Brindlewood Bay, where play is framed much less formally than in AW. Obviously the full extent or success of the PC's action isn't set until the dice are rolled—if it's something that requires a move—so how is this different from a player in a trad game just framing their actions confidently, instead of as a question?

@Ovinomancer 's response here is on point.

Trad game where player confidently expresses an action declaration? Well, they know....and its GM mandate that the following is in play as that confident action declaration is now punted to the GM and the GM can do any of the following:

• Veto
• Ratify
• Feign Ratification But Secretly Block (through a variety of ways and for a variety of purposes - story concerns, pacing concerns, "I just don't like this result cause it doesn't feel fun" concerns)

This is not in play for AW at all. What happens when a player confidently declares an action? Lets go back to my above post:

4) Resolve their actions

• If they trigger a player move, do what the move says.
• If they roll a 6-, make a hard GM move (establish badness).
• If they ignore trouble, make a hard GM move (establish badness). Otherwise, say what happens.

* You won't see Veto.

* You won't see Feign Ratification.

* You GM principally within the very particular, very codified, very focusing (of your cognitive space), very constraining Agenda, Always Say, and Principles of Apocalypse World. There are no "story concerns" or "pacing concerns" or "yeah...I just don't like this result because its not fun concerns"

So the difference between Trad and AW are those 3 bullet points above. You give system its say in AW and the system has A WHOLE LOT OF SAY. The (desired for those who want it) trade off for giving system all that say (for those who like it) is that it recuses you of a lot of liability and overhead and focuses/shifts your cognitive workspace very specifically in a desirable way (its demanding of you in a different way than in Trad GMing).

 

[Reynard]

@Ovinomancer 's response here is on point.

Trad game where player confidently expresses an action declaration? Well, they know....and its GM mandate that the following is in play as that confident action declaration is now punted to the GM and the GM can do any of the following:

• Veto
• Ratify
• Feign Ratification But Secretly Block (through a variety of ways and for a variety of purposes - story concerns, pacing concerns, "I just don't like this result cause it doesn't feel fun" concerns)

This is not in play for AW at all. What happens when a player confidently declares an action? Lets go back to my above post:



* You won't see Veto.

* You won't see Feign Ratification.

* You GM principally within the very particular, very codified, very focusing (of your cognitive space), very constraining Agenda, Always Say, and Principles of Apocalypse World. There are no "story concerns" or "pacing concerns" or "yeah...I just don't like this result because its not fun concerns"

So the difference between Trad and AW are those 3 bullet points above. You give system its say in AW and the system has A WHOLE LOT OF SAY. The (desired for those who want it) trade off for giving system all that say (for those who like it) is that it recuses you of a lot of liability and overhead and focuses/shifts your cognitive workspace very specifically in a desirable way (its demanding of you in a different way than in Trad GMing).

This doesn't answer the question of whether the door can be locked, though.