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

[andreszarta]

As a novice (and the OP who wants to make sure this thread continues to be beneficial to me) can you explain "framing" here. it seems to both be doing a lot of work, and a point of contention. It seems to me (and I could be wrong, which is why I am asking for clarification) that your use of "framing" implies that it is explicit as soon as the door is in the perceptual sphere of the PCs. Or do you mean that as part of the framing the GM decides the that the door is locked because it follows the fiction? And if the latter, why is that better than it being part of the prep (assuming that prep is barfed forth apocalyptica or something about a threat)?

This is a really interesting question! I think you'll find a lot of contention on its definition given that most of the well known PbtA games include "Scene Framing" as an actual thing the GM must do before players get to act, while Apocalypse World itself does not include framing as part of their procedures because it arises from the conversation without a explicit procedure. Like I said, not everything in AW is applicable to PbtA and viceversa.

In general, I take "framing" to mean communicating out loud where a given action (in its bigger sense; dramatic action) is happening, who's present, and what's happening.

 

[Ovinomancer]

There have been followups to that post, yeah? Ones in which we've both agreed that the second kind of response is valid as the result of a miss on basic move. That has been obvious and self-evident from the get go to both and I've gone to lengths to say I agree with you.

Sure, but you've skipped responding to those and go on trying to pin me down to a specific point I haven't made.

However, I'm still contesting your argument that the only other way is for you to "frame it". That is simply not true to the rules of Apocalypse World. The situation evolves during play, and that involves introducing new complications.

Yes. Because if it's not framed in, or it's not part of the result of a move during play, the only other option is that the GM is applying it via fiat during play when they should not. You've argued this isn't so but so far the examples you've presented for this have come down to applying the consequences of moves. I've said a things should not be so. I cannot prove this negative. You have only to show a single case where it should be, but I haven't seen it, yet.

Don't be petty dude. I'm not trying to get you into submitting you into my argument. We're both arguing our position here, me in hopes we can find agreements. You've been the one trying to make this a contest all along.

Petty? Okay.

Let me push back on you, point me to where I am "claiming you've made arguments you haven't."

"However, you are limiting the situations where a locked door matters, only to those where said door was declared locked from the get-go; as part of some sort of "initial stakes". "

This is untrue, since I also allow it can matter as the result of a check.


Look, if the GM has presented a door as part of a framing, but just left it there, then we don't know anything about if that door is locked or not. It's something to discover through play. So, then, the only way we can discover it is to have a character interact with it, at which point we can just let it be a door because it's not important if it's locked or not, or it is important and we need to play to find out. It is not playing to find out to have the GM decide, based on whatever reasoning the GM has, if it's locked or not. That way, the GM is not playing to find out, they're telling. This isn't how it's supposed to work, so the only other way, once the door is established, to play to find out is for it to be the based on the outcome of a check.

You argue this is not so. Show me. And show me where the game tells you to do this.

 

[Ovinomancer]

As a novice (and the OP who wants to make sure this thread continues to be beneficial to me) can you explain "framing" here. it seems to both be doing a lot of work, and a point of contention. It seems to me (and I could be wrong, which is why I am asking for clarification) that your use of "framing" implies that it is explicit as soon as the door is in the perceptual sphere of the PCs. Or do you mean that as part of the framing the GM decides the that the door is locked because it follows the fiction? And if the latter, why is that better than it being part of the prep (assuming that prep is barfed forth apocalyptica or something about a threat)?

Framing is the initial sketch of a situation -- that part of the discussion in AW where the GM sets the stage with a description of the place and people there and then introduces the situation. There's a host of metaphors to framing of pictures or houses or plays involved, but it's just a useful term for the GM setting up the necessary conditions for play -- place, people, problem. Every time you're closing out a scene, you're framing a new one.

 

[pemerton]

if the action they take does not trigger a move, then the MC gets to say what happens by making a move of their own.

So much this!

 

[Reynard]

Framing is the initial sketch of a situation -- that part of the discussion in AW where the GM sets the stage with a description of the place and people there and then introduces the situation. There's a host of metaphors to framing of pictures or houses or plays involved, but it's just a useful term for the GM setting up the necessary conditions for play -- place, people, problem. Every time you're closing out a scene, you're framing a new one.

Okay, so going further, can you explain why in PbtA it is necessary to define the door as locked at that time? Particularly, why it must either be explicitly called out or must result from something the players do/roll/ask?

As an example, the PCs have decided to break into Boss Crank's office in order to find proof that Boss Crank is embezzling. That is a player driven action. Based on all the fiction we have established up to this point, I think Boss Crank would keep that evidence in a hidden safe. How should I frame that scene? How do we proceed? Assume we are playing AW2E.

 

[andreszarta]

Sure, but you've skipped responding to those and go on trying to pin me down to a specific point I haven't made.

Yes. Because if it's not framed in, or it's not part of the result of a move during play, the only other option is that the GM is applying it via fiat during play when they should not. You've argued this isn't so but so far the examples you've presented for this have come down to applying the consequences of moves. I've said a things should not be so. I cannot prove this negative. You have only to show a single case where it should be, but I haven't seen it, yet.

Petty? Okay.

"However, you are limiting the situations where a locked door matters, only to those where said door was declared locked from the get-go; as part of some sort of "initial stakes". "

This is untrue, since I also allow it can matter as the result of a check.


Look, if the GM has presented a door as part of a framing, but just left it there, then we don't know anything about if that door is locked or not. It's something to discover through play. So, then, the only way we can discover it is to have a character interact with it, at which point we can just let it be a door because it's not important if it's locked or not, or it is important and we need to play to find out. It is not playing to find out to have the GM decide, based on whatever reasoning the GM has, if it's locked or not. That way, the GM is not playing to find out, they're telling. This isn't how it's supposed to work, so the only other way, once the door is established, to play to find out is for it to be the based on the outcome of a check.

You argue this is not so. Show me. And show me where the game tells you to do this.

Let's drop the "you said, I said" argument for good, please. You are accusing me of misquoting you because I use the word only when referring to the times when it's ok for the MC to declare door to be locked. I thought it was implied that I've had already accepted your only other case (the roll) so I understood we had moved on from it.

Drop the word "only" then. My position still remains that those TWO are not just the sole TWO ways. I'm amazed we couldn't jump over this fence faster. You are insisting on a very minuscule artifact of online communication.

---

There is ABSOLUTELY no difference between the kinds of moves that an MC is allowed to make in response to a 6-, vs the kinds of moves an MC gets to make when the player looks at them expectantly. Why? Because they are exactly the same thing with regards to the rules of the conversation. When a player rolls a 6-, it coincides with them also looking at you expectantly to see what happens next.

Single basic moves in Apocalypse World say: "On a miss, be prepared for the worst." Nowhere in the book does it say "When a player rolls a 6-, you get to make a move." Other PbtA games have adopted that convention, but AW2 only treats a 6- to be a golden opportunity, nothing too different if one were to arise in the fiction without the need of a move.

From AW2 book, page 88 & 89.

Whenever there’s a pause in the conversation and everyone looks to you to say something, choose one of these things and say it. They aren’t technical terms or jargon: “announce future badness,” for instance, means think of something bad that’s probably going to happen in the future, and announce it. “Make them buy” means the thing they want? They’re looking to you to tell them if they can have it? If they want it, they have to buy it.

And so on.

Then, “what do you do?”

Remember the principles. Remember to address yourself to the characters, remember to misdirect, and remember to never speak your move’s name. Say what happens to the characters as though it were their world that’s the real one.

Here are guidelines for choosing your moves:

Always choose a move that can follow logically from what’s going on in the game’s fction. It doesn’t have to be the only one, or the most likely, but itdoes have to make at least some kind of sense.

Generally, limit yourself to a move that’ll (a) set you up for a future harder move, and (b) give the players’ characters some opportunity to act and react. A start to the action, not its conclusion.

However, when a player’s character hands you the perfect opportunity on a golden plate, make as hard and direct a move as you like. It’s not the meaner the better, although mean is often good. Best is: make it irrevocable.

When a player’s character makes a move and the player misses the roll, that’s the cleanest and clearest example there is of an opportunity on a plate. When you’ve been setting something up and it comes together without interference, that counts as an opportunity on a plate too.

But again, unless a player’s character has handed you the opportunity, limit yourself to a move that sets up future moves, your own and the players’ characters’.

Then on threat moves, Vincent and Meguey add (page 114):

Otherwise, make moves for your threats exactly like you make your regular moves:

• When it’s time for you to talk, choose a move (a regular move or a threat move, it makes no difference) and make it happen.

• If the players have handed you a golden opportunity (like if they blow a roll, or if they let you set something up and follow through on it), make as hard and direct a move as you like, the more irrevocable the better.

The only thing that sort of modulates the difference between what happens after a miss, vs you speaking on your turn, is the hardness of the move you decide to make, and that is a matter of personal interpretation and taste. That's a completely different conversation, though, do you want to talk about hardness?

Now, if you accept that there is no difference between the nature of the moves that happen as a result of a miss and the moves that result from players waiting for you to say what happens, beyond hardness (and if you don't please quote the text), then any move that I could make when I roll a 6- is valid when the player asks "I open the door, what happens?"

I've given you the example on #85.

If play leads us to a situation where the player wants to infiltrate Dremmer's House, a fortress, and we describe them walking around it trying to find another door. When they say "Aha! There's a door. I open the door.", the MC is in full capacity to respond to the player's expectant eyes with "You go to push against the door, only to find that it's locked. What do you do?" Bar the way, misdirect, ask what they do.

The fortress raises the stakes. Are they willing to force themselves in instead?

A door didn't exist when the action began. When the action began it was very possible that neither the MC nor the involved players knew that they would be searching for a side door. The MC doesn't even know what Dremmer's Place even looks like.

It was only after moving to a position where a door now exists, by someone declaring "I want to search for a side door" that the player can say "I open it". Fictional. Positioning.

Who determined that there was a side door? The MC. Why did get make to make that decision? Because it's their job.

Page 81:

The players’ job is to say what their characters say and undertake to do, First and exclusively; to say what their characters think, feel and remember, also exclusively; and to answer your questions about their characters’ lives and surroundings. Your job as MC is to say everything else: everything about the world, and what everyone in the whole damned world says and does except the players’ characters.

"I go looking for a side door."

The player looks at the MC to see what happens. The MC considers...then makes a move: • Present a guardian (Landscape)

"Yup, there's a door. Big, metallic, with a bit of rust on the hinges."

There is a door now. Does the GM have to determine whether the door is locked or not? Do they have to even say it? Nope! Not at all. Not part of the rules, not part of the situation yet. Just a damn door for now.

"I open the door."

The player looks at the MC to see what happens. The MC considers...then makes a move: • Bar the way (Landscape).

 

[andreszarta]

Okay, so going further, can you explain why in PbtA it is necessary to define the door as locked at that time? Particularly, why it must either be explicitly called out or must result from something the players do/roll/ask?

As an example, the PCs have decided to break into Boss Crank's office in order to find proof that Boss Crank is embezzling. That is a player driven action. Based on all the fiction we have established up to this point, I think Boss Crank would keep that evidence in a hidden safe. How should I frame that scene? How do we proceed? Assume we are playing AW2E.

Would it be beneficial to you if we actually played out this scenario right here? Like, you GM me while I try to break into Crank's office? This is actually an excercise that Vincent Baker did with me to help me understand some things about Apocalypse World. Might be useful to you!

If you are up for it, let's pretend that it's only my character's who is breaking in.

/*
I'm Rubik's, a creepy brainer who hates Boss Crank for what he did to Marie.

We're in the middle of a session and you ask me what I'm up to.

"I'm going to Boss Crank's office, late at night, after I know everyone's left for the day."

I now look at you to tell me what happens.

What move are you going to make? Which moves should you consider? Of the ones you'd consider, how do you choose which to make?

*/

 

[Ovinomancer]

Okay, so going further, can you explain why in PbtA it is necessary to define the door as locked at that time? Particularly, why it must either be explicitly called out or must result from something the players do/roll/ask?

As an example, the PCs have decided to break into Boss Crank's office in order to find proof that Boss Crank is embezzling. That is a player driven action. Based on all the fiction we have established up to this point, I think Boss Crank would keep that evidence in a hidden safe. How should I frame that scene? How do we proceed? Assume we are playing AW2E.

Because you are playing to find out, both as a player and a GM. Also, the only things you're really worried about are things that matter to the conflict. You are not framing in conflict neutral things, so if you mention a door it's either going to be color or it's going to be necessary to the conflict. If it's color, we don't care about it right now. If it's necessary to the conflict, we do care, and it needs to be established as an obstacle (a locked door) that critical to the current conflict or an unknown that we will need to find out about. This is the establishing the door part of framing -- things are either established as an obstacle to play to take part in the conflict or they're things that may matter later and we don't know.

The we don't know is the critical thing -- we don't know if that door is locked or not. So how do we tell? It has to come up as part of play, which really means it has to feature in a player's action declaration. At the moment it does feature, we still don't know, and the GM doesn't have the authority in AW to decide how that door matters -- that's part of what finding out in play means. So that door is an enigma and the only tools we have to solve them are the play procedures -- the actions that trigger moves and then the fallout from those moves. The door can only be locked if we all discover it's locked at the same time through play.

 

[Ovinomancer]

So much this!

I'm gonna disagree with you @pemerton. There's lots of reasons a player could declare an action that should not initiate a GM's move. If the GM decides to say yes, for instance, this doesn't trigger a GM move. I go to say that the only time this does allow a GM move is if the action offers the GM a golden opportunity for a previously deployed soft move or framing and so the GM can make a move to pay that off, or if the GM has realized they've screwed up and not provided a conflict and so needs to recover by framing one in now.

 

[andreszarta]

You are not framing in conflict neutral things

You ARE framing conflict neutral things because the only way to discover which conflicts actually matter to the players is by allowing them to choose where they draw their line. You seem to suggest that the GM is responsible for defining which elements of the game constitute a valid "conflict"; that is antithetical to Apocalypse World's model of implicit conflict and its own brand of playing to find out. Bad advice!

Please provide textual evidence, just like you've asked me to, of your claims. Particularly:

the GM doesn't have the authority in AW to decide how that door matters

that door is an enigma and the only tools we have to solve them are the play procedures -- the actions that trigger moves and then the fallout from those moves. The door can only be locked if we all discover it's locked at the same time through play.

If the GM decides to say yes, for instance, this doesn't trigger a GM move.

the only time this does allow a GM move is if the action offers the GM a golden opportunity for a previously deployed soft move or framing and so the GM can make a move to pay that off, or if the GM has realized they've screwed up and not provided a conflict and so needs to recover by framing one in now.