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

[AbdulAlhazred]

What I mean was: my copy of AW 2E says that I am supposed to think up awesome stuff and use that "prep" to inform play. Maybe you just take issue with the term "hook" which -- fair enough, words are what they are. But there is no doubt that the AW 2E books tells me to have stuff the PCs can engage with in mind. It tells me very clearly that when there is a lull in the action to use my prep to make a move. So I don't understand where you are coming from with the idea that I am not supposed to know or do anything unless the players come up with it at the table.

Remember how the game is structured. FIRST there's a session 0 in which certain things are established, primarily the nature of the PCs and some basic idea of the situation they find themselves in. AFTER THAT the GM goes off and develops a Threat Map, and they must do so in regards to the principles and agenda of the game. As Qandreszarta asserted, the map is there to give you stuff to say when you need to make a move or otherwise respond with some sort of fiction. The threats are thus ABOUT the PCs, and center on developing their story and giving it some structure. Its NOT about creating a predefined fiction that the PCs navigate through. Likewise the GM can establish facts about the world in terms of who various NPCs are, or at least how they relate to other elements of the milieu, etc. Threat Map will give you an idea of how the world evolves, and the PCs are going to CHANGE THAT.

 

[Manbearcat]

I think the easiest way to summarize “when do you make a soft move in AW” is this:

* When you’re framing a conflict-charged situation.

* When you need to give expression to a Threat’s volition/capacity (often, though not always,“setting their will against you”) as a situation unfolds (this isn’t “action economy”per se, but it’s in that neighborhood).

* When a player rolls a 7-9.

 

[Reynard]

I want to redirect back to harm. My first question was: do you always roll a harm move, and if not, when do you roll a harm move? Does the MC decide? The players? Either? The book says you don't have to, but doesn't give much guidance as to when or why you should or shouldn't, so I am not asking from a rules perspective but from a play experience perspective.

 

[andreszarta]

I want to redirect back to harm. My first question was: do you always roll a harm move, and if not, when do you roll a harm move? Does the MC decide? The players? Either? The book says you don't have to, but doesn't give much guidance as to when or why you should or shouldn't, so I am not asking from a rules perspective but from a play experience perspective.

With regard to the harm move: 134. Suffer Harm Move

Vincent says in the comments:

It's designed to be forgotten when the pacing doesn't call for it, not used every time you suffer harm. The 2nd Ed text says "choose to forego," but the design itself is more like "you can easily forget to use it case by case." I want the decision whether to use it to rest on the MC's unconscious processes, not for it to require conscious deliberation every time.

That is, when it's not good for the pacing, you naturally forget about it. If you had to stop and decide, that wouldn't be good for the pacing either!

It's when the pacing feels wrong without it that you should remember that you can decide to use it.

I want the decision whether to use it to rest on the MC's unconscious processes, not for it to require conscious deliberation every time.

 

[Reynard]

With regard to the harm move: 134. Suffer Harm Move

Vincent says in the comments:


I want the decision whether to use it to rest on the MC's unconscious processes, not for it to require conscious deliberation every time.

You know, sometimes I'm surprised PbtA became so popular considering it is so completely one guy's way of running games. I mean, it's cool that it did, and I guess the same was true of Arneson and Gygax, but these snippets of response really drive it home.

So: got it. Harm moves when they seem "natural" and don't sweat it if you forget them.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I want to redirect back to harm. My first question was: do you always roll a harm move, and if not, when do you roll a harm move? Does the MC decide? The players? Either? The book says you don't have to, but doesn't give much guidance as to when or why you should or shouldn't, so I am not asking from a rules perspective but from a play experience perspective.

Yeah, that's a bit loose, I agree. The main thing to note is that the full hit (10+) gives the GM a choice to take a PC out of the action or just level more harm. That's kinda important, because it means you can deploy this move even for smaller stakes and if a hit occurs you still have an out that doesn't disrupt the flow of play. On the other hand, if you feel it's justified by the situation you can absolutely take a PC out of the action. This means you can deploy it in a few ways.

The way, I think, the game intends it is that you use the Suffer Harm as a default, but have the option to forgo it if it doesn't make sense in the moment. Like, if you're closing out a conflict on a 7-9 and deliver some harm, maybe it's not useful to Suffer Harm because most of the effects aren't going to be relevant anymore. Or, the harm is from something else like the environment where Suffer Harm doesn't feel like it makes sense. That's why I think the game tells you that you can forgo it if you feel it needed, but I think it's still considered to be a deviation from default when you do. The presumption is that you use the move.

Alternatively, you could invert that default and usually not use the move, and only call for it when the situation is especially tense or challenge and it makes sense in the fiction. I think this makes for a less chaotic game, but at the risk of softballing.

AW is meant to go hard. The Suffer Harm move is a part of that going hard. It's not just enough to take harm, but to enforce that combat is messy and chaotic and dangerous. It's not just marking hitpoints.

 

[andreszarta]

You know, sometimes I'm surprised PbtA became so popular considering it is so completely one guy's way of running games. I mean, it's cool that it did, and I guess the same was true of Arneson and Gygax, but these snippets of response really drive it home.

So: got it. Harm moves when they seem "natural" and don't sweat it if you forget them.

Yeah, I totally get that! In all my readings of Vincent, it has become apparent that his insights on how roleplaying should work (for this particular game) are deeply codified into the game's rules themselves...to the point where you are almost inevitably going to have to contend with those opinions if you want to play the game at all. He talks a little bit about it here: anyway: Your 3 Insights

When it's done smartly, like in AW, I find it liberating. I trust the designer and welcome him to my table as another participant, and I stop thinking about how to mess with the rules.

I think some of those insights were perpetuated into other PbtA games! Not every single one of them, but for the ones that did...they were probably good insights that applied well for those games, right? I do believe that some of Ovidomancer's advice (who's at this point blocked me it seems) was actually pretty good for some PbtA titles that DO NOT follow from Vincent's model of implicit conflict for Apocalypse World. Scene framing and stake setting are valid, recommended techniques for games like Masks and Root, for instance...they are just not necesarry for Apocalypse World (and mess up some of its systems).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I have only read Brindlewood Bay's text so I'm not prepared to deeply answer your question.

Jason Cordova's unique brand of PbtA does not, necessarily, follow from every single PbtA principle laid out by other games. For instance it has Keeper Reactions instead of GM Moves, and those reactions are merely suggestions that should be added to all the logical reactions you could come up based on the situation. Apocalypse World GM Moves are more directive and provocative in that respect.

However, this is what it says about reactions:


If you felt that your reaction of having the door be locked was interesting, I don't see how you are not playing by the rules. I also don't think you would be blocking or negating the player's intent if they were to just declare "I open the door". After all, their declaration implies the task of determining whether or not the door is locked. I spoke about why I think this is so on post #66.

How is this different from trad? In this particular case, not that much! Perhaps the difference is that a trad GM would say "It's locked" because it's prep notes say its locked, while the game clearly states your reactions should follow from your principles and you've decided this is what needs to happen next. This is why the door example is kind of pointless to me.

When I originally brought up this notion of player authority, it was more to help dispel this notion that the GM gets to decide "how much or how little of your action" does in fact occur like in more traditional games, and because of this players have been taught to ask "for permission" to have something happen. That doesn't mean, though, that I'm suggesting that player intent always has to be granted to the full extent of their declared action. If something in the world stands in the way of the full completion of their declaration, then of course play resumes only from that point on. You take what the player gives you and respond with a move that follows logically from what has been established: A door in a seemingly abandoned lighthouse, obviously locked.

What matters is that your response comes when it's your turn to say something (they look at you to tell them what happens) and it follows from what they've declared. Trad GM's could conceivably say: Right! But before you have a chance to open the door, you hear someone scream at the top of the lighthouse. That's a move that doesn't follow.

Not sure if this whole debate got resolved at some point, but Dungeon World DEFINITELY comes down on your side of this. For example, the GM is perfectly within his rights to say an action isn't possible, and explain why. The text mentions a GM stating that a character can't hack & slash a goblin that is gnawing on his leg with his halberd, it is just not possible! There's no requirement that the GM explicate every one of these constraints in the fiction, nor describe every single detail of every situation (IE that the dragon's scales are invulnerable to a mere human with a sword). That doesn't mean the GM can 'say no', it means that no move was triggered! If the player says "I open the door" and the GM's response is that it is locked, well, the ball is still in the player's court, they could bash it open, or pick the lock. This kind of 'exploration of circumstance' can happen, it is just not intended to support some kind of 'GM guided experience' where you constantly ask if you can do stuff. At least in DW there's also the question of who gets to decide if something is 'bad play' or not, and its table consensus. If the table thinks the GM was violating the principles/agenda of play by declaring the door locked, then there's a difference of opinion at the table.

On the whole though, the GM should stick to things that are established by the structure of play, so the door is locked because the player was owed a move by the GM and this is it. Or maybe the player ASKED, and the GM answered (which is just "they looked at you to see what happens next" effectively). IMHO this is where things get down to GMing skill in PbtAs, you have to judge what it is that follows faithfully and what is you getting in the way of playing to find out.

 

[Aldarc]

I find it odd that people go on about this. I mean, the details of playbooks in a PbtA has only a tangential effect on things. I actually cannot even fathom which playbooks anyone would think (of the core ones that were published with Dungeon World) someone thinks are 'unbalanced'. Anyone can make any common or 'special' (in the right situation) move, plus whatever is in their playbook.

Paladin.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There was no action, yet, the GM and player were still negotiating the scene framing. It's the GM's job, but it's not unilateral, there's a conversation. The player indicated that they wanted an alternate way into the fortress. We've established that it's a fortress, which entails lots of tropes. The GM offers a door as a possibility to frame the conflict, the player accepts, and the GM frames the conflict as "here's you alternate way in, but it's locked tight, what do you do?" Like most examples that you can pull out for AW, these toy examples are too light in other details. The door being locked, for instance, is dreadful as a conflict unless there's something pressuring the PC, which is not in the example. What happens if the PC keeps looking for another way in? There's no established threat for the GM to pay off as a golden opportunity, so the best they could do here would be to frame another conflict with a better opening soft move. A locked door is a terrible soft move on it's own, as this example shows.

I think this is where the nut of the whole thing is, there can't just be a scene "you are standing outside a door." There MUST be some sort of conflict, some pressure on the PC to act or not act, something that must be decided by HOW they act. So, the example is incomplete and cannot be adjudicated as is!

But this is great stuff because it shows how PbtA cannot do 'environmental exploration', it is ONLY about narrative development. The GM should never frame a scene without some sort of pressure which can either blow up, develop, or be resolved by the action that is about to take place. So, basically if the GM tells the player "OK, there's a door, but you hear some motorcycles coming up the access road!" now you have a scene (it may be a bit weak, although that depends on the larger context). Now, if the player is going to resolve the problem of avoiding contact with whomever is coming by going through the door, we now have a conflict that dice can resolve! Maybe the door is locked and thus the PC fails to open it, Canute's Biker Gang comes up the drive, they have spotted you! Now, maybe he gets a chance to try picking the lock or flee, etc.

Honestly, I don't think there was any substantive disagreement about how PbtAs work, but there can be more than one answer to things sometimes, like depending on the granularity that the GM feels is appropriate for resolution. This is a pretty common theme in narrative story games, particularly of this type where the situations are very loosely drawn.