Not a Conspiracy Theory: Moving Toward Better Criticism in RPGs

[FrogReaver]

@EzekielRaiden

This post is in response to your bakc-and-forth with @Lanefan.

As you may recall, here are the posts I made about the warehouse stakeout scenario in the context of AW:

So what sorts of things would contribute to the mood of the table, what is going on in the rest of the fiction, what trajectories and expectations have been built up, etc?

These might include questions from the GM to the player(s), consistent with what @Campbell posted upthread. These might also include previous bits of narration, especially previous soft moves made by the GM.

I'm not as familiar with the text of DW as I am with AW, but like the latter I believe the former relies on the key principle "If you do it, you do it." And a flipside of that is that a player is not obliged to do it. A player can deliberately declare an action that does not trigger a player-side move, and hence that leaves the GM free to make a move of their own (typically a soft move). Baker gives examples of exactly this in the AW rulebook, when he discusses an example of not going aggro (p 12), and when he contrasts Seduce/Manipulate with one character just asking another character for a favour (pp 198-9).

In AW, if a player tries to (eg) scout out a warehouse without being noticed by its guards, that would probably be Acting Under Fire, which would trigger a player-side move:

When you do something under fire, or dig in to endure fire, roll+cool. On a 10+, you do it. On a 7–9, you flinch, hesitate, or​

stall: the MC can offer you a worse outcome, a hard bargain, or an ugly choice. . . .​

​

On a 7–9, when it comes to the worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice, you’ll need to look at the circumstances and find something fun. It should be easy to find something; if there weren’t things to go wrong, nobody’d be rolling dice. It can include suffering harm or making another move. However, remember that a 7–9 is a hit, not a miss; whatever you offer should be fundamentally a success, not fundamentally a failure.​

If the player fails the roll, the GM can make as hard and direct a move as they like. Perhaps a guard notices the skulker and alerts the other guards, who all descend on the PC (putting the PC in a spot).

If the player makes the roll on a 7 to 9, perhaps the GM offers an opportunity with a cost - the only way you can get close without being seen is to hide behind the pile of burning tyres, and you'll take 1-harm (ap) from breathing in that acrid smoke for the couple of hours it'll take you to scope out the place.

However it unfolds, by choosing to do something under fire, the player has opened up a different suite of possibilities than by choosing not to trigger a move of their own. And in the latter case, they've deliberately left it open to the GM to make a move. Which was the example that I gave, in which it is not illegitimate for the GM to have a guard approach the PC and ask them what their business is.

I will add: this is a repeated source of frustration that I experience in discussing a variety of non-D&D-like RPGs. Posters such as @Lanefan, instead of saying (eg) "That's interesting that the GM gets to make that move with no roll being made - why is that? Is that an opportunity that the player has given to them" just assume that the GM enjoys D&D-like permissions to grant or withhold saving throws (or hide checks, etc) more or less at will, and posits "illegitimate" GMing.

There is no real attempt to take seriously that the game does not allocate authority in the same way that D&D and D&D-like games do.

On a side note: I don’t feel like such advice in making soft moves if a player fails to make a move is nearly as clear in BitD. Which is an interesting contrast to it being explicit in other pbta games.

 

[soviet]

I feel like I already answered that.

Magical effects in fiction often do these exact things. Nothing else in fiction forces one to do something with no choice in the matter like magic can. Thus magical effects are fundamentally different than other effects.

So it's an emulation issue? Surely there are other external forces that can make someone do something they don't want to - stress/PTSD, for example. Or do you posit that humans have 100% self control and free will?

I'm still not really clear what these storygame mind control effects are supposed to be. Which games, which effects?

 

[Hussar]

Why do D&D's 'mind control' powers being magical mean that they don't count?

And, just to add. Mind control magic effects are almost never permanent, meaning that once they end, your character reverts back to baseline.

 

[FrogReaver]

And, just to add. Mind control magic effects are almost never permanent, meaning that once they end, your character reverts back to baseline.

Agreed. I didn't agree with that attempted explanation when I read it either.

 

[Manbearcat]

On a side note: I don’t feel like such advice in making soft moves if a player fails to make a move is nearly as clear in BitD. Which is an interesting contrast to it being explicit in other pbta games.

This is located in GM Actions and NPC Threats (and of course, this all stems from Goals and Principles). The relevant text is:

TELEGRAPH TROUBLE BEFORE IT STRIKES
When the action is underway, show them a threat that’s about to hit, then ask them what they do. Then it’s easy to know what the consequences are.

FOLLOW THROUGH
You’ve telegraphed the threat, so go ahead and follow through when it hits. Players have several tools at their disposal to deal with adversity. If they can react in time, they can make an action roll. If they’re hit with trouble, they can resist it. You don’t have to pull your punches!

INITIATE ACTION WITH AN NPC
This is very similar to the previous GM action, but it’s worth highlighting. You don’t always have to wait for the PCs to do something. Your NPCs can initiate the action, too! The more dangerous an NPC is, the more they should seize the initiative.

* From here you should refer to NPC Threat Levels p 167. The abridged version is:

MOOKS (my term) - These guys shouldn't really be making the PBtA equivalent of "soft moves." They're mooks.

SKILLED - These guys are dangerous. Whether its a Lead Scout or a Jackboot Leader or a Liason/Socialite, these folks can seize the initiative. Make "soft moves" with them in accordance with their tags/needs/relationships/fiction.

MASTER - These NPCs/Threats are the bosses or the elite threats/enforcers or Miasma Vortices of the Deathlands (social, physical, supernatural, hazard, etc). These folks don't make soft moves. They outright inflict Consequences (in accordance with their tags/needs/relationships/fiction) that players have to decide to Resist or not. This is similar to the Volatile tag for various materials, rituals, etc. They radically change the situation on a dime; the PBtA equivalent of a hard move.

 

[pemerton]

Magical effects in fiction often do these exact things. Nothing else in fiction forces one to do something with no choice in the matter like magic can. Thus magical effects are fundamentally different than other effects.

Huh? The example was already given above of Arthurian fiction, in which knights are smitten or their other passions roused.

In fiction that involves romance, characters often find they have no choice. Sometimes, also, fiction that involves duty.

I don't pretend to be all that well read in fiction: but when I think of fiction that posits that all human interaction involves choice, I tend to think of fiction that has a particular concern to present a broadly existentialist conception of alienation and/or commitment.

 

[FrogReaver]

So it's an emulation issue?

Not sure what this means.

Surely there are other external forces that can make someone do something they don't want to - stress/PTSD,

Perhaps the point for here is that some games leave the psychological fully under the player's control while still having magic that can mind control. So saying magic is different than the psychological is 100% true in such contexts. It's interesting to me that there is always such resistance to this rather simple idea.

for example. Or do you posit that humans have 100% self control and free will?

I don't think we need to go anywhere near that topic.

I'm still not really clear what these storygame mind control effects are supposed to be. Which games, which effects?

I gave you the most direction I could there. Others better able to assist have chimed in. I'm not particularly sure what more you want here?

 

[FrogReaver]

This is located in GM Actions and NPC Threats (and of course, this all stems from Goals and Principles). The relevant text is:

TELEGRAPH TROUBLE BEFORE IT STRIKES
When the action is underway, show them a threat that’s about to hit, then ask them what they do. Then it’s easy to know what the consequences are.

FOLLOW THROUGH
You’ve telegraphed the threat, so go ahead and follow through when it hits. Players have several tools at their disposal to deal with adversity. If they can react in time, they can make an action roll. If they’re hit with trouble, they can resist it. You don’t have to pull your punches!

INITIATE ACTION WITH AN NPC
This is very similar to the previous GM action, but it’s worth highlighting. You don’t always have to wait for the PCs to do something. Your NPCs can initiate the action, too! The more dangerous an NPC is, the more they should seize the initiative.

* From here you should refer to NPC Threat Levels p 167. The abridged version is:

MOOKS (my term) - These guys shouldn't really be making the PBtA equivalent of "soft moves." They're mooks.

SKILLED - These guys are dangerous. Whether its a Lead Scout or a Jackboot Leader or a Liason/Socialite, these folks can seize the initiative. Make "soft moves" with them in accordance with their tags/needs/relationships/fiction.

MASTER - These NPCs/Threats are the bosses or the elite threats/enforcers or Miasma Vortices of the Deathlands (social, physical, supernatural, hazard, etc). These folks don't make soft moves. They outright inflict Consequences (in accordance with their tags/needs/relationships/fiction) that players have to decide to Resist or not. This is similar to the Volatile tag for various materials, rituals, etc. They radically change the situation on a dime; the PBtA equivalent of a hard move.

Yes, it certainly lists GM actions. But the point I was making is that it doesn't really say 'GM - use these moves when the players don't make a proper action'. Of course I'm open to being wrong - I'm not nearly as familiar with the game as you.

 

[pemerton]

Yes, it certainly lists GM actions. But the point I was making is that it doesn't really say 'GM - use these moves when the players don't make a proper action'. Of course I'm open to being wrong - I'm not nearly as familiar with the game as you.

What is a "proper action"? Maybe that term has meaning in the context of BitD, but it's not a concept that has meaning for AW.

 

[pemerton]

Here's the core of the AW rules on GM moves (pp 109, 116-17):

Apocalypse World divvies the conversation up in a strict and pretty traditional way. 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. . . .

Whenever there’s a pause in the conversation and everyone looks to you to say something, choose one of these things [ie a GM move] and say it. . . .

Always choose a move that can follow logically from what’s going on in the game’s fiction. It doesn’t have to be the only one, or the most likely, but it does 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’.​

I'm not familiar with the details of BitD, but I would imagine it bears at least a passing resemblance.