Why do RPGs have rules?

[Fenris-77]

I guess my thought is that this pretty much describes AW. There are a tiny number of exceptions (Battlebabe's Visions of Death; Savvyhead's Bonefeel and maybe Oftener Right). On separation of church and state, AW says (p 109):

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.​

And AW doesn't abstract resources any more than D&D does.

That's not to assert that AW is a simulationist RPG. Only that the sorts of things that are often pointed to as markers of simulationist RPGing don't seem to do a very good job in that respect! To explain how AW differs from the game you old-school friends run, we need to talk about the particular GMing techniques involved, including approaches to prep, to framing and to action resolution.

So not to step on anyone else's toes, but this really brings us back to a regular issue which is that people without at least somewhat broad experience playing PbtA games don't have a great handle on how those games actually function at the table. That's not by way of critique, but just to index that PbtA is, to my mind, harder to just read and grok that is something like D&D. Once you've gotten some PbtA play under your belt, or even better dug into PbtA design a little to find out what the teleos there is, it's easier to see that the two sets of rules are far less separated than a lot of shouty internet folks would have us believe.

 

[pemerton]

So not to step on anyone else's toes, but this really brings us back to a regular issue which is that people without at least somewhat broad experience playing PbtA games don't have a great handle on how those games actually function at the table. That's not by way of critique, but just to index that PbtA is, to my mind, harder to just read and grok that is something like D&D. Once you've gotten some PbtA play under your belt, or even better dug into PbtA design a little to find out what the teleos there is, it's easier to see that the two sets of rules are far less separated than a lot of shouty internet folks would have us believe.

Should I be watching out for my delicate little tootsies?

Anyway, preceding on the premise that I'm not one of those lacking a handle on how AW functions at the table, I actually don't agree that it is harder to just read and grok than D&D.

What I think is true is that people who have already internalised a certain approach to D&D and kindred RPGs - roughly, (i) unlimited GM authority provided it doesn't piss people off too much, and (ii) the use of maps and keys to resolve a lot of action declarations - sometimes find it hard to imagine a different approach to GMing and a different approach to resolution.

 

[Fenris-77]

Should I be watching out for my delicate little tootsies?

Anyway, preceding on the premise that I'm not one of those lacking a handle on how AW functions at the table, I actually don't agree that it is harder to just read and grok than D&D.

What I think is true is that people who have already internalised a certain approach to D&D and kindred RPGs - roughly, (i) unlimited GM authority provided it doesn't piss people off too much, and (ii) the use of maps and keys to resolve a lot of action declarations - sometimes find it hard to imagine a different approach to GMing and a different approach to resolution.

No no, not you at all. My commentary there is based on rather a lot of forum posts from smart canny folks who have just read a PbtA games but not played them, or perhaps played briefly (and possibly in a 'bad' game).. I find their lack of grasp pretty predictable. That goes somewhat more for FitD games, especially as regards the position and effect matrix. It's not at all that those game are more complex, rather the opposite I think, but more that the nature of diegetic play is for some people less obvious just on a reading. This is very much just my personal experience of course, which while broad, isn't anything more than a small sample size.

 

[Fenris-77]

What I think is true is that people who have already internalised a certain approach to D&D and kindred RPGs - roughly, (i) unlimited GM authority provided it doesn't piss people off too much, and (ii) the use of maps and keys to resolve a lot of action declarations - sometimes find it hard to imagine a different approach to GMing and a different approach to resolution.

To continue rather than edit my post above, I might suggest that for some people that change in agency can be hard to grapple with on both sides of the screen. It can be hard for GMs to give up their ultimate cosmic power, and it can also be hard for players to have to sit up and be more active participants outside their character sheet.

 

[Maxperson]

I don’t think your view on this makes any kind of sense. It seems like you’re picking and choosing what’s simulation and what’s not arbitrarily, and the reasons you cite don’t really handle much scrutiny.

I'm not, but I'm also not surprised that you hold this view.

That being said, I don’t think we’re going to break any new ground here, so I’ll leave it there.

Sounds good.

 

[pemerton]

No no, not you at all. My commentary there is based on rather a lot of forum posts from smart canny folks who have just read a PbtA games but not played them, or perhaps played briefly (and possibly in a 'bad' game).. I find their lack of grasp pretty predictable. That goes somewhat more for FitD games, especially as regards the position and effect matrix. It's not at all that those game are more complex, rather the opposite I think, but more that the nature of diegetic play is for some people less obvious just on a reading. This is very much just my personal experience of course, which while broad, isn't anything more than a small sample size.

I don't pretend to have a solid grasp of FitD. To me it seems a bit "funkier" than AW: whether that's good or bad must be a matter of taste, but I think it makes it harder for an outsider to fully grasp the technical aspects.

My personal "alarm bell" in reading something about AW/DW is someone who worries that Discern Realities is an "XP farm" in DW - this shows that they don't get what the GM is meant to do, when it comes both to hard moves and soft moves. For AW the equivalent is "you can't do mysteries in AW", which again to me shows they don't get the whole play to find out thing.

About a year ago I ran a session of In A Wicked Age for two teens and a dad - the teens have only played 5e neo-tradish D&D, and the dad various sorts of D&D and some 80s classics like RM, RQ etc. They had no trouble working out how to do things - occasionally they would ask for advice/permission, but that's not unusual for anyone learning a new game. I think the game unfolded a bit differently from what Vincent Baker had in mind when he wrote it - the neotrad sensibilities really shone through, meaning a lot of negotiated compromise rather than pushing conflicts through to brutal defeats! But the basic processes of play, including the way fiction is built up out of processes of framing and resolution, didn't faze them.

Now that's a tiny sample size! But it does shape my thinking - it's a certain trad-ish approach that I think is the most diametrically opposite in comparison to AW and similar games.

 

[Fenris-77]

So I love Blades, and a lot of other FitD games but I'll do full disclosure here - I bounced so hard off of position and effect on first reading it, and though my first couple of sessions it was comical. How great that mechanic is at the table really isn't apparent on just a reading. It's also not everyone's cup of tea, of course.

PbtA can be run in a lot of valences from closer to trad to blue sky story game, and a lot of that is execution at the table and what the group is looking for. Those extremes ight push back a little on the core design, but not enough to be a real barrier to play (IMO anyway).

 

[pemerton]

So I love Blades, and a lot of other FitD games but I'll do full disclosure here - I bounced so hard off of position and effect on first reading it, and though my first couple of sessions it was comical. How great that mechanic is at the table really isn't apparent on just a reading. It's also not everyone's cup of tea, of course.

My understanding of P+E is very rough, but I gather that (i) it is a (semi-)formal process for player and GM negotiation over framing, and (ii) it helps settle the range of consequences both if an action succeeds and if it fails.

PbtA can be run in a lot of valences from closer to trad to blue sky story game, and a lot of that is execution at the table and what the group is looking for. Those extremes ight push back a little on the core design, but not enough to be a real barrier to play (IMO anyway).

I'm just as interested in the "flip" here - how many systems that are not self-consciously PbtA can nevertheless be run that way? As you've probably seen me post before, Classic Traveller is one.

 

[Fenris-77]

My understanding of P+E is very rough, but I gather that (i) it is a (semi-)formal process for player and GM negotiation over framing, and (ii) it helps settle the range of consequences both if an action succeeds and if it fails.

I'm just as interested in the "flip" here - how many systems that are not self-consciously PbtA can nevertheless be run that way? As you've probably seen me post before, Classic Traveller is one.

You're correct about the P&E thing. It is, IMO, one of the best framing mechanics I've ever used in an RPG. Not least because it allows FitD games to gracefully fold all actions into the same mechanical framework very successfully (i.e. combat isn't seperate). Other games do that too of course, but FitD is pretty slick.

I completely agree about the flip.

 

[Maxperson]

Chock. Chock full.

Sincerely, yrs in picaresque pedantry,
Bruce

And there you go exasperating the issue again.