Recurring silly comment about Apocalypse World and similar RPGs

[hawkeyefan]

Okay. Can you cite the rule (or guidance) for me, please?

I don't have the rule book at hand, but it clearly points out that if anything the players declare doesn't trigger a move, then what they declare simply happens.

This is very similar to most other RPGs. If no dice are needed... either because what's being declared is a mundane action or because the GM determines no roll is needed or because the rules say no roll is needed... then the thing just happens.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

They’ve cited a rule about what to do when the players look to the GM for what’s next. Does no one recognize that’s not the same thing as asking what to do when a player has their pc act in a way that doesn’t trigger a move? Maybe. I dunno. But in any event, what I specifically asked about isn’t being addressed.

I disagree, I feel like I just read within the first 40 posts a response to your question
If you have read the entire thread, and don't feel like your question was answered, then we must have understood the post differently, OR I am misunderstanding your question

But there was a whole phase of this thread discussing "if you do it, you do it" with explicating text by various folks, including citations of the rulebook. If that doesn't answer the question, then

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't have the rule book at hand, but it clearly points out that if anything the players declare doesn't trigger a move, then what they declare simply happens.

This is very similar to most other RPGs. If no dice are needed... either because what's being declared is a mundane action or because the GM determines no roll is needed or because the rules say no roll is needed... then the thing just happens.

Thank you.

 

[FrogReaver]

This is based on reading the games rather than actual play, so folks with more direct experience should correct me, but from that it strikes me that, if this happened, then the conversation would continue until a player made a move or the players looked to the GM to see what happens. But I also think that this would be play that would indicate poor play by the GM in terms of scene framing.

Not sure why I glossed over this post earlier, but it’s actually really explanatory.

Assuming there’s not an infinite regress where players just keep doing actions that don’t trigger a move (an assumption I agree with). Then players will eventually either make a move or wait on the dm to make a move. Which makes those rules quotes that didn’t initially seem to apply very applicable.

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't have the rule book at hand, but it clearly points out that if anything the players declare doesn't trigger a move, then what they declare simply happens.

This is very similar to most other RPGs. If no dice are needed... either because what's being declared is a mundane action or because the GM determines no roll is needed or because the rules say no roll is needed... then the thing just happens.

One side note - shouldn’t that rule be what everyone is citing to prove that AW allows non-move actions?

 

[hawkeyefan]

One side note - shouldn’t that rule be what everyone is citing to prove that AW allows non-move actions?

Probably. I think maybe it's because it seems self evident?

Like, if someone asked you to cite the corresponding rule in D&D, it might not be obvious exactly what they're requesting.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Apocalypse World (original edition) uses fronts. The DW version is not identical, but seems pretty close.

I think the basic idea of fronts - prep that is used to give the GM something interesting to say, and that locks the GM in advance in respect of some of those things - is portable across a variety of RPGs. It works for Classic Traveller. I think it would work for Prince Valiant. And something like this also works in Torchbearer 2e.

I think fronts would work fine in 4e too.

 

[Campbell]

Here are the relevant bits.

You probably know this already: roleplaying is a conversation. You and the other players go back and forth, talking about these fictional characters in their fictional circumstances doing whatever it is that they do. Like any conversation, you take turns, but it’s not like taking turns, right? Sometimes you talk over each other, interrupt, build on each others’ ideas, monopolize and hold forth. All fine. These rules mediate the conversation. They kick in when someone says some particular things, and they impose constraints on what everyone should say after. Makes sense, right?

The particular things that make these rules kick in are called moves.

All of the character playbooks list the same set of basic moves, plus each playbook lists special moves for just that character. Your threats might list special moves too. When a player says that her character does something listed as a move, that’s when she rolls, and that’s the only time she does. The rule for moves is to do it, do it. In order for it to be a move and for the player to roll dice, the character has to do something that counts as that move; and whenever the character does something that counts as a move, it’s the move and the player rolls dice.

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 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'.

What's important to keep in mind is that playbook and basic moves are an interruption to the flow of the conversation. It's like this: players are always saying what their character does and says and in response the GM will make a GM move that moves the conversation forward constrained by the fiction. When a playbook or basic move kicks in the only thing that changes is that the GM has additional constraints placed on their next GM move.

 

[Manbearcat]

That isn't how the game's engine is organized @FrogReaver . You're just looking at the game through the wrong lens.

1) It is an exception-based system (basic moves, playbook moves, custom moves, world moves, threat moves, Working Gigs as a sort of a play loop anchor, gear & resources & harm and crap) with a core conversation (pages 8, 81; Conversation and Always Say).

2) The GM section tells the GMs how to prep, how not to prep, and what to say (including why they're saying it) to be the Master of Ceremonies and lead the Apocalypse World conversation (starting on page 80; The Master of Ceremonies). This doesn't include "wander about in conflict-neutral freeplay." That is the antithesis of what you should be doing as a GM in Apocalypse World. The entirety of the GMing section tells you this flat-out, stresses it repeatedly, and tells you how to do this; Make Apocalypse World Seem Real, Make Their Lives Not Boring, Barf Forth Apocalyptica, Make Moves, Look Through Crosshairs. In other words, make everything visceral, dangerous, provocative, personal, in their face, blow crap up (physically, infrastructurally, coalition-wise, emotionally, supernaturally, etc) and then ask "what do you do?"

3) Sometimes you'll ask the players questions in which the answer won't be a move. The answer will be an invitation to help kickstart the next scene or flesh out the primordial ooze of the current scene. Again, no player move. Just core conversation. Sometimes you'll need to know important stuff like "where are you when this is going on" or "do you want to spend x to do y or do you want to do this other thing (that will mean making some kind of move with stakes and danger)?" If the players choose the former its basically opting into the GM move "use up their resources" in order to curtail a possible daisy chain of consequences and fallout when we go to a player-side move. An example of this would be Saturday night's Stonetop game where @AbdulAlhazred opted to spend a box of Loadout in Stonetop to jury-rig a belay and harness to get five Marshedge citizens out of a terrible predicament rather than trying to move a huge, felled tree over a half-frozen moat or build some kind of primitive bridge from the natural environs.

---

This is how these games go. The GM does the bolded and italicized stuff in 2 (using their prep and the game's rules), asks questions to help provoke & focus thought and play (sometimes being an invitation for a player to lay some breadcrumbs for the GM to follow), makes a soft move (introduces conflict/threat/danger/strife), asks "what do you do(?)", and off we go. Pretty damn quickly (the exceptions of play have enormous gravity, they're supposed to, so the conversation is captured by them very quickly), the play indexes one of its many, exception-based rules (whether it be a move getting triggered, or some play loop-centered prompt that has to be dealt with, or something has to be marked).

That's it. That's the deal.

EDIT: THINGS A PLAYER MIGHT SAY WHICH DOESN'T TRIGGER A PLAYER-SIDE MOVE:

* "Yeah, I'll spend x resource to avoid y move" (effectively opting into the GM-side move "use up their resources" in order to control the situation from a daisy chain).

* <Answers a GMs question which provides pivotal information for framing the coming scene>

* <Answers a GMs question which fleshes out crucial information for the present scene or perhaps provides some color/texture/motif>

* <Asks the GM a clarifying question about the present scene dynamics>

* <Asks for clarification on how a move's resolution mechanics interacts with the present situation if they aren't sure>

* <Without solicitation, prompts another player to enter/engage with the scene via either meta conversation or just some free play back-and-forth>

* <Asks clarifying questions on what the prospective consequences are for their various "lines of play" in order to orient themselves to their decision-tree>

 

[Faolyn]

Agreed on all counts. I'm not saying there shouldn't be any tension, I'm just saying it doesn't have to be all tension all the time, which is how the AW descriptions seem to be coming across.

Apocalypse World and Monster of the Week are both action games. But there's tons of PbtA games that aren't. Masks is a game of teenage superhero drama, so while there is action, since there's going to be supervillains doing supervillain stuff, the majority of the game is teen drama--albeit less "is my significant other cheating on me?" and more "is my significant other cheating on me with the clone the Dark Doctor made using my DNA in an alien race-blender, then mind-controlled into becoming an assassin?" In Fellowship, it appears (I haven't finished reading the book) that while the PCs go from point A to point B, each player narrates an encounter while another player resolves it, then when they get to point B, they all narrate downtime; the ultimate goal is stopping the Evil Overlord, but that's second to the actual bonds between the PCs. Thirsty Sword Lesbians seems to be about 95% character interaction and 5% of the GM saying "and then this stuff is happening."

There are a lot of different PbtA games out there.

I think of the scene in Pirates of the Caribbean III where Will and Elizabeth get Barbossa to marry them in mid-combat during the climactic fight scene - that was great stuff!

Sorry, haven't seen it--but I almost never get to see anything, really.