What Do You Think Of As "Modern TTRPG Mechanics"?

[zakael19]

The advice in the book is ‘think about what they would do in that situation.’ Which I’m all for but it leaves the whole ‘how to play a character’ thing down to the MC.

Assume they're written down as Threat, dont you have an Impulse / MC Moves to fall back on? If they're a Dictator whose impulse is To Control, and you've removed their control (over their future, their "possession"), I would index the fiction of what's been done to date and the resources that NPC has to bear and make a pretty direct Threat Move soonest.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

...

I’m almost certainly straw-manning your position a bit here but it allows me to rant so...

I was about to point this out, but you beat me to it...

Overall though, this does feel like your gut reaction is similar to where I once was/felt. I don't agree with any of that anymore (and largely none of it is correct, but that's not really my point here. Just sayin "I get ya, heard.")

I’ve seen that at times. I think it shows a lack of understanding on the part of the person saying it.

While this is certainly true. what helped me get over it was not saying "you don't get it."
It was me giving it a chance/trying a few times (and for a few different games to get different 'language' on the ideas) for a few years to see it in action. (Not saying you would be so blunt to a person, I am just referencing my heartaches with getting to know new design principles)

 

[hawkeyefan]

While this is certainly true. what helped me get over it was not saying "you don't get it."
It was me giving it a chance/trying a few times (and for a few different games to get different 'language' on the ideas) for a few years to see it in action. (Not saying you would be so blunt to a person, I am just referencing my heartaches with getting to know new design principles)

Oh for sure. I had to play and run some games like that before I really got it. I listened to folks here and dome other online spaces and that gave me some ideas. At the most basic, I just stopped reflexively disagreeing and accepted what they were saying. But I still then had to play some games to truly grasp it.

My general approach when discussing these things is to simply explain my view and hope that anyone who’s actually interested will then take the next step and try to get some first hand experience.

The instance I’m thinking of with the person who uses the term “training wheels”… there’s no chance of that happening. They don’t understand the game, but absolutely refuse to believe that’s the case.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I was about to point this out, but you beat me to it...

Overall though, this does feel like your gut reaction is similar to where I once was/felt. I don't agree with any of that anymore (and largely none of it is correct, but that's not really my point here. Just sayin "I get ya, heard.")



While this is certainly true. what helped me get over it was not saying "you don't get it."
It was me giving it a chance/trying a few times (and for a few different games to get different 'language' on the ideas) for a few years to see it in action. (Not saying you would be so blunt to a person, I am just referencing my heartaches with getting to know new design principles)

If it takes a few years of play to "properly understand and appreciate" a playstyle, that playstyle is not worth it to me. And I was already going in with a negative attitude about PbtA games and their mechanical cousins.

 

[thefutilist]

Assume they're written down as Threat, dont you have an Impulse / MC Moves to fall back on? If they're a Dictator whose impulse is To Control, and you've removed their control (over their future, their "possession"), I would index the fiction of what's been done to date and the resources that NPC has to bear and make a pretty direct Threat Move soonest.

Well the question is, how does the event change him? I need to know how he’s changed before I make any subsequent moves.

The way I would do it is as follows.

I’d think about his background and who he is given what’s been revealed in the game so far and then just be inspired. I may or may not have the general threat list in mind to help with the inspiration. It depends on how well I ‘know’ the character.

Maybe a few ideas will go through my head and they’ll feel more or less authentic. So for instance maybe I’ll think, oh well that’s it for him, he’s just going to denounce everything and maybe fall into cruelty. Maybe become a grotesque, perversion of birth. That might not strike me as right though and so I think a bit more and realise that no he’s not like that at all, he’s going to build a new world in his lovers honour. Which means doubling down on his brutality.

So it’s about how you make the creative choices you do and at what juncture. This is all stuff that’s possibly too personal to each individual to really embed in rules. Although i think we can have fruitful discussions about it.

 

[pemerton]

I’m almost certainly straw-manning your position a bit here but it allows me to rant so...

Don't worry about that! I don't think you are. And I always find your posts pretty interesting, although I don't know if always grasp them right away - sometimes it takes a little bit of back-and-forth.

There are generic narrativist principles that Apocalypse World doesn’t spell out that are far more important than most of the principles in the actual text. I’m not saying that a text necessarily should spell them out but how that hole gets plugged determines a whole load about play.

Say you have an NPC Hardholder is using their brutish strength to make a better world. In their background you’ve decided that this is mainly because they want a better world for their lover. One of the PC’s kills that lover and there is a lull in the conversation.

The MC thinks off-screen. News of the death will reach the hardholder, what’s he’s going to make of it? How will it change his plans, if at all?

The advice in the book is ‘think about what they would do in that situation.’ Which I’m all for but it leaves the whole ‘how to play a character’ thing down to the MC. Which maybe it should because this is some fundamental role-play stuff but, eh, theory around playing a character and what that means goes a long way. Sorcerer annotated for instance, pretty much says a similar thing but it takes pains to say. NPC’s can only ever really do three things: continue with their priority, escalate/double down, change priorities. Is that extra bit of advice helpful? Could be. No in itself I don’t think but in terms of how the artistry around character expression and what means for how theme manifests (premise is addressed), it’s a good model.

OK, I see what you mean here and I agree that the book doesn't give advice on this sort of thing, and the agenda/principles barely touch on it (Make Apocalypse World seem real, Say what prep and honesty demand and Make the players' characters' lives not boring will only take you so far with this sort of thing).

In Baker's and the game's favour: there's a limit to how much advice you can give to people on how to construct authentic, creative fiction.

In the other direction: you've pointed to an example (Annotated Sorcerer) that does better. Burning Wheel doesn't give abstract advice, but it does have an example that perhaps goes a little bit further than AW does too: in the chapter on Relationships, the rulebook says that if there's a Vampyr haunting town, and if one of the PCs has, as a relationship, his wife, then of course it's her that the Vampyr goes after. Maybe the closest that the AW rules get to that is the example of using Keeler's gang members to attack Marie?

So I'm in two minds: I think you're asking for the (near-)impossible, but you're probably right that it's possible to do better.

Or how about the stuff we’ve been talking about recently. How the constraints of fictional positioning work such that prompts and inspiration seem to give the appearance and sense of a non-contrived fictional causality. The AW book even flat out states that it’s the goal (and kudos to it). Does make AW seem real, never say the name of your move, disclaim responsibility actually get you there?

I'm more sympathetic here to the AW book: I think it's a sophisticated treatment of the issue/problem.

Or what about play to find out, play to find out what and how do I do that? Yes it’s in the text but I’m one of the very few people I know who can immediately point to the various bits to explain what it means. Not because I’m a good reader of texts but it’s just so obvious what must be in there given it’s a narrativist game in a specific family.



Although it’s possible the crux is, Apocalypse World tells you how to play it but only 12 people read and understood the rules.

This one is interesting, and I think came up in one of your earliest posts I remember reading, and the resulting conversation, where you launched one of your attacks on No Myth!

I think that AW could be clearer in its advice on (i) what prep looks like, (ii) how to use that prep, and (iii) how to combine, and/or prioritise, saying what prep demands and saying what honesty demands. I think that increased clarity could take at least two forms (and there are probably ways of being clearer that I've not thought of!): (a) better examples, in the text, of being constrained by and using prep (in Moves Snowball, there's reference to Isle's family as a threat, but no example of using a threat's countdown clock, for instance); and (b) reorganisation of the text, to combine some of the stuff that is said in the Threats/Fronts chapter into the discussion of agenda and principles.

The book does say not to create any fronts/threats until after the first session. But I think it could be even clearer about why that is - I've found your comparison to In A Wicked Age helpful in understanding this, and think the book could do a better job.

I think a lot of people (including me, at least from time to time!) read play to find out what happens less specifically than all the above suggests, and a bit more generically - along the lines of play to find out what the fate of these characters is, without pre-planned arcs or particular aspirations. Something quite a bit closer to, say, Burning Wheel.

That's still such a departure from a lot of typical RPG play that I can see why people think it's exciting and even revolutionary to advocate it, without picking up on the more specific aspects of AW's design and the corresponding rules text.

Well the question is, how does the event change him? I need to know how he’s changed before I make any subsequent moves.

The way I would do it is as follows.

I’d think about his background and who he is given what’s been revealed in the game so far and then just be inspired. I may or may not have the general threat list in mind to help with the inspiration. It depends on how well I ‘know’ the character.

Maybe a few ideas will go through my head and they’ll feel more or less authentic. So for instance maybe I’ll think, oh well that’s it for him, he’s just going to denounce everything and maybe fall into cruelty. Maybe become a grotesque, perversion of birth. That might not strike me as right though and so I think a bit more and realise that no he’s not like that at all, he’s going to build a new world in his lovers honour. Which means doubling down on his brutality.

So it’s about how you make the creative choices you do and at what juncture. This is all stuff that’s possibly too personal to each individual to really embed in rules. Although i think we can have fruitful discussions about it.

(I've just EDITed this in): I think this is what I mean when I say there can't really be instructions for creativity. At best there can probably be ideas, prompts, guidelines, etc.

It also goes to playing to find out - as a GM, when you make this decision about the hardholder, is it veering into the sort of No Myth-based "railroading* that you've worried about in other posts? I think the answer has to be no, as long as the GM makes the decision authentically, and in such a way that it doesn't "box in" or "head off" all the other trajectories that the players have established for their PCs.

Now I changed my mind about my main argument an hour to two after I wrote it. I was thinking about our conversations around fictional positioning and how it’s brought even more clarity to me and what I’m doing. In part these conversations were inspired by Apocalypse World but they were inspired by it in reference to DnD4, Champions and role-playing more generally. So yeah, it’s good for games to have principles but they don’t exist in a silo, they exist as part of a general art, narrativist roleplaying in this case.

A lot of us can probably agree on this!

 

[Lanefan]

If it takes a few years of play to "properly understand and appreciate" a playstyle, that playstyle is not worth it to me.

In fairness, though, back in the dark ages it probably took each of us a few years to accept and internalize the playstyles we use now. We just didn't think of it that way at the time, instead seeing it as simply the week-to-week play of the game(s) we were in.

 

[Lanefan]

Well the question is, how does the event change him? I need to know how he’s changed before I make any subsequent moves.

The way I would do it is as follows.

I’d think about his background and who he is given what’s been revealed in the game so far and then just be inspired. I may or may not have the general threat list in mind to help with the inspiration. It depends on how well I ‘know’ the character.

Maybe a few ideas will go through my head and they’ll feel more or less authentic. So for instance maybe I’ll think, oh well that’s it for him, he’s just going to denounce everything and maybe fall into cruelty. Maybe become a grotesque, perversion of birth. That might not strike me as right though and so I think a bit more and realise that no he’s not like that at all, he’s going to build a new world in his lovers honour. Which means doubling down on his brutality.

So it’s about how you make the creative choices you do and at what juncture. This is all stuff that’s possibly too personal to each individual to really embed in rules. Although i think we can have fruitful discussions about it.

If one has time to think it through in depth, e.g. between sessions, mulling over various ideas can be really inspiring.

On the fly in mid-session, though, mulling it over to that extent isn't always an option. There, it often comes down to quickly getting in the headspace of that NPC, asking "what would this character do right now", and then just doing it in the moment.

That said, the NPC can always change tack later e.g. maybe as an immediate reaction (i.e in the session) he flies off the handle in mindless rage but later (as in, after one takes some time to think about it all and after a bit of in-game time has passed) he cools down and becomes much more calculating - and cruel! - in plotting revenge.

 

[Micah Sweet]

In fairness, though, back in the dark ages it probably took each of us a few years to accept and internalize the playstyles we use now. We just didn't think of it that way at the time, instead seeing it as simply the week-to-week play of the game(s) we were in.

I also didn't start from a place of already knowing what I like back then, but I can't go back to being a new player with no experience.

 

[zakael19]

Well the question is, how does the event change him? I need to know how he’s changed before I make any subsequent moves.

I forget if it's in AW or his corpus of writings, but Baker does say that he keeps things simple with NPCs. In AW:BO, he's gotten far more explicit on how you should relate an NPC's drive to a body part so you can make that rapid decision of how they react to events; but I think even over a decade ago he was talking about keeping it short and simple.