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That makes me wonder. What happens if I have a contingency to cast mage’s disjunction on the anti-magic field when I enter one. Does it go off before or after the GM has a conniption?

Having picked it up thanks to this discussion, I think it’s fine. There are some blind spots when it comes to tabletop RPGs, but there’s still also some useful stuff. I look at it as complementary to other tabletop RPG design theory and ideas.

Technical books tend to be expensive (even as eBooks). If you have access to the O’Reilly library, Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design appears to be included. Adams has another book, Fundamentals of Game Design, that is cited as the source of the genres used in Game Mechanics: Advanced Game...

Sure. Personally, I prefer how Blades in the Dark and other games approach things by putting constraints on how action resolution is handled while keeping them in a more traditional framework. In my homebrew system, skill checks are initiated by the players when they want something. The...

If it seemed like a gotcha question, then I apologize. I was trying to get at the heart of the issue while avoiding contention over particulars of how Apocalypse World works. I think your answer is perfectly fine. I also think it’s interesting that at least some here would be okay with that...

Fair enough. We might, but I don’t think the overall conversation would be the same or would have started the same way. The key objection seems to be how multiple steps in the conflict are being resolved together rather than individually as might be done in a task-oriented approach. Oh, okay. I...

If someone draws their weapon and puts it to a target’s throat for a Charisma (Intimidate) check and then fails the roll, can the DM have the blade slip and kill the target?

I’m not hung up on labels. I’m pushing back on the idea that Apocalypse World is doing something unusual in its resolution process (note: versus what is being resolved, which is different). If the discussion were about D&D, I don’t think we would be having this conversation. Obviously, some...

The game tells you what to do as the MC (from “Moves and Dice” on p. 12 of AW 1e and p. 9 of AW 2e): First is when a player says only that her character makes a move, without having her character actually take any such action. For instance: “I go aggro on him.” Your answer then should be “cool...

I touch on this in my reply in post #156, which you obviously couldn’t have seen since I posted it after this reply, but I agree. The difference is the nature of the stakes in Apocalypse World. You’re not rolling to see if the PC completed some task but if they get what they want. In that...

The issue here seems to be the nature of the uncertainty Apocalypse World is resolving. Apocalypse World isn’t having the player roll to determine whether or not they performed some task (such as pushing another character). They’re rolling to see if they get what they want. In the case of Go...

I’m trying to follow this reasoning, but I’m having trouble. If a particular action declaration is unclear or incomplete, are you arguing for not asking clarifying questions because that would result in a “meta discussion”? It’s fine if that’s your preference, but I don’t read this example as...

Vincent Baker posted an article on PbtA yesterday that also includes links to other ones digging into various details. It seems topical for this thread: https://lumpley.games/2023/11/22/what-is-pbta/

I had a pretty nasty case of “writer’s room” happen a few sessions ago. Dingo was scouting and came across an ice drago in humanoid form. There was a lot of collaboration around the table about how Dingo should react. In my experience, having the MC ask if that’s what you mean is nothing like...

I think I understand your issue, especially with the rest of your reply. The MC in Apocalypse World is not supposed to be framing neutral situations. It’s made explicit in the agenda that you’re supposed to make their lives not boring. This also leads to zooming in and out as necessary with time...

Ah, okay. Thanks. That helps clarify. One of the things I like about Blades in the Dark over plan PbtA games is you can resist any consequence. If you get a partial success or even a failure, you can choose to make it not happen (or reduce it if it’s a big consequence). There’s a risk to doing...

I’m trimming this down because I wanted to focus on this part, but I want to say thank you for the detailed post. The thing about PbtA games, or at least Apocalypse World and those that work similarly (because not all PbtA games work the same), is that it should play like your DayZ and Ark...

Is that “aesthetic” in the MDA sense or a different one? If the former, I’m having trouble following. What is being evoked differently between the PbtA-style loop and the task-oriented loop? The constraint on rolling in PbtA is that to do it, you do it (and if you do it, you do it). Rolls...

That Baker has created a certain type of game as a product of his design work doesn’t necessarily mean his design work leads only to creating that type of games. Sure, some tabletop role-playing games concern themselves more with playing through or experiencing a curated experience. The GM is...

This seems to be conflating the games Baker designed with the design work he did to design them. It’s not clear how boxes and clouds, conflict resolution, etc are limited to genre emulation. I’ve certainly found them useful for the homebrew system I’m designing, which I described post #54 as...