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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 7915522" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Here is a quick case study.Torchbearer is a brutal, dungeon crawl game where the guttering light of a torch/candle/lantern and the PCs' individual and collective "coming-unglued" state are the epicenter of all 3 of (a) the suffocating, unnerving feel of play, (b) the status/change/failure of Player Characters, and (c) the mechanics and GMing ethos that perpetuates the whole.There are basically multiple, player-facing, ticking clocks that are constantly counting down...constantly counting down...like the dying, flickering flame. Players have to manage their resources (time, equipment, effort in terms of load-out and PC staying power) amidst the multiple, player-facing feedback loops that is stressing their wits and their will to continue. Characters are routinely changed forevermore (mechanically and those attendant effects on subsequent fiction...and this isn't something a player can opt-out from...the game's machinery makes it so...but they have a huge say in its manifestation), and rarely for the better.If you're familiar with the video game "Darkest Dungeon", it was inspired by and cribbed most of its tech from Crane's Torchbearer.[HR][/HR]Now take Dungeon World.  It isn't built for this style of play (its built for something else).  However, you can hack it to make it something like "Darkest Dungeon World."  You can put in moves that emulate the guttering light, have resources that work similarly (timescale and effectiveness), deploy a pair of Apocalypse World's (and Blade's) Clocks to give shape to the player-facing turn structure + countdown of light failing and conditions being accrued, you can use Harm/Trauma instead of DW's Hit Points.You can make a very good hack that hews to Torchbearer's oppressive feel and stressful (but wonderful) experience and the inevitable weight that imposes brutally difficult decision-points upon the characters and ultimately changes them.But its just not going to be perfect in its approximation.  While awesome, it will feel subtly different.  And that is before you even deal with trying to hack the other phases (Journey, Town, Winter) of the game which are absolutely central to the holistic play experience!You're going to get some of this stuff wrong...its going to feel wobbly and askew both during play and upon reflection...regardless how many times you iterate.[HR][/HR]Now sub out all of that game machinery that has been carefully and beautifully rendered to create (i) feel, (ii) the ever-escalating situation and all its attendant decision-points, (iii) the GM guidance and constraint such that everything is dynamic, coherent, reproducible, (iv) the finality of each conflict and then adventure such that there is no opting-out...no softening the blow...no GM Force/Illusionism to artificially make things better or worse...you get what you deserve and the Sword of Damocles is ever-looming .  Get rid of the player-facing, transparent aspects of play that inform the decision-tree and emotional quality of each moment.Now sub in "GM decides", overwhelmingly GM-facing machinery that isn't tightly rendered and quality controlled to create an exact play experience (that is left to the GM), and the means for players to just opt-out of both conflicts and their fallout if both of the GM allows for it.[HR][/HR]These three things are not the same thing.  They aren't the same in feel or weight from moment-to-moment, they aren't the same in terms of the experience of navigating individual decision-points, they aren't the same in terms of stress/anxiety/crestfallenness/exaltation both during and upon reflection of what transpired.This is saying nothing about what is better.Its simply saying "the experience is just fundamentally not the same...and in big, meaningful ways."</blockquote>

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