Grade the Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) System

[pemerton]

A lot of discussion of Apocalypse World and similar games (I can't comment on PbtA in general) seems to get confused between describing what one's character does and triggering a player-side move.

The way to describe what one's character does is to describe what one's character does. If that triggers a move, then roll the dice! Otherwise, the GM makes a move - generally a soft move, unless the description of what one's character does hands the GM an opportunity on a plate, in which case they can make as hard and direct a move as they like.

The reason for having a list of player-side moves is to channel the play of the game into the sorts of themes and actions that are central to the game. This is one place where the design quality of a PbtA game is to be found: if the moves are poorly conceived, then play will not naturally push towards player-side moves, and hence to crisis and resolution; rather, it will be apt to wander aimlessly. The lists to be chosen from play the same role: if they're well-designed, they naturally push play towards the sorts of themes and events that the game is aimed towards.

When it comes to custom moves, I've spoken to experienced MCs who can come up with clever stuff very quickly. To me, this seems analogous to learning to GM any other game.

 

[mamba]

I just do not see how anyone can take away the idea that games like Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts and Masks try too hard to tell a story. Apocalypse World tells the GM do not [readacted] preplan a story.

In the absence of mechanics, all that is left is storytelling. That the game also requires you to be good at improvising does not fix that, it makes it worse, because many people aren’t.

The complaint is not that it creates a railroad, it is that it lacks mechanics

 

[payn]

The complaint is not that it creates a railroad, it is that it lacks mechanics

I have heard this one before too. I dont necessarily agree with it, but I also am comfortable with ambiguity in my games and most things in my life. I know many folks that struggle with that, so it would not shock me to hear its a popular sentiment.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I have heard this one before too. I dont necessarily agree with it, but I also am comfortable with ambiguity in my games and most things in my life. I know many folks that struggle with that, so it would not shock me to hear its a popular sentiment.

The thing is it's entirely untrue to say that Apocalypse World lacks either assistance for improvising or for storytelling.

For improvising for the GM Hard Moves and the list of them are excellent, giving you things to reach for when it's time to act. And Fronts are very useful for the more distant things. Yes you have to improvise and if you aren't Apocalypse World isn't the game for you. But there are mechanics there to support you.

As for mechanics for storytelling, the biggest and strongest thing in storytelling is character growth. And Apocalypse World has the single best mechanic to represent and encourage character growth I have ever seen in any RPG; the playbook change. Either when you gain enough XP and are far enough through the season that you've grown enough to change the path you are on or when life has become untenable. Ones that this mechanic has encouraged in games where I've been the MC that would not have happened in any non-PbtA game I've played:

• The creepy Brainer shot in the head, bleeding out into their mask, and having an NPC put the mask on to become The Faceless out for revenge
• The Hocus realising they'd failed their cult and becoming a Savvyhead, trying to fix things if they couldn't fix people
• The Battlebabe realising someone needed to take care of the Hocus' idiot cultists and stepping up to become the new Hocus.
• The Angel cutting the mind-controlling Brainer off permanently from the Psychic Maelstrom (having cut them off temporarily earlier during the campaign) and giving them much of their knowledge so the Brainer became the new Angel
• Having given their medical knowledge to the Brainer the old Angel now going back to their Gunlugging ways
• The Maestro d' having taken over the whole town and becoming the Hardholder.
• The Driver retiring to "safety" as a psychic entity among the satellites.

And that's just two campaigns and covers every single PC who was there in the first session. And none of this was particularly planned but all of it fitted with what had gone before and provided satisfying climaxes that wouldn't have been possible under other rulesets.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Tongue slightly in cheek, I think any PbtA fans who have denigrated systems with character classes owes them an apology.

I have however said that Apocalypse World itself was the first game to seriously expand on the concept of class based games since D&D in 1974. I may be wrong but can't think of any counterexamples that use classes actively better or even differently to D&D before Apocalypse World.

 

[payn]

The thing is it's entirely untrue to say that Apocalypse World lacks either assistance for improvising or for storytelling.

For improvising for the GM Hard Moves and the list of them are excellent, giving you things to reach for when it's time to act. And Fronts are very useful for the more distant things. Yes you have to improvise and if you aren't Apocalypse World isn't the game for you. But there are mechanics there to support you.

As for mechanics for storytelling, the biggest and strongest thing in storytelling is character growth. And Apocalypse World has the single best mechanic to represent and encourage character growth I have ever seen in any RPG; the playbook change. Either when you gain enough XP and are far enough through the season that you've grown enough to change the path you are on or when life has become untenable. Ones that this mechanic has encouraged in games where I've been the MC that would not have happened in any non-PbtA game I've played:

• The creepy Brainer shot in the head, bleeding out into their mask, and having an NPC put the mask on to become The Faceless out for revenge
• The Hocus realising they'd failed their cult and becoming a Savvyhead, trying to fix things if they couldn't fix people
• The Battlebabe realising someone needed to take care of the Hocus' idiot cultists and stepping up to become the new Hocus.
• The Angel cutting the mind-controlling Brainer off permanently from the Psychic Maelstrom (having cut them off temporarily earlier during the campaign) and giving them much of their knowledge so the Brainer became the new Angel
• Having given their medical knowledge to the Brainer the old Angel now going back to their Gunlugging ways
• The Maestro d' having taken over the whole town and becoming the Hardholder.
• The Driver retiring to "safety" as a psychic entity among the satellites.

And that's just two campaigns and covers every single PC who was there in the first session. And none of this was particularly planned but all of it fitted with what had gone before and provided satisfying climaxes that wouldn't have been possible under other rulesets.

I agree, just saying I understand the sentiment. I do wish folks would express as "not for me" more and a lot less "its incomplete bad" as they often do.

 

[Aldarc]

I agree that improvising and coming up with soft or hard moves can be difficult for a GM, especially a new one.

This is why I appreciate the guidance and tips for moves found in Stonetop, a Dungeon World hack that has since become its own game. The Running the Game section provides a lot of tips on running player moves and ideas for what the GM could do when forced to make a soft or hard move against them. It discusses each of the player and steading moves from the perspective of the GM. Some creatures, denizens, and environs even come with their own moves or suggestions for ways to make relevant moves.

This is one reason why I would point new GMs for Dungeon World to a game like Stonetop. A new GM will provide plenty of "safety rails" for making moves.

 

[pemerton]

In the absence of mechanics, all that is left is storytelling.

<snip>

The complaint is not that it creates a railroad, it is that it lacks mechanics

Here are the rules, from pp 116-7 of the Apocalypse World rulebook:

Whenever someone turns and looks to you to say something, always say what the principles demand. . . .

Whenever there’s a pause in the conversation and everyone looks to you to say something, choose one of these things [a GM move] and say it. . . .

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’.​

So I think it's just not accurate to say that "in the absence of mechanics, all that's left is storytelling". In the absence of mechanics, the GM makes a move, from the list, in accordance with the principles and following the rules about whether the move should be "soft" (setting things up) or "hard" (as hard and direct as the GM likes, and irrevocable).

The GM doesn't need to worry about "story". The game design - the list of GM principles, the list of GM moves, the list and the details of player-side moves - will take care of that.

That the game also requires you to be good at improvising does not fix that, it makes it worse, because many people aren’t.

Someone who can't think of something that might follow from what's already going on will struggle to GM Apocalypse World. Personally I would have thought they might find any GMing a challenge.

I think you may be exaggerating the role of improvisation, though. The GM is - after the first session - expected to have prepared one or more fronts. As per p 136 of the rulebook,

The purpose of your prep is to give you interesting things to say. As MC [= GM] you’re going to be playing your fronts, playing your threats, but that doesn’t mean anything mechanical. It means saying what they do. It means offering opportunities to the players to have their characters do interesting things, and it means responding in interesting ways to what the players have their characters do.​

A lot of people talk about GMing by "getting inside the head of their NPCs". A front is like that. Just remember that when you have a threat do something, or when you introduce a threat into play, set things up rather than make them irrevocable unless you're entitled to make as hard and direct a move as you like.

 

[Emberashh]

In the absence of mechanics, all that is left is storytelling. That the game also requires you to be good at improvising does not fix that, it makes it worse, because many people aren’t.

The complaint is not that it creates a railroad, it is that it lacks mechanics

And it isn't terribly good at the storytelling part if the majority of the results are just more drama rather than unambiguous success.

Written stories have to be very deliberate, even when they are presented as this constant downhill rollercoaster of failure, twists, and turns, because eventually you need to use that momentum for something and the ride needs to be believable, within the logic of the fiction, that it went that way.

How these games do it isn't very deliberate at all; you will generate drama and twists and turns and you have no real choice or even really influence in that matter.

And fwiw, Ironsworn/Starforged do have this same issue, but where they do better is in making you feel more immersed and in actual control of your character rather than separated from them. When drama ensues, it feels closer to being an actual consequence of your actions and not just the system demanding that drama happens, and there's ways in the system to actually influence that that feel naturally consequential to your successes and failures.

This is something I liken to the fact that both games were designed to be multimodal, with a big emphasis on solo play, and that is what wrenched the system back away from how other Forge heritage games do things.

It also helps that both games are much broader in scope of the kinds of stories, settings, and even genres they can convey. I can do a lot of things with Ironsworn, up to and including the typical high fantasy setting of DND (with some help from 3PP content or my own stuff anyway), and how those stories play out physically and thematically isn't really up to the system.

When I read and try out a game like Masks, I don't feel as though I could tell any story other than some variant of the one it tries to force.

 

[Aldarc]

And it isn't terribly good at the storytelling part if the majority of the results are just more drama rather than unambiguous success.

PbtA isn't about storytelling or telling stories. If you are using PbtA for storytelling, then you are better off with a different game. That's not what they are designed to do. You are complaining that a screwdriver makes a terrible hammer. While I can't help but agree, I'm puzzled why you are using a screwdriver to hammer your nails.

When I read and try out a game like Masks, I don't feel as though I could tell any story other than some variant of the one it tries to force.

PbtA was developed partially as a reaction against the GM trying to tell stories with their games. So why are you trying to use these games to tell stories now?