Help Me Get "Apocalypse World" and PbtA games in general.

[Ovinomancer]

100 times this.

AW is not "say 'yes' or roll the dice", it's "if you do it, you do it". Plus the principles around soft and hard moves.

Sigh. Yes, but this is downstream of player action declarations, meaning that often the GM cannot say yes but must call for the move. What it doesn't mean is that the GM has the authority to block actions based on secret thinking. This is not true. If the GM isn't calling for a move, this doesn't enable the GM to make one instead.

 

[pemerton]

(I'm new at enworld, can you delete comments after sending? I, by mistake, sent this one and could not find a way to delete it. Thanks!)

No you can't.

But you can edit your post to put in something like "Double post", or a witty remark, or . . .

Btw, I'm glad you've come to ENworld. I'm enjoying your posts in this thread.

 

[pemerton]

I'm gonna disagree with you @pemerton. There's lots of reasons a player could declare an action that should not initiate a GM's move. If the GM decides to say yes, for instance, this doesn't trigger a GM move. I go to say that the only time this does allow a GM move is if the action offers the GM a golden opportunity for a previously deployed soft move or framing and so the GM can make a move to pay that off, or if the GM has realized they've screwed up and not provided a conflict and so needs to recover by framing one in now.

As you know I'm not working from AW experience. I'm working from having read the AW rulebook pretty closely, and using the methods (perhaps a little roughly and readily) in Classic Traveller play.

But it seems to me that, in a fundamental sense, all the GM/MC does in AW is to make moves, either soft ones or hard ones. Upthread I've already quoted the text from p 117 (1st ed; I don't have 2nd ed), and there's also this on p 116:

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 [from the list of MC moves] and say it.​

I guess the exception to what I've just said is the GM/MC asking provocative questions, though often these will also be moves - particularly offering opportunities or setting up some incipient badness. Of course there's also the GM having fun and kibitzing like at any table, but that's not them acting in their "official" role.

I don't see "saying yes" as part of the AW lexicon. If you do it, you do it - there is no "get out of rolling via GM fiat". That's why different PbtA games need different basic moves, to reflect different premises about what sorts of actions are high stakes.

Sigh. Yes, but this is downstream of player action declarations, meaning that often the GM cannot say yes but must call for the move. What it doesn't mean is that the GM has the authority to block actions based on secret thinking. This is not true. If the GM isn't calling for a move, this doesn't enable the GM to make one instead.

In AW 1st ed, here's how the example of play, under the heading Moves Snowball, begins (p 152):

Marie the brainer goes looking for Isle, to visit grief upon her, and finds her eating canned peaches on the roof of the car shed
with her brother Mill and her lover Plover (all NPCs).​

Marie's player can tell us what Marie does - going looking for Isle - but (given that she's not acting under fire, nor doing it by opening her brain to the psychic maelstrom) that doesn't trigger a player-side move. So Baker makes a move in reply - he's the one who tells Marie's player that Marie finds Isle, Mill and Plover sitting on the roof of the shed eating peaches. Baker doesn't tell us what move he has made here, but it seems like he's offering an opportunity. It's less clear what principle is governing this - we need more context - but given the remark to Marie wanting to visit grief upon Isle, maybe Baker is looking (at Isle) through crosshairs. In other words, he's deliberately made a move that steps up the conflict and stakes at the table.

Everything else being equal, Baker could have made a different move - say Isle's nowhere to be found in the hardhold - which would announce offscreen badness, and might be looking at Isle through a different set of crosshairs. The MC is not obliged to let Marie meet up with Isle just because that's what Marie's player wants; and there is no analogue to a Circles mechanic by which Marie's player can oblige the MC to frame an encounter between Marie and Isle.

I think that @andreszarta is saying the same thing about the locked door, or the T-intersection.

I mean, suppose that Baker tells Marie's player that Isle is nowhere to be found, and Marie's player asks "Is there anywhere she might be that I can't check?", the MC can answer (surely!) "Well, the car shed's door is locked, so you couldn't check in there." That's offering an opportunity, most likely with a cost; and is responding with <naughtiness>. If Marie's player replies, "I wait until no one's nearby, then bust it open," well that sounds like Doing Something Under Fire. And so we resolve that. Or if Marie's player instead replies, "Bugger! I go to find Keeler the Gunlugger to help me break into the shed", well that's good too - the MC might ask Keeler's player what Keeler is up to, and go from there. Or maybe Marie opens her brain to the psychic maelstrom, hoping to learn if Isle's locked in the shed. Etc.

To put it another way, perhaps more formally: in AW there is no process of framing, player-side move, resolution, re-framing as there is in (say) Burning Wheel or Prince Valiant or a 4e D&D skill challenge. Player say what their characters do, perhaps after poking and prodding via questions from the GM/MC, and either that triggers a player-side move (if you do it, you do it) or else the GM/MC responds with one of their moves, and we keep going until we agree it's time to stop.

 

[pemerton]

Empty post!

 

[chaochou]

Obviously the full extent or success of the PC's action isn't set until the dice are rolled—if it's something that requires a move—so how is this different from a player in a trad game just framing their actions confidently, instead of as a question?

This has been touched on, but a key thing is that from both a player and MC point it view it means that there is transparency in how an action declaration will be resolved. Which leads to confidence and creativity in play from both sides.

Let's say Dremmer is standing in front of the cabin used as the diesel store, looking mean with one hand on the little snub-nose .38 everyone knows he used to kill Mouse. Our PC wants to get in there.

In Apocalypse World, I can say: "I walk towards Dremmer, lifting my shotgun towards his face and say 'Step aside, fool. My boys need fuel and you ain't standing in the way."

And the moment I do this, I know, you know, everyone in the thread knows that this triggers the move Going Aggro, and if I hit a 10+ Dremmer can either step aside or is getting killed by a 12-guage shell. There's no wiggle room here for the MC. The situation is clear, my action is clear, and on a 10+ the outcome is clear.

Equally, on a 7-9 Dremmer can do one of five things, five clear and known things, and whichever one it is, it must also make sense in the contect of the established fiction.

So I can enjoy the fiction, and I can enjoy the risk and reward, because the relationship between the fiction and mechanics are crystal clear. Whatever I roll, I can enjoy the outcome and see where it goes.

As a player, I don't need to engage in meta-negotiation with the GM on what mechanics they will allow me to use achieve what things, and what they're deciding I can and can't achieve with what rolls. I'm not relying on the GM creating the 'getting around Dremmer' minigame and then communicating the rules and scope of that game to me, and then waiting for me to decide if I even want to play or can renegotiate the rules by which we're resolving this situation. Or if, having realised that none of this offers any guarantee of getting what I want, deciding it's easier just to kill him because the combat rules are the only clear and binding ones available.

And as an MC I'm not put in a position of having to fill in an empty space where these mechanics should be. Traditionally that void is filled with pre-written notes, combined with a sense of entitlement that my version of this situation matters more than yours. That doesn't exist in Apocalypse World. As an MC I don't have the burden of the deus ex machina role - the mechanics tell me what I can do just as much as they do the players.

 

[Reynard]

Dare me? I think this has reached the end of fruitful discussion.

Seeing different interpretations was useful for a bit, but overall I agree. I think we can move on.

Let's talk about harm. First thing: it looks like harm moves are optional? Like, not "in this game" but in each instance of harm. Is that right? And if so, when do you use them, versus just record the harm and move on?

 

[chaochou]

Obviously the full extent or success of the PC's action isn't set until the dice are rolled—if it's something that requires a move—so how is this different from a player in a trad game just framing their actions confidently, instead of as a question?

Apologies for continuing to quote you, but I have something else to say on this.

The subtler impact of the move structure is that it guides players to actions which trigger moves, and therefore provide clarity on the range of outcomes.

Let's say Dremmer is standing in front of the cabin used as the diesel store, looking mean with one hand on the little snub-nose .38 everyone knows he used to kill Mouse. Our PC wants to get in there.

We've looked at what happens if we walk up with our shotgun pointed at his face and tell him to scram. But what happens if we walk up and politely request that he gives us 50 litres of diesel?

Well, firstly we know that this isn't a 'Say yes or roll the dice' system. We're under no obligation to either hand over a barrel of diesel or contrive a roll to contest it. This isn't Burning Wheel.

And we know that the player hasn't triggered a move, but they're looking at us for a response. So we get to make a move.

So the player ceded the initiative to us instead of taking it themselves, and now they're no further forward to getting any diesel and now Dremmer has a gun pointed at them, instead of the other way round.

Apocalypse World provokes players to take the initiative in play by triggering moves because that's how you get to engage in the conflicts around you on your own terms.

What this means is the tone and clarity in the wording of the moves in each individual PbtA title is fundamental to the quality and robustness of the play experience.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

In Apocalypse World, I can say: "I walk towards Dremmer, lifting my shotgun towards his face and say 'Step aside, fool. My boys need fuel and you ain't standing in the way."

And the moment I do this, I know, you know, everyone in the thread knows that this triggers the move Going Aggro, and if I hit a 10+ Dremmer can either step aside or is getting killed by a 12-guage shell. There's no wiggle room here for the MC. The situation is clear, my action is clear, and on a 10+ the outcome is clear.

Equally, on a 7-9 Dremmer can do one of five things, five clear and known things, and whichever one it is, it must also make sense in the contect of the established fiction.

This is an interesting example, since in a trad game this would often be separated into

-an Intimidation (or similar) roll to see if Dremmer complies

-a pretty standard combat scene, likely without even much in the way of an ambush or surprise bonus for the PC.

Now I really like that this approach collapses those two elements. I just think it's interesting because both the GM and the PC would have to fully understand the stakes, and be on the same wavelength. That's one of the reasons that I think PbtA is a phenomenal game design approach, but that there's a pretty steep learning curve, especially for players with lots of trad experience. I sometimes think PbtA games—especially those with a lot of action—would do well to make that clear. I've played in one friend's attempt to jump from running trad to running PbtA, and it was a complete disaster. Some sort of guidance for rebooting one's brain would be appreciated (I know I had to reboot mine the very hard way, and there are still elements I probably don't fully get).

 

[pemerton]

The subtler impact of the move structure is that it guides players to actions which trigger moves, and therefore provide clarity on the range of outcomes.

<snip>

Apocalypse World provokes players to take the initiative in play by triggering moves because that's how you get to engage in the conflicts around you on your own terms.

What this means is the tone and clarity in the wording of the moves in each individual PbtA title is fundamental to the quality and robustness of the play experience.

Yes. I posted something related to this upthread: the basic moves tell us what actions are high-stakes in the system. So if the moves don't actually fit with the genre/themes, the game won't work as it should.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

It seems that what you're saying here is that the door being locked was a soft move? Or that, by asking if it's locked, the player handed you an opportunity on a plate, and so you followed through with a hard move.

Nothing much turns on the question of taxonomy, of course. To me what you did doesn't look super-hard, because it didn't really have any irrevocability to it. It was more like an offering of an opportunity (enter the house).

Contrast: at an earlier point in play, when the PC is heading to the lighthouse, you mention the car prowling slowly down the street about 20 metres (yards?, I guess, if it's in NJ) behind them. The player replies that they hurry up towards the house, and you mention the gentleman in a dark suit and glasses who steps out of the car, and strides purposefully towards them.

And then some appropriate move is made - I don't know BrindleWood Bay well enough, but in AW we might be heading in the direction of Acting Under Fire - and if it fails, the character gets to the door and it's locked! That would be a hard move, because now they're out there with this creepy guy bearing down on them.

Declaring the door is locked, in that circumstance, as your move in the conversation but not in response to a failed check, would look a bit brutal to me. Unless, of course, the player offers an opportunity on a plate by asking "Is it locked?"!

Brindlewood is what I'd consider—and I'm fully making up this terminology, with no authority to do so—a second- or third-wave PbtA game, where the number and specificity of moves have been pared way way down, and the extremely specific premise and tone go a long way toward managing what players and GMs would even consider doing, rather than more specific mechanics. There are about four kinds of moves that PCs can do, and "reactions" for the Keeper that are basically all based on reacting to rolls. The players are old ladies who are a part of their community, not reckless adventures bashing their way through every challenge. The tone includes horror, especially as the campaign goes on, but it's also relentlessly "cozy," in order to make those moments of horror more surprising and weighty.

So when you mention the idea of a car tailing the PC, or when @Ovinomancer mentions seeing a storm rolling in, imo those aren't really appropriate to the game, at least as an establishing challenge or setup that isn't connected to a roll. That's one of the reasons I was curious about digging into this idea of the GM saying a door is locked. To me it seems like this is a good illustration in the difference between various PbtA games, but also why it can be a little problematic to apply AW's principles to every game it inspired. PbtA games really are remarkably different from one another. I think that's a strength in the approach, but also a challenge.

And fwiw @Reynard I never recommend AW as anyone's first foray into PbtA. I get the urge to start there, since PbtA started there. It's insanely influential, and if you can grok it you'll be able to pick up any other PbtA game almost instantly. But I think some of the more streamlined games that followed are much easier to pick up. I still reel a bit when I look at one of the extended examples of play in AW and imagine making all of that work seamlessly as a GM. Like I know it happens, and that some people have definitely mastered it. But it's a real high degree of difficulty.