Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 7094678" data-attributes="member: 16586">Here's the way I look at it: Hacking is good. Customizing any game you play to fit the interests of the play group is a very good thing. I just think it is best when you realize you are hacking a game, and the hacking is a group activity rather than a solitary pursuit. There will always be a significant amount of give while operating in the rules of a given game. My experience is that there is a significant amount of diversity in Apocalypse World play. My experience tells me there is a significant amount of diversity in Dungeons and Dragons play. My experience tells me the games according to their texts are better at satisfying different desires and both can be fun in different amounts for different people.Apocalypse World is a game that offers a strong amount of latitude to the GM. It offers less in some ways than D&D. It offers more in some different ways. It is also imminently hackable and offers several suggestions on how to hack it directly in the text. In fact, hacking is expected. You are supposed to add custom moves that reflect this group's Apocalypse World and reflect the threat of your fronts. There are several peripheral move sets that may or may not come into play in a given game. We are talking about a game that tells you how to hack it, was designed to be hacked, and expects you to hack it. The move architecture was literally designed to be developed in play. It is entirely self-contained and modular.When it comes down to it I believe that every game provides a specific experience. It is just a question of who designs what parts of the game, when they design it, and how they design it. 5th Edition favors a certain amount of real time design of mechanisms by the DM, but favors designing content before play. I believe this favors the Achievement and Creativity Components more than it favors the Mastery and Social Components.  The shifting ground and lack of transparency in both mechanics and social contract can make it more difficult to effectively collaborate on equal ground and engage our strategic muscles both from the standpoint of fictional positioning and engagement with the rules of the game. Apocalypse World favors designing content more collaboratively in real time to a certain extent, but favors design of mechanisms and principles before they come up in play. I believe this favors the Mastery and Social Components over the Achievement and Creativity Components. It makes it much more difficult to explore a world or have a story that conforms to all our desires when it tends to raise up in response to exploration and we have far less capacity to design our experience during the course of play. We must live with it.The idea that there are no meaningful trade offs in one form of design, but there are in others is something I find problematic. I do not think we are wedded to one set of trade offs, but I believe there will always be trade offs.</blockquote>

Verification