D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Maxperson]

But, the dice tell you how well you attack.
The dice tell you whether or not you know something. You're saying that what your wizard knows isn't part of your character? You don't know what you character knows, but, you absolutely know 100% of the mental state of the character? How does that work?

Like I said, the double standard is so deeply ingrained in traditional gaming that people don't even see it anymore. It's no problem for the mechanics to say, "No, you actually AREN'T the greatest swordsman" as you whiff simple attacks multiple times. "No, you aren't all that knowledgeable about the workings of magic" as you fail multiple times to recall simple information about the arcane. "No, you aren't actually all that true to your god" as the dice declare that everything resists your Command spells.

But, "No, you believe that charlatan" is apparently completely off the table for mechanics.

Like I said, and I know this is just a preference, I get that, to me, the dice provide the direction, I provide the script.

You keep conflating the dice telling the result of somethin with the dice forcing the character to do something.

The dice don't tell me to attack. I decide that. The dice just decide of I succeed. If someone tried to persuade me to give them my magic item and succeed in the roll so I have to do it, that's mind control and it takes away agency, something that a roll to hit does not do.

Also, I don't know why you would think that missing a hit is the dice saying that I'm not the greatest swordsman. Even the greatest miss. And since I'm likely not 20th level, I already know I'm not the greatest. The same with those other examples. None of those are the dice dictating to me how to act. Knowledge checks do not do that. Athletics checks don't do that. Only social skills and mind control magic/effects do that.

There's a reason the designers didn't design social skills in 5e to be used on PCs. They didn't want to take away player agency like that.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The problem then is that you want consistent rules for something that, as you say, isn't consistent.

Which is why, as with most game mechanics, there's a randomizer in there.

Trauma--long term type trauma, like what you're talking about--should be an opt-in experience for several reasons. If its enforced via a die roll, then as I said before, it prevents you from playing your character because the dice have taken over. Many players don't want their characters to be burdened with this sort of trauma because they want to be playing a heroic game, or a game where everyday issues don't need to be tracked--they signed up for D&D, not Monster: the Angsting. And unless it's really well done, it's going to be insulting and/or triggering to people who actually have traumatic issues. Especially those who play D&D-alikes to escape them.

I quite agree they don't want it. I have all along. But I think they should just say "Not the experience I want" rather than try to justify it. "Not playing your character" when that involves ignoring or overriding die rolls occurs all over game; its not a particularly useful critique in and of itself. Any mechanical result can make you "not play your character" in that context.

I have more sympathy to the triggering issue, but again, violence sometimes is too, but 90% of the game market focuses on that to one degree or another. That's again "Not an experience I want", not a critique of the process.

But really, only my first issue in the above paragraph is important in the context of this thread, which is that mundane morale and persuasion checks prevent players from actually playing in character because they take that decision away from the player and put it on dice. And because neither you, the GM nor the game's designers know what is actually frightening to by character or what would successfully persuade them.

I'll be a little blunt here: neither does the player. They may have some direction on it, but that doesn't mean the result can be properly modelled entirely internally because, as I said, we can't even do that with ourselves.

There are middle grounds where you can say "So, given the opponent is doing X, do you think that is more or less likely to work?" and use that as a modifier, but that's not the same as saying that you know exactly how they'd react given the context. (Few games do this which is why I've said so many are big blunt objects in mechanic, but that's no surprise because a lot of games have some place(s) where they're like that).

If you want to have that in-game, then do it the way a lot of narrative games do it--have questions for the characters to answer during chargen. What events or situations would truly scare you? (Not "do they?" but "something would scare you; what is it?). Then use that.

I'm the guy who had a hand in the origin of the Hero System. You don't have to sell me on baking psychological traits into character generation. But again, I'd consider those modifiers on how likely something is to work on you, not a statement it won't buying purchasing something to say the character is unusually resistant to something.

When it comes time for an NPC to try to persuade the PC, ask them "this NPC seems very trustworthy"--a high roll here on their Persuade or Deception check--"what about them do you find most persuasive?" They should then be basing their answers on how you've portrayed the NPC.

Well, I'm not a fan of basing something like this on exactly how good an actor a player or GM is. I'd rather have both say what they're trying to do and what kind of effect they ahd make the game mechanics (and properties of the character) do the rest of the work.

 

[Hussar]

I was attempting to extend a hand as a token of acknowledging that in many ways we have more in common than we have different. I don't know why you feel compelled to spit on it.

Well, possibly because every single time anyone answers your unending stream of questions, you refuse to accept any answers and then turtle up with, "it's just my preference".

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think you missed the context. This was purely about a particular kind of possible intepretation of a pharse sequence from monsterhearts: "But being their advocate doesn’t mean it’s your job to keep them safe. It’s not. It’s your job to make their life not boring."

I further up acknowledged that this phrase could be interpreted in a way I was OK with, but that there was an ambiguity that could allow it for being (mis)read in a way I would find problematic. The post you replied to was my response to why I would find that interpretation problematic. It do hence in no way reflect on PbtA games in general and certainly not on your Jewel of the Desert campaign

Fair enough, I suppose, but I don't really get the issue.

Like, to turn this around the other way: The books themselves for "traditional-GM" gaming, namely OD&D and 1e, contain some things which explicitly tell the GM to do some crappy, crappy things. There's no need for interpretation; it's literally right there at the surface of the text. Instructions to be passive-aggressive, for example, or to coerce and manipulate the players. Even if we set aside the obvious problem bits, "interpretation" can be (and 100% has been) applied to things like cloakers and ear seekers and cursed items to indicate "the GM's job is to f#$k with their players".

I will also note that Monsterhearts is kind of picking on the most extreme option available, because it is consciously and explicitly a game about playing Teen Wolf-type characters: that is, teenage monsters (or monster-lovers) trying to figure themselves out. It contains X-rated content (there are moves specifically related to if, whether, and how a character has sex with other characters) and is very specifically about cultivating a "teenage soap opera drama" type atmosphere. The tamer versions should resemble something like Buffy and Angel--which were both still romance-heavy, violent dramas. Would you take to task all of D&D and its close kin (e.g. games like 13A and PF2e) just because Gygax once wrote that GMs should coerce players into dropping their non-human characters and instead playing human ones? If not, then painting the whole of PbtA via your concerns induced by only a single implementation of its ideas, especially if you have not read the actual rules text for most (any?) PbtA games, just seems like an inherently unfair argument.

 

[Hussar]

I don't see an issue with a bit of wish fulfillment and playing out the fantasy of a character that is in control of their emotions when we're in a world where people feel like they have control over so little.

I don't see an issue with a bit of wish fulfillment and playing out the fantasy of a character that is in control of they body when we're in a world where people feel like they have control over so little.

But, the point is, it's the double standard. It's the unending claims that one completely arbitrary set of mechanics for determining the state of the world in the game is perfectly acceptable while another completely arbitrary set of mechanics for determining the state of the world is completely unacceptable. You claim to want plausibility in the game. You want immersion. You want to "inhabit the game world". Great. All very laudable goals.

But at the merest suggestion that there should be mechanics for guiding your behavior in that game world in order to guide the player into behaving in a rational, logical manner in the game world - something that your side of the fence has claimed is absolutely REQUIRED for play - that's totally unacceptable.

Thus the double standard.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If they don't want things interpreted in ways they don't like then they should write them such that those interpretations can't happen.

Taking the 'charitable' approach just opens the door for people to get away with stuff. No thanks.

You seem to be mistaken.

I am not talking about extending infinite charity to players.

I am talking about giving a charitable interpretation to other posters here, and to the rules of games you neither play nor even actually know.

If I were to approach the "traditional-GM" "sandbox-y" approach as you say I should--well, I got told off about that. By you and others, didn't I? When I said that the rules leave things open for horrific abuse and zero accountability, I was told "well GMs don't do that, or if they do you should stop gaming with them".

Pretty sure you were one of those people telling me that!

So why does the standard not apply equally? Why is the "traditional-GM" approach given maximum charity, presuming the GM is a perfect little angel, a saint who never does anything except for the purest and most sincere of motives? Because you can sure as shiitake bet that any given "traditional-GM" game isn't written "such that those interpretations can't happen". Quite the opposite--many of them are written consciously, albeit not strictly intentionally (that is, knowing it's there, but not trying to make it be there), such that they would include that thing.

 

[Faolyn]

When I see "be a fan of the characters" my first thought is that it's quietly advising the GM to, when the chips are down and a character's under serious threat, pull your punches or fudge things such that the character scrapes through; as opposed to just letting the dice fall where they may even if it means the character drops dead.

That's not neutral.

That's also not how it works.

OK, do you know the term whump as used in fanfic? If not, it's basically how some (many) fanfic writers will put their characters through hell. So it's kind of like that--you're a fan of the PCs, so you keep putting them in hard situations that they have to struggle through so they can have a chance to shine by overcoming them. You make their lives interesting. If they drop dead, they should doing so because they went out being awesome, not because they got unlucky on a roll.

Also, "be a fan of the characters" means, in effect, cheer for them; and when you're the one providing the opposition this puts you in the rather bizarre position of cheering against yourself. And sure, this means you get to cheer if you win and cheer if you lose, but it does seem somewhat counterintuitive.

Also, you keep forgetting that you are not their opposition. You and the players are working together. If your players lose because you use your GM powers to keep them from doing cool things, then you lose as well.

 

[Faolyn]

what about when 'it's not in character for my character to do that' is actually saying something closer to 'it's not what i want my character to do'?

i may not want my character to miss attacks against their opponent but that doesn't mean i don't have to make attack rolls, hey! they've been adventuring all this time they've made attacks against hundreds or thousands of guys, they get used to it, if they didn't know how to swing a sword they probably wouldn't of made it past the first few adventures, you can even assume that many of them are predisposed to being able to hit a guy, think of people who are professional fighters versus people who don't know how to throw a punch, or people who can snipe a moving target from miles away versus people who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

you might not want your character to be frightened by their opponent but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have to make a morale roll.

We're not talking about attack rolls here. We're talking about failing morale rolls and persuasion checks and thus being forced to flee or believe an NPC.

 

[pemerton]

It's still redundant

Have you read the rules text (which I posted upthread)?

Here is is again:

The following is from p 114 of the Apocalypse World rulebook:

• Be a fan of the players’ characters. “Make the characters’ lives not boring” does not mean “always worse.” Sometimes worse, sure, of course. Always? Definitely not.

The worst way there is to make a character’s life more interesting is to take away the things that made the character cool to begin with. The gunlugger’s guns, but also the gunlugger’s collection of ancient photographs — what makes the character match our expectations and also what makes the character rise above them. Don’t take those away.

The other worst way is to deny the character success when the character’s fought for it and won it. Always give the characters what they work for! No, the way to make a character’s success interesting is to make it consequential. When a character accomplishes something, have all of your NPCs respond. Reevaluate all those PC–NPC–PC triangles you’ve been creating. Whose needs change? Whose opinions change? Who was an enemy, but now is afraid; who was an enemy, but now sees better opportunities as an ally? Let the characters’ successes make waves outward, let them topple the already unstable situation. There are no status quos in Apocalypse World! Even life doesn’t always suck.

“Make as hard and direct a move as you like” means just that. As hard and direct as you like. It doesn’t mean “make the worst move you can think of.” Apocalypse World is already out to get the players’ characters. So are the game’s rules. If you, the MC, are out to get them too, they’re plain [in trouble].

This goes for highlighting stats, too. When you highlight a character’s stats, try to choose one that’ll show off who the character is. Switch up often — for certain don’t just choose the lowest stat and stick with it — and try to make sure that the character usually has at least one high stat highlighted.​

So, as you can see, it is not redundant at all. It complements the principles Make the players' characters' lives not boring by guiding and constraining how that should be done: rather than making their lives not boring by taking away key elements of the character and/or their victories, the GM is directed to focus on the effects that the characters and their victories have on the in-fiction circumstances, especially the PC-NPC-PC triangles.

This also ties back to @Campbell's connection of the principle to "fail forward", some way upthread: those PC-NPC-PC triangles, and the broader idea that "there are no status quos in Apocalypse World", are directly related to the idea of the in-game situation having trajectories of threat and promise, which the GM draws on in various ways to establish consequences, frame scenes and the like.

If they followed the other rules, and just made sure the players had fun, the characters' lives would not be boring.

Huh? Be a fan of the players' characters is one of the rules to be followed. As I just explained, in complement with Make the players' characters' lives not boring. These are the rules that tell the GM how to do their job.

Whether or not they make for fun play is a separate question. Obviously plenty of people find Apocalypse World fun, but there are some - presumably including several posters in this thread - who would not find it fun.

IThat's assuming of course that the principle is in fact to not make the characters' lives boring. It's a dumb and redundant principle if that's the case. On the other hand if the principle is really to make sure the results of checks are interesting, then it's not a redundant principle, but only a badly named one.

I keep getting told, though, that the principle is not to make sure things are interesting, but it is in fact to make sure that characters without boring lives don't have boring lives.

You seem to think that the phrase that carries all the weight, in "Make the players' character's lives not boring", is not boring. You give little or no weight to the word lives.

But AW is not a game about adventuring, or even ultimately about external adversity. It's a game about human conflict. That's what the PC-NPC-PC triangles are for. Its why the game is focused on the players' characters' lives in a way that (for instance) mainstream D&D play is not. It's not a coincidence that, in a 7-page example of play in the rulebook, we see one PC's home and another's armoury; that we meet a pair of siblings; that the NPC who acts against one of the PCs is a member of another PC's gang.

This is a different approach to situating the PCs, and establishing adversity, from (for instance) mainstream D&D or mainstream CoC or really any of the more conventional RPGs that I'm familiar with.

At this point I'm not sure if they are just being super sloppy with these terms, or if in the effort to differentiate their game from others, they are choosing words and phrases that have other much more commonly used meanings.

Either way it's bad and causes confusion.

Who ever got confused reading the Apocalypse World rulebook?

 

[pemerton]

We could debate semantics but lets not. I'd just say there is a difference. The DM has established the monsters that could be roaming in a given area. He has chosen to let randomness determine whether the group just happens to run into them. I think that is different than something just popping into existence and could be as surprising to the DM as the players. There is something different about those two things in my view.

Presumably the GM formed the view that the cook makes sense, or else they wouldn't narrate a cook!