Recurring silly comment about Apocalypse World and similar RPGs

[pemerton]

Well, again, the move is not 'Search for Secret Doors' and the text of Discern Realities talks about 'When you closely study a situation or person' as the trigger. A room is neither a situation nor a person. Now, maybe I'm at odds with others here, but I DO NOT consider DR to be a 'Perception Check'. It is an investigative move! It isn't an attempt to find some specific thing, it's an attempt to learn all you can about a SITUATION (IE lets say "what's up with the people in this room?") or a specific person (and I would say 'In context' not patting them down or something, though that might trigger it). I see it as basically a 'Sherlock Holmes' move.

If all you are doing is feeling around on a wall, then I agree, you are not going to learn "who's in charge here" or anything like that, so the move is NOT appropriate.

I agree it's not a "Perception" check in the modern D&D sense.

I do think a room, or even a wall, could be a situation. From DW p 68:

To discern realities you must closely observe your target. That usually means interacting with it or watching someone else do the same. You can’t just stick your head in the doorway and discern realities about a room. You’re not merely scanning for clues - you have to look under and around things, tap the walls, and check for weird dust patterns on the bookshelves. That sort of thing.

Discerning realities isn’t just about noticing a detail, it’s about figuring out the bigger picture.​

And p 69 has this example of play:

Omar: I don’t trust this room - I’m going to poke around a little. I take out my tools and start messing with stuff. I pull candlesticks and tap the walls with my hammer. My usual tricks.

GM: Discern realities?

Omar: Oh yes. I discern all the realities. I got a 12. I want to know “What here is not as it appears to be?”

GM: Well, it’s obvious to you that the wall on the north side of the room has a hollow spot. The stones are newer and the mortar is fresher, probably a hidden alcove or passageway.​

Where the action moves from "feeling around on a wall" to "close study" that may permit "figuring out the bigger picture" seems like a matter of judgement. In the example of play, Omar makes it clear by talking about the use of tools and the messing with stuff.

This also helps establish the consequence-space if the roll is 6-. Eg someone who is "messing with stuff" is in danger of triggering a trap!

 

[pemerton]

*Edit --- now, it is also at the GM's discretion for 6- result on "Discern Realities" to indicate full failure to find the door AND include heavy GM badness. That's available to the GM as well, depending on circumstance.

Yeah, as I just posted, the first thing I thought of is *Maybe there's a secret door, but if there is you haven't found it yet. Rather, you've just cleared away the dust to reveal the explosive runes . . . ."

 

[niklinna]

I love the twist on Chekov's Gun in the resolution of Billy Wilder's The Apartment.

I looked it up, and am very disappointed that someone didn't get whacked in the face with a tennis racket full of spaghetti.

 

[pemerton]

Agreed.

The question is one of whether the rules should then be changed to accommodate the fiction, or the fiction change to fit in with the rules.

I say the former. I got the strong impression, however, from someone in this thread (maybe loverdrive?) that in some of the games being put forward here it's specifically intended to be the latter, which is what I was originally pushing back against.

I don't know what you mean. As I already posted upthread,

The concluding chapter of AW (at least in the original rulebook) is all about adaptations and "tinkering", and includes examples (with attribution) from people other than Baker (eg ideas from John Harper; proto-Dungeon World).

And "custom moves" on the player side are a core component of threat design.

If the AW GM wants a new move to capture some particular aspect of the fiction, then they create it. The rulebook has a variety of worked examples. Here's a bit of it, from p 269:

Custom threat moves linked to particular threats are naturally the most focused yet:

If you’re in a fist fight with Rolfball and you take harm, you take s-harm (ap) in addition to the usual harm.​

s-harm means stun harm, recall. The effect is: if you just stagger around in a concussed daze, cool; if you do anything else you’re acting under fire.

Or:

If Grome gets his hands on you, he ties you to a table and you know he’s really <very> good at that. If you try to escape, roll+hard. On a hit, you can escape, but at a cost. On a 10+, choose 1; on a 7–9, choose 2:

• it takes you over an hour and leaves you exhausted. Take s-harm (ap).

• you suffer for it; your arms and legs are torn bloody before you’re done. Take 1-harm (ap).

• ultimately you need to bribe Ipe, Grome’s sister, to help you. It costs you 1-barter.​

• Custom threat moves can be general or specific, broad or focused. List general ones in the home front.

• Custom moves can be legal but nevertheless not fun in play. Ditch them if they aren’t contributing.​

These two examples are somewhat analogous to how a D&D GM might write up a NPC, or map and key a particularly interesting room.

 

[pemerton]

It's not a perfect match, because in this example the bomb is a total surprise, unlike how you're talking about the gun. However, the reason I bring it up: Even if you know a thing is important, there's still so much dramatic tension in the 'when' that it being predictable might not matter at all. Especially if you also don't know who will use it, how, or why.

In the same general territory, but particularly applicable to serial fiction such as RPGs, is this from Vincent Baker:

A Small Thing About Suspense
I have no criticism cred to back this up. Just amatuer observations. So kick my butt if you gotta.

Suspense doesn't come from uncertain outcomes.
I have no doubt, not one shread of measly doubt, that Babe the pig is going to wow the sheepdog trial audience. Neither do you. But we're on the edge of our seats! What's up with that?

Suspense comes from putting off the inevitable.
What's up with that is, we know that Babe is going to win, but we don't know what it will cost.

Everybody with me still? If you're not, give it a try: watch a movie. Notice how the movie builds suspense: by putting complications between the protagonist and what we all know is coming. The protagonist has to buy victory, it's as straightforward as that. That's why the payoff at the end of the suspense is satisfying, after all, too: we're like ah, finally.

What about RPGs?

Yes, it can be suspenseful to not know whether your character will succeed or fail. I'm not going to dispute that. But what I absolutely do dispute is that that's the only or best way to get suspense in your gaming. In fact, and check this out, when GMs fudge die rolls in order to preserve or create suspense, it shows that suspense and uncertain outcomes are, in those circumstances, incompatible.

So here's a better way to get suspense in gaming: put off the inevitable.

Acknowledge up front that the PCs are going to win, and never sweat it. Then use the dice to escalate, escalate, escalate. We all know the PCs are going to win. What will it cost them?​

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think searching for secret doors thing might be the "it is almost a move" issue someone mentioned earlier. Moves are somewhat specific, but if someone is doing something that is kinda similar to the situation assumed by the move, but still not quite it, it might be a bit awkward.

 

[pemerton]

You never know when that area may be revisited and that prep put to use, but the point is not insisting on it being used right now frees player choice and contributes to agency. Other wise you might end up with the "ogre in the forest" problem, where every path the PCs take inevitably leads to Grishnak the Skull-Chewer.

The notion that there is a conflict between the PCs "inevitably" meeting Grishnak, and player agency, rests on a premise: that choice of location/direction/travel matters; and that that mattering consists, importantly and perhaps primarily, in the choice of location/direction/travel being a key determinant of what scenes the PCs are framed into.

In many of the RPGs that I play, perhaps most when I think about it, that premise is false, and hence the player choice to go left or right is typically just colour.

In the RPGs that I play, the typical determinant of what scenes the PCs are framed into is an interplay of (i) formal or informal player flags about what matters, plus (ii) whether the last roll made by the PCs succeeded or failed.

 

[pemerton]

I think searching for secret doors thing might be the "it is almost a move" issue someone mentioned earlier. Moves are somewhat specific, but if someone is doing something that is kinda similar to the situation assumed by the move, but still not quite it, it might be a bit awkward.

I think only in the sense that, if I describe my character kicking Rolfball, the question arises Am I in a fistfight with Rolfball?

The table, guided by the GM, has to arrive at a view as to whether or not the declared fiction falls under the general descriptors that appear in many (not all) player-side move triggers.

The analogue in a D&D-ish game is this: the rules say that if I have the high ground, I get +1 to hit my opponent. The fiction establishes that the corridor has a slight slope (my Dwarf even detected it!) and my PC is up-slope of their opponent. Do I get that +1 to hit?

 

[hawkeyefan]

I agree it's not a "Perception" check in the modern D&D sense.

I do think a room, or even a wall, could be a situation. From DW p 68:

To discern realities you must closely observe your target. That usually means interacting with it or watching someone else do the same. You can’t just stick your head in the doorway and discern realities about a room. You’re not merely scanning for clues - you have to look under and around things, tap the walls, and check for weird dust patterns on the bookshelves. That sort of thing.​

​

Discerning realities isn’t just about noticing a detail, it’s about figuring out the bigger picture.​

And p 69 has this example of play:

Omar: I don’t trust this room - I’m going to poke around a little. I take out my tools and start messing with stuff. I pull candlesticks and tap the walls with my hammer. My usual tricks.​

​

GM: Discern realities?​

​

Omar: Oh yes. I discern all the realities. I got a 12. I want to know “What here is not as it appears to be?”​

​

GM: Well, it’s obvious to you that the wall on the north side of the room has a hollow spot. The stones are newer and the mortar is fresher, probably a hidden alcove or passageway.​

Where the action moves from "feeling around on a wall" to "close study" that may permit "figuring out the bigger picture" seems like a matter of judgement. In the example of play, Omar makes it clear by talking about the use of tools and the messing with stuff.

This also helps establish the consequence-space if the roll is 6-. Eg someone who is "messing with stuff" is in danger of triggering a trap!

Wait… so the answer to this whole Discern Realities and searching for a secret door was addressed… in the book?!?!?

Madness!

 

[pemerton]

Wait… so the answer to this whole Discern Realities and searching for a secret door was addressed… in the book?!?!?

Madness!

I know, right. Why didn't the DW authors follow the 5e DMG example more closely?