Recurring silly comment about Apocalypse World and similar RPGs

[AbdulAlhazred]

I feel that I can rightly say I know the DMG rules more thoroughly than most in this thread, and I find in them high utility. Addressing a wide range of cases that matter to play. Including some that are crucial. Anyone who wants to fight me on this, I'm willing and ready.

More to the point, perhaps DW does its job as well as it does irrespective of how well or badly another game text does?

Sure, I think @pemerton was teasing a bit there. It provides an opening to note that DW specifically is a pretty old text at this point in PbtA land. Stonetop, for example, leans on newer and better wording, so there are less grey areas in generic move triggers. I would probably adopt at least some of it's basic moves if I run DW again. I think stuff like Perilous Wilds already does at least some of that.

 

[Maxperson]

Nowhere near often enough, if you ask me.

Rare indeed is the D&D adventure that bothers to show and-or tell you which way the doors open - relevant info, as it makes a big difference when you're trying to kick in a door whether that door wants to open away from you or toward you. It's one of my pet peeves with module design in general.

Maybe they assume that doors will follow the general practices. Doors generally open into homes and rooms, but not closets. Closet and storage areas generally have doors that open outward. I'm not going to waste my time writing that every door in the hallway opens into the next area when it's the usual practice. There are better things to spend my time and writing space on.

 

[hawkeyefan]

To be fair, there's lots of people who barely read the books or remember, or bother to even try to remember, the rules of games they've played for a long time. A friend of mine gamed with someone (can't remember if he was another player or the GM) who could never remember what her human champion fighter's abilities were.

Absolutely. And explaining rules to such people can be very diffiult!

I can see where you’re coming from, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable or weird or anything to not have the easiest time piecing together a complete picture from a dozen different posts, and wondering “why didn’t someone do that from the start” when someone finally lays the whole thing out in one post.

I don't think it's unreasonable or weird, either. I also don't think it's unusual or weird for folks explaining something to not realize if it hasn't helped. This kind of stuff happens.

I just wish that when people are asking for answers of others, they kind of maintain a curious disposition rather than demanding precision of others to do what they could conceivably do themselves.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I sort get the idea that Story Now ensures that something interesting happens. I have played in trad games where there were indeed long stretches where nothing interesting happened, and it is frustrating. I think it was often related to some sort of pixel hunty logic where there was interesting stuff somewhere, but we as player were poking at wrong things. Personally I really hate this, and in my own games try to make sure this doesn't happen.

Now mechanics where failures compel the GM to introduce complications is certainly one way to ensure that at least something happens. Whether that something is interesting probably still depends on the GM though.

When GMing trad games I try to plan dynamic situations, where there is something going on, so regardless of what the PCs do, even if nothing, some change of situation will eventually occur.

One observation I made about the Blades game I was playing in, was the situation was rarely like this. The situation was static until we as the players introduced change and chaos. But I am not sure if this is necessarily something that must be in this way in such a game, or is it just how the GM chose to run things.

Well, leaving aside the mechanics of 'you are setting up a score' each PC has a vice. They also have a rival (nemesis/enemy). The crew, which is the PC's home and allies, is also under pressure (fallout/entanglement) and needs to actively sustain itself. All of those factors are going to pressure the characters into action of some sort. Once you take action clocks begin to tick, other groups make moves, etc. while you may be able to keep a low profile in Doskvol the game is designed to create an impetus towards action. Things are not going to remain quiet for long!

 

[Lanefan]

Maybe they assume that doors will follow the general practices. Doors generally open into homes and rooms, but not closets. Closet and storage areas generally have doors that open outward. I'm not going to waste my time writing that every door in the hallway opens into the next area when it's the usual practice. There are better things to spend my time and writing space on.

You don't need to write anything. A simple angled line on each door on the map will do; and that doesn't take long.

The exceptions, of course, are unusual doors e.g. top-hinged, sliding, garage-style, etc.; but one hopes those would be written up in the text as noteworthy features.

 

[loverdrive]

I always find games with sex moves to be a bit creepy, since it really sets the tone for what the game should be like, and I wouldn't want to ERP with my friends even if I weren't asexual.

While I understand how it might be uncomfortable, neither AW nor MH really intend for players to ERP at the table, as both Vincent and Avery said that they normally just fade to black. Honestly, speaking as an ERP connoisseur, they are pretty clunky and aren't exactly suited for actual ERP.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Well, leaving aside the mechanics of 'you are setting up a score' each PC has a vice. They also have a rival (nemesis/enemy). The crew, which is the PC's home and allies, is also under pressure (fallout/entanglement) and needs to actively sustain itself. All of those factors are going to pressure the characters into action of some sort. Once you take action clocks begin to tick, other groups make moves, etc. while you may be able to keep a low profile in Doskvol the game is designed to create an impetus towards action. Things are not going to remain quiet for long!

Yes, I know all this and all of this happens, but it was also not quite what I meant. I'm not sure I can explain it properly. Situations are static in a sense that if the PCs wouldn't do nothing, nothing would happen. Like the score is just some guards guarding the casino's safe during the night. And sure thing, once the PCs arrive, things start to happen, but otherwise it would have been an uneventful night. And I know it seems weird, because of course the PCs will be there to mess up things, because the game is about that, so who cares that would have happened had the PCs done nothing! But I mean static as opposed to dynamic situation where there would be some ongoing conflict or issue in midst of which the characters arrive to complicate the matters.

 

[loverdrive]

I sort get the idea that Story Now ensures that something interesting happens. I have played in trad games where there were indeed long stretches where nothing interesting happened, and it is frustrating. I think it was often related to some sort of pixel hunty logic where there was interesting stuff somewhere, but we as player were poking at wrong things. Personally I really hate this, and in my own games try to make sure this doesn't happen.

Now mechanics where failures compel the GM to introduce complications is certainly one way to ensure that at least something happens. Whether that something is interesting probably still depends on the GM though.

When GMing trad games I try to plan dynamic situations, where there is something going on, so regardless of what the PCs do, even if nothing, some change of situation will eventually occur.

One observation I made about the Blades game I was playing in, was the situation was rarely like this. The situation was static until we as the players introduced change and chaos. But I am not sure if this is necessarily something that must be in this way in such a game, or is it just how the GM chose to run things.

It is a choice of how to run it. I run Blades that way too as a basically series of one-shots.

I don't think it's the intended way for it to be run, though, given how a starting situation presented in the book is "Crows, the biggest gang in the area just had a very suspicious change of leadership and two other gangs that were kept in check by Crows are on a brink of war and have plans to become new top dogs, while a revolution is brewing in Coalridge" and generally, the game expects the GM to have and introduce clocks that advance in downtime and presents a bunch in the faction descriptions.

Sort of unrelated, but clocks in general are a great "pressure valve" mechanism. When you can't come up with a good consequence or Devil's Bargain you can always mark a tick or two or three (depending on the position) on, say, "Bluecoats get militarized" clock.

 

[Kannik]

You can't have your big villain on screen all the time, so it's helpful to cut away from the PCs every now and then to show what the Overlord is up to.

As a brief aside, WEG's Star Wars game did this in their adventures as well. They would often start with a short in media res script for the players to read/act out and to get the ball rolling quickly, and then often peppered throughout there were cut-scenes of sorts featuring the oppositional elements to set up the context, create tension, enhance the tone, and the like. Coupled with the opening crawl it fit the SW feel quite well.

 

[Kannik]

Maybe they assume that doors will follow the general practices. Doors generally open into homes and rooms, but not closets. Closet and storage areas generally have doors that open outward. I'm not going to waste my time writing that every door in the hallway opens into the next area when it's the usual practice. There are better things to spend my time and writing space on.

Unless that room has 50 occupants or more, or the combined exiting totals 50 or more, in which case the door must open in the direction of exiting travel, and if the door has a latch it must have panic hardware on the push side...

... then again BBEG rarely follow the building codes. Or, if you're the Empire, don't follow OSHA either. That's why they're the BBEG!