Recurring silly comment about Apocalypse World and similar RPGs

[Autumnal]

I tend to think that Magpie Games and Evil Hat Productions tend to write the best PbtA games that teach the game.


Even then, Perilous Wilds exists as a supplement, and it has additional/alternative rules for travel and journeys, hirelings, weather, and creating world and region maps. If Dungeon World is only about dungeons, then the people who actually play and design for the game clearly didn't get that particular memo.

It’s well-known as a result of fannish discourse that between 140% and 266% of all commercial RPGs suffer from confusion about their purposes ranging from fundamental to terminal.

 

[AnotherGuy]

We were playing Blades in the dark. One player got on a rooftop with a long range rifle and was taking shots at baddies. The player rolled a failure. But fictionally we had established no baddies near the player and mostly shorter range weapons. It was a bit hard to come up with an appropriate consequence. We ended up saying the gun misfired and fell off the roof. Possibly was some harm involved as well. It didn’t feel great, but not alot of other great options either.

I see nothing wrong with your example.

Can the consequence move be indirect?
i.e. nothing to do with the rifle or firing a shot but that a loose tile made the character lose footing so a further "climb/balance/reflex" check is needed....

What about a malfunction? Bullet caught in rifle chamber, requiring delay while character fixes problem. I'm not a gun-guy so I'm spitballing here.

 

[AnotherGuy]

For the people with experience with PbtA games, do you tinker with the systems, perhaps grabbing ideas or parts from other "better" designed PbtA games and homebrew your game in the same vein some trad DMs do for their games?

From your posts it sounds you guys are slavish to the rules for each particular game. I don't see (granted I'm not on a lot) any threads for homebrewery for these PbtA games which surprises me because of my tinkering nature. Surely the systems are easier enough to incorporate things you enjoy from the plethora of these games?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If we are playing D&D, how are we determining which doors require a DC to open and which the PCs can open without a check? Who gets to decide that? Why did they decide that? Why is this door Easy but this door is Hard? These seem to be questions of determining color.

Yes, of course. But in D&D the GM is specifically empowered and instructed to make such decisions. Not so in AW, quite the opposite. "If you do it, you do it" seems to imply that once a vaguely move shaped situation has been reached, a move must be used, it is not the GM's call. Several people have responded by not actually doing this. Instead the GM says something like, "nah, this is so easy/irrelevant that we don't need to invoke the move." But to me doing this seems more like "say yes, or roll the dice," instead of "if you do it, you do it."

It also occurred to me that a common issue with games with rolls causing complications is rolling too often. "If you do it, you do it" attitude might contribute to that, as it eschews judging whether this is actually the sort of situation which is best served by rolling the dice.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And also @AbdulAlhazred and @Crimson Longinus , I guess.

Counter-intuitive thing about PbtA that many, including many fans of PbtA, don't understand is that rules takes precedence over fiction. Dungeon World with its "fiction first" idiocy didn't help either.

In World of Darkness, GURPS, Dark Heresy, whatever, and, yes, D&D, it is expected from GM to make a call whether a situation at hand warrants using the rules or not. Does this make sense? Is this situation interesting enough? Can PC even fail here? That whole "don't roll the dice if there are no interesting consequences for both failure and success."

In Apocalypse World, you just roll the damn dice as the damn rules tell you to and then it's GM's job to make it make sense. To make it interesting. When you kick down a door, you don't know what lies on the other side. When you go aggro on a bound hostage you don't know if the bastard didn't sneakily got out of the ropes and isn't now biding his sweet time to escape. GM doesn't either.

Thank you good post. This is how I understand it working too. It of course is another matter whether people in practice play this way.

 

[Autumnal]

I don’t have a lot of PbtA experience, but two things from what I do have:

1. Rules foundations worth playing just don’t tend to need a lot of tinkering. The way moves are structured almost always lend themselves to a lot of innate flexibility.

2. Oh heck yes. Go to DriveThru and look at the Dungeon World category - I believe it’s the most widely supported PbtA game. There are approximately five billion additional playbooks, alternative move sets like Perilous Wilds, fronts and dungeon frameworks and such, and on and on. There’s Class Warfare, a supplement for character building worth looting for games with with user-defined traits like Fate and Over The Edge, monsters and treasures and places, and more. It just works itself out in different channels than for, say, D&D.

 

[Manbearcat]

For the people with experience with PbtA games, do you tinker with the systems, perhaps grabbing ideas or parts from other "better" designed PbtA games and homebrew your game in the same vein some trad DMs do for their games?

From your posts it sounds you guys are slavish to the rules for each particular game. I don't see (granted I'm not on a lot) any threads for homebrewery for these PbtA games which surprises me because of my tinkering nature. Surely the systems are easier enough to incorporate things you enjoy from the plethora of these games?

Vincent's concentric, collapsible design makes "tinkering" in PBtA games a very different process and experience than in a Trad system that is not similarly designed.

@Aldarc mentioned The Perilous Wilds above for DW (I've used it since it came out; its excellent). Its basically:

* A new Ranger playbook.

* New handling of Companions/Hirelings.

* New Custom Moves and tags primarily focused on wilderness discovery and danger.

I would say that PW is a perfect example of the sort of "tinkering" you will find in these kinds of games. Everything hews methodological-wise and substrate-wise entirely to the core design of one of the four layers of Vincent's design of Apocalypse World. The only other thing that you'll see within this vein is alternative xp models and introduction of other gear/threats which, again, hews to the core design.

Its just not common, imo, to see something like "hey let me hack Dungeon World to mirror The Between's core loop of phases or mirror Blades in the Dark's loadout scheme vs DW's stock inventory model." If that is going to happen, you're going to build a new game, because one of the key layers of design is being fundamentally rewired and that rewiring has cascading effects on the rest of play.

EDIT - Figured I'd throw this edit in right quick.

The above is quite different than a question of, say, "how do we hack Torchbearer to support Town-based Adventures?" Now I'm thinking about how several, very important, integrated components of Torchbearer are impacted:

• The Grind (4 turn clock on Turns that generates Conditions each time it goes off).
• The recovery paradigm of play, particularly as it pertains to accruing Checks to spend on recovery moves in Camp phase in the Wild (and how Camp phase itself has key procedures and decision-points that impact play).
• The ration and food spoilation economy of play.
• The light economy of play.
• How to remap the tight Adventure model (short, medium, long) for the wild onto Town.
• How the expected attrition & advancement relationship of Journey Tests/Linked Tests/Conflicts (or Toll if you're using that system in 2e) to get to and from the wilderness Adventure site and back to a Town is impacted.
• How all of this engages with the Resources and Inventory economy of play.

Torchbearer is profoundly more integrated and intricate than any PBtA game so you have major design and cascade implications when you try to perturb and/or reskin/remap the system. You can absolutely do it (I've run Town Adventures), but you better_know_what the hell_you're doing. You better know the system very well in all the discrete ways mentioned above and in how they integrate. PBtA design doesn't have this kind of concerns. But its a tradeoff, because you can't get the sort of amazing intricacy of decision-space management in any PBtA game as you do in Torchbearer. That isn't to say that the decision-space management in various PBtA games isn't intricate or extremely consequential (a well-run DW game by an agile, aggressive GM who understands the levers/widgets/attrition model can be a harrowing experience), but it just cannot rise to the level of Torchbearer...and that is due to the nature of design tradeoffs and their impact on play.

 

[pemerton]

By way of prelude: this post is not an assertion of expertise. It's a response to the quoted posts, and a contextualisation of them in terms of things I've already posted upthread of both. As the OP of this thread, I'm making this post in an attempt to identify and bring together common threads in the discussion. But not to eliminate differences of approach with an unwarranted prescriptivity.

Sometimes the GM may have intended for the door to be ordinary. No roll would be required to open the door. They were ready to declare that the PCs just open the door.

However, maybe the PCs then decide to put their ear up against the door and listen. Maybe in the process they trigger a Move. Maybe not. Whatever the case, the PCs' actions surrounding the door may have handed the GM a golden opportunity for a Move.

So who decides? In some cases, the PCs may be indirectly deciding that this door is more than color, in the same way that a NPC may become more than color through the interactions of the PCs, who take a particular dramatic interest in them.

IME, these games often require thinking "cinematically." Like if the characters spend prolonged time or interest in person or thing, then it becomes dramatically pertinent for the scene.

Absolutely!

As per my post upthread,

At some DW tables, the door is, in itself, a threat, and so any response to it is Defying Danger (as per p 62 of the DW rulebooks, the trigger for Defy Danger is When you act despite an imminent threat or suffer a calamity). At others, the door is just a bit of colour that is narrated, and the cleric's attempt to open it is just something resolved by way of a soft move, which may be any of the examples @loverdrive provided, or @AbdulAlhazred and my suggestions upthread that it just opens to reveal something else. I mean, what the principles demand and what prep demands and what will make the fiction seem real and what will make the PCs' lives not boring is infinitely varied, depending on details of established fiction, prior prep, mood and taste, etc, etc.

And of course if the GM narrates a colour door, and then the player of the fighter goes all bend bars/life gates on it, well then it's no longer colour! The player has made it an "active" part of the fiction, and the GM's job is to follow that lead. (Edwards had a nice video on this idea, of play turning background/colour "furniture" into something more active - he calls it "people" - which I discussed in this thread a few years ago.)

In terms of principles, I would identify this as one way (by no means the only way) of being a fan of the players' characters. They are the protagonists, and events follow them, not vice versa.

Which leads me to this:

Counter-intuitive thing about PbtA that many, including many fans of PbtA, don't understand is that rules takes precedence over fiction. Dungeon World with its "fiction first" idiocy didn't help either.

In World of Darkness, GURPS, Dark Heresy, whatever, and, yes, D&D, it is expected from GM to make a call whether a situation at hand warrants using the rules or not. Does this make sense? Is this situation interesting enough? Can PC even fail here? That whole "don't roll the dice if there are no interesting consequences for both failure and success."

In Apocalypse World, you just roll the damn dice as the damn rules tell you to and then it's GM's job to make it make sense. To make it interesting. When you kick down a door, you don't know what lies on the other side. When you go aggro on a bound hostage you don't know if the bastard didn't sneakily got out of the ropes and isn't now biding his sweet time to escape. GM doesn't either.

I'll be honest, I don't agree with @loverdrive characterization of PbtA games in their post, and I think that they tend to talk about these games a little too dogmatically. I very much think that these are fiction first or fiction forward games. It's just that the rules in PbtA games tell you what must first happen in the fiction for them to be invoked or triggered, with the respective Moves facilitating those particular instances. I still don't think that these games will be to your tastes, but I don't want the post in question should be the reason why.

What I think the AW rule book does really well is to talk about RPGing as a conversation. And one thing that distinguishes a conversation from a scripted performance is that the participants respond to one another in real time, as they go along.

Now this is related to what was the biggest single thing for me, in learning how to GM well (I hope) in the way that I want to;, and this is a thing that I think the AW rulebook could perhaps state more clearly than it does: namely, that GM prep is not a basis for adjudicating that a player's action declaration for their PC fails.

The AW rulebook engages with this indirectly - by instructing the GM not to prepare plots, and by saying that the purpose of prep is to have interesting things to say; and by telling the GM to either make a GM-side move or adjudicate a player-side move. But the idea that GM prep is a basis for adjudication is so heavily engrained in RPGing culture, and in so many RPG texts (such as modules for many systems, especially D&D and its cousins), that calling out the departure from that approach could be done even more directly than it is.

When @loverdrive says that, in AW, rules take precedence over the fiction, I take her (i) to be referring to the procedures of play, and (ii) to be using "the fiction" to mean "what has been established so far, and its apparent trajectory" and even moreso "what the GM hopes that trajectory will arrive at".

I see it as a different way of expressing the same point, or at least a closely related one, to my point that GM prep is not a basis for adjudicating that a player's action declaration for their PC fails. This is what I take to be implied by the contrast drawn between "trad" GMing and AW GMing: the AW GM is not expected or required or even entitled to make a call whether a situation at hand warrants using the rules or not. Does this make sense? Is this situation interesting enough? Can PC even fail here? That whole "don't roll the dice if there are no interesting consequences for both failure and success."

Rather, "if you do it, you do it" and the dice are rolled and it is the GM's job to make it interesting, including by making up new fiction and perhaps taking the established fiction in some unexpected direction. Like maybed a hard move in response to a failed Go Aggro against a bound prisoner: that bastard sneakily got out of the ropes and has been biding his sweet time to escape right until now! (respond with <mischief> by taking away their "stuff").

In abstract structural terms, there is a resemblance to a 4e D&D skill challenge (which also, in this respect, resembles a HeroWars/Quest extended contest, a BW Duel of Wits, or any Torchbearer 2e conflict): in a skill challenge, the GM is obliged to the scene "alive" and developing until the requisite count of successes or failures is achieved. I commonly read criticism of this: but what if the players have their PCs do <this thing> which "naturally" brings the scene to an end? The response, of course, is that there *is no such thing: the fictional resources of the GM are unlimited, and they are obliged to draw upon those resources - or, less metaphorically, to make things up! - that keeps the scene going. The same as happens in any D&D combat if no one is reduced to zero hp yet.

So likewise in AW. There is no "it doesn't make sense to roll here" or "going aggro will never work on this NPC - why would Dremmer be scared of you?" If you do it, you do it, so make with the dice: and GM, get ready to think up some stuff that makes sense and is interesting.

 

[Aldarc]

Yes, of course. But in D&D the GM is specifically empowered and instructed to make such decisions. Not so in AW, quite the opposite. "If you do it, you do it" seems to imply that once a vaguely move shaped situation has been reached, a move must be used, it is not the GM's call. Several people have responded by not actually doing this. Instead the GM says something like, "nah, this is so easy/irrelevant that we don't need to invoke the move." But to me doing this seems more like "say yes, or roll the dice," instead of "if you do it, you do it."

"To do it, do it" is IMHO more about the player side of things, namely answering the question, "How do I use or trigger my Moves?" I see "say yes or roll the dice" as being more about the GM side of things. However, I think that this adage must be further contextualized within PbtA and similar games. It's really more, "don't call for a roll if the move doesn't apply." The effect is that this looks like "say yes" for everything else.

A move must be used if the GM feels that a move has been triggered by the player's play and the player follows through with it. The Move provides the pertinent criteria, but whether or not that criteria has been met is likely the GM's call.

Let's say that a player swings their sword at a dragon. In D&D thinking, that's a straight-up attack roll. The player will often roll if they have a chance to succeed or not. In PbtA thinking, the GM may decide that the player doesn't trigger Hack & Slash because their attack with that sword has no chance to cut through the dragon's hide. This is quite explicit in Dungeon World:

Note that an “attack” is some action that a player undertakes that has a chance of causing physical harm to someone else. Attacking a dragon with inch-thick metal scales full of magical energy using a typical sword is like swinging a meat cleaver at a tank: it just isn’t going to cause any harm, so hack and slash doesn’t apply. Note that circumstances can change that: if you’re in a position to stab the dragon on its soft underbelly (good luck with getting there) it could hurt, so it’s an attack.

Who do you think is empowered and instructed to make that judgment call about whether the sword can harm the dragon if not the GM?

And here is an example of play from the Avatar Legends core rulebook that is very much reliant on the GM making a judgment call about whether a Move is triggered:

Paxton isn’t sure how his character, Peng, can both defeat his opponents and rescue his kidnapped teammates. “I…I put my hands up. ‘Wait, wait,’ I say. ‘Look, can we work something out? What do you want, money? I can get you money,’” Paxton says.

The GM briefly considers Paxton’s attempt to talk as pleading, but these foes don’t “care what Peng thinks.” After looking at their current drive—“to get the Iron Seal-Snakes to lose or forfeit their next match”—and balance principle—Subterfuge—the GM decides to just say what happens next. “The masked figures stop coming closer, making clear they’re listening. The one in front says, in a garbled, weird voice, ‘You come with us, and we’ll leave them.’”

So the GM determines that the Plead Move is not triggered and so they narrate this without calling for a Move.

It also occurred to me that a common issue with games with rolls causing complications is rolling too often. "If you do it, you do it" attitude might contribute to that, as it eschews judging whether this is actually the sort of situation which is best served by rolling the dice.

I think that if you read the rules for many of these games, you will find that they very much do talk about "judging whether this is actually the sort of situation which is best served by rolling the dice."

A common mistake, as you say here, is rolling too often. But that common mistake often stems from not recognizing that Moves aren't skills and GMs should only be invoking the Move if the situation applies. I mentioned before in another thread about climbing a mountain in Dungeon World. I have seen many DW GMs calling for a "Defy Danger" roll as if (a) it were a skill check, and (b) Defy Danger was the general "athletics" skill. However, you only roll Defy Danger if "you act despite an imminent threat or suffer a calamity." If that doesn't apply when climbing the mountain, then the Move should not be triggered. The GM declares that the PCs make it up the mountain. Why are we rolling that? We shouldn't be. That's not what the Move actually covers. This is from Apocalypse World:

When a player says that her character does something listed as a move, that’s when she rolls, and that’s the only time she does.

This goes back to the earlier point about "say yes or roll the dice."

 

[Aldarc]

I readily confess that I find PBtA games difficult to play. I'm so much rooted in the traditional BRP-paradigm that I sort of collide with the PBtA philosophy.

So if I wanted to try a game powered by this engine, what is recommended? Monster of the Week? Blades in the Dark? Kult?

Preferably something that can be a mini-campaign of six to eight sessions.

You know what? If you are familiar with Avatar: The Last Airbender, I'm gonna say Avatar Legends. Play that. That also works better with more episodic play that could work for a short mini-campaign.