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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8653381" data-attributes="member: 42582">On this we don't quite agree.The key principle for AW is "if you do it, you do it" (pp 12, 190). So the moves are specified in terms of things that character's do: they do things under fire, or dig in to endure fire, or go aggro on someone else, or try to seize things by force, or try to seduce or manipulate someone else, or read persons or charged situations, or open their brains to the world's psychic maelstrom.The key point about the triggers for moves is that they are not specified in terms of intents - like, when you want someone to help you or when you want to escape from danger. They are specified as occurrences in the fiction. Which is actually pretty central to the design of the game.The stats, too, establish something about the setting and the people who inhabit it. Hardholders, choppers and gunluggers are hard: these are the sorts of people who seize things by force and bully others about. It's like the high STR half-orc or barbarian in D&D, except this time they're not weirdly bad at intimidation!Angels and drivers and sharp: these are the sorts of people who can size up any person or situation. This also establishes an immediate contrast between the two sorts of vehicle-oriented character (chopper and driver). In D&D this is a WIS-oriented character.Battlebabes and operators are cool: not easily rattled, stealthy too (given the default rule that sneaking about is a type of acting under fire) - analogous to D&D DEX-oriented thieves but with a touch of CON or CHA thrown in.Brainers, hocuses and savvyheads are weird: I think that speaks for itself. They are the ones who are attuned to the psychic maelstrom and the various ways it manifests.Skinners are hot. That's pretty self-explanatory too. In D&D that's a high CHA.I'm not trying to argue that AW is no different from D&D. But I am trying to avoid overstating the contrast. [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER] has posted not far upthread, and I agree, that stats and skills in 4e D&D are very much a character's style in navigating the imaginary world. But that style also tells us something about the character in the fiction. The chopper with +3 hard is not a 100 lb weakling from a Charles Atlas add. The skinner with +3 hot (from the Breathtaking playbook move) is not plain and poorly spoken. Just like the 4e wizard with 20 INT and +15 to all their knowledge skills is not an illiterate bumpkin.It describes establishing the colour of the setting, as something upon which the player (via their PC) acts. That's pretty central to roleplaying. Apocalypse World has this too - Make Apocalypse World seem real is at the top of the agenda items on p 108 - but because it uses a different resolution system - "if you do it, you do it" followed by soft or hard moves - it doesn't rely on varying obstacles to convey the setting.It's not a simulation, in either case, because (to borrow [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER]'s phasing) the players can't, and are not expected to, poke and prod at the setting to find out what makes it tick and what it's inner logic is. The setting, with its depth and endurance and sense of reality, is being established for a different purpose.It's an explanation, with an example from actual play, of the way in which framing - what is at stake, what are the obstacles - and resolution, especially of failure, are established not just by the GM's ideas about what is in the imagined world but by what the PCs - the protagonists - are bringing to the situation. Who opens the safe may be fundamental to that, or a minor detail.When spellbooks were found in Evard's tower, they ended up with Aramina but it may have been Thurgon who literally found them in his search of the tower. I don't remember. It didn't matter. Aramina had already staked her Belief in recalling the location of the tower (the successful Great Masters-wise test) and so letting Thurgon find them is a way of just "saying 'yes'" at this moment of play.</blockquote>

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