This isn't true of Apocalypse World. A player can threaten a NPC, or make them an offer, or try to hit them with a wrench, and that will trigger go aggro, or seduce/manipulate, or seize by force.
System matters and free kriegsspiel
- Thread starter pemerton
- Start date
The gameplay loop I cited made no reference to moves or principles. It apportioned authority to say things in a way which gives total authority to the DM to say what happens in the gameworld and hence zero agency to players if the goals of the game are defined in terms of changing the gameworld.
Again, it's a very simple position and one which no-one has even attempted to refute except by whiny appeals to authority about 'trad rpgs'.
I didn't even say it was bad or unenjoyable, yet the defensive, kneejerk whingefest it provoked has been illuminating. It is undeniably a zero agency system.
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Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
You actually cannot without violating the rules of that game. This is a fairly large difference -- doing this breaks the rules of play for A/DW but is perfectly in line with the rules of Dark Empires. It might not align with player expectations for Dark Empires, or with the table dynamic/social contract, or be very enjoyable but it doesn't once step outside the established play for the game.
I'm not sure how notorious this is outside of a group of posters that have chosen to analyze/play the dragons from the point of view of a different system and not DW. The principles of play and the procedures of play for DW make the dragon insanely difficult and dangerous if used. It's only when you ignore those that you get to call a dragon with 16hp notorious -- and if it were D&D it would be.
I would complain that a guard is suddenly Jackie Chan or James Bond, as that would mean that top tier opponents -- and it hard in those genres to imagine a higher tier of challenges -- are posing as simple guards. This is the kind of GM fiat play that's being defended as acceptable that is the "I have no way to engage with this fiction in an understandable way, I just have to take what the GM feeds me" that I extremely dislike. A guard, if described as a guard, in either of those genres should be easy to shank in one go due to genre logic, and if the game is at least adhering to that as a heuristic for resolution, great!
Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
I just wanted to address this part. Cthulhu Dark is 4 pages (including title page, so 3 pages of rules) and is a far more complete game in that it establishes who has what say, how to resolve conflicts at all times, good guidance on how to use the conflict resolution system, and some strong genre points of logic (you die if you fight mythos creatures). 6 pages is not a suitable defense. Cthulhu Dark establishes a play loop that is not no/low agency. It does the same thing Dark Empires tries to do and lean on genre logic, but the Cthulhu genre logic is more constrained than what's pointed at for Dark Empire (which goes from detailed period piece to gothic horror to near-fairy tale to spy thriller).
So the length of the set of rules doesn't excuse the incompleteness of those rules. My first thought on reading Dark Empire was that it wasn't a complete game. My second thought was why did they waste space on the tables that don't really matter much when the game isn't complete yet? My first thought reading Cthulhu Dark was damn, that's a very tight, very light, very elegant bit of RPG! My second thought was that the ability for another player to declare a failure didn't fit in well with the rest of the game and I didn't like it.
@Ovinomancer
My bad. I used notorious by the italian meaning of "notorio" : famous, well known and regarded.
My bad. I used notorious by the italian meaning of "notorio" : famous, well known and regarded.
Just elaborating a bit on this:
The basic action resolution rule for Cthulhu Dark is
To know how well you do at something, roll . . . your highest die shows how well you do. On a 1, you barely succeed. On a 6, you do brilliantly. [An example follows.]
So unlike the playloop posted by @Malmuria upthread, a player can do more than just declare an action: when they declare an action, it succeeds. But the die roll can licence introduction of a complication corresponding do the degree of falling short of brilliance in execution. The rules also say
Who decides when it’s interesting to know how well you do something. . . . Decide the answers with your group. Make reasonable assumptions. For example, some groups will let the Keeper decide everything. Others will share the decisions.
The game is clearly aware of the issue that it matters, to RPG play, who gets to say what. And offers some approaches.
Then there is the rule for failure:
If someone thinks it would more interesting if you failed, they describe how you might fail and roll a die. . . .
If their die rolls higher than your highest die, you fail, in the way they described. If not, you succeed as before, with your highest die showing how well you succeed. . . .
To compete: everyone who is competing rolls their dice. Whoever gets highest wins. [There's also a rule for breaking ties.] . . .
Who decides whether you might fail?
Decide the answers with your group. Make reasonable assumptions. For example, some groups will let the Keeper decide everything. Others will share the decisions.
It's clear, here, that there is no rule letting anyone stipulate automatic failure. When I've played Cthulhu Dark, the possibility of failure has generally been a GM matter. I can't recall if it's ever come from a player; the most obvious context for that, thinking about it now, would be if another PC is trying to mess with that player's stuff (eg break into their house, get information from their employer, etc).
But anyway, there is very little in common between this and Dark Empire except both are short and use d6s for their rolls!
An EDIT to this:
How does Cthulhu Dark handle the examples beloved of criticisms of player agency, like the action declaration I ask him to give me all his money? First, in practice I think this sort of thing is unlikely to occur without a context that locates it within the fiction, given the fairly tight genre focus of the game. But second, this seems like it's not humanly possible! And so that die won't be in the pool. But an occupation die might be (eg if the character's occupation is Grifter) and so might the Insanity die be.
Because there is no way for a player to guarantee unalloyed success in this system (which contrasts with, say, the standard D&D approach to using gp to buy things), changing the fictional positioning so that the PC has all of someone else's money won't break the game. It will just open the door to resolving action declarations that involve spending lots of money. But if such a thing is done very poorly then the accompanying complication might include spending too much, or dropping one's wallet into the river while paying, or . . .
Dark Empire is less clear about this, in my view. It has the player choose both a wealth level and 4 pieces of gear, without explaining how these are related as components of fictional positioning and/or considerations for action resolution.
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An MC could keep the game at the basic conversational level playloop of "player declares, Gm tell outcome" as per Baker himself.
I could also come up with any sort of fictional reasoning why moves won't trigger.
This just for the sake of argument, by the way.
Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
Yeah, it means infamous, well known but not well regarded in English. Slight difference, lol.
Mod Note:
You know what's illuminating? An inflammatory description of someone else's words.
Show more respect if you intend to continue in this discussion.
You seem to be positing that this is something the game leaves under the control of the GM. I don't agree. I don't think that's consistent with how the game is written (pp 11-12):
You probably know this already: roleplaying is a conversation. You and the other players go back and forth, talking about these fictional characters in their fictional circumstances doing whatever it is that they do. Like any conversation, you take turns, but it’s not like taking turns, right? Sometimes you talk over each other, interrupt, build on each others’ ideas, monopolize. All fine.
All these rules do is mediate the conversation. They kick in when someone says some particular things, and they impose constraints on what everyone should say after. Makes sense, right?
. . .
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.
The rule for moves is to do it, do it. In order for it to be a move and for the player to roll dice, the character has to do something that counts as that move; and whenever the character does something that counts as a move, it’s the move and the player rolls dice.
All these rules do is mediate the conversation. They kick in when someone says some particular things, and they impose constraints on what everyone should say after. Makes sense, right?
. . .
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.
The rule for moves is to do it, do it. In order for it to be a move and for the player to roll dice, the character has to do something that counts as that move; and whenever the character does something that counts as a move, it’s the move and the player rolls dice.
This isn't an optional rule, or GM's discretion. It's at the start of the book under the heading The Basics.
In the commentary that I think is what you are referring to, Baker says
A crucial feature of Apocalypse World’s design is that these layers are designed to collapse gracefully inward:
- Forget the peripheral harm moves? That’s cool. You’re missing out, but the rules for harm have got you covered.
- Forget the rules for harm? that’s cool. You’re missing out, but the basic moves have got you covered. Just describe the splattering blood and let the moves handle the rest.
- Forget the basic moves? That’s cool. You’re missing out, but just remember that 10+ = hooray, 7-9 = mixed, and 6- = something worse happens.
- Don’t even feel like rolling the dice? Fair enough. You’re missing out, but the conversational structure still works.
Now if someone says, Let's play Apocalypse World, but we won't use any dice rolls and I'll just tell you what happens when you have your PC do stuff, well that's their prerogative to make that pitch but I think it's pretty obvious that we're not playing AW anymore.
Again, this is a departure from what the actual rules of AW says. And if you combine it with the above, what you're positing is that the prospective GM says Let's play Apocalypse, but we won't use any dice rolls and I'll just tell you what happens when you have your PC do stuff, and I don't promise to stick to the principles either - even moreso, we're not play AW anymore.
I get that, but I don't find the argument persuasive. You're positing that AW gives the GM options - to unilaterally dispense with the basic moves, and/or the triggers for moves (ie abandon If you do it, you do it), and the principles. But AW doesn't say this - in fact it says exactly the opposite - and Baker doesn't say this in his commentary either.
