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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 8657825" data-attributes="member: 16586">The reason those constraints are in place in Apocalypse World is that the GM is not a referee. They are not an adjudicator. They do not enable players to explore a fictional world. Apocalypse World is also not a game where players go on adventures. It's a game about the trouble that find them. Not the trouble they find. When a GM is actively framing players into adverse situations there is no real way for a GM to make the context switch to that referee headspace when they are instead focused on keeping the momentum of play going. It has different restrictions because it has different expectations. The GM is also given powers that other GMs do not have.The basic play loop in traditional games is pretty much :1. GM neutrally describes the environment.2. The player group collectively decides what actions to take and let's the GM know what they are trying.3. The GM decides what happens and describes how the environment changes.That entire process is grounded in the exploration of an environment. Players moving through it, investigating it, acting upon it through their characters. For that to work players need to have a chance to meaningfully investigate and explore the environment with it only really acting upon them when they do something to provoke it. You need GM as adjudicator because that enables exploration as the primary motivator of play. As soon as you step into actively provoking player characters it starts to break down.Apocalypse World does not work like that. In Apocalypse World trouble comes to you. You decide how to handle it, but it's going to keep coming in some form. The GM's job is to apply pressure in a fair way. You cannot be in the right headspace for that if you are also responsible for deciding how things should go.</blockquote>

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