thoughts on Apocalypse World?

[Fenris-77]

The difference is that you prep no 'story'. No outcomes, no answers to mysteries, none of that. It all emerges in play. You have threats, and the players respond to those threats, but nothing is pre-scripted.

 

[niklinna]

The difference is that you prep no 'story'. No outcomes, no answers to mysteries, none of that. It all emerges in play. You have threats, and the players respond to those threats, but nothing is pre-scripted.

Yes, that is a big part of the principles of the game. I would add that functionally/mechanically, dice rolls always have consequences: You succeed, you succeed at some cost, or something bad happens—as opposed to nothing happening on a failure. Your sword doesn't just swing past the orc's head; you lose your balance and fall, or your foot gets pinned in a crack in the ground. You don't just fail to pick the lock; maybe you jam the mechanism, or break a tool.

This, as somebody said elsewhere, means Apocalypse World has teeth at a fundamental level, and makes moment-to-moment conflict much more interesting (to me).

 

[Fenris-77]

Yes, that is a big part of the principles of the game. I would add that functionally/mechanically, dice rolls always have consequences: You succeed, you succeed at some cost, or something bad happens—as opposed to nothing happening on a failure. Your sword doesn't just swing past the orc's head; you lose your balance and fall, or your foot gets pinned in a crack in the ground. You don't just fail to pick the lock; maybe you jam the mechanism, or break a tool.

This, as somebody said elsewhere, means Apocalypse World has teeth at a fundamental level, and makes moment-to-moment conflict much more interesting (to me).

That sounds correct to me. The 'teeth' you're talking about are also why I like the game so much.

 

[Faolyn]

The difference is that you prep no 'story'. No outcomes, no answers to mysteries, none of that. It all emerges in play. You have threats, and the players respond to those threats, but nothing is pre-scripted.

Ah, so it would actually suck for me, personally, then, since I like to at least have an outline of what can or will happen because I'll completely forget otherwise. And because I mostly run horror, which has a lot of mystery and setting design that (for me) needs to be established ahead of time.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Ah, so it would actually suck for me, personally, then, since I like to at least have an outline of what can or will happen because I'll completely forget otherwise. And because I mostly run horror, which has a lot of mystery and setting design that (for me) needs to be established ahead of time.

Some my best horror, even in D&D, has been spur of the moment. I've certainly had some pretty horrific moments in games that eschew prep. Not to knock your preference, which is fine, just pointing out that prep isn't actually necessary for horror.

 

[Faolyn]

Some my best horror, even in D&D, has been spur of the moment. I've certainly had some pretty horrific moments in games that eschew prep. Not to knock your preference, which is fine, just pointing out that prep isn't actually necessary for horror.

Yeah, I can do some as spur-of-the-moment, but I need more prep in general.

 

[niklinna]

Yeah, I can do some as spur-of-the-moment, but I need more prep in general.

Apocalypse World (and offspring) don't exclude prepped material, but they embrace emergent story and minimal prep, and even asking your players to declare details about the game world. Even so, having your players figure out your intricate mystery is quite different from weaving & solving the threads of an intricate mystery with your players as you go. Quite different play styles.

 

[Faolyn]

Apocalypse World (and offspring) don't exclude prepped material, but they embrace emergent story and minimal prep, and even asking your players to declare details about the game world. Even so, having your players figure out your intricate mystery is quite different from weaving & solving the threads of an intricate mystery with your players as you go. Quite different play styles.

True. It just might not be fore me.

 

[aramis erak]

This is not in 5th ed is it? (Which is the version I have.)

I forgot - that's in one of the solos, not the core. It's such a good baseline that I use it in my GM'd games. It also was in Ken's House Rules as the default baseline in the 90's. I can't find my 5.5 to find out if it was added to the additions; the online PDF is a 5.0 tan-cover, like is in my black boxed set from the 80's.

Interesting side note: SR levels were dungeon level as base difficulty in 1E, and SR AP were roll × dungeon level. Also, 1E says every trap must have a method of avoidance or bypass... which may require a SR... Just looked it up in the 2013 reprint PDF.

 

[aramis erak]

Yeah, I can do some as spur-of-the-moment, but I need more prep in general.

Horror and prep do not go hand in hand. Prep often gets in the way of actually putting fear for their characters into play. If the super-intelligent baddy is smarter than the GM, then prep just hinders making him a full threat...

While I harp on the idea of meaningful choices¹ as my primary metric for good GMing, sometimes illusionism² is essential to tone. (Note also: I don't like GMing a story I wrote - I just create encounters that are likely, and see if the players head for them. ) The trick is to not let the illusionism take away the meaningfulness of their choices.

Note that I said tone and not story. Horror is about tone.

Mysteries, too. One of my dirty secrets in running L5R Magistrate games is that I set up 3 NPCs as potential doers, and it's up to them to decide which one did it. I don't know, and until the needed roll, neither do they. I don't pick. This also means my tells don't actually tell them whodunnit. Again, tone, not story. I can't lead them to the right or wrong choice, because, until they get a confession, it's not decided. This has had some seriously interesting in character RP at the table.

A mystery in an AW style game can be the same way. The prep is a list of suspects, and clues to narrow it downm but the final decision? make the accusation and see if it elicits a confession or not. Clues can point to two or more targets.

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1: Meaningful Choices: players have enough information to know whether each of the clear options is risky or not, and some idea of the potential consequences, and the odds thereof, and the outcomes are different.
2: The appearance of player impact without actually having impact, or of something having been a fixed fact, despite not having crossed the GM's mind prior to the topic being discussed by players