Vincent Baker on mechanics, system and fiction in RPGs

[kenada]

Having to then step OOC to make sense of this is what results in the not so affectionately called writers room dynamic. The moment the Move is even possibly triggered this entire dynamic kicks in, so you can't just rely on following the Fiction as a solve all.

I had a pretty nasty case of “writer’s room” happen a few sessions ago. Dingo was scouting and came across an ice drago in humanoid form. There was a lot of collaboration around the table about how Dingo should react. In my experience, having the MC ask if that’s what you mean is nothing like that. The latter is preventing the player from making a mistake and making sure everyone has the same understanding of what is happening.

Regarding the “writer’s room”, we had a conversation on our Discord later. That is not how my homebrew system is intended to be played. I’m not going to be a hard-ass about staying in-character, but players are not supposed to be collaborating like that on the best (or even most fun/interesting) things to do unless that’s something their characters would also be doing together in the situation. (In this case, Dingo was alone.)

 

[kenada]

Vincent Baker posted an article on PbtA yesterday that also includes links to other ones digging into various details. It seems topical for this thread:

What is PbtA? – lumpley games

lumpley.games

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Additionally, the GM shouldn’t be framing them into neutral situations. There should always be some kind of stakes, so when you do things in the fiction, and that triggers a move, the GM can make moves that follow in response.

I think this is the most common rock that, at least Dungeon World and I expect other similar games, runs aground on. I've seen a lot of descriptions of, and even participated in one or two, DW games where the GM simply plods along describing in great detail everything that exists in the world in a stream-of-consciousness kind of way. The game just kind of dies, there's no tension, there's no springboard from which action can easily arise. The players are left with nothing but 'poking around' and hoping that the GM will figure out that something needs to arise.

Usually the other problem with this sort of DW GM is that they have a poor understanding of pacing and escalation. They seem to believe that everything must be either inconsequential to the point of unplayability, or a life-hanging-in-the-balance threat. It's perfectly fine for a GM move to happen which threatens to simply make the character pay more for a sausage! Now, in PbtA style play that will likely have the potentiality to grow into something bigger, depending on what kind of stakes the players put on the table (IE what moves they declare or don't declare) but its perfectly fine for a player to just say "OK, I pay the jerk 2 coin for the sausage." and move on. Good pacing is obviously going to tell us that we don't want to linger in the land of triviality TOO much, but its perfectly fine to have 'color' in your game, and to collectively weave a story with some depth to it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Seize by Force could factor into any physical action-oriented story or situation. Seduce/Manipulate seems like it could fit into noir as much as into post-apocalyptic. These don't seem very genre-trope-y to me.

I don't know what games you have in mind. What you describe isn't part of Apocalypse World as written. There's no MC-move Show the character's lack of competence, and the relevant principle is in fact Be a fan of the characters.

Eg pp 192 (Acting Under Fire), 194 (Going Aggro):

Keeler the gunlugger’s taken off her shoes and she’s sneaking into Dremmer’s camp, armed as they say to the upper teeth. If they hear her, she’s <in trouble>. (On a 7–9, maybe I give her an ugly choice between alerting the camp and murdering an innocent teenage sentry.) She hits the roll with an 8, so the ugly choice it is. “There’s some kid out here, huddled under this flimsy tin roof with a mug of who-knows-what. You think you’re past him but he startles and looks right at you. You can kill him before he makes a noise, but you’ll have to do it right this second. Do you?” “Yes, duh,” she says. “Great. You leave him dead and make your way in. You’re crouching down by a big piece of fallen wall, looking into Dremmer’s camp. He’s eating with a couple other guys, they have no idea you’re here.”

Keeler’s hidden in a little nest outside Dremmer’s compound, she’s been watching the compound courtyard through the scope of her rifle. When I say that this guy Balls sits down in there with his lunch, “there he is,” her player says. They have history. “I blow his brains out.” She hits the roll with a 9, so I get to choose. I choose to have him barricade himself securely in: “no brains, but he leaves his lunch and scrambles into the compound, squeaking. He won’t be coming out again any time soon.” I make a note to myself, on my front sheet for Dremmer’s gang, that Balls is taking himself off active duty. I think that we might never see him again.​

Success-with-a-cost isn't really an element of Apocalypse World, I don't think.

It CAN be, but I don't think it is really 'how it is'. I mean, you could shoot someone and on a 7 you are out of ammo, now what do you do about the other two thugs? It isn't so much about the 'cost' as it is about how the story might be propelled forward. You offed the guy you aimed at, now you need to think of something new, the same move isn't going to work twice. 10+, well.... OTOH the GM might be even better advised to say "You off the first thug, but when you put your sights on the 2nd one you realize he's your wife's cousin Johnny Boy. She's not going to be happy about this..."

 

[pemerton]

You actually can, at least in 5e anyway. The decision to declare nonlethal triggers when the targets HP drops to zero, so, post damage roll.

And fwiw, thats a distinction I built more deliberately into my own combat system. Killing Blows have to be taken deliberately.

ADND and other games may not have this, but its not the only way.

I didn't say AD&D is the only way. I said it's a counterexample to your claim about agency.

 

[Emberashh]

I didn't say AD&D is the only way. I said it's a counterexample to your claim about agency.

Pointing at another game, that uses a fundamentally different set of rules, to try and defend what AW was doing, is basically a whataboutism, isn't it?

I noticed a rule in AW I found troubling in terms of player agency, and you defended it by basically denying there was a problem.

Then I reiterated, elaborating on what I percieved. If at any point I have cede control of my character to anything or anyone else, I have lost agency. I then also pointed out that the expected means to resolve this in AW, stepping out of character to negotiate if the Move should have been triggered in the first place, is an undesirable game state.

You then responded by pointing at another game that, per you, has a similiar dynamic, as though that justifies what AW is doing as fine and thus, I shouldn't have a problem.

But, to be thorough, i did go back and take a look at your counter example:

My thinking is that you're trying to emphasize that Procedure as being identical, as in you couldn't decide after the fact that a strike was a Pummel or just a Subdue. And that isn't true as far as I can tell. Nothing in that subheading or the entire section on Non-Lethal damage makes any distinction like that, and in practical terms I'd rule it more or less exactly like how 5e displays the same idea: Declare it when it matters.

But then there's also the other angle of there being an identical OOC negotiation. The difference there though is that in DND, the only way agency gets denied is if the GM denies it, which not only isn't a guaranty but is also easier to deal with, as neither one of us is actually violating the rules, and the GMs perogative to make rulings is ultimately still due to them.

Most people, I suspect, would have settled on a gentlemans agreement about when to declare if this was a stickler issue, and others probably wouldn't care. I certainly wouldn't, and my desire to make it explicit in my own game has more to do with emphasizing and supporting non-murdery approaches than it is with denying players the agency over their characters actions.

In AW, though, to fix this issue either means extended negotiating to determine some other Move be used, or violating the rules. And thats without getting into the implications that result by having to use another Move.

As related, if my character is supposed to Go Aggro, bluffing isn't the only reason I wouldn't harm the person. Having to shift to that Move also produces an agency problem, as now Im having to force my character to adhere to a specific aesthetic because the game has mechanically restricted a more free form resolution.

This is what I was relating by stating this as a shortcoming of genre emulation. The specific narrative beat that Go Aggro emulates is so narrow that I have to adhere to the outcome of the prescribed beat, and don't have any wiggle room to define my own beat through the characters agency.

And this is all on whats supposed to be an unambiguous success! Success at what? Not telling my own characters story, but telling the story of a trope.

Im sure somewhere in AW there's some obscure rule tucked away in the natural language that could apply to fix the problem, and if there is so be it (as you'll no doubt pull it out in short time), but when I run into this kind of problem, I check out. Doesn't matter at that point if the game has a fix, because the problem just doesn't need to exist. The Move wouldn't be impacted one iota if that single sentence was just straight up deleted.

But its presence speaks to the overal design and intent of the game, and naturally, Im not a fan and Im entitled to criticize it on that basis. Just as you are to jump to its defense, though I don't see the point.

You're not going to convince me to like this, and my intent isn't to convince you to not like it.

 

[pemerton]

Pointing at another game, that uses a fundamentally different set of rules, to try and defend what AW was doing, is basically a whataboutism, isn't it?

No. I'm pointing out that whatever you are intending by "agency", there is no general norm in RPG design that accepts it as a constraint.

My thinking is that you're trying to emphasize that Procedure as being identical, as in you couldn't decide after the fact that a strike was a Pummel or just a Subdue. And that isn't true as far as I can tell. Nothing in that subheading or the entire section on Non-Lethal damage makes any distinction like that, and in practical terms I'd rule it more or less exactly like how 5e displays the same idea: Declare it when it matters.

In AD&D striking to subdue has to be declared in advance:

Upon announcement of intent to strike to subdue . . . (Monster Manual, p 30)​

The DMG rules refer back to the MM, and also say "Such attacks use the flat, butt, haft, pommel, or otherwise non-lethal parts of the weapons concerned" (p 67). You can't decide after the event whether or not you are using the fat, butt, haft or pommel of your weapon!

In AW, though, to fix this issue either means extended negotiating to determine some other Move be used, or violating the rules.

<snip>

Im sure somewhere in AW there's some obscure rule tucked away in the natural language that could apply to fix the problem, and if there is so be it (as you'll no doubt pull it out in short time)

Nonsense. I've already quoted where the rulebook expressly stats the rules, no negotiation or violation required: if you are threatening with intent to follow through, you are Going Aggro; if you are threatening with no intent to follow through, you are Manipulating. It's not obscure - it's expressly addressed front-and-centre int

The difference between the two is that one uses Hard and the other Hot; and that the resolution framework is different.

if my character is supposed to Go Aggro, bluffing isn't the only reason I wouldn't harm the person.

I don't know what you mean by "my character is supposed to Go Aggro". Either you are using force to get your way, or you are pretending to use force to get your way. If the former, you're Going Aggro. If the latter, you're Manipulating.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Nonsense. I've already quoted where the rulebook expressly stats the rules, no negotiation or violation required: if you are threatening with intent to follow through, you are Going Aggro; if you are threatening with no intent to follow through, you are Manipulating.

The difference between the two is that one uses Hard and the other Hot; and that the resolution framework is different.

I think the issue here that the character necessarily wouldn't know at the moment of making the threat whether they would actually follow though, but the player has to make that decision in advance nevertheless. I can easily imagine a situation where the NPC could respond in a way that might make the character's resolution to do violence falter.

 

[pemerton]

I think the issue here that the character necessarily wouldn't know at the moment of making the threat whether they would actually follow though, but the player has to make that decision in advance nevertheless. I can easily imagine a situation where the NPC could respond in a way that might make the character's resolution to do violence falter.

Suppose that, in AD&D, you declare an attack, and roll your d20, and the GM narrates the Kobold squeaking out "No, don't kill me!" Are you allowed to take back?

 

[Emberashh]

In AD&D striking to subdue has to be declared in advance:

It doesn't actually say that.

I think the issue here that the character necessarily wouldn't know at the moment of making the threat whether they would actually follow though, but the player has to make that decision in advance nevertheless. I can easily imagine a situation where the NPC could respond in a way that might make the character's resolution to do violence falter.

Yep.

Suppose that, in AD&D, you declare an attack, and roll your d20, and the GM narrates the Kobold squeaking out "No, don't kill me!" Are you allowed to take back?

Nothing in the rules says otherwise. Particularly considering rolling a d20 is just to determine if you hit; damage is separate so even if we accept the premise you originally posted, that the declaration has to be before the damage roll, then this new hypothetical doesn't violate it.

But as noted, your assertion on when the declaration has to be made isn't supported by the text. By what the text says, I could declare it a year from now and it counts.