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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8866050" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I'd be interested in hearing more about this if you have the time to unpack it.  I'll relay a little bit more of my thinking on your (2) above while hopefully answering your (1) here:[URL unfurl="true"]http://lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/594[/URL]So that is Vincent Baker's masterclass of the concentric game design of Apocalypse World.  You've got 4 layers.  The core is the basic engine of the game, very condensed with integrated outer layers that was designed to (as Vincent puts it) "collapse gracefully downwards" (and it certainly does!).  The game has increasingly complexity as you move outward (and it is quite a complex game as you get out to layer 4)...but amazingly, Vince and Meg and the internal playtest group developed a game that both beautifully integrates the outer layers, yet simultaneously allows for their nimble detachment.  In the end, adding each of these layers creates a separate, "complete game" experience. Play with only layer 1 and you are profoundly far afield from a game that uses 3 layers (which is the standard AW experience).So <a href="https://johnharper.itch.io/lasers-feelings" target="_blank">John Harper's Lasers & Feelings</a> is a Star Trek or Firefly-type romp game that is basically that 1st (core and basic) layer of AW with some very minor changes.  Its not even close to even layer 2 as a "complete game."  You've got:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Vivid color</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A few stats</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Descriptor tags for PC and vessel creation</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Core action resolution mechanic + rider</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A "Mad Lib" type process which generates the premise and opening situation for play</li> </ul>It is very primordial and it creates a very particular type of play experience (basically a 1 shot sort of game).Now let us pretend that Apocalypse World and Lasers & Feelings are dungeon crawl games.  Ok, so I'm running a game of Lasers & Feelings (as dungeon crawl).  Despite a functional back-and-forth (communication and description) between myself and the players, we find ourselves running up against some issues:* Ok...without Harm, what does attrition look like?  When is someone out of a scene because of physical/mental harm or horror or whatever? How do they recover and when do they get back in play?  When is someone dead?  * Ok, this mega-lite engine is good enough to create some thematic and minor mechanical distinction...but we need a bunch more basic moves, playbooks, xp triggers, gear & crap to generate finer distinction of thematic and mechanical role.* Speaking of gear & crap...ok we've got all of these tags and I've run these games enough that I can make this work as a one-shot, fast & furious romp...but this stuff needs to be nailed down, sturdy, robust, distinguishing.  You use this thing for that effect and that other thing for this other effect.  How difficult is that thing to carry?  Can I carry that and this other stuff?  Probably not.  Ok, what can I carry when I'm also carrying that thing (Inventory/loadout management).* Ok, you use gear and moves to overcome Threats, right?  I need a whole lot more stuff for Threats.  I need stats, tags, details, assets, moves, instincts.  I need this stuff not just for the denizens in the dungeon but for the dungeon itself; the hazards, the suffocating dankness, the bewildering ruined topography/layout, the maddening drip-drip-drip, etc. * Ok, now I've got an attrition model, character stuff, gear & crap, how Threats work and activate.  Now I need some structure to organize play.  I need to figure out how to negotiate the game layer of time spent doing stuff (the basic moves above should cover moving, interacting with things, searching, parley, fighting, evading danger, etc).  That stuff needs to be tracked meticulously because it interacts with (a) gear durability/duration, (b) how the dungeon answers in kind, (c) how the brutal experience grinds down the delvers/expeditionary force down, and (d) how they recover from that grind (camping, resting, recovering in a dangerous environment).* Ok, I want to pull treasure out of this place.  How much does this stuff weigh/how difficult is it to get out of this ruin/what do I have to sacrifice or leave behind in order to get stuff out?  How dangerous is that sacrifice with a journey home (or not) looming?* Ok, I got all of this stuff to town.  Can I sell it?  Who to?  What does that look like?  Can I drive up the price?  What is this town anyway?  Who lives here?  Are they hostile to adventurers/out-of-towners?  Is this my hometown with family or friends here?  Can I recover in a nice Inn or is that so costly that I need to stay on the streets (and what is the implication of that)?  Are their cut-throats and thieves lurking around the market?  Is there a religious bastion to alleviate a curse?  A guild-hall to train or repair my stuff?  What are the taxes like here and can I even pay my bills when I leave?++++++++So this is my attempt to convey that, by the time I get to the end of this, I have so many questions as GM/players that Lasers & Feelings As Dungeon Crawl isn't remotely sufficient to the task.  It doesn't even come close to having the heft necessary to play to that 1, 3, 4 dungeon play that I outlined upthread.  It can manage my 2 dungeon play upthread but the throughline of play would be an extremely GM-directed experience that mutes Skilled Play priorities down to the nubbins because there is just so much necessary stuff missing.  The game would be heavily color & mood/tone/aesthetic focused.  The only way to get beyond that 2 (if I even care to do so) would be to play the whole Apocalypse World engine, AW layers 1-4, and then Dungeon World-ify the whole thing.But even then?  I'm not getting that 1 dungeon play out of that nor that 3. Its missing far too much stuff/particular brand of structure for 1 and its not organized structurally around the closed-scene-based paradigm of 3.  Dungeon World at its heftiest produces my 4 above (and it produces it beautifully).+++++++So all of this is to say "communication" and on-the-fly rulings (what that conceptual Lasers & Feelings As Dungeon Delve, or AW Layer 1, would require endlessly due to its dearth of system) can only do so much legwork to try to patch over lack of well-developed, stress-tested, tightly-integrated system (and this becomes doubly a problem when Skilled Play or "game as game" requires a continual through line of mechanically-attuned-and-assimilated decision-tree work by players lest the competitive integrity of the dungeon delve be undermined to one degree or another...and any degree is a degree too far for some).  Dungeon World (the pinnacle of 4 dungeon play) can never aspire to be Torchbearer (the pinnacle of 1 dungeon play).  However, if you strip down Torchbearer to its Mouse Guard roots, you've got a nice chunk of the Dungeon World, snowballing-play experience model (Mouse Guard Missions are basically a wilderness crawl)...though they still would diverge a fair bit because of subtle nuance (Playbooks that deeply differentiate theme and role and there is a fair amount of overlap in how Gear is thematically and mechanically handled in both games, but there is some key differences; keyword tech in fact!).</blockquote>

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