Barf Forth Apocalyptica

barf forth apocalyptica => roleplaying theory, hardcore => Topic started by: Orpheus on September 14, 2010, 06:59:10 PM

Title: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Orpheus on September 14, 2010, 06:59:10 PM
Split from the thread about Agenda & GNS, as this is totally tangental to the main topic of discussion in that (and that thread's basically closed). So...

Also, I've been thinking about where the mythology of shows like Lost and Battlestar Galactica meet GNS. I've seen situations where a lot of the player drive is centered on "figuring things out", but not necessarily on a mystery level of investigation a la Call of Cthuhlu. It's weird. It's more of an expectation of being fed backstory revelations every few sessions or so, but I don't actually have a set up backstory. So it turns into a Czege Principle thing where the players who are interested in discovering this weird backstory are also making it up, which is unsatisfying.

In AW, this is a drive not really to see passionate characters in untenable situations, but to figure out the Apocalypse and the Psychic Maelstrom on a metalevel. Anyone else seen that?


I haven't seen this in AW, but I've definitely seen this drive in games.  I'm somewhat susceptible to it myself - I like that complex backstory and revelations, and am inclined towards putting that sort of thing into games I run where it's applicable.  (I hadn't thought about even trying that in AW, but I can see where it might occur to me, "Hrmm. Fleece is doing this, and Joe's Girl is doing this - It would totally make sense, and complicate things in an interesting way if it was revealed that Fleece was Joe's daughter…"  And I'm not sure if doing something like that works with MCing AW the way you're expected to in the text.

So that's one question.

But for me, the bigger question is where this 'drive to figure stuff out' falls into the conception of RPG theory, and how it might be usefully applied in design.  (I have some stuff I'm working on that it's somewhat applicable to, but it's also just interesting stuff.)
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Dionysus on September 15, 2010, 07:41:02 AM
This hits directly to the core of the game I am MC'ing now. (yeah, its not Apoc World, but i'm using pretty much the same MC principles etc).

I have a suspicion that some of this will come from the creation of fronts. When the MC makes these fronts he is making some decisions about the agenda of that front and its threats - You are partially making a backstory as you are making connections between threats.

The "drive to figure stuff out" is a very very important one (I feel). The majority of threats are not just the bunch of guys with guns - its trying to figure out "why are those guys with guns gunning for me" - the WHY of a situation is very important for the characters/players to base their decisions - hence the drive to figure out why.
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Chris on September 15, 2010, 01:05:02 PM
I think it's a direct consequence of the maelstrom and the Weird. I'm not really talking about "Where did this chopper gang come from?". It's more like "Hey, this storm is talking to me and making me do things. I wonder what the history of it is and if it had anything to do with the apocalypse". Like these huge questions.

It's just like Lost or Battlestar Galactica. AW is a character drama with a backdrop of weird fuckery. With those shows, some people are watching for the character drama (the writers' intention with the show), but others just want to find out what the hell the smoke monster is or why Baltar is seeing those wacky head visions.

They're not really in the show; they're not really in the drama. They want answers, as a viewer. They're relating to the show as viewer to mythology, with the characters as a prohibitive element between them and the exposition dump that they're waiting for.

And I've seen it in AW. The player begins to use the character as a vehicle to explore the mythos, not as a way to explore the character through interesting, untenable situations.

As an MC, the response, at least for me, is to try to tie those situations to the mythos, but that's pretty unsatisfactory. The characters become broad strokes rather than nuanced individuals. Player focus is on the mythos.

It's a Creative Agenda problem, I'm just not sure where it lies. It's not Story Now and it's not Step On Up. It's not about "solving" the mystery or mythos. It's about getting the information, exploring this rich backstory that, in AW, the MC probably hasn't even created.
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: DannyK on September 16, 2010, 08:43:55 PM
Chris, what does that look like in play?  Repeated brain openings to explore the maelstrom? Doing research to the exclusion of responding to the fronts?
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Chris on September 17, 2010, 07:35:14 AM
Chris, what does that look like in play?  Repeated brain openings to explore the maelstrom? Doing research to the exclusion of responding to the fronts?

Yep to the first. Haven't seen formal research. It's an Agenda thing. The player's focus is not on their own character or the situations that come up; it's on the maelstrom.

In my game, I had a bunker that a player introduced into the game that got really Weird. And two players made that the focus of their play. "I gotta find out what's up with that freaky bunker!"

It didn't help that the whole game had already devolved into gamesmanship between me (the MC) and a player.

But yeah, I think that sometimes a desire to "figure out" the maelstrom in an investigative sense makes the focus of the game be on that knowledge. Without investigate mechanics it's entirely up to the MC to facilitate that. Which means that in order to make it interesting, you have to Lost it up and cockblock people from getting too much too fast while still making more the players are in a position, fictionally, to receive little bites.

I'd say to just dump it all exposition style and move on, but the player's enjoyment in the game is focused on this backstory. I feel obligated as an MC to make that interesting for them. But I don't think that the game supports that well. To make it interesting, you need this big backstory and you need these little moments of "here's another piece of the puzzle" that are, at the core, preplanned GM stories. You start getting into Illusive GM territory pretty quick.
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Michael Pfaff on September 17, 2010, 09:44:20 AM
Chris, what does that look like in play?  Repeated brain openings to explore the maelstrom? Doing research to the exclusion of responding to the fronts?

Yep to the first. Haven't seen formal research. It's an Agenda thing. The player's focus is not on their own character or the situations that come up; it's on the maelstrom.

In my game, I had a bunker that a player introduced into the game that got really Weird. And two players made that the focus of their play. "I gotta find out what's up with that freaky bunker!"

I think Chris is talking about me. I was that player (I don't remember who the other player was that was interested in this... I thought it was just me. The only other person I remember even going into the bunker outside of trying to kill Colt was Poppy - and that was just because she wanted her nieces back and/or safe - it was a direct conflict with her character).

But, I don't see it as not putting the character in the untenable situation. My character, a hocus named Dust, well, his foundation was kind of tied directly to this maelstrom. There were clues dropped about the maelstrom and this lady who might be tied to it. The lady could actually clone herself somehow and had "infinite bodies" she could revert to. She literally killed herself in dangerous situations and "reappeared" later.

My character wanted to know how. I was exploring my character in the sense of his purpose in the world and relation this weird thing happening. If it were a countdown clock, where was this countdown going? What happens at midnight?

Nothing apparently.

When we finally went into the bunker, it was just a big mud puddle with no explanations or anything. It was quite clearly "nothing". I had opened my brain earlier and saw "scientific" equipment and tubes with bodies in them. That's what I expected.

The problem was, Colt wasn't real. She broke several of the MCs principles (make AW seem real, look through crosshairs at your NPCs).

This whole game devolved into a not-real session of gameplay that ended with two characters in another realm inside a bunker where nothing was real (literally) and a nuke, that had been planted on a monster truck, going off because one of the characters (the gamist mentioned) raped Colt, to which she responded, "Bring it on big boy!"
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Chris on September 17, 2010, 11:21:04 AM
Chris, what does that look like in play?  Repeated brain openings to explore the maelstrom? Doing research to the exclusion of responding to the fronts?

Yep to the first. Haven't seen formal research. It's an Agenda thing. The player's focus is not on their own character or the situations that come up; it's on the maelstrom.

In my game, I had a bunker that a player introduced into the game that got really Weird. And two players made that the focus of their play. "I gotta find out what's up with that freaky bunker!"

I think Chris is talking about me. I was that player (I don't remember who the other player was that was interested in this... I thought it was just me. The only other person I remember even going into the bunker outside of trying to kill Colt was Poppy - and that was just because she wanted her nieces back and/or safe - it was a direct conflict with her character).

But, I don't see it as not putting the character in the untenable situation. My character, a hocus named Dust, well, his foundation was kind of tied directly to this maelstrom. There were clues dropped about the maelstrom and this lady who might be tied to it. The lady could actually clone herself somehow and had "infinite bodies" she could revert to. She literally killed herself in dangerous situations and "reappeared" later.

My character wanted to know how. I was exploring my character in the sense of his purpose in the world and relation this weird thing happening. If it were a countdown clock, where was this countdown going? What happens at midnight?

Nothing apparently.

That's the point of the whole "Where does backstory mythology fit into CA" talk. The only situation was "Does Dust find out about what's in the bunker or not?" and it's not untenable at all. It's also not a situation AW is equipped to deal with at a mechanical level or one that I find interesting at a narrative level. It's just playing out me (the GM) giving this backstory I wrote up while I was at home to you (the player).

I did write up what's up with the bunker and it has a countdown clock. But nothing happened that advanced it. The countdown clocks really aren't designed as "Give out backstory at regular intervals.

The whole bunker thing was one of the players putting a bunker into the game with the sole hope that there was awesome stuff inside that they could later get.

But we've had the Step On Up/Story Now conflict discussions elsewhere.
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Michael Pfaff on September 17, 2010, 11:31:28 AM
That's the point of the whole "Where does backstory mythology fit into CA" talk. The only situation was "Does Dust find out about what's in the bunker or not?" and it's not untenable at all. It's also not a situation AW is equipped to deal with at a mechanical level or one that I find interesting at a narrative level. It's just playing out me (the GM) giving this backstory I wrote up while I was at home to you (the player).

It wasn't a backstory. There was no backstory with Dust. I was playing it was it happened. Like, Shamrock showing up with strange markings all over her. It's just something that occurs, which I assumed had a countdown clock or something related to it.

And, "Does Dust find out about what's in the bunker or not?" was the only situation because that's the only thing that happened (the answer is, no, Dust didn't find out what happened in the bunker).

It's like if Rum is getting munitions from somewhere and my character wants to find out where those munitions are coming from. That's putting my character in an untenable situation because Rum may or may not be interested in divulging that information. There may be consequences for interfering with those resources, etc... etc...

The bunker seemed to indicate some sort of resource. There wasn't any. It was a big illusion. Therefore, no situation.

(Actually, technically there was a situation - that of Tutu, who was being held prisoner there. But, it was completely irrelevant to the whole "Colt mystery".)

Exploring the world should yield untenable situations, just by means of the dice mechanics. Like, me trying to open my brain in the bunker and it flatly not working. Instead, Colt saying, "Don't do that in here. Let's walk around and talk."

That wasn't my goal. I didn't want to "talk" about this weird mythos that was going on with the Red (the maelstrom) or whatever. It was simply a matter of finding out how this person was transferring her mind from body to body. I wanted to see AW real. It wasn't. It was an illusion. Fake. It was MC fiat to keep her alive and that's it (you've said this yourself), I just expected there to be an explanation at some point. There wasn't.

It'd be like if in the example above, finding out Rum got her munitions from a random "munition spawn point".
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Chris on September 17, 2010, 12:17:15 PM
That's the point of the whole "Where does backstory mythology fit into CA" talk. The only situation was "Does Dust find out about what's in the bunker or not?" and it's not untenable at all. It's also not a situation AW is equipped to deal with at a mechanical level or one that I find interesting at a narrative level. It's just playing out me (the GM) giving this backstory I wrote up while I was at home to you (the player).

It wasn't a backstory. There was no backstory with Dust. I was playing it was it happened. Like, Shamrock showing up with strange markings all over her. It's just something that occurs, which I assumed had a countdown clock or something related to it.

No, the bunker's backstory.

Exploring the world should yield untenable situations, just by means of the dice mechanics. Like, me trying to open my brain in the bunker and it flatly not working. Instead, Colt saying, "Don't do that in here. Let's walk around and talk."

That wasn't my goal. I didn't want to "talk" about this weird mythos that was going on with the Red (the maelstrom) or whatever. It was simply a matter of finding out how this person was transferring her mind from body to body. I wanted to see AW real. It wasn't. It was an illusion. Fake.

Make AW seem real does not mean "realistic", it means "fictionally consistent". The things happening in the bunker were consistent. You opened your brain fine, it's just that the bunker was built solely to keep the maelstrom out.

The rest of it (the stuff where Tom and I got stupid) has already been talked about. Back to the mythos stuff.

And, "Does Dust find out about what's in the bunker or not?" was the only situation because that's the only thing that happened (the answer is, no, Dust didn't find out what happened in the bunker).

It's like if Rum is getting munitions from somewhere and my character wants to find out where those munitions are coming from. That's putting my character in an untenable situation because Rum may or may not be interested in divulging that information. There may be consequences for interfering with those resources, etc... etc...

Yeah, the stuff with Tutu was the situation. But here's the point of the whole thread. One player is in the midst of negotiating a deal with a possibly crazy woman to get her niece back when her niece is not entirely sure if she wants to go or not. Interesting. But then Tom shows up with the sole goal of figuring out the bunker and breaks the earlier, interesting situation so we can have a less interesting, entirely challenge-based one.

But as has been said earlier in the thread, I think that getting too involved in the mythos, which is essentially a GM backstory, is not really something that AW is good at.



Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Michael Pfaff on September 17, 2010, 12:19:19 PM
But as has been said earlier in the thread, I think that getting too involved in the mythos, which is essentially a GM backstory, is not really something that AW is good at.

Agreed.
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Chris on September 18, 2010, 09:56:46 PM
A review from Amazon, on Lost. There may be Lost spoilers in there, but only realy, really light ones:

Quote
It's all about the characters?

Which is why millions of people communed on message boards and around water coolers across the nation, to discuss at great length and depth the characters of the show. There were so many theories and much, much speculation as to the state of Sun and Jin's marriage, and whether Jack would ever find reconciliation with his deceased father. Everyone wondered if Michael would ever find forgiveness in the eyes of his estranged son, Walt. Will Hurley ever find love again? Will Kate and Sawyer be able to escape their turbulent pasts? Will Sayid ever be able to forgive himself? Yes, these were the discussions taking place on message boards and around water coolers for the past 6 years. No, wait... I'm remembering that wrong.

I've loved Lost since it premiered in 2004. I've followed the show faithfully, which is why, even to this day, when I talk about Lost, I get pissed. Really pissed. Without "spoiling" anything, I will say this: What "answers" (and I use that term loosely... VERY loosely) the writers did give us were the kind of answers that parents give children who ask questions they either don't know the answer to, or are just too lazy to answer intelligently. But then again, what am I saying? This show was all about the characters.

This is a response to the producers of Lost saying that the show is about the characters, not the mythology and their resulting decision not to spend the last season doing 42 minute expository pieces to answer fan questions about the show and instead continued the formula of exploring the characters through interesting, and often weird, situations. I disagree with the response, but there you go.

I see AW like this and don't really want to get the above complaints from my players. Weird shit happens in the game. A lot of it. And I don't really want to play the moving shells mythology game as I string my players along because their main focus in on getting answers from me about the game. I try to tie the mythology stuff to the characters and use it to heighten drama, but it's gotta exist as a spice rather than the meal.

Anyone else getting any of this in their games?
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: lumpley on September 18, 2010, 10:28:25 PM
I don't understand. When you find that a character's really intently pursuing the origins and history of the world's psychic maelstrom, which the game on purpose gives them some tools for, why don't you take ten minutes between sessions and decide about the origins and history of the world's psychic maelstrom? Then they can pursue it, and you can reveal it to them, and then play continues and they still have to decide what do I do now?

(Unlike Lost, where maybe they took those ten minutes, but if they did they sure never revealed it to ME.)
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Chris on September 19, 2010, 07:29:39 AM
I don't understand. When you find that a character's really intently pursuing the origins and history of the world's psychic maelstrom, which the game on purpose gives them some tools for, why don't you take ten minutes between sessions and decide about the origins and history of the world's psychic maelstrom? Then they can pursue it, and you can reveal it to them, and then play continues and they still have to decide what do I do now?

(Unlike Lost, where maybe they took those ten minutes, but if they did they sure never revealed it to ME.)

I think it's because most people, if they were controlling the characters of Lost in a roleplaying game, wouldn't really develop those character interactions. I mean, the logical thing to do is to stop fighting and just figure out what the hell this smoke monster is. Like the weird island stuff is BIGGER than everyday life. It's not a ten minute thing. It's like the Lost producers getting tired of fan questions and just having the smoke monster sit down and explain everything in ten minutes.

Like I know the backstory to both the maelstrom and what's beyond it and what's inbetween. But it's not why I'm playing the game. But some players, the characters are just vehicles to get expositionary information. "What do I do now?" is "figure out more about the maelstrom".
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Motipha on September 19, 2010, 01:30:23 PM
I've been tyring to think of something sensible to say about this thread, and I'm really not going to say much more than Vincent did:  So what?  Ok, you're playing to make for interesting intercharacter drama.  They are playing to find out about the world (or, as michael pointed out, playing a character interested in finding out more about the world).  So make interesting intercharacter drama out of them trying to find out more about the world.  Finding out why the psychic maelstrom IS interesting to me, so when my players start searching for it it makes for good story.

For the record, I would rather cut my own throat out than play an RPG that ended up like Lost.  Being told all of this stuff that threatened me and mine and made for all this interesting stuff was "just because" or "don't worry about it" is completely messed in the head.  But that's just my opinion.
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Daniel Wood on September 20, 2010, 05:28:42 AM
And I don't really want to play the moving shells mythology game as I string my players along because their main focus in on getting answers from me about the game.

I'm kind of just adding a gloss to Vincent's response, but the part I am wondering about here is bolded. I don't know if I've missed it or what but there is nothing in what has been discussed so far that suggests you need to string anyone along. You can just give them the answers when they do things that get them the answers. And don't be stingy, and don't play any shell game: figure it out, then tell them. Then see what they do next.

I notice I have this impulse as well, not to reveal too much at once, to try to sidestep direct questions or put off player advances that would push me towards complete transparency on a particular plot point. This is a bad impulse, at least as it occurs in my own MCing. I should just tell them. If the game is forcing you to string them along because of some application of the mechanics or the principles, that's one thing -- but I don't really think you've made the case for players having this desire to be 'strung along'. That part seems to be coming from you -- what the players want is to find out.
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Chris on September 20, 2010, 08:04:24 AM
I notice I have this impulse as well, not to reveal too much at once, to try to sidestep direct questions or put off player advances that would push me towards complete transparency on a particular plot point. This is a bad impulse, at least as it occurs in my own MCing. I should just tell them. If the game is forcing you to string them along because of some application of the mechanics or the principles, that's one thing -- but I don't really think you've made the case for players having this desire to be 'strung along'. That part seems to be coming from you -- what the players want is to find out.

No, it's definitely coming from me, the stringing out part. The players want to find out. Because if the player's make that their agenda, it needs to be interesting.

That's like saying "Well, in DnD, the players want to win encounters. Why are you making it hard? Just give all the critters 1 hp." If that's their primary agenda, then that's where things need to be interesting.

Despite the whining of everyone who watched shows like Lost or BSG about being strung along, since the primary focus of the show (or at least why people watched) was the weird shit, they had no choice BUT string them along.

LOST S01E01:

FADE IN:

[JACK SHEPHARD IS THERE. HE'S A DOCTOR]

"There's this island. Here's what it is. Isn't that interesting? We thought tha.... What? We're cancelled? OK."

FADE OUT

Whereever the player's primary interest is, that needs to be the interesting part of the game.

The above responses are basically "Well, just tell them what they want to hear so you can move on to more interesting things." I'd love to. But in some cases, you CAN'T. I'm not talking about an interest in the maelstrom as flavor. I'm talking about interest in the maelstrom as the game. 

To me, it's a problem.
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Michael Pfaff on September 20, 2010, 09:03:07 AM
The above responses are basically "Well, just tell them what they want to hear so you can move on to more interesting things." I'd love to. But in some cases, you CAN'T. I'm not talking about an interest in the maelstrom as flavor. I'm talking about interest in the maelstrom as the game. 

Except, that never happened in the game. It was most definitely an interest in the maelstrom as flavor.

The problem was, the maelstrom was never opened up to the players to inject some of their ideas as to what it was. There was never any questions asked about how they interact with the maelstrom, or what the maelstrom meant to them. This is what my character was pursuing. Not, "what is the maelstrom?", but, "what is the maelstrom to me?" And, it made sense. My character had a weird+3.

Unfortunately, the maelstrom was predetermined by the MC, you, to be some sort of background thing going on in the world. There were often comments during the game like, "You guys don't realize what the maelstrom is yet..." and so on. Really? Well, what is it? Either tell us or let us tell you. Never happened.

Instead, we were met with the Elminster of Apocalypse World, a 20th Level Wizard named Colt who could teleport at-will (back to her bunker by shooting herself in the face), never die because of her "clones" and lived in a bunker that was essentially a wizard's tower that only she could navigate, could cast a world-ending fireball (a nuke), and laughed in the face of a PC raping one her entities.

And, we were just 1st level PCs - one of us trying to kill her for her loot and the other trying to find out "how the fuck is she cloning herself and switching bodies?"

Honestly, this whole "there's a problem with the game because one player wants to explore the world" is being blown out of proportion. The real issue is, as an MC you were creating barriers for the PCs (or as DST put it, MC "cock-blocking") and breaking a couple important MC principles (which you've acknowledged). You had a favorite NPC, Colt aka Elminster of AW, and didn't want to "spoil" her cool backstory or let her die so it was never revealed. 

At least, that's the way I saw it as a player.

The real important part of the game that I was looking forward to, the situations that arose from the exploration of that bunker that did arise, were drown out in cartoonish (not real) portrayal of the characters. At one point, one of the characters, Express - a driver - got inside the bunker, finally! This is what he wanted for so long, so he could kill her and take everything.

And, he had a perfect way to get her in a spot. Her "daughter" Tutu was in there. But, so was my character, Dust. I wouldn't let him use Tutu as bait, fearing collateral damage. Great. We have an awesome showcase of where our loyalties lie. Express gets pissed at Dust, but that's ok. We're still in this together.

Dust leaves to go back to his cell (it was part of his condition of being in the bunker in the first place). Express stays and waits for Colt to return in order to capture her.

Well, wizardy ensued and Express got "trapped" in the bunker in a tiny room with Colt. He knew he couldn't kill her. She would just "respawn" in an adjacent chamber and he'd be trapped there for good (put 'em in a spot for sure!). So, instead, he tells her, "I'm going to rape you mercilessly until you let me out." She sucks it up. Now, at this point, I'm emphatic because Express now has to go through the act of raping this old woman. This douchebag of a character (the player is actually cool, but his character was a douche) finally has his antics about to be spotlighted in the harshest way possible. And, to top it off, there were two characters standing on the other side of a porthole to the sealed door. They get to witness. Oh my, gripping. I'm thinking to myself, "I don't know if I can watch this" - like a scene out of Blindness.

Except, not really. Express starts raping her, she apparently loves it. Slaps him on the ass and says, "You go big boy! Gimme more!" Then, "You know what, fuck this!" Colt sets off the nuke.

And, totally deflates the whole game.

So, this whole problem of the characters wanting to "explore" the world becoming a problem isn't really the problem. The characters exploring the world is a great way for them to interact with NPCs and that puts them in untenable and interesting situations. How would the other characters have reacted if they had to watch the old women getting raped brutally through the porthole? Would they have said something to Express? Got retribution? Let him slide? Even with her broken fingernails on the concrete floor? Even with her blood and tears and Express' semen puddling beneath their feet when the door finally opened? That's where the game should have shined. We don't even have to watch the scene. Fade to black and cut to when the door finally opens. Express just went Aggro on an old lady by raping her to do what he wants. That's fucking serious shit. Express wanted to "beat" Colt that bad.

Instead, we skipped that and went into this weird and unsatisfying bout of back and forth between Dust and Colt about what the fuck is going on in this bunker. Certain, he's not going to get any answers out of her, he opens his brain. It doesn't work. This bunker is immune to opening your brain. So, we finish the session with this awkward scenario sitting in a Cape Cod kitchen eating donuts and scrambled eggs. :)
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Motipha on September 20, 2010, 11:59:57 AM
The above responses are basically "Well, just tell them what they want to hear so you can move on to more interesting things." I'd love to. But in some cases, you CAN'T. I'm not talking about an interest in the maelstrom as flavor. I'm talking about interest in the maelstrom as the game. 

To me, it's a problem.

I would disagree.  What I was trying to say, and perhaps I did a poor job of doing so, is that make telling them what they want the interesting thing.  Give them what they want, but do it in a way that puts them in untenable situations.  If the players truly want to find out about the maelstrom the game then that is the game, at least in part.  You can't just dismiss it as something to get out of the way so that the interesting stuff can start, because at least for that player and the character they are playing that is what is interesting.

Basically, I was trying to say fold your interest in to theirs.  And from Michael's response above, it sounds like it's what he wanted as well: Not to just "be told what the maelstrom is all about" but to have his character spend his time exploring it, in difficult, untenable, dramatic and difficult circumstances that put him at odds with other characters.
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Chris on September 20, 2010, 01:04:41 PM
Sure. But again, I'm talking about a CA problem. If the player was interested in untenable character situations involving the maelstrom, there would be no problem. Use the maelstrom to explore the maelstrom sure.

I'm talking about when the player cares about the maelstrom more than exploring their character. So untenable situations are still just a shell game for them. "I want to know about the maelstrom".This isn't really directed at Mike, but at another player.

It's not really even just a roleplaying problem, but a larger, more interesting issue of this across pretty much every story-based medium. It's easier in books or movies to pace these things across 300 pages or and hour and a half. But a serial? It's more difficult, as evidenced by Lost and BSG's failings.

I'm talking about genre, really. If we make AW a mystery, then that's fine. We're still in story now, everything's great. That's where Mike was and I had stuff written out for him and we were exploring it, great.

But then you get the guy who wants to turn to the back of the mystery novel and read the ending. So in roleplaying terms, he powers through situations to get to the "end". Except I don't want to end it. And explaining it all removes the interest in the maelstrom and Weird, at least for me.

This isn't really an advice thing. The answer is just stop playing with that guy or have a talk and get on the same page. That's fine.

I was just more interested in everyone else's experience with maelstrom/weirdness pacing. I guess a lot of it depends on your maelstrom.
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Michael Pfaff on September 20, 2010, 01:20:42 PM
Sure. But again, I'm talking about a CA problem. If the player was interested in untenable character situations involving the maelstrom, there would be no problem. Use the maelstrom to explore the maelstrom sure.

I'm talking about when the player cares about the maelstrom more than exploring their character. So untenable situations are still just a shell game for them. "I want to know about the maelstrom".This isn't really directed at Mike, but at another player.

What do they want to know about the maelstrom? Is it something specific? General? Does it have to do with the setting or the characters or something random? "I want to know about the maelstrom" is pretty generic.

It's not really even just a roleplaying problem, but a larger, more interesting issue of this across pretty much every story-based medium. It's easier in books or movies to pace these things across 300 pages or and hour and a half. But a serial? It's more difficult, as evidenced by Lost and BSG's failings.

That's why I think you gotta just tell them (or ask them) straight up. What's this maelstrom doing? "Well, you realize that it's doing this."

It's why I hate having players roll for "knowledge" checks in D&D. I just give them the knowledge. I'm more interested in what they do with that knowledge.

Lost is terrible in this sense because they do try to keep those mysteries going. It's the "plot" method of GMing that Apocalypse World specifically tells you not to do. We're not playing to follow the breadcrumb trail. If something needs to be explored (like the maelstrom), let's explore it, decide on it and see how we use that in the game, right?

I'm talking about genre, really. If we make AW a mystery, then that's fine. We're still in story now, everything's great. That's where Mike was and I had stuff written out for him and we were exploring it, great.

But then you get the guy who wants to turn to the back of the mystery novel and read the ending. So in roleplaying terms, he powers through situations to get to the "end". Except I don't want to end it. And explaining it all removes the interest in the maelstrom and Weird, at least for me.

I think this may be the problem. You don't want it to end. You want that mystery there. You want the players thinking, "Hmmm." Part of the problem with that means that when the players get to the part where they're ready for the reveal (to get on with the rest of the game) is that you may not be ready for it. So, instead of revealing it, you're blocking it. It's going directly against the grain. It doesn't feel natural. Don't plan for that reveal if you've got it. Just let it happen when it happens.

What's interesting to me, isn't the reveal, but how the reveal impacts the play. We just explored this bunker and found out this thing... Now, how the fuck are we going to handle it? Do we even need to handle it?
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Daniel Wood on September 21, 2010, 03:28:16 AM
Okay well, I guess I can only say that in my experience, when my players have been interested in investigating the Maelstrom, they have not actually wanted to be strung along -- they just wanted to investigate the Maelstrom, and find out answers, as the mechanics of the game allowed. And I found that when I tried to interject my own pacing on top of or instead of those mechanics (to artificially draw out the 'investigation'), this was not the right thing to do. It is entirely possible that your players and mine did not actually want the same thing.

(Also I think you are really misusing 'Creative Agenda', but that is as always an enormous can of worms.)
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Chris on September 23, 2010, 11:11:56 AM
There were often comments during the game like, "You guys don't realize what the maelstrom is yet..." and so on.

Nah, that was never said. At any point. You guys acting, in fiction, like you didn't know what it was. I you would have said, I know what it is, then you would have. Remember, I didn't make it up, decide what it was, or how it acted. That was ALL player. I think you playing every other session means that you missed a lot of Tom and Phillip stuff. We had basically two first sessions after you murdered everything in the first game (:) ), and you missed both of those, when that's where most of the setting was created.

Unfortunately, the maelstrom was predetermined by the MC, you, to be some sort of background thing going on in the world.

No, it wasn't. I didn't make up the maelstrom in that game.

Instead, we were met with the Elminster of Apocalypse World, a 20th Level Wizard named Colt

Except that I didn't make up Colt or how powerful she was. Colt was an NPC brought into the game by a PC. Tom's thoughts ran like this:

"I want an impenetrable bunker full of high tech shit. If I just say I have one, Chris will shoot me down. If I say that there's this weird chick in a high tech bunker tied to the maelstrom and technology who's all mysterious, Chris will say fine. And then I can spend the rest of the game (over two characters) trying to kill her so I can have an impenetrable bunker full of high tech shit."

Colt's existence in the world was a complete instance of Step On Up play. And that's how she was interacted with and that flavored her.

But that's all besides the point of the thread and its just problems of my group:

I think this may be the problem. You don't want it to end. You want that mystery there. You want the players thinking, "Hmmm."

I guess. I think that's a big draw for me from the setting itself. Without the maelstrom being this weird, alien thing, I'm just not as interested in the game. Once the maelstrom becomes a coded thing, I lose interest in AW. "The maelstrom is x. It does this. Move on." is just not satisfying to me.

Maybe that's just me. Because I really wish they didn't explain half as much as they did in Lost or BSG. That's where the shows fell flat to me. It's like a mystery novel. No one is there for the solution; you're there for the mystery. Otherwise, it'd be called a solution novel. :) Or at least, that's my stance.

Okay well, I guess I can only say that in my experience, when my players have been interested in investigating the Maelstrom, they have not actually wanted to be strung along -- they just wanted to investigate the Maelstrom, and find out answers, as the mechanics of the game allowed. And I found that when I tried to interject my own pacing on top of or instead of those mechanics (to artificially draw out the 'investigation'), this was not the right thing to do. It is entirely possible that your players and mine did not actually want the same thing.

(Also I think you are really misusing 'Creative Agenda', but that is as always an enormous can of worms.)

Sure. For the CA thing, here's my thoughts: is the investigation of mysteries Step On Up play? It seems like it is. But I know that the Gumshoe system sidesteps this by making the mystery un-unsolvable. :)

That's the thing. If the game becomes a game about the desire to discover this stuff, is that a point where we just say "Here you go"?

I know that my games that don't focus on the maelstrom are infinitely better than my games that do.

Because the game can devolve from Apocalypse World to Maelstrom World and my attempts to bring the game back down to reality also devolve into cock blocking.

So that's the consensus here?

And I found that when I tried to interject my own pacing on top of or instead of those mechanics...

And there's my problem. Because you DO still have to pace the game. That does still require skill on the MC's part. The vast majority of the overall pacing has nothing to do with the mechanics. It's more of a group thing. Hmmmmm.
Title: Re: Revelations of the Apocalypse (World)
Post by: Orpheus on September 26, 2010, 03:17:04 PM
Sorry to bail on my own thread - Too many fronts in play RL and I haven't had much spare time to devote to the AW board.

With Lost, and w/ Battlestar Galactica, they were ostensibly character drama, but they ended up being mostly about 'What the fuck is really going on?' They kept delaying the revelations and moving the finish line to keep the shows going, and it was apparent that if they did explain what the fuck was going on, the show was over, so they weren't going to do that until the last episode.

But then after a while that further obfuscation to keep the show going accumulated to the point that I realized, "Even if/when they do 'explain everything', it's not going to make sense of it all and I'm going to find it unsatisfying."  I stopped watching Lost after about 4 episodes, and BG after 2. From what I've heard from my friends regarding the finale of BG and Lost, that was a good move on my part - I'm like, "That's what they finally came up with?"

So now some meta analysis on AW. The tagline for AW: "Something's wrong with the world, and I don't know what it is…" is potentially misleading, because the point of playing AW isn't really to find out what's wrong with the world.  It's not really even about fixing what's wrong with the world - It IS about characters, and fixing what's wrong with them, which I would say is, in general terms as they start the game, that they're largely isolated, selfish and detached from the world.  In play the characters are transformed in a really literary, Campbellian fashion and as each character overcomes those deficiencies, they either expand the frame of the 'world' and start over, or they leave play.

Personally, I think the 'world' of Apocalypse World serves mostly as a metaphor for the characters.

From The Anatomy of Story by John Truby, (which is, well, pretty much what you'd expect from the title) on page 78 he talks about the 'Story World' and 'connecting the world to the hero's overall development' in this bulletpointed passage.

* Beginning (slavery): If the land, people, and technology are out of balance, everyone is out for himself, each reduced to an animal clawing for scarce resources or a cog working for the greater good of a machine.  This is a world of slavery and, taken to its extreme, a dystopia, or a hell on earth.

* Endpoint (Freedom): If the land, people, and technology are in balance (as you define it), you have a community, where individuals can grow in their own way, supported by others. This is a world of freedom and, taken to the extreme, a utopia, or heaven on earth.

I don't know how useful this is to 'fixing' games like some of the ones described above - It sounds like that 'game w/ the bunker' had problems besides just the 'never-ending mystery'…  But I'd proffer this:

The dictate is: Play to find out.
It's not: Play to wonder about shit.

If people are playing AW to find out, "What the fuck is this Maelstrom thing?" or some other big mystery, then go with that. Don't do the Lost thing and obfuscate or cockblock 'em, let em make progress towards finding out, using the rules/system as a group as best you can.  Now, when they find out, and they should find out, that particular story is OVER. Depending on the group, that may be where play ends.  Or you might keep going, because now it's potentially about, "What do you do with that information?"  When TV shows do stuff like this, it's called changing the core premise, and they often loose viewers, because you have, in effect, a different show and it may or may not appeal to the original audience so much.  But you're not compelled by your ratings and your network exec to keep going, so 'play till you're done', whenever that occurs, and then stop.  Then start another game of whatever.