Show Posts
1
Apocalypse World / Re: AW: Fallen Empires, alternate equipment list
« on: March 08, 2016, 03:57:02 PM »
Essentially…yes.
Your right that most of the tags only have utility if we zoom in on the conflict. Its perfectly possible (probably even intended) to use a single move like assault a secure position to resolve an attempt by an entire army to storm a castle wall. By the same token, you could break that assault down into multiple steps. You might have to assault a secure position just to get up to the castle walls. And then again to get the climbing ladders up, etc. Point is, the moves work micro as well as macro, with the caveat that exchanging harm too often is going to be brutal.
I don’t see the moves as abstract. In fact, I look at them as, in a way, more concrete than many other more detailed combat systems. IMO, most of those systems (D&D as the primary example) are precise, at the expense of accuracy. Do I need to be more precise than saying that the warriors form a shield wall? Do I need to know their exact position on the grid, and if they have the shield wall feat, and what their Dex score is? I would say no. I think the genius of the moves is they allow you to capture what the essence of the shield wall tactic…its a game changer. In another game, a shield wall (if its even modeled in the system) might give a +X bonus to defense, or something like that. It shifts the probabilities of success/failure for the respective combat action, but if you have really good archers, you just bang away at the shield wall and do less damage. Probably the biggest effect is turning the combat into a more prolonged HP slog than it already is. It not that likely to cause a major tactical-narrative shift, or inspire any really cool tactics. It might, but less likely. In AW, if your opponents form a shield wall, and you are taking the fiction first approach, it fundamentally changes how you are going to deal with them. Shooting arrows at the shield wall is going to be next to useless. Do something else. It might even end up being the same move, but you have to do something to even get there. It shifts the narrative space, whether or not it shifts the mechanical space. That’s what I love about tactics in the fiction first model. Sure, it requires some level of shared understanding, and its not precisely defined. But, we never make that argument about a character just flying. We just accept this is impossible unless something changes that. No reason you can’t apply the same logic to combat. The beauty of the narrative tags is, if you “tactics schmatics,” just ignore the tags, they have no explicit mechanical effects.
There is no reason this can’t be applied at the individual combatant level. Now, I am not suggesting this apply to every small level fight. The Swordmaster is certainly not going to make use of his weapon’s tags for each opponent he faces. However, there are going to be opponents where zooming down to that micro level is warranted. That’s why I gave them narrative tags, as opposed to mechanics tags. They don’t reduce armor, or do extra harm for that specific reason. However, I also wouldn’t say they are merely used to aid in “colorful descriptions.” I am sorry if I am putting words in your mouth, but that does’t sound like fiction first to me. That sounds like what I used to do when I activated an encounter power in 4E D&D. I wanted to do more damage or do a new effect, so I used a better attack, and then glommed on a fun description. While the description probably fit the ongoing situation, the mechanic didn’t (most of the time). It was a mechanic I chose because it had a mechanical advantage, largely divorced from the surrounding circumstances. That’s subtly, but fundamentally different from a Swordmaster making the tactical decision to engage an opponent by first trying to take away their secure position (a guard) vs. that same character trying to maintain a secure position (a guard) against their opponent’s attack. In my mind, the mechanical difference between these two is secondary to that thought process. The important thing is the snowball from there. Maybe I am reading the moves wrong, but that is how I would have done things without a the tags. If a character with a sword comes at someone with a spear and says, "I attack him." I'm gonna say, "Great, but how do do that, because the spear is about twice as long as the sword, and he also has a shield. You literally can't hit him from where you are, any more than you could shoot at somebody 500m away with a pistol. I mean, you could fire it, but your more likely to hit yourself than you are him." So, if players are describing how they prosecute a fight, it will trigger moves, and then the tags can be brought into play to modify which move might be available. Which, seems to me like the a fundamental piece AW, using the fiction to modify what move is triggered. I feel like this is in line with the games intent, especially considering that the rule system literally breaks down the 10ft between two people in a melee into 5 different categories. And again, narrative context is key. The game/table dynamic is going to determine how often/if these tags even come into play. Nor is it going to be applicable to everyone. But to someone like me who loves the AW engine, but also likes to think about the tactics of a duel, it seemed a good way to marry the two, without messing with the underlying structure.
Hopefully that illuminates my thought process. And, just to be clear, I am not suggesting the game needs anything more to do exactly what I would want from it. This is not a lead-in to me glomming on some kind of grid-based, super detailed system. What I posted is it. But, if you have ideas that would model said tactics better, I am all ears.
Your right that most of the tags only have utility if we zoom in on the conflict. Its perfectly possible (probably even intended) to use a single move like assault a secure position to resolve an attempt by an entire army to storm a castle wall. By the same token, you could break that assault down into multiple steps. You might have to assault a secure position just to get up to the castle walls. And then again to get the climbing ladders up, etc. Point is, the moves work micro as well as macro, with the caveat that exchanging harm too often is going to be brutal.
I don’t see the moves as abstract. In fact, I look at them as, in a way, more concrete than many other more detailed combat systems. IMO, most of those systems (D&D as the primary example) are precise, at the expense of accuracy. Do I need to be more precise than saying that the warriors form a shield wall? Do I need to know their exact position on the grid, and if they have the shield wall feat, and what their Dex score is? I would say no. I think the genius of the moves is they allow you to capture what the essence of the shield wall tactic…its a game changer. In another game, a shield wall (if its even modeled in the system) might give a +X bonus to defense, or something like that. It shifts the probabilities of success/failure for the respective combat action, but if you have really good archers, you just bang away at the shield wall and do less damage. Probably the biggest effect is turning the combat into a more prolonged HP slog than it already is. It not that likely to cause a major tactical-narrative shift, or inspire any really cool tactics. It might, but less likely. In AW, if your opponents form a shield wall, and you are taking the fiction first approach, it fundamentally changes how you are going to deal with them. Shooting arrows at the shield wall is going to be next to useless. Do something else. It might even end up being the same move, but you have to do something to even get there. It shifts the narrative space, whether or not it shifts the mechanical space. That’s what I love about tactics in the fiction first model. Sure, it requires some level of shared understanding, and its not precisely defined. But, we never make that argument about a character just flying. We just accept this is impossible unless something changes that. No reason you can’t apply the same logic to combat. The beauty of the narrative tags is, if you “tactics schmatics,” just ignore the tags, they have no explicit mechanical effects.
There is no reason this can’t be applied at the individual combatant level. Now, I am not suggesting this apply to every small level fight. The Swordmaster is certainly not going to make use of his weapon’s tags for each opponent he faces. However, there are going to be opponents where zooming down to that micro level is warranted. That’s why I gave them narrative tags, as opposed to mechanics tags. They don’t reduce armor, or do extra harm for that specific reason. However, I also wouldn’t say they are merely used to aid in “colorful descriptions.” I am sorry if I am putting words in your mouth, but that does’t sound like fiction first to me. That sounds like what I used to do when I activated an encounter power in 4E D&D. I wanted to do more damage or do a new effect, so I used a better attack, and then glommed on a fun description. While the description probably fit the ongoing situation, the mechanic didn’t (most of the time). It was a mechanic I chose because it had a mechanical advantage, largely divorced from the surrounding circumstances. That’s subtly, but fundamentally different from a Swordmaster making the tactical decision to engage an opponent by first trying to take away their secure position (a guard) vs. that same character trying to maintain a secure position (a guard) against their opponent’s attack. In my mind, the mechanical difference between these two is secondary to that thought process. The important thing is the snowball from there. Maybe I am reading the moves wrong, but that is how I would have done things without a the tags. If a character with a sword comes at someone with a spear and says, "I attack him." I'm gonna say, "Great, but how do do that, because the spear is about twice as long as the sword, and he also has a shield. You literally can't hit him from where you are, any more than you could shoot at somebody 500m away with a pistol. I mean, you could fire it, but your more likely to hit yourself than you are him." So, if players are describing how they prosecute a fight, it will trigger moves, and then the tags can be brought into play to modify which move might be available. Which, seems to me like the a fundamental piece AW, using the fiction to modify what move is triggered. I feel like this is in line with the games intent, especially considering that the rule system literally breaks down the 10ft between two people in a melee into 5 different categories. And again, narrative context is key. The game/table dynamic is going to determine how often/if these tags even come into play. Nor is it going to be applicable to everyone. But to someone like me who loves the AW engine, but also likes to think about the tactics of a duel, it seemed a good way to marry the two, without messing with the underlying structure.
Hopefully that illuminates my thought process. And, just to be clear, I am not suggesting the game needs anything more to do exactly what I would want from it. This is not a lead-in to me glomming on some kind of grid-based, super detailed system. What I posted is it. But, if you have ideas that would model said tactics better, I am all ears.