Cross post from S-G:

You can change Apocalypse World to not be so numbers-focused like this:
First of all, get fudge dice, you know the ones that have an equal number of pluses, minuses and blanks. Also known as fate dice.

Then change the playbooks and basic move sheets as follows:

When I refer to "the ladder" below, I'm talking about this list:
Unflinchingly
Intensely
Very
Kind of
A little bit
Not really that
Far from
The least

Unbeknownst to the players, but known to you, the converter, this scale is:
Unflinchingly: +4
Intensely: +3
Very: +2
Kind of: +1
A little bit: 0
Not really that: -1
Far from: -2
The least: -3

Do not show those numbers  to your players. I'm not kidding; do not let them start taking about +3 and -2 and stuff.


Then make new playbooks such that:

Choose one set:
• Cool+1 Hard=0 Hot+1 Sharp+2 Weird-1
• Cool+1 Hard+1 Hot=0 Sharp+2 Weird-1
• Cool-1 Hard+1 Hot=0 Sharp+2 Weird+1
• Cool+2 Hard=0 Hot-1 Sharp+2 Weird-1

Becomes this:

Choose one set:
• Kind of cool, a little bit hard, kind of hot, very sharp, not really that weird.
• Kind of cool, kind of hard, a little bit hot, very sharp, not really that weird.
• Not really that cool, kind of hard, a little bit hot, very sharp, kind of weird.
• Very cool, a little bit hard, not really that hot, very sharp, not really that weird.

Teach your players how to roll like this (I'm serious, follow this procedure, it'll become fast after a while and you'll use the scale in your head after a while, but be careful about shortcutting it in the beginning):
Let's say you have to roll to act coolly and that you are a little bit cool.
Put your finger "A little bit". Roll four of the dice. Remove any + - pair because they cancel out. Then for each remaining +, move your finger up once, and for each -, move your finger down once.
Let's say you rolled ++_-. The minus and the + cancel out, leaving +. Move your finger up once on the scale for the remaining +. It ends on "Kind of" You acted kind of coolly.

Before you teach them that (but I wanted to explain it to you, the converter, first), change the moves so that this:

DO SOMETHING UNDER FIRE
When you do something under fire, or dig in to endure fire,
roll+cool. On a 10+, you do it. On a 7–9, you flinch, hesitate, or
stall: the MC can offer you a worse outcome, a hard bargain, or
an ugly choice.

becomes:

DO SOMETHING UNDER FIRE
When you do something under fire, or dig in to endure fire, roll to
act coolly. If you act very coolly or cooler, you can do it. If you
act kind of, or a little bit cool, you flinch, hesitate, or stall: the
MC can offer you a worse outcome, a hard bargain, or an ugly choice.

(Uh, maybe that phrasing needs a little work.)
Anyway, the point is to change all 7-9 results to "Kind of" and "A little bit", all 6- results to "Not really that" and lower, and all 10+ results to "Very" and higher.
It's a lot of work converting or redoing all the playbooks but once that's done, your players won't see any numbers any more and you'll be happily in "word land".

Put that ladder right on every playbook near the stats, or on laminated cards. Use the version that does <em>not</em> have the numbers. I'm serious. Do not show it.

I've worked on the probabilities and they match pretty well from the start and across the advancements. You'll get pretty close to the same percentages of successes, misses, and 7-9:s.


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I'm not saying "Do this" or that it's a particularly good idea to do it for all groups. It's just an option for some who hate adding small numbers together, to make those numbers even smaller and less numberlike.