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Apocalypse World / Seize by force in 2ed
« Last post by Lanic on September 19, 2020, 01:01:26 PM »I'm currently reading through the second edition of Apocalypse World and I was very surprised by the changes made to Seize by force.
In the current edition, even if you miss, you still have one hold and with that you can take the option to take undeniable control of something. This makes me worried for two reasons.
First, taking control of something is typically the main intent of Seize by Force, so actually with this move you are guaranteed to reach your intent whenever you physically fight for something. This essentially defies the purpose of rolling dice and make things predictable.
Second, since harm in AW is quite predictable, Seize by Force seems to rob physical conflict of any drama. If I want to keep Demmer's gang out of our holding, I can simply name this as my intent and seeing that my armour allows me to withstand damage of their shotguns, I can essentially skip the fight, because I know that I will keep the holding secure and my roll will at most change the harm taken by one.
Am I wrong? Does it play out better in practice? At this point, I'm inclined to houserule this move so that we either:
- remove this one hold from a failed roll of Seize by force;
- not allow you to spend that hold to take control of the object;
- or upgrade one of the options from reducing harm by one to actually denying any harm at all.
Would things break? Do I miss something subtle? Could you explain the rationale behind the change to me?
In the current edition, even if you miss, you still have one hold and with that you can take the option to take undeniable control of something. This makes me worried for two reasons.
First, taking control of something is typically the main intent of Seize by Force, so actually with this move you are guaranteed to reach your intent whenever you physically fight for something. This essentially defies the purpose of rolling dice and make things predictable.
Second, since harm in AW is quite predictable, Seize by Force seems to rob physical conflict of any drama. If I want to keep Demmer's gang out of our holding, I can simply name this as my intent and seeing that my armour allows me to withstand damage of their shotguns, I can essentially skip the fight, because I know that I will keep the holding secure and my roll will at most change the harm taken by one.
Am I wrong? Does it play out better in practice? At this point, I'm inclined to houserule this move so that we either:
- remove this one hold from a failed roll of Seize by force;
- not allow you to spend that hold to take control of the object;
- or upgrade one of the options from reducing harm by one to actually denying any harm at all.
Would things break? Do I miss something subtle? Could you explain the rationale behind the change to me?