the basis for all the moves

Thinking about it starting with the mechanics is backwards?  I hope not, because if so, this game will never work for me and my friends, and that would be too bad, because I'm really excited to try it out.

But I don't think anyone I've gamed with has had their PC pursue sex just 'cuz since my younger teenage D&D days.

I'm also not entirely sure I buy your explanation, because the battlebabe doesn't only avoid the strings, she avoids any potential benefits as well.
Plus... for some reason the other person also has no strings, which doesn't really jive with your explanation.  Take, say... the driver.  He's normally got a chance to get attached to someone he fucks right?  But if he fucks a battlebabe, he's like "Eh, whatever, it's just a battlebabe, who gives a shit"?

So all of the characters you've played since  you were a teenager are sexless, fictionally?

But yeah, if your character is only doing things because of a game system advantage, AW is probably not for you.

Oh come on now. This "maybe Apocalypse World isn't for me" "maybe Apocalypse World isn't for you" stuff is some escalatory bullshit. Apocalypse World is obviously for all of you.

-Vincent

I'm a bit surprised.  If real life is any guide, people who don't have any hangups about sex don't tend to be nuns.

I suppose if you look to moves as things you do in order to gain advantages/etc you might not see this as particularily appealing.  At the same time, it does mean you can use sex as a tool without having to worry about additional consequences.

....hrm, that statement is totally misleading and yet accurate.  fun.

My point is that 90 percent of this game (and most others) happens at the table. It's influenced and massaged by the rules, but saying that "if my character doesn't get anything directly mechanical out of an action, then there is no reason to do it" is weird to me.

And I disagree, Vincent. I think we may forget, but I run a local board in Louisville and a lot of the gamers on there are gaming at a purely tactical, "my character is less important than how my mini is painted" viewpoint. And there's nothing wrong with that.

But AW is not for them; I don't mean that in a derogatory way. Maybe it's better said that they're not for AW. For something. Either way, it's not their thing, like In a Wicked Age isn't mine.

No, seriously!

"I don't get a thing."
"You're thinking about it wrong."
"Well then maybe Apocalypse World isn't for me after all."
"Well then maybe it ISN'T for you after all."

That's not an acceptable way for a conversation to go here. Please refrain!

-Vincent

I might argue that looking at the mechanics isn't the same thing as looking for a tactical advantage. I look at AW's mechanics and think about they help me get what I want as a player.

The mechanics of the sex moves are an awesome fictional cue.  I can see a battlebabe who's all insecure, like "WTF how come the hardholder didn't give me a gift?"

Or I can imagine it like the battlebabe says, "look you goddamn batshit-emo driver, don't even think about getting all sappy afterward. We're just fucking."

Fiction fuel! Good stuff.

Vincent: You may just have to explain the joke. (To push the metaphor, much humor is referentially reliant - there's no way to 'get' the joke w/o the framing reference. In which it's ok to explain why it's funny.)
That aside, I'm personally pretty interested in the design thought behind the Battlebabe sex move. I have my own ideas for why it is what it is, but I'd be curious to see how closely those match your reasons.

No promises! But I've started a thread just for the battlebabe, here.

-Vincent

So all of the characters you've played since  you were a teenager are sexless, fictionally?

But yeah, if your character is only doing things because of a game system advantage, AW is probably not for you.

I think you're misreading me and/or being a little unfair.  For one thing, not playing characters as driving for sex in a game isn't anywhere near the same as them being sexless.  Sexless implies that they lack any sexual functions, that they aren't really male or female, that sex (as an act) doesn't matter at all to them.  This doesn't need to be true in order for my statement that no one "I've gamed with has had their PC pursue sex just 'cuz since my younger teenage D&D days" to be true.  Note the emphasized "just 'cuz" in there.

Plus, I'm almost ALWAYS the GM with my friends, so a lot of what I'm saying is actually generalized assumptions about the way my friends seem to play, assumptions that may be wrong.  I'd be fine with there being more sex in the games I run/play; I suspect that most of the people who play with me aren't interested in it.

Your second statement there is also unfair, I think.  I don't know about you, but when there are special rules for things, I look for reasons to engage those rules.  Apocalypse World has special rules for sex, so I'm looking to those rules and thinking about how they're going to effect the game.  It seems pretty clear, for example, that if I'm playing a gunlugger, I want my PC to be having sex as much as possible.  Or at least right before she expects to be getting into shit.  There's all these various, awesome reasons, mechanical reasons, for different characters to want to have sex, or to want to have sex with specific others.  The battlebabe is clearly, obviously, different in that regard.  I'm just trying to figure out how that changes things.

I might argue that looking at the mechanics isn't the same thing as looking for a tactical advantage. I look at AW's mechanics and think about they help me get what I want as a player.

Yes, thank you!  I'm not looking at the game like it's a board game, I hope no one thinks that.  It just isn't true.  But when I look at mechanics like the moves in this game (including the sex-based special moves) I think to myself, "Why do I want this?  Why do I want to use this?"  And the battlebabe's special made me go "Huh.  I don't get it."  And I don't get it from a setting/color perspective OR a mechanical perspective.  I'm not really sure what the point of it is supposed to be.  And when I'm confused about stuff, I ask about it.  That's what I do.

It seems to be in my nature to over-analyze things.  Especially rules.

Hey, fnord,

Being able to just do something without consequences in Apocalypse World is huge. Regardless of what "it" is.

After playing a few sessions as a Battlebabe, the notion that you can just have sex and have it not fuck you over... that'll be this amazing reprieve from everything else in the world.



Also, a different point: having no consequences from sex doesn't mean that it stops being advantageous for you. Quite the opposite.

Battlebabes are free to seduce & manipulate. They can put themselves on the line, sexually, because they aren't endangering themselves by doing so.

Roarke's got that jeep in his garage, and you need it, but he's a lusty ugly beast? Give him what he wants, after all, sex is free. Take the jeep. You just made somethin' out of nothing.

Every other sex move gets you entrenched. Either you've got some strings on Roarke and so you're motivated to stay where you can yank them, or you are under Roarke's finger, and it'll hurt to get out.

And then once you've borrowed Roarke's Jeep, totally have sex with other characters in its backseat!  Now all you need is to convince the Savvyhead to make a drive-in.