Increasing difficulty? PC's never fail?

Hello;

I'm running a campaign of AW for one of my gaming groups. We're maybe four or five sessions in. Most of the players have figured out how to use their moves in concert to get a lot of XP and therefore a lot of advancements and therefore a lot of +3 stats. The result, is they rarely ever fail at any roll. I can set stakes as hard as I want, since they never fail it never matters.

Is there a way to increase the difficulty level of conflicts? Or, how is this handled in other AW games that run longer then a one-shot?

Any assistance would be most appreciated.

So, there's the mechanical way, right, which is like...
"Balls is fuck-off weird and you can't get a grip on him; when you read him, it's at -1."

There's the way where you get people to use stats that aren't high for them (say a high hard character wants to shoot someone, but has low or mediocre sharp or weird...), like "Oh, sure, Sharkface was around here but shit you don't know where he is now. Probably hiding!" - then, maybe they gotta read the sitch, or open their brain, or try to manipulate people into spilling. So they've gotta do something they aren't good at. Also, there's stuff like "Balls is fuck-off weird and you can't get a grip on him; when you try to read him, roll+weird instead of +sharp." (I think that one's basically right outta the book).

Another thing is, if they couldn't possibly do something, there's no roll at all since the move isn't triggered. So, like, the psychic mutant dragon thing has skin so hard bullets and knives just bounce off, so how the hell are they gonna seize by force or go aggro? It's not scared of their puny weapons - so maybe they need to get a workspace, put themselves in danger, and craft a new type of weapon.

Keep in mind your job isn't really to worry about the players failing and even at a +3 they will fail at least some times. They will also get 7-9 just as often as anyone else. If you push to hard to make things difficult or get failed rolls, it just isn't very fun. Also, I think with the lists of starting stats and advancements available, I think it's tough to have more than one or two stats at +3, max? Don't have the book handy!

- Alex

So, there's the mechanical way, right, which is like...
"Balls is fuck-off weird and you can't get a grip on him; when you read him, it's at -1."

OK, this I can use to make some situations or villains a little tougher.

There's the way where you get people to use stats that aren't high for them (say a high hard character wants to shoot someone, but has low or mediocre sharp or weird...)

This one would require that I have a list of everyone's strongest and weakest traits in front of me, so I can position the conflict towards one and not the other.

Another thing is, if they couldn't possibly do something, there's no roll at all since the move isn't triggered. So, like, the psychic mutant dragon thing has skin so hard bullets and knives just bounce off, so how the hell are they gonna seize by force or go aggro? It's not scared of their puny weapons - so maybe they need to get a workspace, put themselves in danger, and craft a new type of weapon.

This one I like a lot ... but I'm going to have to think of a good way to bring this type of situation into the game.

Keep in mind your job isn't really to worry about the players failing and even at a +3 they will fail at least some times. They will also get 7-9 just as often as anyone else. If you push to hard to make things difficult or get failed rolls, it just isn't very fun.

We've had whole sessions in which only a single player failed a single roll. This leads to the session not feeling like it was challenging and leads to the PC's running roughshod over everything because they fear nothing - which isn't very apocalyptical. They wanted it to be gritty and dangerous and deadly - but if it's nearly impossible for any of them to fail and for nearly all conflicts to be based on PC rolls and not the GM rolling dice for NPC's ... then I'm not sure how the feel and challenge level are supposed to be maintained.

I'm having trouble articulating this, but I'm going to try.  I think that coming up with ways to make it mechanically harder is probably hiding an ailment with a band-aid.  And I'm trying to see through to what's wrong.  I have MCd for players with retirement level characters and didn't have this problem.

Do they act like a party?  Divide them.  And I mostly mean socially; with PC-NPC-PC triangles.

How many +3 stats do they each have?  Are they all good at finding eats, hiding from snipers and protecting their minds from the witches that live in the murk-marsh?

What kinds of goals are they pursuing?

Do they care about people or things?  When you threaten them through stuff they care about, it's not too hard to make things feel gritty and risky.

How long are your sessions and how many advances happen per?  Was the world apocalyptic at first but now they're pretty much cleaning things up?  Is it possible that the campaign should draw to a close and make room for the next one?

Also: highlight their worst stat

As a character in that game with +3 Hard able to perform as any stat for any basic test other than Sharp (which the character has at +3) and Hot, well... yeah.

Not only that, but having a Savvyhead's Oftener Right to call on, with the Quarantine's Need to Know, most every test is made at +5.

As a Touchstone, I can just straight-up nominate a character to disarm/disable/kill. So, that gang? It's a weapon belonging to another character. I can disarm it. If need be I can kill the enemy gang leader.

I mean, sure, they have to be in range. That's not really a big deal, especially if I get to burn two holds on that Indomitable test and 1, cover range with a machete in hand and then 2, disarm/disable/kill.

There's little need to read a sitch or person, or manipulate or seduce them if you're going to just steamroll through whatever's in front of you; maybe ask a few NPCs for their advice on the way to maybe pick up another +1 if you think you need it (a roll using +3 Hard, +1 Need to Know means only a roll of 2 fails) and combat becomes trivial. Reading is interesting in that it gives you insight into other entity's motivations, but being able to trivialize them is a little deflating for a MC.

I know that stacking enemies - namely, overwhelming Indomitable with multiple, dangerous foes (perhaps even necessitating a "What's the nearest escape route" Sharp test at +3) is an answer, but when a character is otherwise acting pretty low-key until the shit hits the fan that comes off as a "rocks fall, everybody dies" kind of response.

I feel for the MC. I do. There are a few contrived situations where perhaps "rocks fall" is a congruous approach. But the larger trouble is that challenges don't scale, and that trouble remains.

An approach much like gang-gang warfare would be a good hack, where Level or some other generic measure of awesomeness beyond stats can be used. A Level X character facing a Level Y challenge is a net mod of +(X-Y) to the final roll. It's a simple mechanic, easily understood, and only lacking a measure of X and Y... but given AW's "fuck it" approach to mechanics, I imagine no one would be particularly distraught to apply Level (or Magnificence, or Animus, or whatever one would want to title it) as an advance, have it require all stats at -2 or greater, cost a typical XP advance, AND lower all stats by -1 when taken (as it effectively adds +1 to all stat tests), and go off on your merry way.

I mean, some benchmark Level (or Difficulty, or Challenge, or what-have-you) should be defined for every basic test such that an MC would have a decent guideline to judge test parameters (namely its Difficulty) according to examples (ie., reading a lover's person is Difficulty -2, reading a stranger's person is Difficulty 0, reading a shadowy figure in interacted with within the maelstrom who may or may not actually exist as a complete persona is Difficulty 3).

Right now, "fuck the PCs up their weak stat" is not only inadequate and contrived, it's not addressing the underlying issue of difficulty not scaling. There can be a better solution, and I'd encourage other MCs with difficulty issues to examine the idea of Level/Difficulty.

One adjustment would be needed for the above Level/Difficulty mechanic: no adjusted test can be made at greater than +4.

This prevents Difficulty from overly influencing tests, since you still want a failure on a roll of 2 regardless of the situation.

Another adjustment for consideration is rather than Level being a character trait, it's a trait solely tied to just one Move (maybe Basic-only, just to limit the design effort required to develop the various Difficulty benchmarks). This slows down the rate of mechanical character improvement relative to Advancements taken, as well as keeps characters a little more focused in what they're so wonderful at.

It sounds like the characters are going to get their way more often and there'll be fewer hard moves, scarcity will be less of a problem and things will get better, and the story will wrap up...unless everyone dies of course. But it does sound like an endgame pacing thing.

Grim, considering the game is now six sessions in, and difficulty as a generic concern was eliminated at least one, probably two sessions ago. I was under the impression that the game's lifespan would be longer.

Well, theyre still rolling 7-9 right? So, they still get hard choices and worse results, etc.

Im not quite groking how you got here. Our last game went about 10 sessions, but we never eliminated difficulty as a concern.

Christopher Weeks' answer is the right one!

-Vincent

Well, it sounds like they've made an effort to fill up those sessions with action-packed moves to get all the advances.

The game can run longer, but it depends on how many experience-gathering moves you make each session. I've played sessions where everyone got an advance or two, and others where nobody rolled much at all.

One thing I found useful is to think about things that are interesting to deal with but that succeeding on moves won't make any easier. For example, there was a Skinner in one of my games who was awesome at everything. This brought her to the attention of two nearby warlords. They both wanted her on their side, whereas she wanted to stay independent. That led to a lot of cool plotlines, even when she could disarm any single person-to-person conflict with ease.

(Note that this is just my way of saying what Christopher was getting at, too)

So since they never fail rolls they must have solved all the world's problems by now, right? Everyone has all the food they need, nobody argues with each other anymore, the NPCs they like are never in any danger, disease and injustice are banished altogether -- I bet they have lots of free time to take up knitting and sing campfire songs! Maybe you should write a custom move for that.

Or, since they're so great at killing people -- maybe everybody's dead? Like all those gangs of raiders who used to protect nearby villages from feral dogs, or the evil hardholder whose people are now basically refugees? Maybe they killed some farmers, or the one guy who knows how to fix a radio, or that girl who had a soft spot for kids and used to share her food with a local family? But probably they just killed all the bad guys so everyone is safe now, and they just sort of do laps of all the places they care about making sure to shoot anybody new who shows up to fill the power vaccuum they made by killing the last guy -- I know that's what I'd do, if I could kill people at +5!

I realize that sarcasm may not be the best teaching tool, but at some point the game stops being about whether you can survive and starts being about what you are surviving for -- at some point the characters get strong enough that you are playing to find out what they are going to do with that strength, not whether or not they are strong in the first place. They stop cleaning up the shitty post-apocalyptic wasteland and they start having to decide what it is they're going to put in its place -- and how.

A +3 stat does not make that decision easy -- it just makes the consequences of the decision further-reaching, more emphatic. It is your job as MC to be the consequences, not the challenge.

It just so happens to be the case that the consequences of success are even more challenging than the consequences of failure.

Yeah, cool+3 and hard+3 is pretty awesome to have when you're trying to kill a warlord or a grotesque, and not to be fucked with is awesome for beating a bunch of brutes.

But how is your near-superhuman ability to use violence going to help you combat a Custom (impulse: to promote and justify violence)? I guess you will need sharp+3 so you can read people and hot+3 so you can convince them to change their ways.

Oh, you got that too? So, how are words and weapons going to help you deal with a Maze (impulse: to trap, to frustrate passage) or a Disease (impulse: to saturate a population)?

If every challenge eventually boils down to roll+stat to determine the outcome, then yeah, really experienced PCs will pwn the shit out of everything and never face any hard choices. But you can also write a collection of fronts that all work to irrevocably change the world the PCs live in and then you find out which threats they choose to thwart, which ones they actually have the ability to thwart, and which ones come to pass just because the PCs drop the ball because they're too busy.

Here's an amusing custom move you could try:

When you are, like, a super-badass and you try to cure a disease, fuck it, just roll+3. On a 10+, the MC will say you need 1 or more of the following:
* A full disease-oriented laboratory and testing facility.
* Some, y'know, actual expertise. Like a doctorate, maybe?
* You need to destroy the psychic maelstrom.
* You need to quarantine the infected and burn the bodies.
On a 7-9, it's hopeless, you just don't have the skills, but at least you realize this before you catch the disease and die. On a miss… uh, I guess you don't?

One of the fronts I used was a disease. But, this being post-apocalyptical, there wasn't actually that much sympathy for NPC's. So, rounding up the sick and using them on the front-line of a military action on the nearby hardhold and then quarantining the survivors was how they resolved that. They were willing to work on improving their (the sick) living conditions and trying to get them some medicine, but they weren't going to shed any tears when they had to start stacking and burning the bodies.

Also, without the "we give a shit about the lives of NPC's" then having a PC-NPC-PC triangle becomes problematic. "Hey Cutter, the woman you took on as an assistant medic has been secretly seeing the Touchstone and reporting your secret medical experiments to her." - "Oh, really? I blow her fucking head off and turn to the rest of my assistant's with a warning, 'Keeping your gob shut you gits!'"

Further, in a setting in which there is no law and order or a well organized and effective martial force, then being able to punch people in the face and take their stuff is a pretty effective way to deal with need. Let's be honest, the primary reason why anyone, anywhere, negotiates or manipulates or seduces, is because "taking by force" is too expensive and risky. When you're at HARD+3 with an extra +1 from someone else's move then you're only going to miss getting a '7' on a roll of 2. Some armor, a medium sized gang to back you up, and a couple of badass PC's to help you out - and suddenly you become a lot less likely to negotiate with the farmers in the next valley or the savvy heads sitting on a stockpile of antibiotics.

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In the end, I'm just not good enough at GM'ing to deal with this. Maybe I'm too brain damaged by years of traditional game systems and I'd probably need to sit in and play in an amazing long-term campaign of AW to learn how. In any case, this campaign is over. We pulled the plug last night. Maybe we'll pick it up again in a few months or a year, and someone else can give it a go.