2 revelations on Impending Dooms

Well I wanted to share something that everyone knows but I understood just now because it's written in a sort of implicit way in the book and I'm stupid and can't read between the lines.

1) when creating an Impending Doom, you have to target the characters' bonds with tyranny, rampant chaos, etc. That is: during the game, you always ask questions about bonds, and the answers spontaneously generate enemies, places and events, which is translated to: character's goals. So you choose a bond that generated a lot of cool elements and bring them together into a danger and its impending doom. Easy peasy, but to me, it was not so evident. I'm used to more explicit flags, like keys or beliefs.

2) when an Impending Doom takes place, its natural evolution is to become a Front. That is: when a danger turns into a reality, a status quo, it spawns more dangers you should gather into a whole new Front. Obviously there are exceptions, but I'm talking about the mechanics' standard behavior.

I don't know if these assumptions are 100% right, but I suddenly found myself writing excelent fronts like a madman once I realized them a few hours ago.

That's something that I never realized, either, but I think you're right. Good call, man, that's some helpful insight.

2) makes total sense. I never thought of dooms as fledgling fronts and that should help me deal with a Front that grows to big to handle.

1) I don't really get. I've never made a doom to directly target a PCs' bonds. Ask the player all sorts of questions, use their answers to find out what the PC wants and target that, sure. I'm just not seeing why you're emphasising questions about their bonds specifically. But maybe I'm misreading you.

@scrape thanks!

@WGR
no, probably I can't explain myself. However, it's just like that to me bonds are the actual fuel of character motivation. When you look at the sheet, you see that most informations about the character's history and personality comes from the bonds, and so his goals. And you want one bond resolved and explored by the end of the session, so what better way to do it than menace it with an Impending Doom? Now I realize what does it mean that bonds are alike to burning wheel's beliefs.

The game I'm currently running, the wizard known incriminating secrets about the thief, that is the thief betrayed his brother to save himself from jailtime. My impending doom is: his brother (along with other important npcs) is going to be zombiefied while in jail. And the wizard foresaw that his marriage with the ranger will save the elven kingdom, and here you are another Impending Doom. But even small things, like the druid that owes her life to the fighter but at the same time believes he smells more like prey than hunter, evolved in "they were hunting pirates together, and the last battle was very chaotic, with the two of them going like gimli and legolas counting orcs" -> juice for a danger full of pirates and an Impending Doom that will fuel their bond!

Probably this is something more adeguate to my gaming group. If I do fronts not strictly related to their bonds, the players enter in a "videogame-y quest-y mode" where they forget about their bonds and just try to prevent the impending doom. As for myself, as the GM, I need an explicit flag to build coherent fronts that are not just "quests" but involve the characters on a personal level, and I found it in the bonds.

Thanks! Now I get what you mean. Focusing threats on characters bonds will make them more central to the game and help players resolve them quicker and gain XP. It is pretty obvious really but I haven't been doing it during my prep.

So helpful! I'm going to be revisiting this front I've been working on. I think I intuitively (accidentally?) get #2, but #1 ought to be more emphasized!

Glad to be helpful! Now, take my thoughts with a grain of salt; surely this is one way to see impending dooms and bonds, but not the only one (that works).

adam I think I've been chasing this same thought around over in blood and guts: http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=4551.0

Our timing is funny.