Changes to XP and Helping/Interfering?

I'm hoping to MC another game of AW pretty soon, for the first time in a few years.  I'm pretty excited!  But I'm thinking about making changes to a couple basic rules and was hoping to get some feedback from more experienced MCs.

1) The roll-based experience gain rules.  I don't really have a problem with the stat highlighting system, but sometimes it gets a bit weird if someone takes a lot of stat substitution moves, and more to the point, I really like the idea, at least on paper, of Dungeon World's approach of "mark experience whenever you fail a roll."  I like the idea of this because it mitigates some of the pain of failing a roll, and might encourage players to diversify their tactics.  If they make moves with strong stats they have a good chance of getting what they want in the fiction, if they make moves with weak stats they have a good chance of marking xp.  So I'm considering trying this in Apocalypse World.  Are there any big problems with this that I'm missing?  I know there's a move the Solace has access to that wouldn't work, or would need to be changed, but I don't think there's any other moves that reference stat highlights are there?  Does anyone think it would have a big impact on the rate of xp gain?

2) I kind of want to change how the help and interfere move works.  In the game I MC'd in the past, it almost never got used.  This might be more to do with my friends, but even just thinking about the move in the theoretical way, I can see how it's unappealing.  Making any move carries a fairly significant risk as a fail likely results in the MC making a move against you, and even the 7-9 result on help/interfere is probably just as bad.  Add to this the fact that the results of a hit are pretty minor, and it's not very appealing.  If the rules required players to make the help/interfere roll before the other roll, I don't think it would ever get used... but if they can make it after they know what the other player got, well... helping only matters if they got exactly 6 or 9.  It seems like most people aren't likely to take the risk of a failed roll to bump a partial to a full hit, so that means they're ONLY going to try to help on a 6.

Anyway, I'd like to make the help/interfere move more appealing to use, either by cutting down the risks or improving it's effect, but I don't want to make it over powered.  Does anyone have any suggestions?  Would simply increasing the effect by 1 point (i.e. +2 for helping, -3 for interfering) work without going too far, do you think? Or maybe an extra point if they get a full hit, normal effect on a partial, but no risk from a partial?

eta: I was thinking about it more and have some further ideas for tweaking help/interfere.  How about this: 10+ gives +1 to help, -2 to interfere.  You may choose to increase the effect by 1 point by exposing yourself to fire, danger, retribution, or cost. 7-9 you maybe give +1 to help or -2 to interfere but you expose yourself to fire, danger, retribution, or cost.  Or you may chicken out and choose not to help/interfere to stay safe.
This would allow players trying to play it safe to go for it and give the normal bump if they hit a 10+ and avoid risk unless they completely miss, and players willing to take on risk to help/interfere could go for it and have a greater effect if they get a full hit.

1) I see what you mean with highlight-based experience being weird sometimes. A related complaint that I have, though it's not the same as the stat substitution issue you brought up, is this: depending on how you play, different moves are way more easy to use several times than others. For example, it feels like you can spend an entire scene in tense negotiations with someone and end up having rolled a total of one read a person and one manipulate – while some action scenes might have you roll hard or cool moves over and over. It's not really one-to-one with dramatic importance and number of rolls, is what I'm saying, and it shouldn't necessarily have to be. But it can make the experience gain uneven.

First, I don't think just adopting Dungeon World wholesale messes up anything other than the odd Touchstone move. Consider increasing the improvement limit to 7 or 8 instead of 5 though – in DW it's [7 + level].

Second, I have some other ideas for alternate xp systems for your consideration. I don't think either is better than any other, but you should use one that you and your group think seems reasonable, fair and easy-to-use. Some of them can be found here: http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=6053.msg25369#msg25369
The ideas, in short:
- Ask questions after session in the vein of "did we encounter a new npc?" and for every yes, everyone marks xp
- Ask the group "did I show how [highlighted stat] I can be this session?" and for yes, mark xp
- Use highlighting as usual but use the Singleton Rule from Monsterhearts: you can only gain one xp from a single source (i.e. highlighted stat) in each scene

2) An easy solution, to make people do it more, is to simply say that a successful aid roll bumps up the aided person's roll one level. If your players are very tightly-knit, and cooperate to dominate the rest of the world, this might make them more unstoppable than otherwise... But players working completely in tandem are pretty unstoppable ordinarily too.

With this change there's no need to allow aiding rolls after seeing the result, unless you want to.

1) I've been debating the same. I think bumping the XP cap to advance like Jonatan mentions isn't a terrible idea. If it feels off in play, its easy enough to reduce the amount needed back down.

2) Apocalypse World Dark Ages uses the idea that a successful aid roll bumps the result up one category. I'd probably try to more active making sure 7-9 rolls on aid have some fallout even for a full success by the one being helped.

1.) YOU HAVE TO BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN CHOOSING THE EXP INCENTIVES.

I have seen Dungeon worlds and Apocalypse worlds in play, and run both of them. Whatever you choose for exp will dramatically effect the way the players strive to behave. For example, if you take on the DW world exp on a miss, then your characters that do awesome things and succeed, will not get the cool stuff. Therefore, the players will try to do what their character sucks at more often in an attempt to wrangle up some additional exp. THIS IS NOT A HEALTHY DYNAMIC.

It works for some playergroups, but I've yet to see it work as smoothly as Highlighting behavior. You see there is something fundamentally different in the setups. DW awards failure. AW awards players acting in ways that appeal to the other players and you. Generally speaking, the highlighting is ALWAYS a better route to take. DW does help mitigate this slightly with the end of session end, did you fulfill your drive/alignment? Did you do find or see something crazy awesome? Did you dig up some sweet treasure? Did you advance your story between at least one other character in a significant way?

Honestly, the only truly useful aspect of DW in comparison to AW is the end of session. The exp on a miss is only a good go-between when you're playing a 1-player game, and even then it feels stifling in my experience. As a player you want to level up, it shouldn't be held against the cool stuff you want to succeed in doing. This stands directly against AW principals of being a fan of a player characters. Missing should be FUN (make it fun), Hitting should be rewarded (being awesome).  In AW, it doesn't matter if you hit or miss, just that you DID something (highlighted). Which is a much healthier choice. AW also inspires team-building, it means you care who has the highest Hx with you. It means the MC can effect the character's narrative with incentives. You have to be careful anytime you take that away.

If you want to stray from the EXP workings within AW, then trash BOTH. Give your players a list of things they can do each session to gain exp. Make sure those things inspire individuality, and are healthy/realistic things for a character/story/worldsetting. Incentives help players choose goals. Generally though, I feel that highlighting is a group activity that is good for the dynamic of the game-play. You shouldn't worry too much about EXP getting out of whack between characters, so long as they have agency in creating that rate. Even if it does, it's not that big of a deal.

The move substitutions actually hurt a player in DW, so you should consider that in your decision, and consider it carefully. In AW, they are in fact a huge perk, which is the point. Now, if you're still worried about move substitutions because of everyone always succeeding a move, remember: it's your job to make the character's life interesting, not easy. They will miss eventually, even with a +3 to everything, also partial hits should feel like partial hits. For example: Make them want every choice out of a seize by force, every-time, so they're always compromising something. On open your brain... well, sometimes what they SEE they might've wished they hadn't, or maybe the partial is vague enough that it could mean one of multiple things immediately... and only one is true. Vagueness can be maddening. "As you open your brain in the ruins, you suddenly FEEL aggression and hatred hitting you like daggers. Someone here wishes you harm, but who? Someone standing next to you? Or something further away?" TENSION, Escalation and Snowballing.

If your combats have too many opportunities for hard/cool rolls, then zoom back the camera. Instead of rolling seize by force to take down /that/ gunman in a room of baddies, have them seize by force to take the entire building. I'm sure the fights with the peons along the way will have harm-exchanges, but they cant all be important. Also, its okay if there are a few more hard or cool rolls then otherwise, they tend to carry bigger risks for failure. You lose friends, gang members (these don't just regenerate), put your holding at risk, damage or lose shit that wish you hadn't, etc.

AW stories are designed to run at a faster pace then DW. AW games will have stories start and resolve constantly, and in general I've found a game of decent length to resolve themselves at about 6-10 sessions. Sometimes they're longer, but, due to the fact they are as quick as they are, letting people level up often is good. If you want to extend the game... then say every time they "rank up" they need 1 more exp to level. 5 then 6 then 7 then 8 then 9, etc. That will make the game SIGNIFICANTLY longer. I've never had character's get more then 1 "level" apart this way.

2.) If your players aren't using aid/interfere, then that's just odd. If three guys rush into a building with their guns blazing trying to seize the place by force. They all don't need to roll a seize by force, let the biggest baddest do that, the other two roll to aid him in the task. Sure only one +1 forward counts, but if one fails the other is there is back them up. Make sure you ask them HOW they intend to aid the target do this before letting ANYONE roll. To do it they must do it, and all that.

If say... you have the gun lugger hit on a 9, the savvyhead aid with a 6, and the angel aid on a 13. Then the +1 forward is the only reason the gun-lugger managed to seize the building as well as he did. All three of them were laying out body counts, so perhaps more got captured or killed that mightve been able to flee from just the gunlugger. Maybe those that fled, fled with a captive savvyhead, and the angel somehow never even got shot. So exchange harm between the gang in the building and the gunlugger+savvyhead, and narrate the next snowball. Now, say the angel was ALSO trying to disarm a bomb inside of someone in the building and must act under fire to do so. Maybe the gunlugger has experience with bombs and is giving advice, let him aid another. Of course, if he rolls too low, then trouble from the bomb or people running around the building crops up and puts him at risk. etc.

Another ex: If a gunlugger is trying to throw another characters friend off a cliff, and they want to stop him. NOT ONLY can they also roll a act under fire to grab the guy as he falls, but maybe also, they'll interfere with the gunluggers roll to seize the guy to begin with. Whenever one character gets in another's way, they are interfering. Whenever one character backs up another character in something risky (a roll), they're aiding them.

What I'm getting at is.... If your players aren't using these moves, then they must not interact in ways that help or oppose each other. Because it should be very hard not to.

Anyway, I'd like to make the help/interfere move more appealing to use, either by cutting down the risks or improving it's effect, but I don't want to make it over powered.  Does anyone have any suggestions?  Would simply increasing the effect by 1 point (i.e. +2 for helping, -3 for interfering) work without going too far, do you think? Or maybe an extra point if they get a full hit, normal effect on a partial, but no risk from a partial?

Yes a -3 and a +2 is too much. You need to make the RISK they're taking to aid or interfere with the other action CLEAR and POTENT. If the risk is someone will be annoyed, that's not really a risk. Create the risk if you have too, but keep in mind, people should only be rolling dice when you're not sure what the result would be. A guy tied to a chair doesn't need to have a seize by force rolled against him to put a bullet between his eyes, after-all. SO when anyone is making a roll, it is assumed there is a RISK, tell them what it is, if people can help and they can tell you how they do it, then tell them what the risks for doing so are. That way a 10+ says, I AVOIDED THE GUARDS, AND HELPED YOU BREAK IN! FUCK YES. And a partial is... Well I helped you break in.... NOW IM RUNNING FROM THE GUARDS, OH SHIT. and a miss is just, THE GUARDS! (maybe the guards saw both of them? Maybe just the one, look to the other's roll to find out.)

I feel like adding a bit more.

When two characters attempt to use say, Act Under Fire, to run through an alleyway taking fire from the buildings. They may be in fact aiding or interfereing with the other person at the same time. Have them both narrate what they're doing, but if they're trying to look out for the other guy... even if it means they might be under fire more then otherwise... let them do it. They BOTH roll+cool to act under fire. They may also both roll aid another to help each other through. What is the risk? Getting shot down. The risk of helping the other guy? Getting separated, losing something, getting nicked, etc.

You can also look at this encounter as the NPCs making a seize by force roll against the two. If they pass, they the NPCs missed, if they (both or either) hit a partial, trigger something from the seize by force against the characters. They're freaked out, acting under fire during the next roll after; They took some harm; They dropped something, etc. Choose one, or two and let the player pick between them. If they (both or either), miss the roll, add another complication from the seize by force options, more harm, the way got cut off, they got nabbed, etc.

In this way you can look at aiding another for this roll kind of like this. They're more likely to get through if they help each other. If they hit a partial, they help the other but suffer one choice from the NPCs seize by force attempt. If they miss, they just suffer the one choice from the NPCs seize by force attempt. So it could be SAFER not to aid your buddy, especially if you have a high cool and a low Hx with them. However, it is less likely that someone will miss and some seriously bad shit happen if they help out. They could roll a 13 themselves, not need the help (and get it anyway, because you NEVER ROLL before they declare if they're doing it) but hit a miss on a aid another and still suffer one choice from the seize by force roll.

This is interesting because it means keeping a player with a high Hx for you means they're incentivized to help you out. And you can choose to reward that behavior by giving them bonus exp at the end of that session. If it resets, I always go with they can ask a question about your character and you'll answer it truthfully. This makes it alright when the Hx drops back down again after... cause well, you have more tangible knowledge that represents the old +3. It also means that if you're at war with another character, you want them to have the lowest Hx with you possible, so they cant interfere with you.

Hx is cumbersome, but it might be interesting to determine other ways you can raise or lower someone's hx with you, other then just one choice at the end of a week. That would add another interesting dynamic. Especially because it could be another way to earn EXP during the game session through incentivizing behavior between players. You can make a game feel very different with a few lines here or there.

Although if you use DW's exp, I can see there being some use if your players are emotionally crushed and disheartened by any failure ever. I still say an easier fix is making missing fun too.

1) Pretty much what Ebok said, and pretty much all of what Ebok said.

I would add that one of our local house rules is that PCs can only get XP once per move per scene. That is to say, if your Hard is highlighted and you are involved in a gunfight where multiple seize by force rolls might be appropriate, you only get XP for one of them. But if you were to also go aggro during that same scene, you could get an XP for that as well. We like this as it encourages players interested in getting XP to diversify their approaches to things.

Similarly, I've seen some groups play it that you can only get XP once from any highlighted stat per scene, and that works too. It's a hair slower than the above method, and really balances out experience growth.

2) On the topic of help or interfere, it's important to put the ranges into perspective. When you say that the 7-9 range is "almost as bad," I suspect that might have more to do with how you're MCing the situation than anything mechanical. I think the thing to consider might be the difference between the "move" and the "hard move."

Under a 7-9 on help or interfere, you "also expose yourself to fire, danger, retribution or
cost." That's pretty vague, and each and every option can be accomplished with a basic MC move. Save the hard moves for a true failure.

So for example, say one of your PC compatriots (Damson) is trying to go aggro on an NPC (Krieg), to the tune of a 9. You know that a little help could bump him to a full success, so while he's making level threats in a low voice over the sights of his magnum, you pointedly rack the slide on your shotgun to punctuate his point. You net an 8. So with that additional +1 your friend succeeds (the NPC backs down and complies), but your own partial means you are exposed, and the MC decides on "retribution." But you didn't fail and the MC isn't likely to make a hard move against you (unless the fiction demands it, which in this case we'll say it doesn't). So instead, the MC decides to hit you with some announcing future badness: "Krieg barks an order to one of his people and they bring out the girl, dumping her unceremoniously at Damson's feet. But he is visibly fuming and staring daggers at you the entire time. You get the impression that he's trying to memorize every detail of your face." This implies that Krieg is going to try to get payback on you at some point, but not now. It is a basic MC move.

And even failures (where a hard move is appropriate) need not be disastrous. Remember, as hard and direct as you like, not as hard and direct as possible. Make the consequences fit the fiction.

A situation like this came up in our game a few sessions ago. Due to a complicated and hilarious series of events, Cipher (the Brainer) unded up behind the controls of the shuttle belonging to Chronos (the Driver). They needed to make a hasty getaway, which necessitated some acting under fire on Cipher's part. But he's not really a pilot and not particularly Cool, so Chronos decided to help him out by shouting directions, a roll which he proceeded to flub miserably. My resulting hard move? put someone in a spot, which I did by having Chronos' "help" come out as "interference" (i.e. instead of taking +1 forward, Cipher took -2 forward. This was narrated as Chronos shouting distracting and unhelpful directions: "Left stick! No, no, pull up, pull up! Throttlethrottlethrottle!!! For fuck's sake LEFT!!!", while Cipher is simultaneously screaming, "Shut up, I can't concentrate with you yelling in my ear!"

Cipher of course only managed a partial on his subsequent roll, which then snowballed into me presenting him with an ugly choice - failing to clear the docking bay (which meant getting shot at some more), or making a hasty, violent maneuver that put Torch (the Faceless, at that point hanging partially out the hatch) under fire of getting thrown from the vehicle. Further hilarity ensued (poor Torch, so oft-maligned).

So in this example, the failure to help (and resulting hard move) didn't result in something totally awful for the helping character, it resulted in an unfortunate (if temporary) complication, because that was what fit the fiction at the time.

Finally, if you want to encourage your players to use help or interfere more often, just highlight their Hx.

I agree that hacking the system will make for a different experience. However...

THIS IS NOT A HEALTHY DYNAMIC. It works for some playergroups, but I've yet to see it work as smoothly as Highlighting behavior.

Huh. I pretty much couldn't disagree more. I've found that highlighting makes for weird behavior. I'd even say it "IS NOT A HEALTHY DYNAMIC".

For example, and this is just one example, there are many. My group decided to highlight my Chopper's Hot stat. His worst stat because I as a player wasn't interested in being Hot. Not at all (and no this isn't about it being his worst stat I get xp regardless of success so who cares in-game about that I'm talking about as a player. M'kay?).

So the whole session my character was acting in a completely different way to his character. Character fidelity: gone! Why? Simple: I was gunning for experience.

That is another point: the group chooses FOR YOU. You don't get a say in it. Here have a link. Player control is gone baby gone.

So my character went around seducing everyone (I would have seduced a lamp if it would've gotten me xp) and manipulating everyone. And even though we spent a couple session with him being Hard, he didn't get into a single fight because Hard wasn't highlighted.

So it was sexy Chopper time. And COMPLETELY out of character because - as you said - the players should be going after the experience. And that's what I did.

I submit to you that player agency is not gone; rather the incentive to play your character exactly the way you want to might be gone. But there is nothing stopping you from starting a fight even though your Hard isn't highlighted, nor from bypassing manipulation and jumping straight to going aggro even though your Hot is highlighted. That is your choice. If getting experience is more important to you than being true to your character, well, I think that says more about your own personal play style than it does about the game's intrinsic mechanics.

One of the most interesting ramifications of highlighting stats is that it explicitly communicates the aspects of your character that the MC and other players want to see. If I highlight your Weird, it's because I want to see more about how you interact with the Psychic Maelstrom, for instance. If I highlight your Hot, I want to see how you interact and connect with people. If I highlight your Hard, I wanna see what your character is like when he's taking shit from no one.

But again, you don't have to play your character any differently. It's just an incentive for you to portray your character as a more fully-developed, three-dimensional person. And hey, if it really bugs you, you can solve half of the problem by taking self-possessed from the Solace playbook.

You are missing the point. Of course it is my choice. But the point of a reward based system is to reward certain behaviors. In this case: using the highlighted stats. "Just incentives" doesn't make any kind of sense. Incentives are how the game wants to be played.

So sure of course one can use the non-highlighted stats. Not really sure why you brought that up. Because then one might as well say they can play a farmer in D&D too - who needs to adventure - I mean there's nothing stopping you! Except that whole experience point thing. Yeah, that could be an issue... :-\

Sure Highlighting rewards what others want to see. Okay. What about what I want to see? What about character fidelity? Do we not care?

I'm playing a character that is an extreme pacifist. My character doesn't fight. The entire concept of this character is based around getting what he wants without resorting to violence. But the group decides they want to highlight Hard because they want to see this pacifist throw down. So now in order for me to get my reward I have to use Hard. So you are saying I can't play Gandhi? Because I gotta say, using Hard would completely nullify the whole point of playing that type of character.

Would [fictional character] Gandhi be more "three dimensional" if another player had chosen to see what "your character is like when he's taking shit from no one" and Highlight Hard? Erm. NO! In fact I can easily argue the opposite. Why are your characters so willing to go against everything they stand for?

EDIT: I should probably say this has also happened to me. I was playing a pacifist Skinner.

If the group said, "I want to see Gandalf be sexy" would that be cool? (I can continue to give examples of characters that wouldn't do certain things and in fact would break that character's fidelity if you want!)

To use an off-system example it would be like other players writing my Burning Wheel character's Beliefs. Huh? Don't I get to choose how I want to have fun? How I want to be rewarded? Hell, how my character acts?

Or we could just say that the group has decided to screw me and say "you don't get xp this session". That's fun. Yay?

Looking at it another way, it is essentially like the players being able to tell me what my character's goals are! Yay?

Stat Highlighting is... how was it put? Ah, yes: "not a healthy dynamic".

EDIT: I didn't want to tear you post apart point-by-point, but I do want to call this out specifically:

If getting experience is more important to you than being true to your character, well, I think that says more about your own personal play style than it does about the game's intrinsic mechanics.

Again I couldn't disagree more. It says everything about the mechanics of the game. Because System Matters. And the system is saying: "Highlighting is how you get rewarded".

It works for some playergroups. ~ Ebok

Perhaps, in your case, the people you were playing with did not want you to be your flavor of awesome, or did not care for maintaining character narrative, or did it simply to spite you. Whatever the case may be, that is certainly not speaking very highly of your groups dynamic. Although, you do have control over who is selecting your Hx, by lowering those that make you do stupid shit and raising those that help you out. That's a fair practice. Maybe, if you cannot trust the people you're playing with with hold true to the fiction of the world, another exp style is necessary. Or maybe your pasicific character was ruining their fun, and they're trying to get you out of that mold. Or maybe the MC wants to see what happens when you break down and just punch that guy. Or maybe...

You should've realized that you can go aggro while being a pacifistic (the threat doesn't have to be bodily harm), or that seizing something by FORCE doesn't always involve hurting/maiming/killing someone. You can be Hard without breaking an oath of non-violence. But really, in an AW world, anyone that swears by nonviolence deserves anything they get. They're weak/soft and are probably going to die, and they're literally asking for it. All of the moves are equally translatable in this way. A gun-lugger may find that he wants to get his friend to do something without killing him or threatening his life to do it. HOT. That's certainly different then someone attempting to stall an execution of some random kid at the hands of a tyrannical hard-holder through sheer persuasion. Sometimes when a stat that people don't use is selected, it is because the player has actually *removed depth* by only ever doing something in one way without ever looking for ways to test his own convictions... or embracing his own failures/weaknesses.

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This is irrelevant to the fact, generally speaking, playing up the highlighted parts of your character, the parts the other people in your group supposedly enjoy, is good for the group. Playing for other people is Healthier then playing just for You. This does not remove the agency of you or your character. It just limits progression while that stat is highlighted (which is why you get two stats highlighted).

Meanwhile DW (exempting end of session)* only rewards misses. So people are bound to do the same behavior you mentioned, thinking they have to roll hard when they're all hot and weird, because it has the best chance to net them exp. What is important to note however, is that Highlighting rewards a group dynamic hit or miss, while exp on miss rewards only failure. This directly infers that your progression through your class is limited primarily by you inability to be awesome when you wanted to be. Your exp is related to LUCK not STYLE. As I mentioned the end of session exp can help, but you'll get far wider level ranges between the party members. When people miss rolls of little consequence they'll celebrate. When people only miss the role that keeps them alive, they'll be fucking pissed. Nothing is as infuriating as never getting your levels because the dice like you. The game isnt long enough for that.

* end of session exp is exempted because a.) everyone gets it at damn near the same rate, so it does nothing to help someone catch up in exp, and b.) because it does not have any impact over the randomness of the exp generated through gameplay.

Finally, and more to the point. Stat substitution moves DESTROY the on miss get exp formula. It actively HURTS the character to be good at many things. Where's the fun in that?


P.S. fnord3125

I strongly stand by Munin's #2 suggestion for you in terms of handling or modifying your approach to aid/interfere. I would also strongly caution against automatically bumping another character's action by one step through these means. Player failures would also never occur due to the ease in which the 7+ is hit with a standard Hx set.


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P.P.S Irminsul

Yes, highlighted stats are incentives, yes, incentives are crazy important. But–

Would [fictional character] Gandhi be more "three dimensional" if another player had chosen to see what "your character is like when he's taking shit from no one" and Highlight Hard?

Gandhi would find life in the Post Apocalyptic world crushing and full of despair. I would be surprised if he didn't lose his marbles. But more to the point, doing things which are HARD can also be taking risks for things you believe in. Ex: Gandhi just saw some woman get yanked off the street and dragged in a house to be raped.  Would it be entirely out of character to run up and try to throw the guy off her (seize by force), taking her and then running (acting under fire)? Of course not! Gandhi's resolve in the face of death and threats was powerful, but more to the point, gandhi would not be very successful in a Post Apoc world if he thought his fasting would stop some drugged up cannibal for taking what he wanted.

Maybe your next example would be better.

If the group said, "I want to see Gandalf be sexy" would that be cool?

So they highlighted Gandalfs HOT? Well, yeah, I think he used HOT more often then any other character in all of those movies. Gandolf often told people to do things, persuading them out of what they wouldve done without him there. Guess what, Hot is Hot. You can be hot without fucking something, or seducing anything that moves. But... and certainly less noteworthy, Gandolf wasn't human. He didn't have to make those hard and dirty choices that define a post-apocalyptic world.

To use an off-system example it would be like other players writing my Burning Wheel character's Beliefs. Huh? Don't I get to choose how I want to have fun? How I want to be rewarded? Hell, how my character acts?

This isn't a burning world game, if you want that, go play that. It is quite irrelevant to the discussion as stated. DW and AW use the same system. Dungeon world gives you less agency in your own exp then AW, so you get to choose less––if you're making choices for the exp.  Also, to answer your question, Yes, you get to choose, always. But, No, you never get to choose how you are rewarded, that's a collective thing. If someone in my group enjoyed riding pink ponies around my AW games and thought that because he enjoyed it he had a right to impose that on everyone else... I would probably murder his ponies and ask him if he actually wants to play with us at all.

Irminsul, you are of course correct - system matters and it is absolutely how the game "wants to be played."

But it may be that the tension between the mechanics of the system and your particular character concept is actually part of the metaplot of what's going on. The incentive that you have to act in a manner not in accord with your pacifist character's ideals pretty much exactly mirrors the temptation your character has no doubt felt on countless occasions - the temptation to lash out, to give in to anger, to take the easy way out. By refusing to do so, the character is taking actions that may not be in his or her best interests, just as you (the player) are taking actions (or in some cases not taking actions) that lead to increased experience (arguably a "best interest").

The meta goes even deeper. It could also be argued that by always approaching situations in the same way, your character is static, not growing or changing or developing. This is exactly reflected in "leaving experience on the table" by not using a highlighted stat.

This leads to a larger question of just what it is you are trying to get out of your roleplaying experience. Is your goal to experiment with what it's like to see the world through a different point of view? Is the character an ideal that you wish to explore? Or is the character instead its own thing, independent of you inasmuch as it can be? In other words, can the character surprise you, or do you always know how the character will jump before the situation unfolds? Both viewpoints are perfectly valid, but they have very different creative agendas, and will result in very different games. And very different characters.

Your point of playing a farmer in D&D is an interesting one, largely because if its inherent reflectivity; if the game is "about" adventure and daring and rising to a position of money, power, or influence - or if it's "about" a noble quest or slaying dragons or whatever, "why on earth would you want to play a simple farmer?" is a valid question. An equally valid question is: if the game is "about" scarcity and paranoia and violence and presiding over the decay of all that is left of the world, "why on earth would you want to play a pacifist?"

This question is in some sense rhetorical, because any answer is tautological. You want to play that character because you want to play it. Maybe it's a challenge, maybe it's a change of pace from other characters you've played in the past. Maybe you just want to annoy your fellow players a little bit to see how they'll react. Maybe you're interested in long-term character development. After all, Luke Skywalker was a farmer (of a sort) too, but that story went somewhere different. Maybe your pacifist character's story is going somewhere different too. By highlighting your Hard, that is the table explicitly saying (asking) "Is this where you're going? We'll help you get there."

And if you refuse, that is again your choice. Playing a pacifist in AW wouldn't be an interesting challenge if it were easy, right? So why complain at the difficulty?

It also comes across in your posts that you harbor some resentment towards your MC and/or fellow players for "making" (or at least encouraging) you to act out-of-character. Have you articulated this to your gaming group? One of the important principles in AW is to be a fan of the characters - and that goes for both the MC and the other players. I suspect that if the other players knew that their highlights were negatively impacting your enjoyment of the game to the degree you imply, they would do otherwise.

Or maybe they wouldn't, in which case there is a disconnect between player expectations about the game. It may very well be that you'd be better off playing a different game, or playing AW with a different gaming group. I don't make this observation to be glib - gods know my own gaming group has wrangled with just these kinds of issues. Two of my best gaming buds have pretty much opted out of AW games, just as I have opted out of high-fantasy D&D games, and for exactly the same reasons - the mechanics don't support the kind of play I find engaging, and the typical plot-lines leave me cold. Are there exceptions? Sure. For a beer-and-pretzels one-shot, I'll play pretty much anything if it gives me an opportunity to hang out with my friends. But for a long term campaign? I'll sit it out and save my limited gaming time for something that really scratches my gaming itches.

Closing the loop on this, I think the point that Ebok was trying to make was that these mechanical decisions (as well as the play styles they engender) were intentional on Vincent's part. Hacking or changing them is totally fine, but doing so will absolutely change the "feel" of the game and the social dynamics at the table. That's fine, but it's a decision that bears careful examination. There's no "wrong" way to do it, just make sure that the mechanic you choose fosters the kind of play-style you want.

I did not notice that Munin posted until I had finished my (never finished act of) spell-checking. To confirm:

Closing the loop on this, I think the point that Ebok was trying to make was that these mechanical decisions (as well as the play styles they engender) were intentional on Vincent's part. Hacking or changing them is totally fine, but doing so will absolutely change the "feel" of the game and the social dynamics at the table. That's fine, but it's a decision that bears careful examination. There's no "wrong" way to do it, just make sure that the mechanic you choose fosters the kind of play-style you want.

This was exactly my intention. To caution, and provide what was asked for by the OP, my own personal experiences on the subject.

Hrm. Internet conversations are almost always pointless and I‘m getting that niggling feeling here. And I’d have to write a several thousand word essay to get my points across since I can’t mind-meld with you. Because you all make valid points, yet manage to utterly miss what I’m saying.

First and most importantly: yes hacking it will change the feel. And to be honest I think that’s a good thing. Play it the way it’s meant to be played first and then form your own opinion and hack if needed.

Also: I was responding to the Ebok’s complete confidence that AW Highlighting system is the perfectest system evar and it couldn’t possibly be more perfecter and that it somehow is obviously superior to any other Powered by the Apocalypse system for experience. And again, I can’t disagree more firmly! I really can’t! Every fiber of my being screams it. And there are plenty of hacks that do a FAR-FAR-FAR superior job than AW does. Urban Shadows is my current example of greatness in an AW-hack.


++ Warning: very rambly and unimportant part because opinions are like bung-holes ++

Seriously. Opinions man. What's the point in this convo?

Here is the TL;DR version: I WANT FICTIONAL REASONS FOR CHALLENGING MY CHARACTER’S PERCEPTIONS, PORTRAYAL, AND CHANGING THEIR VIEWS ON LIFE! I love that shit! Play to find out and a system that encourages that in the fiction - because System Matters. Highlighting has nothing to do with the fiction, so it fails. It has to do with some weird group-social-pressure enforced by mechanics to try and force the player into portraying their character in a particular way - to grab for experience points. And in my experience Highlighting leads to exactly the opposite of fiction-mechanic fueled choices! In short, I find Highlighting to be a dysfunctional system separate from the fiction.

How is stat Highlighting somehow encouraging my character to surprise me? The group is surprising me maybe by forcing their shitty agenda down my throat. And it is certainly destroying any chance for the fiction to surprise my choices. Some Moves change the fiction and surprise me certainly. Not stat Highlighting ever though.

Second, I’m happy to talk about my baggage, but this will take thousands of words and ultimately be pointless. I should probably say I like Powered by the Apocalypse games. They are my equal favorite games to Burning Wheel! My Actual Play examples were simply to highlight how stat-Highlighting sucks. Harhar. And yes, maybe you haven’t experienced this. Or maybe you just weren’t cognizant that it was occurring? I don’t know I wasn’t there.

And now the rambly-ramblonic-rambles. Seriously this is rambly!...

Yes I’ve had some shitty groups. Plural on the groups there. But some good groups too! And I’ve found a lot of people (emphasis on a lot of people!) play at a very superficial level - they do awesome voices and gesticulate and entertain the table and jump around and all that, but portraying an actual person? That deep down emotional level shit - yeah, good luck - they‘d have a better chance of ripping their way out of a wet paper bag. This is surprisingly common I‘ve found! Surprisingly!

To point out my hypocrisy here: yes I did the same shallow shit with my Chopper by humping everything he could hump, dick in hand. But my point remains: and you haven’t, and I’d ague that you can’t disprove, that a system that uses stat Highlighting will produce any other outcome. Simply put: I followed the reward system. Therefore that is what the game - the system - wants me to do! I did what the game said to do. And there is no way you can argue against that. None. LOL!

Highlighting only encourages this bad behavior! So yes, I hate stat Highlighting. I don’t find that it does what you all seem to think it does. At all. After years of playing this game. The fiction - in AW’s case -  does what you are trying to say stat Highlighting does.

Which brings me to: it looks like you both think I’m some newb. I’ve been playing AW since the day it came out, I‘m very familiar with it and most of the hacks too. The whole "are you playing to find out what happens" question is very telling. Of course I am! And Highlighting stats has always been a peeve of mine. Along with Go Aggro (my most hated Move) - I’ve stated this publicly many times.

So yes, I get where you think I’m coming from, and I get where you're coming from. And it’s a nice ideal - but it’s just not true. And while you said BW is irrelevant to the discussion I disagree, comparisons are always used in every debate ever debated. Learn to deal with it! That said: Burning Wheel has a FAR superior system in regards to challenging the character’s perceptions and getting a character to change. I can’t emphasize enough that I think BW is way better at doing what you seem to think Highlighting does. And I love it when my character grows and changes in unexpected ways! LOVE. IT. But…

Highlighting stats doesn’t do that. The fiction would do that! Simply put: Highlighting only encourages certain stat-Moves to be used. That‘s it. That‘s all it does. Honestly! My character humping every NPC’s leg doesn’t say anything about my character other than my Hot stat is Highlighted and I‘m getting rewarded for it with experience points. And that that is what the group wanted to see. And they got it. Again System Matters.

Or if you prefer: it says that my character - that I explicitly stated has no interest in socially manipulating people - suddenly is trying to manipulate people and trying to stick his dick in them. Ripping him out of the established fiction. There is no fictional reason for choosing Highlights. Just some weird social-pressure that the group thought it would be awesome to see my character fuck-toy everyone. Again, I think it is fairly dysfunctional. And I’m just doing it because a Highlight mechanic told me I’m supposed to and I’m getting rewarded for it! So I stuck my character‘s dick in everything.


This next part is so off topic I’m not sure why I’m even responding to it. Seriously? You’re going to argue what a character would do? Isn’t that what we play to find out? And no: stat-Highlighting doesn’t do that - as I’ve stated, and will state, again and again and again. The fiction does that. Highlighting actively works against this ideal.

All I can say about the pacifist is that I completely disagree. My character wasn’t some paladin. He manipulated everyone to his own ends, got people to fight for him or to back down, rallied people to his banner. I mean pretty epic stuff. But he refused to cross that line, so being Hard doesn’t fit into that. And having somebody say that they want to see my character lose his shit and start shooting stuff or whatever? Make me make my character do it within the fiction. Challenge my Beliefs (to use a BW term) and Ideals. I don’t need this stat Highlighting shit to try to encourage that behavior. And it doesn‘t, it can’t.

Force my character’s hand in the fiction! Don’t force my player hand systematically! Make my character make a choice in the fiction. And you know what? I’d have not budged. And that says something about the character! More than Highlighting a stat ever will that‘s for sure! All that said was, "you don't get xp this session" or as I've stated, "destroy the fiction to get rewarded". Yuck!

AW’s system just encourages people to roll their Highlighted stat. That doesn’t say anything about the character at all. It only says that the player has picked up on the reward system. A system that actively encourages shallow character behavior! As I’ve demonstrated. Again and again.

And somewhat ironically you actually contradicted yourself Ebok. Several times. Pink Ponies = Stat Highlighting. It is something forced on the player, like the Pink Ponies.
I'd also disagree about agency in comparing DW to AW. Things like Alignment and Bonds have everything to do with player agency and choice. Highlighting does not.

P.S. I hate D&D and I haven't touched the game in a decade. Because I want to "play to find out what happens" for exactly the same reasons you gave Munin. It was just an example. Do you need another game-example you can nit-pick? :p

Yeah, this conversation is probably done. Put a fork in it. :)

Can you try to stop laughing during your posts. It clouds your points and takes away from whatever you are trying to say. The OOC dynamic is every bit as real to the game world as IC mechanics. Highlighting Hard does not limit character behavior, nor determine the scale of that aggression. Pink Ponies is an IC thing. Experience is actually OOC.

Finally, I never once said highlighting is perfect. I just said it tends to promote healthy Ooc group dynamics when everyone is playing together, I'll add that you are right, it does require everyone to have similar expectations. That is to say, not telling you how to be hard, just saying they'd like to see your guy making some hard choices. You have complete agency in that action. Yes this is an Ooc incentive promoting group interaction, not necessarily an in character achievement system. But then... So is making a die roll, or having a stat, or the act of creating the fiction. A game is a group sitting around pretending narratives, the system is an Ooc way to structure that in a way that is simple and fun. So yeah, I still say highlighting is a good option. You are welcome to not use it.

If you want to present the OP simple alternatives, in detail, and translated for an AW system. Please do so. Everyone might enjoy seeing another EXP Hak. Although, you must explain it as though no one knows the reference. (Just like burning wheel means nothing to me, it didn't look fun and I didn't play it) I will reiterate, if you have better exp haks for AW, share them as already set up to be used in AW.

Irminsul, no need to be exasperated. I found your latest post both interesting and illustrative.

I think a lot of this has to do with differences in expectations about the overall gaming experience. By stating that you want the challenges and changes to your character to have a basis predominantly in the game's fiction, that gives me a better idea of what you're getting at. And in that sense, I completely agree - a mechanic like Burning Wheel's is far superior because it is expressly chosen by you (the player) and only comes into play when the fictional circumstances of the game touch upon it. Win-win!

But I think it's equally valid to have a certain amount of metagame in your game. By this I mean that it can be interesting and in many cases useful to have relatively frank out-of-game group discussions about the direction of the game and the characters within it. Highlighting gets at this in a number of ways.

To use a different (perhaps less charged) example, consider Backgrounds in 7th Sea. In that game, the chief method of character advancement is through Backgrounds. Any time your Background causes a conflict in the session, you get the commensurate experience at the end of that session. So if my Background is "Mistaken Identity" and one of the session's scenes involves someone confronting me for the return of an item my evil twin stole, I'd get XP. The interesting part is that Backgrounds can be bought or sold at any time throughout the game. So if we're in the middle of a swordfight and I think that the guy we're fighting is a perfect foil to my character, I can drop the points and buy a "Nemesis" Background. BOOM. I (as a player) have just turned this guy into a recurring villain, and from this point forward (until I decide to drop the Background) I will get experience every time he fucks with me.

There is almost nothing that is fictionally driven about this. It is entirely an out-of-game decision in virtually all senses. And it has the potential to be very disruptive to the creative agendas of both the GM and the other players. But I can tell you from experience that it is a total blast! At least it was for our group, because everyone was very open and accommodating about it. People would even offer suggestions - "Dude, you should totally take a 'Romance' with the Fate Witch. That would be hilarious."

In some sense a lot of this comes down to trusting the people you game with to not break the (often implicit) social contract under which the game operates. If you have mutual trust, really almost any system will work (though you are absolutely correct that different systems may encourage different processes and outcomes). If you don't have that trust, then you need a system which very carefully circumscribes just what input other players (or even the GM) have to your character's motivations, beliefs, actions, etc.

I think the thing that the casual reader (if there are any left at this point) or dedicated hacker needs to take away from this discussion is that this shit is complicated, and game design decisions can have far-reaching implications to how the game is played and who might find it enjoyable.