2nd Edition Kickstarter

(Thanks, Vincent!)

When an Angel uses someone who's died in their care for augury, is that person's dead body their "antenna", or something else?

Ooh, great question. I think that must be it. That's just begging for fuckery!

-Vincent

My recommendation is to make a note about it in the rules/book. Sounds like a Thing People Would Argue About.

As for fuckery with the antenna?

Wouldn't it be a lot more interesting if it was a *living* person?

I mean, a corpse can get reanimated or some such other weird apocalyptica thing, but, aside from that, we don't care TOO much, likely, if they're already dead.

Now this way:

"When someone is dying in your care, on the threshold of life and death, you can use them for augury..."

That sounds juicier to me, with all the same opportunities for fuckery...

It's got nice fictional colour to it, too - maybe something about being half-in-this-world-and-half-in-that-world gives you a special conduit into the maelstrom?

I imagine one PC on the Angel's table, bleeding out, and the Angel decides to use them for augury, because the maelstrom's sending some storm this way and it's about to hit any minute - it's a desperate situation, and it might be their only chance to survive what's coming.

Ha! How about, "when someone is in your care, you can use them for augury." THERE'S fuckery.

I'll think about it!

-Vincent

New emphasis on vehicles makes me wonder -- is ap harm still all or nothing? My car might be a 3-armor tank, but being T-boned by even a motorbike wrecks it. Is that intended?

AP always did double duty as "this punches through stop sign armor and kevlar alike" (ap bullets, whole-body-pulverizing falls and impacts) and "this has nothing to do with armor" (poison, brainer stuff, etc) or just "I want you to take 1-harm, yes, even you, person who stacked the +armor moves." It might be worth breaking them out (-1 armor ap vs. armor negating).

(I like that, too, Vincent! I suppose it depends how often you want them to have access to augury. Simple is good, but there is something cool about waiting for opportunities when someone's on the verge of death, especially player characters.)

Vincent,

A lot of the new moves (and some of the old ones!) now have a "on a miss, choose 1" clause.

What is the thinking behind this? And how does it interact with MC moves on a miss?

Is the idea always, "You do this thing, but also the MC now makes a move"? The moves without a miss clause say, "...and expect the worst", but the moves which have the "choose 1 on a miss" clause do not, so I wonder how you're looking at this.

Is it intended to be more forgiving (as some of the moves seem to be)? A few of the newer moves read as though they are almost *always* beneficial for the player to make, even on a miss. (For instance, I can achieve my goals with most hold and assault moves, even on a miss, it seems - I can choose to "hold it decisively", for instance, when defending something. Is the idea here that the exchange of harm is enough "stick" for the miss to hurt, or is there an implication that other bad things happen, as well?)

Here is another example: there's a battle going on, and I want to make sure that Dremmer, who is holed up in the reinforced shed, can't get out to join the fight. I lay down fire, and what I really hope is that I keep him trapped in there. I roll a miss, and I choose 1: "You... [deny] another character to move or act freely".

Doesn't that miss feel like a success?

How is this supposed to play out?

I wondered similar things as Paul; also whether "In Battle" if intended to be advanced like "seize by force" was (many of the moves are variations on it, but not all).

Paul: Only the basic moves leave misses unspecified. This was true in the 1st Ed and remains true in the 2nd. "The MC makes a hard move on a miss" only applies to the basic moves, and always has.

New to the basic moves in 2nd Edition: when you read a person or read a situation, you still get to ask 1 question on a miss, before I make my hard move. This is because I always played it this way anyway.

In the battle moves, yes, when you're defending something you hold, on a miss you can choose to hold it decisively. When you lay down fire, on a miss you can choose to pin Dremmer in his shed. Yes, this is better for you than "on a miss, choose 0," and if keeping Dremmer in his shed was the entirety of your objective, then yeah, you've done it even on a miss. I think you've understood correctly how it's supposed to play out.

The general pattern is: moves that are more dramatic on a hit, more heroic, are more risky. There are several moves that are freebies, including laying down fire (but not the seize & hold moves, because of the exchange of harm, just as you've realized). This is because laying down fire puts you as a player into a supporting position, not a heroic one, and I want to reward that, not punish it, even on a miss.

Oh and Hobbesque, no, the battle moves won't advance.

-Vincent

Interesting, thanks!

I wasn't sure if I was reading something into the text that wasn't there, or not.

Is there a particular reason you feel that the peripheral moves should have more specific miss clauses? I'm thinking for example that "when you shoulder another vehicle" explains that on a miss you take damage from the attempt. My instinct as an MC would be to make a move of my own (either inflict harm, as in that example, but maybe also different things, like missing the vehicle altogether as they swerve and sliding off the road, or a passenger falling out onto the road, or one of the enemies jumping onto your vehicle).

Is there a danger that specifying misses for all these moves can kill the snowball a little bit? (Instead of the MC introducing new dangers, we sometimes have simpler consequences, like a vehicle taking damage.) I'm curious what the rationale is behind this design choice.

By the way, in case it matters:

My favourite updates so far are the combined "who are the characters" and "why you should play..." blurbs at the beginning of the document. These were placed *after* the playbooks in the First Ed, which was awkward, and I had to make my own "combined" blurbs. So that's a huge help! Also, I really dig the subterfuge moves. There's lots of juicy stuff there! My favourite moves in the update, I think.

Cool!

On killing the snowball: no danger whatsoever. If anything the opposite.

Like I say, most of the moves in Apocalypse World have had their misses specified from day 1. I've never heard a complaint about it. After all, when it occurs to you to have a passenger fall out of a vehicle or an enemy jump onto it, the specified miss doesn't stop you.

No, the complaint I do occasionally hear is from MCs stuck for hard moves on unspecified misses. By all accounts, that's what can mess up the snowball.

-Vincent

If you're in a PC-versus-PC single combat situation, do both roll, or only the one with "narrative initiative"? 

What would you do if two PCs wanted to enter a "formal duel" situation?

Thanks, Vincent.

However, I'm still confused about something: so, when you make a peripheral move like Lay Down Fire or whatever, the MC doesn't make a move on a miss, except as specified? I'm cool with that, but that seems like it *would* potentially stop you from making certain things happen. (As in the "shouldering another vehicle" example.) Maybe I'm not getting it! It seems to me that moves which have a clause "on a miss, nothing particularly bad happens" (e.g. "In a Free-for-all") don't "snowball" as hard as other moves.

I'm also curious how Battle Moves work with PC vs. PC. Single combat seems clear (once we know whether one or both roll), but the other Battle Moves have some overlap. For instance, if I'm trying to seize your position, and you're trying to hold it, who rolls and when?

You can have an NPC fall off a car or jump from one car to another without waiting for a miss to do it. You might say, "meanwhile, one of Dremmer's guys is crouching on top of Dremmer's bus, about to jump onto your car. What do you do?" You might say, "at that moment, you hear a thud, one of Dremmer's guys has jumped onto your roof. What do you do?" Hit, miss, whatever, there's nothing stopping you.

PC vs PC: both roll and there's a single exchange of harm. If we choose contradictory options - I force my way into your position, you decisively keep me out - that's the same as when I inflict terrible harm and you suffer little harm: they cancel each other out.

-Vincent