barf forth apocalyptica > roleplaying theory, hardcore

Genuinely curious: Why do you like Apocalypse World?

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korbl:
I could go into a spiel about what I find less than optimal about PbtA, but I won't. At the end of the day, the big "problem" I see with and hear about PbtA is that the main mechanic relies on trusting your MC to know how to make Failing Forward work, to generate complications which are relevant and at least consistent with the situation if not necessarily balanced.

Which is to say that if you're climbing over a wall, and roll a 1, "you land on a bear" is technically a valid response from the MC. And without broader lists of potential complications for such rolls, and an explicit directive to the MC to make things shitty for the player characters, that's a hell of a lot of faith to put into the guy running the game, especially in a hobby where the idea of an antagonism between MC and players is still clinging on from it's modern originator. I know one person who I've played with that I would maybe trust to not kill all the players an hour into the first session, whether through malice or incompetence.

So I'm just wondering what people see about PbtA games, and especially AW, that makes them like it so much.

Christopher Weeks:
You land on a bear is only an appropriate when it's appropriate. And when it's appropriate, it's awesome. There is no explicit directive to make things shitty for the PCs. I don't experience antagonism between GM and players. In any game. Across thirty five years of play. So I'm not really sure how to address that.

I like how the explication of moves (MC and player-facing) shapes our ability to explore the fictional world. I like how the game provides the MC with an explicit agenda to help her guide her in-the-moment decisions. I like how it formalizes a bunch of normal (but not ubiquitous) gaming practices and procedures so that it's easier to think about them. I like the balance between the things the core game sets up and encourages and the way it guides you into the creation of new stuff (fiction, possibilities, moves, playbooks even). I like how easy it is to MC the game (though I recall it being intimidating five years ago or whatever). I like how much bits of rules and e.g. the playbooks define about the world, without having a boring world-dump to read.

mease19:
Apocalypse World was the first game that immediately clicked for me, as though it reached through the psychic maelstrom and spoke in the language of my mind. Vincent and Meguey are no shit designers and I love their voice in the rules text, conversational and evocative but frank. I love that the game trusts the players and encapsulates all that they need to know about their character in a playbook, all that they need to know about the world on the move sheet, and it elicits everything else through play. I love that the MC has procedures to govern and support their role at the table. I love the way information is structured in the game - the modularity of the moves, the hierarchy of moves/principles/agendas. I love how powerful language is in the game without taking away from the numeric mechanisms.  I love that the game-as-conversation works so, so well across formats from face-to-face to play-by-forum. I love that the game was meant to hacked and that the designers supported those endeavors in the text (and in person). I love how Apocalypse World pushes and pulls and seduces and manipulates you into the post-apocalyptic genre and how each of its hacks suck you into theirs. I love how mature the game is, how it demands humanity from you even in a world of scarcity. There is so much to love.

help im a bug:
It sounds like you're afraid of the MC killing everyone off! I have to ask: have you played? I think I can at least allay some of your fears in that area.

I am only talking about Apocalypse World here, by the way; other games are other games, and different things may be true.

1) I mean, at the end of the day, it sounds like you know that the issue is one of trust in your MC. And it sounds like you don't think you have MCs around that you can trust. Which kind of sounds more like a playgroup issue than an issue with the game! It may not be the game for your group, and that's cool. But I wonder: in my experience, people are generally pretty surprising. And in RPGs, people usually want the other people around them to have fun (otherwise stop playing with those people, jeez). Generally, when I see people new to AW-style games run them for the first time, they are scared of being a 'killer GM' (the rules make it sound super easy to kill PCs!), and pull their punches way more than they need to.

2) "You land on a bear"--what exactly is wrong here? Presumably the roll this player is making is "act under fire"--which means that, if the player is rolling, then the situation has already been established as dangerous (otherwise no roll necessary!). If it had been established prior to the roll that bears were at the bottom of the wall (maybe the bears are the fire), then, well, sounds like you knew the risks going into it, and "deal harm as established" is a valid MC move to choose. If the bear is being introduced wholecloth by the MC at the moment of failure, then, presumably, the GM move being applied is "put them in a spot". And in this situation, note that it is not kosher for the MC to introduce a bear AND have it deal harm before giving the PC a chance to react. Instead, introducing the bear allows the PC a chance to attempt another move--and AW PCs tend to have plenty of ways to deal with a bear in one roll.

3) It's way harder than you think to kill a PC. The MC is waaaaay less powerful than the PCs in Apocalypse World. By which I mean: in practice, the players control what happens. Really. As an MC, most of the time you're only making hard moves when the players roll poorly, which the players do less than half the time usually. And you have to do multiple hard moves to set up doing harm at all. Gotta establish the harm, then deal it. And even once you do the harm, IF it's enough harm to kill the PC, they can take a debility to not die anyhow.

4) In which I actually get down to answering your question! Here's what I like about Apocalypse World. I come from a trad games background (mostly AD&D into 3.0/5 into 4, with some White Wolf thrown in, typical stuff). Apocalypse World was the game that taught my play group to trust each other--it's hard to describe the feeling but you might get it. For the first time, two things were true about our game experience that had never both been true before. Firstly, everyone sitting at the table was on the same side. We were all playing, not to beat each other, but with the primary goal of discovering what this world was and who our characters were within it. And secondly, nobody at the table had any idea what was going to happen next. I was the MC, and I'd always thought of myself as a good GM, I knew not to (obviously) railroad, and I knew how to pull my punches to keep things balanced but not easy. But with Apocalypse World, I'd get to the end of a session and be like, "holy shit, I had *no idea* ANY of that was going to happen". It kind of made me realize how much I'd actually been (somewhat unintentionally) railroading the whole time in other games, in contrast. I was also mentally exhausted at the end of those first few sessions in a way I, as an experienced GM, was not used to feeling! But I got in shape eventually, and the game was life-changing, and I'm not using that term hyperbolically.

5) So yeah, trust is hard, especially if you're not used to it in the context of RPGs. But do you trust your players/MC to at least play by the rules as written? I'm sure you have a rules lawyer or two in your group. The rules keep the MC in check, hardcore.

Does any of this make sense? Do you kind of get where I'm coming from? I'm happy to expand on things.

Christian:
Hi Korbl! When you say:

"I know one person who I've played with that I would maybe trust to not kill all the players an hour into the first session, whether through malice or incompetence."

I'm a bit dumbstruck. That's really rather sad. And it has nothing to do with Apocalypse World (AW), because no game can protect you from that. Especially not all those traditional games that give the GM leeway to do whatever they want. In fact, AW has principles and agendas that directly tell people NOT to act like this. Check out these agenda items for the GM:

• Make Apocalypse World seem real.
• Make the players’ characters’ lives not boring.
• Play to find out what happens.

Is it "real" to have characters land on a bear? Only if you've established in the fiction already that it would make sense. It would definitely make the character's life not boring, and it would be interesting to see what happens. But you should follow all three items.

But what should the GM do instead of the bear? You were asking for "without broader lists of potential complications for such rolls." Let's take a look at the GM Moves:

• Separate them.
• Capture someone.
• Put someone in a spot.
• Trade harm for harm (as established).
• Announce off-screen badness.
• Announce future badness.
• Inflict harm (as established).
• Take away their stuff.
• Make them buy.
• Activate their stuff’s downside.
• Tell them the possible consequences and ask.
• Offer an opportunity, with or without a cost.
• Turn their move back on them.
• Make a threat move (from one of your fronts).
• After every move: “what do you do?”

These are broad and easy! Here are examples of them in action, regarding the climbing roll you mentioned:

• You fall off the wall and land on the other side. You're separated. And to make that have teeth, you hear enemies coming. Can your allies get over the wall in time to help you?
• You fall right into a net (depending on your fictional circumstances: mutant raider trap, giant spider, ...). You're captured.
• You make it up, but there is someone with a gatling gun on the other side, aimed at you. You're in a spot. What now?
• You take one harm from the fall, as established by the wall being dangerously high (why else call for a roll?).
• You drop and lose your weapon, and it falls into a crack on the other side. How to get your stuff back?
• You spot a piece of treasure on the other side! You can grab this opportunity, but only at a cost of leaving your allies behind.

All of these without even knowing anything more than "there's a wall you're climbing." Imagine how these Moves could spark ideas when you've got a whole fictional situation going on!

I love AW because it sets out these stakes before every roll. I know the GM moves. You know the GM moves. No need to discuss the bad things that could happen. Just roll and snowball forward.

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