2nd Edition and Seize by Force (and similar moves)

Oh, let's do it together then.

Somebody give me a 1-line gang writeup and tags?

Somebody else give me the same for a driver and a car?

-Vincent

Great. I'll start with the gang.

3-harm gang medium well-disciplined 1-armor - want: savagery

Is that what you were looking for? I figure this is about 40 rough customers, with varied and extensive weapons, and they're disciplined but barely holding on to that discipline.

Gremlin, the Driver: Cool+2 Hard-1 Hot+1 Sharp+1 Weird=0
.38 revolver (2-harm close reload loud)
Moves: Daredevil and Eye on the door

Vehicle: Pickup (massive=2, speed=0, handling+1, 1-armor)
Rugged, Off-road, Powerful, Picky

(Thanks, Ebok!)

Groovy.

So the gang's blockading Gremlin's way through a broken, rocky, blown-dust and gully landscape called the Knives. She's already read the situation and she knows her best way through: there's a spot overlooking the road where there's a guy with a machine gun, set up to catch coming vehicles in a crossfire, but she's going to take her pickup off-road and punch right through his little machine gun nest. She also knows that she should be on the lookout for the gang's 4-wheeling outriders, on both sides of the blockade, but she hasn't seen any of them yet.

Here are the harm calculations:

The gang's inflicting 3-harm, +2harm for their size, for a total of 5-harm. They've got 2-armor, +2armor for their size, for a total of 4-armor.

Gremlin's using her vehicle as a weapon. A direct hit inflicts 3-harm, +2harm for its massive, for a total of 5-harm. A glancing hit inflicts 2-harm.

Her pickup has 1-armor, +1armor for Daredevil, for a total of 2-armor. She herself has no armor, but gets the 1-armor for Daredevil.

In sum, in an unmodified exchange of harm:
The gang hits her pickup for 3-harm (serious damage, impaired function, can be field-patched). Blow-through hits her for 1-harm.
Her pickup hits the gang for 1-harm (a few injuries, no fatalities), basically messing up just this one guy's machine gun nest.

She's assaulting a secure position, p168, and we'll take "force your way into your enemy's position" to mean "force your way through your enemy's position." She gets +1 to her roll for reading the situation and acting on the answer, which she needs, because even with it she's rolling+0.

Please double check my math! Does it look okay? Everybody with me?

-Vincent

You gave them 1-armor more then Paul T's one-liner, but otherwise you're good on the numbers.

Agreed!

Heh, I like where this example is going!

As an aside to Ebok, when PvP has come up in my games (and it's not uncommon), we've always had one player make the move and the other player interfere (or in one unique case, help!). So if one PC is like, "Yeah, I go to town on Vance with my machete," I'll say, "Great, roll +Hard. Vance, I assume you're going to interfere? What are you doing?" Vance: "For fucking sure; I'm going to put as many rounds into him as I can before that blade hits me." Harm is going to be exchanged, effects are going to be decided based on the results of the rolls. And once that move is resolved, I'll typically give Vance's player the opportunity to make the next move.

If the game is a conversation, having two people making the same move at the same time feels kind of like having two people talking over each other. I can see how it can work in play, but I'm just not a fan of the tone it sets. :shrug:

Munin: That always seems extremely unfair, as whoever gets to roll the move and spend the hold has a massive advantage in terms of raw numbers.

Trasher has Hard+3, Hugh has Hx+2 with Trasher. Trasher goes seizing on Hugh trying to take his shit, Hugh doesn't want him to and resists.
AW1 using your example
Hugh has a 83.33% to hit and give Trasher a -2.
Trasher therefore has a probable 72.22% to hit anyway. That's a decrease from 91.67%.
This means Trasher can be pretty well expected to not only be successful in taking the shit, but also choose more hold to punish Hugh for resisting. He's got a 27.78% chance to choose two more punishments instead.

This roll doesn't account for Hugh's abilities at all (only his weapon and armor), and pretty much guarantee's he who rolls wins in PvP. This is definitely not an equitable exchange, and I'm actually very surprised your players let you get away with that. This way to handling the problem is even more problematic in AW2.

AW2 using your example
Hugh has a 83.33% to give -1 and a 41.67% to give -2.
Trasher probably still has a 72.22% but instead of being able to assume -2, now there is a large chance of only -1.
This means that interfering is actually less imposing then it was in AW1 by a small margin, and now with the roller able to pick one on a miss, the PvP is guaranteed to give Trasher what he really wants (at no other cost). A one sided seize wasn't at all fair before, it's definitely not fair now.

That's a problem. What works Best, since both players do have agency in that conflict, is that the instigator says what he wants to do and the other says how he plans to stop it. This isnt people talking over each other, this is people establishing the scene through conversation. If Hugh wanted to run away, then we're not at seize by force yet. We're cat and mousing. If He instead decides to stand and fight Trasher off, okay, both can roll a seize by force and both interfere with the other (there might be a better battle move now not sure, either way:)

AW using opposed rolls
Hugh has a +2 hard, +2Hx with Trasher.
Trasher +3 Hard, -1Hx with Hugh.

Now if they roll all the rolls (hardly takes a second to do, really!) They each get to first limit the other's successful hard depending on how well they know each other.
For Hugh it's: 83.33% of at least -1, 41.67% of -2. 
For Trasher it's: 41.67% of at least -1, 8.33% of -2. 

This now has a range of possibilities. I'm not doing the math for each, or collectively right now. (I will if you think you want that). But essentially it's +3 vs +2 hard rolls with this extra modifier. Much more likely to come out that Trasher doesnt absolutely get Hugh's shit, but they both are probably black and blue, and Hugh significantly less then previous examples. But it is equally clear that Trasher is going to have a much harder time predicting Hugh, and that the advantage of Hard is more likely to be equal or with Hugh advantaged instead. This makes Hx far more important then a mere bump of -few% to win.

This establishes the character's effective rolls. Now they each roll seize to find out how many holds they spend, and they prioritize what they want. It's clear they counter each other in options which is fine. Since this is mostly to see who has what advantages and then exchange harm and decide who has possession if either of them do. Which sets you up to make a move and describe how those rolls play out as an arbiter. The group should decide how the spend the hold: out loud first one then the other, taking turns hold by hold, the winner declares first, or if both declare secretly, etc.

EDIT::
As DeadmanwalkingXI says, this is a Single exchange of harm.

Like Ebok suggests, I've always had one person roll seize by force while the other rolls to interfere, then have them swap roles (with the person who just rolled to interfere rolling seize by force and vice versa), but I then apply both rolls results to a single exchange of Harm. I think that's probably the fairest way to do it, since otherwise, again as noted, whoever rolls seize by force has a huge advantage that's not necessarily reflective of the fiction...one-sided brutality is better done with Go Aggro. Yeah, that's a lot of rolls, but it's pretty quick to figure out since two of the four just apply penalties to the other two.

This sometimes results in both people saying they 'took definite hold' and canceling each other out on that front, but IME they usually pick 'suffer little harm' as their first option, and then more often 'inflict great harm' than 'take definite hold'. That might just be my players in particular, though.

This has worked out perfectly well in play, with nobody feeling screwed by it or anything.

...and what do you do on a miss (for those interfering rolls)?

In any case, let's stay on topic. I'm looking forward to Vincent continuing this example.

I think it's pretty clear that there has been a change in how to apply "Seize by Force" in a PvP situation. The 1st Ed was relatively clear that (or, at least, the way people played it) you continued the flow of the conversation, and players took turns making moves. (Hence the existence of the "interfere" move in the first place; there would be no need for such a move when both people are rolling, after all.)

At some point, it seems to me that Vincent started looking at "both sides roll" solutions, and advised people do it this way. Vincent, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I see a definite trend in your recent designs of the last few years to feature this kind of "both sides roll, choose options" approach.

As I said earlier, "both sides roll" works much better with a defined "miss clause", so that's a strong argument for doing it this way. You don't need to throw in MC moves to muck it up - that becomes redundant, as well.

You don't have to do anything for those misses Paul, except perhaps describe how the advantages occurred in the fiction if your players dont do that for you. I made a small edit to show that Hx is a meaningful contributor to the conflict. And AW1 I thought made this pretty clear from the get go, either that for Lumply did on the forums. This isnt New, you can find references for this play style going backs years. There is actually no change from first to second here. (except now it's more clear you dont have to have MC moves following one or both missing Seize by forces)

Ebok,

Ah, so you just ignore the missed rolls altogether? Got it.

As for changes... don't forget that Apocalypse World is about 7 years old now. :) So, we might both be right in this case, without contradicting each other. I certainly don't know how Vincent was playing this at home, but in the circles I'm familiar with (and, for example, Story Games), players taking turns to roll, as Munin says, was most common back then.

For reference, my earlier comments were about the post "One Move's Iterations" (you can't see it unless you're one of Vincent's patrons, unfortunately), where Vincent shows the development of "fighting moves" from Poison'd all the way to some more recent games he's been working on. The other example was from a discussion on RPG.net from 2012, where Vincent uses the "reversed move on a miss" option I mentioned earlier (https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?649053-Combat-example-for-Apocalypse-engine-games-(Monster-of-the-Week-Apocalypse-World)/page6.

Vincent wrote:

"At Berg's word, AT rushes the guy trying to get behind the van, and Berg and Clarion rush the guy in cover on the right. They're straight up seizing by force.

[...] Berg rolls+hard and gets ... a 5. A miss! It's a miss even if Clarion gets to help.

I get to make as hard and direct a move as I like. I could just exchange harm for harm as established, that'd be easy, but instead I'm going to turn Berg's move back on him. "Excellent!" I say. "The gang guy inflicts terrible harm, suffers little harm, and keeps definite hold of his position." Holy crap, that's bad news."

As you point out in your post, above, this approach is (almost certainly) better suited to a playstyle where players take turns making moves, as opposed to both rolling at once.

I think that, if we're looking at PvP situations, the choice is clear. In my experience, most Seize by Force rolls have been PC vs. NPC, however, which is why I'm curious what changes to my games adopting the 2nd Ed "Seize" move might bring.

That is a PC vs NPC example where the principals tell you to be a fan of the player and put the NPCs in the crosshairs. Munin and I were discussing PC vs PC where you principals require you to be a fan of them both. Those are very, very different situations, and you need to treat the players equitably even if the character's clearly have advantages. As an aside: the above example wouldn't automatically be a miss anymore, since the second player could get a +2 in the help roll.

As Deadmanwalking pointed out, you can take turns doing it the way I wrote out as well. I just find simultaneous rolls keeps the tensions high, which is great.

...and what do you do on a miss (for those interfering rolls)?

Personally, I complicate things.

'So, while Vasquez and Saffron are having their little gunfight, you all hear the sound of a bunch of bikes pulling up outside. Looks like Dremmer's goons have arrived.'

Or someone comes in to help the person you just failed to interfere with. Or their gun runs out of ammo during this exchange (very relevant if there's a next one). Or they lose some barter as something valuable they have on them breaks. In short, any move I feel like making that becomes a collateral event to the fight rather than taking center stage.

Ebok's totally right that you don't need to do anything, but you certainly can without the system breaking down or anything.

Vincent wrote:

"At Berg's word, AT rushes the guy trying to get behind the van, and Berg and Clarion rush the guy in cover on the right. They're straight up seizing by force.

[...] Berg rolls+hard and gets ... a 5. A miss! It's a miss even if Clarion gets to help.

I get to make as hard and direct a move as I like. I could just exchange harm for harm as established, that'd be easy, but instead I'm going to turn Berg's move back on him. "Excellent!" I say. "The gang guy inflicts terrible harm, suffers little harm, and keeps definite hold of his position." Holy crap, that's bad news."

A reversed move on a miss is much more appropriate for a move vs. NPCs (which that example is) or in a situation where a PC was targeted by a one sided move like Go Aggro, than one with PCs in a situation like seize by force, since that tends to remove a lot of player agency and works weirdly an inappropriately mechanically (it makes the Skinner better at getting that result than the Chopper, for example...since Hx matters and Hard doesn't).

Yep! Sounds like we all agree. Great.

Deadmanwalking, I love the tip on inserting complications on missed "interfere" rolls. That sounds like a great technique!

(As an aside, I did some trawling of older discussions, and it looks like the basic idea of "both sides rolling" started being part of the mainstream discussion around 2012, although there are a few mentions earlier. Here's an example of Vincent's thinking on this point, from his blog at "anyway", on June 18, 2012 [http://lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/672#17422]:

"Protagonist vs protagonist conflict isn't a big part of Apocalypse World's genre. Take Firefly: the protagonists disagree, argue, sometimes come to blows or threaten to drop each other out of airlocks, but they never actually try to hurt each other and they always resolve their differences when there's a real enemy to deal with.

"Consequently, Apocalypse World doesn't handle it particularly well when the PCs actually try to hurt each other. It's not built for that. It can handle it, but it doesn't make it easy on the MC, the MC really has to keep a tight reign and insist upon using the rules very precisely. It's exhausting!

"Anyhow, sooner or later, some enterprising hacker is going to make a set of moves that handle PC vs PC conflict beautifully. It's a limitation in Apocalypse World's particular set of moves, not a limitation inherent to the form."

I think we've seen Vincent address this nicely since then, in various shapes and forms. These changes are interesting! Hence this thread.)

I too believe in complicating things on missed interference rolls, but I'm careful to keep those complications germane to the fictional positioning. A lot depends on how someone is helping or interfering.

You know, in reading Ebok's and especially DeadmanwalkingXI's posts, I suspect that while our order-of-operations might look a little different, the functional effect ends up coming out very similar. I'd never let one player get to make a move without the other one getting to make a response. But the order of operations usually doesn't matter because it's extremely difficult to off a PC in on go (especially in AW1, where debilities were a thing), and AW doesn't have "damage modifiers" to your roll. So you can take a shotgun blast to the face and still turn around, say, "OK, now it's my turn, Cochise," and roll+Hard. So the method of getting there is slightly different, but like I said, I'll bet at the table the result ends up looking pretty much the same. Very cool.

This has been a fascinating discussion, BTW.