Examples of good non-combat resolution mechanics?

[Username17]

There is no difference on the players end of rolling a perception check to find something the MC put there an hour ago and something he put there just now.

You're an idiot.

First of all: yes there is. But more importantly, we aren't talking about the difference between using a perception check to locate something that is there. We're talking about a perception check literally determining whether something is there or not.

Let's go back to the actual fucking example in the actual fucking book:

Bran doesn’t like the way things are going, so he takes a quick look around. He hits the roll with an 11, so let’s see. Tum Tum isn’t his biggest threat, Tum Tum’s psychically-linked cultist bodyguards are. His enemy’s true position is closing in slowly around Tum Tum’s temple, where they’re talking. And if things go to shit? I think his best escape route would be to take one or the other of Tum Tum hostage. (Bran’s player: “Aw fuck.”)

Got that? The player was in a winnable fight, but after making a perception test and getting great success, the MC converted it into an unwinnable fight and redefined success downwards to "escaping alive". And he did it by having "bear attack" added outside.

Now let's consider what would have happened in that exact situation should the player have failed that roll instead.

“So that’s weird,” Marie’s player says, at some point. “What IS going on with Birdie?” “Roll to read a sitch,” I say. She misses the roll, so I get to make as hard a move as I like. A good one here is to turn the move back on her, so that’s what I choose. “I dunno what’s up with her,” I say. “I mean, I do, but she’s opaque to you. Anyway, where would you say you’re most vulnerable to her?”

Got that? Let's imagine that was Tum Tum instead of Birdie. If the player had failed that roll, they would not have been attacked by bears. Instead, they would have merely given up information to Tum Tum and gotten a -1 penalty on some rolls during the otherwise still completely winnable fight.

That is what is so bullshit and so disempowering about Apocalypse World. Because the MC ass pulls are so severe that you can't even generalize a statement like "rolling high is good". Rolling high can be worse than rolling low, just like it is in the actual example we are talking about. Yes, you always get a +1 if you pass the perception roll (assuming you play Simon Says in the way the MC wants you to), while you may get a -1 if you fail - but whether the next test is a test to win or merely a test to barely limp away with your life is totally up the MC's whim after you roll and totally independent of what your choices or die rolls were up to that point.

-Username17

[silva]

Got that? The player was in a winnable fight, but after making a perception test and getting great success, the MC converted it into an unwinnable fight and redefined success downwards to "escaping alive". And he did it by having "bear attack" added outside.

As always, youre considering moves in a vacuum. Thats your mistake.

For the GM to present the psychic-linked bodyguards, he must have created it beforehand in the FRONT sheet. So, the GM is not creating them on th spot, he is just presenting something that already existed.

[Omegonthesane]

snip

Supporting evidence that there literally wasn't a surrounding enemy presence in any GM notes whatsoever would help your case.

More to the point, that still is not something unique to Apocalypse World - a D&D 3.5 GM can totally say that you spot an unending army of skeletons that weren't there before when you decide to Spot things, and can totally not spawn them until after you've searched to teach you a lesson about daring to have agency and information. There's no stopping a malevolent GM, and I haven't seen evidence that Apocalypse World is actively detrimental to the performance of an incompetent but well-meaning GM.

EDIT: Which isn't to say I'm convinced it's complex or balanced enough to be worth my money, but you seem to be portraying it as being something one would best pay to get rid of.

[Avoraciopoctules]

@silva

So he "pre-planned" a "plot"?

[silva]

Oh, reading the book again, Tum-Tum is described in the example 1st session sheet as the Water Cult leader. So the "psychic-linked bodyguards" are perfectly logical.

Also, the sneak test that produces a "child" is actually an attempt to enter a gang territory, and the "child" is actually a youth gang member that hapenned to be nearby.

Try harder, guys.

[silva]

So he "pre-planned" a "plot"?

No, the GM pre-plans "fronts" - groups, npcs and other entities with agendas, needs, plans, moves, etc.

[Avoraciopoctules]

No, the GM pre-plans "fronts" - groups, npcs and other entities with agendas, needs, plans, moves, etc.

If I'm fleshing out the contents of the world in painstaking detail, why do I need all the narrative imperative stuff?

This game sounds like way more effort than it's worth. At least Dresden Files RPG lets people share the Create a City workload and make sure it has themes that appeal to everyone.

[silva]

You dont flesh out anything in painstaking detai. All fronts are almost purely conceptual, instead of mechanical. Its like a package of ideas.

And nothing impedes the GM fom making the fronts as brush-stroked as he wants, and just improv things in the moment. Whats important is that the result has logic and causality to the fiction at hand. ( so, no Polar Bears ).

Edit:

Sorry, didnt read the Dresden Files part. In AW, there is the "first session" which is really a brainstorming for fleshing out the setting. And the way its done - as an extensiin of the player charcters - guarantees that all the subsequebt fronts ( and themes) will be interesting for the players.

So, not much different from Dresden on this point.

[Whipstitch]

The point I was making with sneak tests earlier wasn't about the fact that a kid was there, it was about the fact that the mc Ugly Choices you into "Murder or no murder?".

[silva]

But Ugly Choices is one of its main themes. There is even a mechanic in place to guarantee that it will happen frequently (the weak-sucess).

[Whipstitch]

Right, and Ugly Choices are a great way to twist people's arms.

[silva]

Sorry Whip, I dont know what twist arms is supposed to mean. Not native speaker here.

[Chamomile]

First of all: yes there is.

Saying it doesn't make it true.

The player was in a winnable fight, but after making a perception test and getting great success, the MC converted it into an unwinnable fight and redefined success downwards to "escaping alive".

Prove it.

This is like the third time I've said this apparently you still haven't grasped it. Just because the MC isn't supposed to plan out future events doesn't mean he isn't supposed to plan things out at all. There is an entire chapter dedicated to keeping track of all the stuff the MC is supposed to be planning. There is another entire chapter dedicated to fleshing out the world during the first session, the end of which tells you to make a whole bunch of plans about stuff that's going on right now in the game world, but which the players don't know about. So if they walk into the wrong part of town they find the Water Cult or whatever, but if they don't go there they don't see the cult because the MC isn't planning out the Water Cult adventure, he's just sticking a cult down in the setting for the players to bump into and setting it up to grow as a problem until they do. There are MC moves whose only purpose is to give the players clues to things that are happening that they are not currently aware of. There is no reason to believe that Tum Tum didn't have psychically linked cultists before the check was made, especially since psychically linked cultists is something that is mechanically built into the gameworld as exactly the kind of thing a cult leader would have.

And as Omegon has pointed out, the "dream up ambush from nowhere" bit is entirely doable in D&D. Arbitrarily high DCs means there is such a thing as an ambush that can't be spotted.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Saying it doesn't make it true.

And as Omegon has pointed out, the "dream up ambush from nowhere" bit is entirely doable in D&D. Arbitrarily high DCs means there is such a thing as an ambush that can't be spotted.

You're kidding, right? You're really telling me that you see no difference between the DM hastily scribbling together a dungeon and placing a falling rock trap an hour in a random corridor before the game starts and the DM discretely placing a falling rock trap in a corridor in the middle of the game after a rogue announces that he's searching for traps down a heretofore empty hallway?

[Drolyt]

Sorry Whip, I dont know what twist arms is supposed to mean. Not native speaker here.

Twisting someone's arm is pressuring them to do something. That is, not quite forcing them, but pushing them in that direction.

[DSMatticus]

More to the point, that still is not something unique to Apocalypse World - a D&D 3.5 GM can totally say that you spot an unending army of skeletons that weren't there before when you decide to Spot things, and can totally not spawn them until after you've searched to teach you a lesson about daring to have agency and information. There's no stopping a malevolent GM, and I haven't seen evidence that Apocalypse World is actively detrimental to the performance of an incompetent but well-meaning GM.

Lago mostly ninja'd me, but:

You are conflating two completely different things. When the MC suddenly bears in D&D, he is exercising his unilateral power over encounters to suddenly bears. And that can be problematic, but it's not the same thing: when the MC suddenly bears in AW, he is doing it because a player made a roll, and the rules for what happens when a player makes a roll explicitly tell him to make shit up on the spot, as long as it's something that matches the vague definitions of plausible and interesting.

It is the difference between, "I feel like bears, so... bears," and "you took an action and the game's core resolution mechanic is telling me I have to make up something arbitrarily to represent the outcome, so... bears."

The MC can pretty much always pull out his dick and wave it around, but in AW doing so is a core component of action resolution. That is a fundamental and important difference.

There is no difference on the players end of rolling a perception check to find something the MC put there an hour ago and something he put there just now.

Frank is right - there totally is. If you are following a hallway and it branches into the cliche "five paths lie before you - choose!", and your MC does not know what's at the end of each path, then the act of selection is meaningless. No matter which path you choose, you're going to get the first thing the MC pulls out of his ass. And if you backtrack and try again, you'll just get the second thing the MC pulls out of his ass. And so on. You aren't making a decision - you're just iterating in order over the contents of the MC's ass.

If the MC knows what's at the end of each path, then the path you select maps to the outcomes in a meaningful way. In this particular case the players don't have any information so it really doesn't matter, but it's pretty obvious that won't always be true. The point is that for your decisions to have meaning you have to know what the possible outcomes of those decisions will look like. AW fails that requirement in a big way, because results are frequently, but admittably not always to the same extent, arbitrary generated by the MC after the decision is made.

[erik]

Sorry Whip, I dont know what twist arms is supposed to mean. Not native speaker here.

Twisting someone's arm is pressuring them to do something. That is, not quite forcing them, but pushing them in that direction.

Silva, consider it the verbal equivalent of this:

=-)

[Username17]

For the GM to present the psychic-linked bodyguards, he must have created it beforehand in the FRONT sheet. So, the GM is not creating them on th spot, he is just presenting something that already existed.

No. The player's reaction was "fuck". That means that the fact that a psychic army bear attack ambush was new information. Which in turn means that the MC had directly just pulled that ambush out of his ass. And that means in turn that the encounter went from winnable to not winnable because the player succeeded at a test.

The player rolled well, and the direct result of that was that MC decided that the players automatically lost the encounter. That is fucked. I shouldn't have to tell anyone why or how that is fucked.

-Username17

[Omegonthesane]

For the GM to present the psychic-linked bodyguards, he must have created it beforehand in the FRONT sheet. So, the GM is not creating them on th spot, he is just presenting something that already existed.

No. The player's reaction was "fuck". That means that the fact that a psychic army bear attack ambush was new information. Which in turn means that the MC had directly just pulled that ambush out of his ass. And that means in turn that the encounter went from winnable to not winnable because the player succeeded at a test.

Does not follow. The fact that the player didn't know about the incoming inadvisable to fight ambush until after looking for it in no way implies that it wasn't there in some sense before he looked for it.

[Username17]

For the GM to present the psychic-linked bodyguards, he must have created it beforehand in the FRONT sheet. So, the GM is not creating them on th spot, he is just presenting something that already existed.

No. The player's reaction was "fuck". That means that the fact that a psychic army bear attack ambush was new information. Which in turn means that the MC had directly just pulled that ambush out of his ass. And that means in turn that the encounter went from winnable to not winnable because the player succeeded at a test.

Does not follow. The fact that the player didn't know about the incoming inadvisable to fight ambush until after looking for it in no way implies that it wasn't there in some sense before he looked for it.

There are many games where things can be 'there' before the PCs meet them. Apocalypse World is not among them. Just read the bullshit whining by Silva and Chamomile on this point - they aren't arguing that the bear attack was 'already there', they are arguing two positions:

1) That it does not matter that the bears weren't there.
2) That it in some way 'makes sense' for the villain to be able to call in a bear attack.

The basic reality that the MC is at that moment pulling a bear attack out of his ass is not even in dispute. The Apocalypse World defenders are merely attempting to convince us that this dynamic is in some way OK.

[Parthenon]

I'm getting confused by the arguments going on. I thought the main problem with AW's action resolution system is that since rolls of 11 or so are magical tea party that different GMs will have completely different results because there aren't any specific rules on how to deal with it.

As in if someone is trying to jump across a gap to help a friend in a fight with one enemy and sort of makes it, then with exactly the same result different GMs will have:

• You make it across but distract your friend, causing him to be hit in the face and be badly hurt.
• You make it across but stumble badly, breaking your ankle in the process.
• You only manage to grab onto the ledge on the other side and are now holding on with one hand, needing your friend to pull you up.
• You fail to jump all the way across and fall down, but because you almost succeeded you don't hurt yourself. You now need to climb up.
• You make it across the other side fine, but magically two more people appear. You and your friend are now outnumbered.
• You make it across the other side fine, except you now have a couple of tears in your clothing.
• You make it across the other side fine, but trip slightly, causing a stone to fly out and accidentally kill your friend.
• You make it across the other side fine, but trip slightly, causing a stone to fly out and accidentally kill the enemy.

Apocalypse World has a bullshit resolution system because you have no idea what the result of your actions could be. Each of those is a completely likely result based on silva's ramblings.

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, that was my main issue with it. Your AW MC may very well be a psychic who implicitly understands what the group thinks is stupid and scrupulously does his level best to reconcile every ruling he makes with the planning phase of the game. However, players can still feel disempowered because many of their decisions at the table don't make much difference in what is going on mechanically and in any case you often don't know what kind of risks you're actually taking on until you've thrown the dice and the MC checks his butt hole for outcomes. If you're the type who just treats dice results as stage directions in your own production of Waterworld, that's probably OK. If you're the sort who wants a more tactical experience and wish to feel rewarded by good play now and again then AW goes down in a ball of flames.

[silva]

I'm getting confused by the arguments going on. I thought the main problem with AW's action resolution system is that since rolls of 11 or so are magical tea party that different GMs will have completely different results because there aren't any specific rules on how to deal with it.

As in if someone is trying to jump across a gap to help a friend in a fight with one enemy and sort of makes it, then with exactly the same result different GMs will have:

• You make it across but distract your friend, causing him to be hit in the face and be badly hurt.
• You make it across but stumble badly, breaking your ankle in the process.
• You only manage to grab onto the ledge on the other side and are now holding on with one hand, needing your friend to pull you up.
• You fail to jump all the way across and fall down, but because you almost succeeded you don't hurt yourself. You now need to climb up.
• You make it across the other side fine, but magically two more people appear. You and your friend are now outnumbered.
• You make it across the other side fine, except you now have a couple of tears in your clothing.
• You make it across the other side fine, but trip slightly, causing a stone to fly out and accidentally kill your friend.
• You make it across the other side fine, but trip slightly, causing a stone to fly out and accidentally kill the enemy.

Apocalypse World has a bullshit resolution system because you have no idea what the result of your actions could be. Each of those is a completely likely result based on silva's ramblings.

THIS!

Parthenon is spot on, I think, because he managed to keep the outcomes all logically related to the situation at hand (no Polar Bears). If this is good or bad will depend on personal preferences. (my Shadowrun group converted and dont want to go back, as an example).

Just an observation, though: the cited example is based on just one kind of move (Act under Fire) and on a missed or weak-sucess roll. On a sucess roll, the outcome is asthe player intended it to be. Further, and more importantly, most moves have discrete outcomes pre-defined, making the MTP inexistent or reducing it greatly.

But yeah, Parthenon summarized reallg well.

[angelfromanotherpin]

And that's when I put silva on ignore, Your Honor.

[Whipstitch]

Holy shit, we're right back to what I posted two weeks ago. There are no words.