Examples of good non-combat resolution mechanics?

[Drolyt]

This alone proves you didnt read the actual thing, since one of the very first rules state that the GM cant tell a story, but instead see what happens.

Well, I for one have not read the damn thing and probably never will, but really, can you not see that a rule that is unenforceable is not a rule? The book telling the GM what to do means nothing when the GM is the fucking referee. Seriously, I have no opinion on the game itself, but you are not doing a good job of defending it. At all.

[Kaelik]

This alone proves you didnt read the actual thing, since one of the very first rules state that the GM cant tell a story, but instead see what happens.

Well, I for one have not read the damn thing and probably never will, but really, can you not see that a rule that is unenforceable is not a rule? The book telling the GM what to do means nothing when the GM is the fucking referee. Seriously, I have no opinion on the game itself, but you are not doing a good job of defending it. At all.

It isn't that the rule tells the DM to do something. That can totally be useful. If you fight a Greater Wyrm Red at level 3, you can point to the encounter rules and tell the DM they were wrong.

It is that it tells the DM not to do something that they players have absolutely no way of telling if the DM is doing. You can't read the DM's mind, so if the DM is railroading along his preplanned plot, you can't point to that rule and say, "You broke this rule."

Even worse, the actual rules also make it really easy for a DM to preplan adventures. In 3e, you can plan something, but the players might do something that completely circumvents that plan. Not in AW. Nope, anything the players do, the rules specifically give the DM the ability to force it back on the planned route.

[fectin]

Worse than that even: the rules (as described here) specifically require the DM to plan the characters' next action in some circumstances.

[psychognome]

This alone proves you didnt read the actual thing, since one of the very first rules state that the GM cant tell a story, but instead see what happens.

Well, I for one have not read the damn thing and probably never will, but really, can you not see that a rule that is unenforceable is not a rule? The book telling the GM what to do means nothing when the GM is the fucking referee. Seriously, I have no opinion on the game itself, but you are not doing a good job of defending it. At all.

It isn't that the rule tells the DM to do something. That can totally be useful. If you fight a Greater Wyrm Red at level 3, you can point to the encounter rules and tell the DM they were wrong.

It is that it tells the DM not to do something that they players have absolutely no way of telling if the DM is doing. You can't read the DM's mind, so if the DM is railroading along his preplanned plot, you can't point to that rule and say, "You broke this rule."

Even worse, the actual rules also make it really easy for a DM to preplan adventures. In 3e, you can plan something, but the players might do something that completely circumvents that plan. Not in AW. Nope, anything the players do, the rules specifically give the DM the ability to force it back on the planned route.

But that, like many of the arguments against AW here, is in bad faith.

The thing is, even though there's no higher power enforcing that the MC follow their rule to "Play to find out what happens," if an MC doesn't follow that rule they're running Apocalypse World in bad faith and also against the rules. Also, since players will eventually realize that they are constantly being shunted back onto the rails the MC has decided for them, it won't be long 'til the players realize that the MC is on a power-trip and that the players actually have no agency. Such an MC is soon to be without any players.

The thing is that in the hands of a bad GM/MC/DM any game can turn into a railroadfest if the referee doesn't follow the rules and/or the social consensus between them and the players. What Apocalypse World explicitly spells out for the referee is that "Yo, don't make up a story in advance, you asshole, let your players engage with whatever parts of the setting they find most interesting."

And the bear attack example is nothing but a hilariously badly constructed straw man. If Frank had actually bothered to read Apocalypse World, he'd know that one of the MC principles is "Make a move that follows." That is, the MC can only make moves that follow directly from the fiction. So, unless the characters are adventuring in an area actually filled to the brim with bears and known for its constant bear attacks, following a player move with a consequence of "SUDDENLY, BEARS ATTACK" is not only in bad faith but also breaking one of the game's principles.

Like in any other RPG, a bad referee can ruin a game. Apocalypse World explicitly spells out what you should do not to be a bad referee. If you don't follow your principles you're running the game in bad faith, just like the 3e DM who fudges their roll on a random encounter table to make it seem to the players like they randomly ran into an ancient wyrm red dragon when in fact said DM was just trying to shunt their players back into their pre-planned plot.

It's the same thing as Kaelik said: in a random wilderness encounter (provided the DM pulled a creature from an appropriate wilderness encounter table) there's no way for the players to prove post facto that the DM broke a rule when an Ancient Red Wyrm Ex Machina arrived to place the PCs back on the rails, but the DM would still be operating in bad faith. A lack of trust between players and referee is something that no system can solve, but Apocalypse World at the very least tries to spell out that you shouldn't be a railroading dick (as per its principles).

Also, Apocalypse World's fantasy hack Dungeon World is pretty much the best version of D&D ever.

[erik]

p-gnome, what of the examples which were cited that sound as though they are playing in "bad faith". If we cannot trust the writers of the game to deal in good faith, what hope is there of Mister John Q Cavern playing "correctly"?

A suggestion telling people to "not be dicks" is not nearly as helpful as actual rule constraints that provide guidelines and expectations. It's the difference between a gentleman's cops and robbers and a structured game.

[psychognome]

p-gnome, what of the examples which were cited that sound as though they are playing in "bad faith". If we cannot trust the writers of the game to deal in good faith, what hope is there of Mister John Q Cavern playing "correctly"?

A suggestion telling people to "not be dicks" is not nearly as helpful as actual rule constraints that provide guidelines and expectations. It's the difference between a gentleman's cops and robbers and a structured game.

I'm primarily taking issue with the idea that an MC in Apocalypse World could run the game as a railroad. Again, my point stands: any game can be run as a railroad, and in any game the referee has subtle ways to throw obstacles at the players in ways as to put them back on the rails. AW actually addresses this by making one of the rules of the game "Dude, don't do that". (And, I must elaborate on this, it's a RULE, not just a guideline. The MC's principles and agenda are their rules, just like the moves and playbooks are the rules for the players. Any MC going outside of the bounds of their principles and agenda are not runnign AW by the RAW.) If you don't follow it, you're not only breaking the rules of the game as an MC, you're breaking the social contract that comes with running a game with a degree of player narrative agency as high as in Apocalypse World. Also, as I said, like in any other game, players will eventually know that you're not actually playing moves as they flow from the narrative but are just playing moves to drive the players towards your pre-scripted story, and once they pick up on that cue they will soon find a better MC to play with.

The second is the example of the "bear attack," which, while funny, is simply a straw man. As I said, unless the story is set in an environment where a bear attack is an expected outcome, an MC would be breaking their principle of "make a move that follows." Seriously, you couldn't come up with that shit unless you hadn't actually read the game and had severely misunderstood its entire point.

And to answer your question of "WHO CAN WE TRUST TO RUN THIS GAME CORRECTLY?!" If you can't trust your MC not to throw bear attacks at you when not narratively appropriate in a game that explicitly tells them to only make moves that are narratively appropriate, I'm not sure if you can trust your MC to referee any game for you. At that point you might as well ditch the guy and have someone who's actually open to player input run the game.

EDIT: Truth is, games powered by the *World engine require a bit of unlearning. One of the things about AW and its derivatives that may catch new referees off-guard is the fact that the game spells out a number of good refereeing practices, the sort of stuff we used to read on the rpgtips newsletter (does that thing still exist? I know I used to love the shit out of it). What a lot of people don't instantly get (myself included) is that they're not spelled out as guidelines, they are the actual rules that the referee has to follow. So, throwing bear attacks at players? Breaking the rules. Running a railroad? Breaking the rules.

Many of these MC breaches of the rules may not be immediately apparent to the players, but they are just as much breaking the rules as the D&D DM who fudges the monster's attack rolls to let their PCs live another day or to have their BBEG survive for just one more fight. The players may not know it, but the DM/MC knows that they are breaking the rules, and thus breaking the social contract set by the game.

[Whipstitch]

Seriously, you couldn't come up with that shit unless you hadn't actually read the game and had severely misunderstood its entire point.

Actually, the entire point of the bear attack example is:

1. People manifestly have different opinions of "what follows."

2. There's situations where many different things could be "what follows" and in those situations players have no clue what the fuck will happen on a 7-9.

[psychognome]

Seriously, you couldn't come up with that shit unless you hadn't actually read the game and had severely misunderstood its entire point.

Actually, the entire point of the bear attack example is:

1. People manifestly have different opinions of "what follows."

2. There's situations where many different things could be "what follows" and in those situations players have no clue what the fuck will happen on a 7-9.

#1 is obvious. Just as different DMs manifestly have different opinions of what a dragon in a D&D encounter should do on their first round. You can never remove the human element from RPGs, in its entirety.

As for #2, and I admit, I haven't done a lot of risky stuff in my life that would merit actually rolling+STAT, during my time in the military (not as glamorous as it may sound, my home country has conscription) there were a number of times during drills where I did something according to procedure and SOMETHING UNFORESEEN HAPPENED. Say, I dove into cover, into firing position, only to realize that my clip had come loose, my gun had jammed, my gun's barrel was covered with moss, etc.

So, the point is that players not being able to predict what happens on a 7-9... may be a part of the point? Because when you're under pressure and people are shooting at you, you really don't know what might go wrong. Just like in real life, you might not be able to predict that shit. The 7-9 result presents this factor of unpredictability. Obviously, it's up to the MC to decide what goes wrong this one time, and again, if they're going by their principles, they won't throw anything at the players that their characters can't handle.

EDIT: And they will only throw shit at you that makes sense based on the fiction. And if your MC can't see that a 6- roll on Seduction may not result in BEAR ATTACK then your MC might be the one with the problem and you might want to find a new MC. Seriously, this is some common sense shit.

[Foxwarrior]

Well, it turns out that the person you're trying to seduce is secretly in love with a bear, and was in the process of entertaining it before you entered the room. The bear was quickly hidden behind a curtain as you arrived. Your attempt at seduction was going fine, but unfortunately you said the word "food", which reminded the bear of its traumatic circus experience, and now it's flying into a rage and trying to maul your face.

It makes sense in the fiction, too, because three sessions earlier you encountered a really terrible circus.

[Username17]

As has already been stated: an ad hoc railroad isn't any better or different from a pre-planned railroad from the perspective of the player. The fact that the Apocalypse World MC who is "playing correctly" doesn't have any preplanned ideas is actually just more disempowering. It means that even trivial decisions like whether to go left or right are meaningless because no matter what choices you make, you still always encounter "the first thing that pops into the MC's head".

You're still being railroaded down a single author's one true path, only that single author is making shit up as he goes along without going back and editing anything so chances are very good that you're not even seeing that author's best work. The only way you can even theoretically influence the direction of the story is through the butterfly effect on the MC's train of thought by you talking to him while he pulls things out of his ass. But if your banter doesn't derail his train of thought, you still get bears. Heck, even if it does, you still probably get bears - just with some free association detail reflected off the last thing you said.

Among Apocalypse World defenders here there seems to be a bizarre belief that the fact that the MC is supposed to be making shit up as he goes along rather than mapping things out ahead of time somehow makes things immune to railroading. Nothing could be further from the truth! If things are mapped out, you can at least influence the story's direction by choosing to go East. But if the MC is pulling things out of his ass as he goes along, then you get the same result (Bears) no matter what direction you go!

-Username17

[psychognome]

Well, it turns out that the person you're trying to seduce is secretly in love with a bear, and was in the process of entertaining it before you entered the room. The bear was quickly hidden behind a curtain as you arrived. Your attempt at seduction was going fine, but unfortunately you said the word "food", which reminded the bear of its traumatic circus experience, and now it's flying into a rage and trying to maul your face.

It makes sense in the fiction, too, because three sessions earlier you encountered a really terrible circus.

I was actually going to mention that "bear attack" would make sense provided the setting was a circus where one of the shows was a dancing bear but... yeah.

The thing is, while you can come up with rationalizations for bear attacks all day long, those examples are still contrived. Yeah, it could be bears with enough explanation, but does it really flow from the fiction? Nope, say your players. and walk away. And now you're alone. Alone, in the grips of your Asperger's syndrome.

What I'm trying to say is that even if you could and would play each outcome as a bear attack how long would your players stand for that shit? I.e. how long would your players stand for there constantly being ancient red wyrms at the edges of your sacred plot area where they wanted to venture?

Same thing. If you insist on running AW as "BEAR ATTACKS ALL DAY LONG," you're only marginally better than the D&D DM who keeps fudging rolls to throw insurmountable obstacles at their players to keep them in line.

And yeah, you can always come up with contrived examples to throw BEARS at players, but seriously... if you were actually running the game, would you do that to your players, just to prove a point? (P.S. If you say "Yes," you're a dick and deserve to have no players in your group.)

[Username17]

The thing is, while you can come up with rationalizations for bear attacks all day long, those examples are still contrived.

The actual example of a strong hit in the Read a Sitch rules is that a previously unmentioned army of enemies is coming from a previously unmentioned location and now the players automatically lose the combat and have to run or negotiate a way to safety. That's the actual example in the fucking rules. That's just "Bear Attack: you lose", in response to the player rolling a motherfucking 11.

While it may be contrived, you have to take that up with the author of the fucking game, because that's the actual fucking example.

-Username17

[psychognome]

Among Apocalypse World defenders here there seems to be a bizarre belief that the fact that the MC is supposed to be making shit up as he goes along rather than mapping things out ahead of time somehow makes things immune to railroading. Nothing could be further from the truth! If things are mapped out, you can at least influence the story's direction by choosing to go East. But if the MC is pulling things out of his ass as he goes along, then you get the same result (Bears) no matter what direction you go!

-Username17

This would be a good point... had you actually read or played the game you were criticizing.

One of the pieces of advice given to the MC is "Turn questions back on the asker or over to the group at large." Okay, this isn't as hard as all the rules in the game and the principles, but the game explicitly spells out for you that you shouldn't just tell your own story BUT also ask for player input on what the fuck is going on in the world.

Even the first session of the game is all about FIRST the players, in concert with the MC, establishing what the setting is like, and the MC using the first session to ask the players about the setting, constantly. Because one of the MC's principles is "Ask questions like crazy."

So, starting an Apocalypse World game the MC may have had a crazy idea for a railroaded campaign, but NOPE, during the very first session their players trash all their ideas by answering their questions in a way that they feel would make for the most engaging setting. AWWW GEEEZ, ALL MY PLANS, RUINED!!!

And if your follow the principles of the game, you won't set your players on a pre-written path. That is, if you run the game by the RAW. The RAW, which most people on the Gaming Den seem to have a hard-on for.

[psychognome]

The thing is, while you can come up with rationalizations for bear attacks all day long, those examples are still contrived.

The actual example of a strong hit in the Read a Sitch rules is that a previously unmentioned army of enemies is coming from a previously unmentioned location and now the players automatically lose the combat and have to run or negotiate a way to safety. That's the actual example in the fucking rules. That's just "Bear Attack: you lose", in response to the player rolling a motherfucking 11.

While it may be contrived, you have to take that up with the author of the fucking game, because that's the actual fucking example.

-Username17

Ummmm, could you actually quote where a Read a Sitch roll of 11 in the rules brings upon an army of enemies, because I just did a search of my Apocalypse World PDF and could find no such things. An 11 on Read A Sitch would give you three questions, the answers to which would grant you +1 forward to act upon said answers.

I mean, assuming you've actually read the game you're trashing...

EDIT: I get what part of the game you're talking about, but given the context the army is neither unforeseen nor contrived. It may just be the wording that's confusing you. (That'd be my guess, given your demonstrable lack of intellect.)

[Whipstitch]

You guys really need to quit with the "Ahurr, you didn't read the words you're citing." It's... weird.

[psychognome]

You guys really need to quit with the "Ahurr, you didn't read the words you're citing." It's... weird.

It would be weird...

if AW's detractors would be able to make criticisms about the game's rules that didn't contradict either the game's rules, the MC's principles, or weren't based on a misreading of an example of play.

[DragonChild]

It's pretty amazing how nothing turns me off on a system and convinces me that system is dumb as fuck as people making accounts to try to defend it, because they never actually do it well. It happened with Eclipse Phase, and it's happened with AW now. Cries of "You haven't played the game!" are the most useless thing ever, and now I am utterly convinced Apocalypse World is an awful game for awful people. So job well done.

[Foxwarrior]

So, I'm thinking of running an Apocalypse World PbP campaign here, on these very boards. The title: Bear Hunter. Is anyone interested?

[DragonChild]

So, I'm thinking of running an Apocalypse World PbP campaign here, on these very boards. The title: Bear Hunter. Is anyone interested?

Sorry Fox, but giving it a title at all implies that you're planning the game, or actually putting thought and effort into it - which as we know is something Apocalypse World does not allow.

[psychognome]

So, I'm thinking of running an Apocalypse World PbP campaign here, on these very boards. The title: Bear Hunter. Is anyone interested?

Jesus, I would be the very first to play this thing.

As for DragonChild, I apologize. I admit that I came off a bit too abrasive in my defense of Apocalypse World. I admit, it's not the game for everyone, but being (sort of) a fan of the game I don't like it being portrayed in a negative light, especially by people intent on portraying it in bad faith. It's admittedly not everyone's poison, but I certainly like it. That said, I wish you would, even for a moment, forget the fact that I came across a bit of a dick and gave the game a chance on its own merits.

And if shilling out for the game is too much, Apocalypse World's derivative Dungeon World (which is basically D&D with AW's mechanics) is available for free online. http://book.dwgazetteer.com/

So, please. Don't take the word of one shitty internet poster on how great this game is. Check out how good this game that one shitty internet poster likes is.

[Foxwarrior]

Given that you haven't contradicted DragonChild, the name has been removed. Recruiting Thread

[Whipstitch]

if AW's detractors would be able to make criticisms about the game's rules that didn't contradict either the game's rules, the MC's principles, or weren't based on a misreading of an example of play.

Naw dog, it's still weird, because Apocalypse World is trying to create an environment that is rather unpredictable for everyone involved and avoids railroading while still allowing for a referee on who is ultimately responsible for an awful lot of the system outputs. In other words, it's has goals that often work at cross purposes from each other, just like every other RPG, and talking about how things can go tits up and contradictory is fair game. So, basically, I'm fine with you pulling an Inigo and arguing that the words I use don't actually mean what I think they mean, but the "Ya'll haven't even read the book!" stuff is, was, and remains scorn worthy.


Also, as far as the unpredictability angle goes, I would argue that games need to actually be rather more tightly bound to obvious cause-and-effect than real life is in order to allow for satisfying decision making. That's because oftentimes your own prior experiences are not actually very applicable to what goes on in the game world, so the inputs you can most rely on to get your bearings are the ones that are dictated by the game mechanics. Unfortunately, Apocalypse World is really big on keeping such things as vague as possible. From a player perspective, this can lead to a rather disempowering thoughts such as"No, really, what the fuck is going on? How competent is my character? Is this a legit good decision or is it just MC pity all the way down?". Basically, your MC doesn't even have to be overtly malicious to burst your bubble, given that it can just be a natural consequence of having so little concrete information to work with.

[Username17]

The thing is, while you can come up with rationalizations for bear attacks all day long, those examples are still contrived.

The actual example of a strong hit in the Read a Sitch rules is that a previously unmentioned army of enemies is coming from a previously unmentioned location and now the players automatically lose the combat and have to run or negotiate a way to safety. That's the actual example in the fucking rules. That's just "Bear Attack: you lose", in response to the player rolling a motherfucking 11.

While it may be contrived, you have to take that up with the author of the fucking game, because that's the actual fucking example.

-Username17

Ummmm, could you actually quote where a Read a Sitch roll of 11 in the rules brings upon an army of enemies, because I just did a search of my Apocalypse World PDF and could find no such things. An 11 on Read A Sitch would give you three questions, the answers to which would grant you +1 forward to act upon said answers.

Listen up you window licking shitbird, we have almost exclusively been discussing two fucking examples. There are many more in the book, but we keep coming back to those two, because they are completely fucked and none of the Apocalypse World defenders has made a remotely convincing case that they are in any way not-fucked. If anyone on the pro-Apocalypse World side had ever come up with an even minimally robust defense of those two passages in last hundred fucking posts, we might be able to move on to the things like "the character advancement is equal parts fiddly, unfair, and shitty, causing aggregate utility in the universe to decrease by its mere existence." But we haven't. Because you assholes keep shitting on yourselves demanding and redemanding citations to the same fucking passages over and over again.

The passages in question are: Keeler attempts to avoid detection (page 192) and Bran looks around (page 200). In the first, Keeler rolls a 7-9 with an "act under fire" test to avoid detection. This is supposedly a "succeed, but..." style result on attempting to get into the base undetected. The "but..." in this case is Keeler getting detected and therefore failing at the intended task. In the second, Bran uses a "reading a sitch" test to attempt to get bonuses in his current confrontation with Tum Tum. He rolls an 11, which is a "strong hit", and supposedly unmitigated success. The "success" in this case is defined as being told by the MC that there are arbitrarily large numbers of previously unmentioned enemies coming and that Bran automatically loses the current confrontation. But as a silver lining, while the PCs automatically lose the current confrontation (thus failing at the thing Bran was trying to do), he does now get a +1 bonus to the next scene: trying to escape with their fucking lives.

These are two examples where the player rolls a "weak hit" and a "strong hit", and then fails at the intended task because the MC just decided to make them fail after the dice were rolled even though the dice did not come up failure. These are the primary examples in the fucking book of using the rules to perform basic moves.

Yes, some of us have read the fucking book. And no, that doesn't make it any better. For fuck's sake, the book is only 73k words long, it's the length of a paperback mystery. There aren't any deep secrets or amazing twists: it really is exactly as fucked as it sounds like the moment you hear fans jizz themselves over the fact that the MC decides everything after the dice are rolled and there isn't any damn preplanned anything.

-Username17

[silva]

The actual example of a strong hit in the Read a Sitch rules is that a previously unmentioned army of enemies is coming from a previously unmentioned location
-Username17

No, you are mistaken. And both me and Chamomile already point it in two different times:

If you pay attention, It was previously stablished - and noted by the GM - that Tum-Tum was the "Water Cult leader", and that this cult has a temple. So, the GM describing the psycho-bodyguards is a perfecly plausible/logical thing, as described for this kind of threat - Just look at the example sheet (called First Session sheet) on the GM chapter and you see the descriptions.

Edit: the Read a Sitch move is really a tactical asessment of the situation, where the GM gives you a tip on the best course of action ( the difference being that you gain a bonus if you choose it). My group already used it in Shadowrun exactly like that, well before knowing about Apocalypse World.

[silva]

Just to make sure we're on the same page, I'll quote myself from earlier in the thread.

So, given this situation in the rules:

Keeler the gunlugger’s taken off her shoes and she’s sneaking into Dremmer’s camp, armed as they say to the upper teeth. If they hear her, she’s fucked. (On a 7–9, maybe I give her an ugly choice between alerting the camp and murdering an innocent teenage sentry.)

Would you agree that all of the following points (with the possible exception of the last point) are legitimate outcomes on a 7 to 9?

Also, notice how, under that 7-9 heading, the MC could have used any of the following:

• You sneak in undetected but you drop your favorite gun in the mud, and it can't be fired until it's cleaned.
• You sneak in undetected but drop your favorite gun into a latrine, and you'll have to deviate to try and retrieve it.
• You sneak in undetected but realize it's more heavily guarded than you thought.
• You sneak in undetected but twist your ankle, slowing your movement.
• You sneak in undetected but shit your pants because you gambled on a fart.
• You sneak in almost undetected but a kid sees you, and you have to decide whether or not to kill him or be caught.
• You sneak in almost undetected but an entire room full of babies sees you, and you have to decide whether or not to kill them or be caught.

Yup, all are perfectly valid. Even the last two, if they: are somehow plausible to the situation (it would be hard to explain the babies), and if they do not prsent a combat but simply a kill (you sneak in, but the cost is killing a canibal kid would be right, I think).