Mechanics are more than just functions

[Zaranthan]

So, You fail on anything except a 10+
Because, on a 7-9 your options are choose 1.

So I either choose to not be ensorcelled, charmed, etc, OR I choose to get useful information, in which case I am ensorcelled somehow. Which means that the useful information I got might be bogus, or that I'm now Dracula's Renfield. WTF.

Reading it with the benefit of the doubt, it actually seems like it COULD produce a reasonable result. The option isn't "you are not ensorcelled", it's "you are not entangled, ensorcelled, or tricked." That "entangled" bit seems like it could cover waking up hung over and tied to a bed. That "tricked" bit seems like it could cover being told about the treasure of Monkey Island but also being convinced that the ghost pirates are just a fairy tale.

The ensorcelled bit certainly gives the GM carte blanche to have you wake up as Renfield, which is terrible. What it's missing is some guidelines for the GM saying "this is an extreme failure, not a run of the mill setback."

[sabs]

But the GM gets to pick WHICH of those happens.
You are not entangled, could also mean you're stuck spending the next 5 days dealing with the Archduke's super high maintenance daughter. Congradulations, you miss the adventure.
You are tricked: You get information about the treasure of monkey island, but you think monkey island is off the coast of africa, instead of an island in the Bahamas.

And, the GM always has the choice to have you Renfielded. On a success.

[Plague of Hats]

So, You fail on anything except a 10+
Because, on a 7-9 your options are choose 1.

So I either choose to not be ensorcelled, charmed, etc, OR I choose to get useful information, in which case I am ensorcelled somehow. Which means that the useful information I got might be bogus, or that I'm now Dracula's Renfield. WTF.

Hey, it's a step up from every other game. I don't recall any mechanic you use in D&D or Exalted or Shadowrun that says "Elminster doesn't show up and plug my face-hole with his sword." I don't see how you can even play a game where that happens all the time forever, which is the obvious outcome of playing a game that lacks a no-Elminsters button.

[Kaelik]

Hey, it's a step up from every other game. I don't recall any mechanic you use in D&D or Exalted or Shadowrun that says "Elminster doesn't show up and plug my face-hole with his sword." I don't see how you can even play a game where that happens all the time forever, which is the obvious outcome of playing a game that lacks a no-Elminsters button.

And yet, in D&D or Exalted or Shadowrun, that basically never happens. ANd yet, it "always" happens on a failed Carousing check. I put always in quotes because everyone who is not an idiot always picks to not be ensorcelled every time without fail, so it never comes up. But if you didn't pick that, your DM would ensorcel you.

And the reason is very easy to see. Because not having a rule against something doesn't encourage the DM to do something. But explicitly having a rule that says picking an option is the way to prevent it encourages DMs to do it, because otherwise they are letting a PC who didn't choose that option get a free benefit that the rules explicitly don't give him.

[sabs]

Except that Shadowrun, D&D, or any of the others do not suggest that one of the options for a success is: Elminster comes and anally rapes you for reasons..

[fbmf]

So, You fail on anything except a 10+
Because, on a 7-9 your options are choose 1.

So I either choose to not be ensorcelled, charmed, etc, OR I choose to get useful information, in which case I am ensorcelled somehow. Which means that the useful information I got might be bogus, or that I'm now Dracula's Renfield. WTF.

Hey, it's a step up from every other game. I don't recall any mechanic you use in D&D or Exalted or Shadowrun that says "Elminster doesn't show up and plug my face-hole with his sword." I don't see how you can even play a game where that happens all the time forever, which is the obvious outcome of playing a game that lacks a no-Elminsters button.

D&D doesn't forbid that, but it doesn't suggest that happening either.

Game On,
fbmf

[Plague of Hats]

It's a failed mechanic anyway; you're never getting to the point you use Carouse. As Frank so wisely taught us, it's just a constant stream of bears no matter what anyone does.

[Sashi]

It's really not.

If the button simply doesn't exist then there's no mechanical requirement that the thing happens. But as soon as the players have a "don't get screwed over" button, the implication is that the MC is actually obligated to screw them over if they don't press it.

[sabs]

It's like the games where there are never any traps, until one of the players plays a character with trapfinding.

[name_here]

Pretty much. If there is an option to specifically not get screwed over, then either you get screwed over if you don't take it, or it's a trap option where you waste one of your benefits for no reason if you take it.

[Plague of Hats]

In the exotic land of Storyswine, players will go to the trouble of having their character ensorcelled by an evil wizard all on their own.

It's probably brain damage or something.

[hogarth]

Except that Shadowrun, D&D, or any of the others do not suggest that one of the options for a success is: Elminster comes and anally rapes you for reasons..

I don't know about Dungeon World, but isn't Apocalypse World supposed to be a grimdark setting where bad stuff happens for no reason and you have to just suck on it?

Saying that Apocalypse World shouldn't have special rules for screwing over the PCs because they don't exist in D&D sounds like saying that Call of Cthulhu shouldn't give SAN loss for seeing monsters because that doesn't happen in Toon.

[deaddmwalking]

Is Plague of Hats a sock puppet?

[angelfromanotherpin]

I don't think so, someone by that name has a long posting history on various game forums. He appears to be a perfectly legitimate ass.

[Mask_De_H]

Plague, please stop with the false equivalencies and Goony lashing out against badwrongfun. It won't help your case and it'll just make us more intractable.

You fling shit, we fling more shit. It's how things work here.

[fectin]

I'm not sure what point he's making. Frank actually has repeatedly pointed out that the *World resolution mechanic always generates whatever the MC decides, and bears really is a great example of that. That "storyswine" will elect to have bad things happen to them is so poorly defined as to be tautological.

Unless there's some incredibly deep Poe's-law--style metahumor going on there, I'm completely missing the point.



Unrelated: does anyone else keep reading "*World" as AnusWorld?

[Voss]

I think of it as ShitWorld myself, but I could see the * as a pucker, so sure.

[OgreBattle]

Ok, we got it. You dont like Apocalypse World. Dont need to remind it in every thread.

Move on.

I have to admit I'm disappointed that we're not actually talking about the premise in the original post, which I thought was a semi-interesting point.

Well, Tussock and I are discussing it. The point I'm on is different power schedules for different character types to fit thematically.

There was a Franktrollman thread about it where he listed a bunch of different types, but I forgot where it was.

[tussock]

I'm not sure what point he's making.

The last one was that, yes, your *World successes fuck you over, but that's the kind of game that some people chose for themselves even without mechanics pushing it that way.

Or, "did you know that getting fucked is a synonym for having sex." Which it can be, but rather ignores issues of consent, to offend by dragging the metaphor further along.

Unrelated: does anyone else keep reading "*World" as AnusWorld?

Foo World is my own brain's processing there. Splat World would be the classic reading.

[silva]

Except that Shadowrun, D&D, or any of the others do not suggest that one of the options for a success is: Elminster comes and anally rapes you for reasons..

I don't know about Dungeon World, but isn't Apocalypse World supposed to be a grimdark setting where bad stuff happens for no reason and you have to just suck on it?

Saying that Apocalypse World shouldn't have special rules for screwing over the PCs because they don't exist in D&D sounds like saying that Call of Cthulhu shouldn't give SAN loss for seeing monsters because that doesn't happen in Toon.

Its an interesting proposition. Just remember that the basic AW resolution is shared with a lot of other games, like Dungeon World (D&D theme), Tremulus (CoC theme), Monster of the Week (WoD/Hunters theme), Saga of the Icelanders (norse/medieval theme), etc.

So, if we consider your proposition right, it means the authors of those hacks didnt really get the AW system that well, and ended replicating a mechanic that didnt really fit their games premises.

Alternatively, we could consider that the intended effect of the mechanic is: 1) to put the power to control the narrative flow partially at the hands of the players ( through the "moves" structure); 2) offer a kind of "failing forward" resolution to make the game moving all the time and avoid stopping in its rails as the binary pass/fail resolutions tend to do; 3) make the players feel like the true responsible for the conseuqences of their actions ("fuck, if I handt failed this, that woudnt happened"), which meshes with the point 1 above.

(of course this later paragraph assume the group is making a conscious effort to play the game as instructed by the book, including following the game agenda, principles, GM moves, etc )

And, lastly, one could consider the mechanic is simply broken, like Frank and most people around here seem to do.

[silva]

Reading it with the benefit of the doubt, it actually seems like it COULD produce a reasonable result. The option isn't "you are not ensorcelled", it's "you are not entangled, ensorcelled, or tricked." That "entangled" bit seems like it could cover waking up hung over and tied to a bed. That "tricked" bit seems like it could cover being told about the treasure of Monkey Island but also being convinced that the ghost pirates are just a fairy tale.

The ensorcelled bit certainly gives the GM carte blanche to have you wake up as Renfield, which is terrible. What it's missing is some guidelines for the GM saying "this is an extreme failure, not a run of the mill setback."

Zarathan, the book gives guidelines for how to use the mechanic in coherent ways. In fact thise are so important they are actually called rules and not just guidelines. If you manage to grab a copy of any of the *World games, take a look at the game Agenda, Principles and GM moves sections.

[silva]

Same as what everyone's saying. Rolling a save vs <condition> feels different to when the attacker rolls to give you <condition>. Rolling different dice for things does make them feel even more different. Flavour text also matters. But the odds need to work no matter how the rest of it is structured, because they are still functions with desired outcome sets.

And some dice systems, no matter how good they might feel to roll, are absolutely terrible at producing usefully variable odds. Still others are just plain bad in all ways, like 4e skill challenges.

So yes, make sure your dice work to connect you to your character's actions, rather than driving in a wedge of dissociation, but only so far as they're still highly functional.

Good point. I agree.

Could we consider Shadowrun pre-4e an example where the funcionality (= working odds) is in that mid range I said before, where the odds do not quite work, but is not quite broken yet ? I mean, Shadowrun has the problem of being almost a cartoon game when you habe Target Numbers below 6 (with everyone succeeding at all tasks attempted), and an extremelly gritty game when you have TNs higher than 6 - so, its not totally coherent statistically, but also not totally broken (specially if you dont mind that kind of disparity).

Further, I dont think Shadowrun system ever managed to have a form that fits its theme and premise at all. For the sake of comparison, I suspect Leverage is much more Shadowrunny than Shadowrun ever managed to be.

[virgil]

I just noticed this, but silva quotes/cites himself in his sig, and that seems...weird. Probably related to the weirdness I felt when he used the eye-wink emote a lot.

Also, I think it's telling when someone compares succeeding to a cartoon game.

[silva]

Yeah, Im weird.

Oh, and almost forgot:

[virgil]

Not weird in a good sense. Weird as in I keep getting a vibe of smugness from the behavior.