(whatever)-World: Finally read it, here's my veredict

[schpeelah]

How do you even know if you kill an enemy or it kills you if there's no statblocks?

Obviously, either happens if the DM decides that's what the result of the latest roll is.

[momothefiddler]

How do you even know if you kill an enemy or it kills you if there's no statblocks?

Obviously, either happens if the DM decides that's what the result of the latest roll is.

7-9: You successfully killed him. Also, he killed you. gg re?

[silva]

How do you even know if you kill an enemy or it kills you if there's no statblocks?

Cyber, statblocks in AW are a matter of checking how each side is equipped. Most npcs can take 3 damage, most guns do 2 damage, and most armor absorb 1 damage. Also, each player can take 5 damage before dying, and the default combat move is called Seize by Force and works like this:

When you try to seize something by force, or to secure your hold on something, roll+hard. On a hit, choose options. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7–9, choose 2:
• you take definite hold of it
• you suffer little harm
• you inflict terrible harm
• you impress, dismay or frighten your enemy

An important nitpick is that, if you dont choose "suffer little harm" or "inflict terrible harm", ita assumed you count the default weapon damage. (Little harm means -1 damage, while terrible harm means +1 damage in combat). Here is an example from the book:

Bran needs 10 minutes alone with Jeanette’s body, so he opens fire on H and Marser. He hits the roll with an 11. “Take definite hold, suffer little harm, impress dismay or frighten,” he says. “Fantastic,” I say. “You hit H for 2-harm and he goes down, Marser drags him away. Marser heaved his crowbar at you, but you could, like, turn it aside with your arm. You take 1-harm. It’ll bruise but whatever.”

And here is the weapons table, for giving a better picture of it. Notice the little tags besides them. Each tag has an specific effect or behavior, most are obvious, some are not.

Common firearms
• .38 revolver (2-harm close reload loud)
• 9mm (2-harm close loud)
• hunting rifle (2-harm far loud)
• magnum (3-harm close reload loud)
• sawed-off (3-harm close reload messy)
• shotgun (3-harm close messy)
• sleeve pistol (2-harm close reload loud)
• smg (2-harm close autofire loud)

Other weapons
• big knife (2-harm hand)
• crowbar (2-harm hand messy)
• grenades (4-harm hand area reload messy)
• machete (3-harm hand messy)
• many knives (2-harm hand infinite)
• stun gun (s-harm hand reload)

* One VERY IMPORTANT thing to remember is that the GM never rolls dice. NEVER. Everything that happens is a consequence of the players own rolls, and his choices. So, if you go back to the example, youll see that the player could have killed H if he wanted (by choosing to inflict terrible harm, thus doing 3 harm instead of 2) but he chose not, picking other options instead. Alternatively, he could have chosen take little harm AND inflict terrible harm, but then he could not pick "impress or frighten" and the enemy would not retreat as they did.

[Cyberzombie]

An important nitpick is that, if you dont choose "suffer little harm" or "inflict terrible harm", ita assumed you count the default weapon damage. (Little harm means -1 damage, while terrible harm means +1 damage in combat). Here is an example from the book:

Bran needs 10 minutes alone with Jeanette’s body, so he opens fire on H and Marser. He hits the roll with an 11. “Take definite hold, suffer little harm, impress dismay or frighten,” he says. “Fantastic,” I say. “You hit H for 2-harm and he goes down, Marser drags him away. Marser heaved his crowbar at you, but you could, like, turn it aside with your arm. You take 1-harm. It’ll bruise but whatever.”

Few questions:

-So basically you always take damage whenever you choose to attack someone?

-How do you differentiate between NPCs that are strong combatants and NPCs that are weak if the PC is the only one who rolls dice? Do you apply modifiers if the other guy is supposed to be a badass or what? It seems the PC is at more risk from 5 sickly kids with baseball bats than an expert marksman with an assault rifle.

-Why would you ever choose to take definite hold of a location when you can just kill a guy outright and then presumably take it unopposed?

[momothefiddler]

Bran needs 10 minutes alone with Jeanette’s body, so he opens fire on H and Marser. He hits the roll with an 11. “Take definite hold, suffer little harm, impress dismay or frighten,” he says. “Fantastic,” I say. “You hit H for 2-harm and he goes down, Marser drags him away. Marser heaved his crowbar at you, but you could, like, turn it aside with your arm. You take 1-harm. It’ll bruise but whatever.”

Wait, am I reading this right, in that the damage you take and the effectiveness of your scare is unrelated to how many opponents you're fighting? And that a 'hand' weapon can also be used just fine as a 'close' (or maybe 'far'?) weapon? And that the 3-harm weapons are fucking gamechangers because (assuming armor, and with those numbers I'm getting some fucking armor) they take you from never-dead enemies and unscathed players to actually-dead enemies and unavoidable damage to players?

Also: How much damage can elite npcs take? How much damage can elite npcs' armor absorb? I understand that the numbers given aren't universal, thus 'most', but I'm worried it's never further clarified and you're gonna end up against a dude with 4-point armor because hey that sounds fun hope you have grenades and roll well so you don't waste 'em.

[mlangsdorf]

Few questions:

-So basically you always take damage whenever you choose to attack someone?

-How do you differentiate between NPCs that are strong combatants and NPCs that are weak if the PC is the only one who rolls dice? Do you apply modifiers if the other guy is supposed to be a badass or what? It seems the PC is at more risk from 5 sickly kids with baseball bats than an expert marksman with an assault rifle.

-Why would you ever choose to take definite hold of a location when you can just kill a guy outright and then presumably take it unopposed?

If you're sufficiently armored, have a gang backing you (or are a gang yourself), and going against weak enough opposition, you can take little enough damage that your armor reduces it no effective harm. Yay.

As far as differentiating between opposition skill levels, as far as I know from the couple of sessions I played, there's no good way to do it. Which is frustrating when you're dealing with NPCs and inexcusable when there's intra-party conflict and there's no obvious way for the stealthy PC to avoid being spotted by semi-oblivious biker thug PC. Comparative skill levels don't mean jack, so biker thug Reads the Sitch (or whatever the appropriate move is) and finds stealthy PC if he rolls well, then Goes Aggro or Seizes by Force or whatever.

Honestly, one of my biggest problems with AW is that it has two slightly different moves for fighting (I think? I never really understood the difference between Go Aggro and Seize by Force) but collapses everything from escaping a burning building to walking a tightrope to sneaking past the guards to taking cover while being shot at into a single move (Act Under Stress).

To hell with quantum cultists and "suddenly, bears!", the basic resolution actions are crap even if the GM is on the up and up.

[John Magnum]

Let's see if silva says, yet again, that AW isn't supposed to be an engine for resolving tasks, but for, uh, something else that's different.

[silva]

So basically you always take damage whenever you choose to attack someone?

Yup.

How do you differentiate between NPCs that are strong combatants and NPCs that are weak if the PC is the only one who rolls dice?

Through gear and custom moves.

Do you apply modifiers if the other guy is supposed to be a badass or what?

By default, no. But if some custom move asks for it then yeah. ("Jake is too fast, if someone try to Seize him by Force, give -1 to the roll" , or "Monkey is a bizarre fella, when trying to Read him, use Weird instead of Sharp", or yet "Bryan is strong as a bull, everytime he inflicts damage, make it +1 harm").

It seems the PC is at more risk from 5 sickly kids with baseball bats than an expert marksman with an assault rifle.

Well they could be. When you have 3 guys together (or is it 4 ?) it counts as a gang. You roll for the gang as a single entity, and for each level s bigger than you, it does +1 harm and gain 1 armor. So, ie, if you taking a small gang alone, youre already at a significant disadvantage, taking on a medium or big sized gang is suicide. (Except if youre a Gunlugger and picked the move "Not to be fucked with" which makes you function as a gang yourself).

On the other hand, a single competent npc could take you from afar with a hi-tech hi-powered laser sighted silenced sniper rifle using AP ammo (see tags below to understand) which amount to 5-harm armor-piercing damage, while having a move like "chameleon skin: while static, players only detect him on a 10+ success in a Sharp roll".

Firearms to give you pause
• ap ammo (applied) Add ap to all your guns.
• assault rifle (3-harm close loud autofire)
• grenade launcher (4-harm close/far area messy)
• grenade tube (4-harm close area reload messy)
• mg (3-harm close/far autofire messy)
• silenced 9mm (2-harm close hi-tech)
• silenced sniper rifle (3-harm far hi-tech)

Custumizing firearms:
• ornate (+valuable)
• antique (+valuable)
• semiautomatic (-reload)
• 3-round burst (close/far)
• automatic (+autofire)
• silenced (-loud)
• hi-powered (+1harm)
• ap ammo (+ap)
• scoped (+far, or +1harm at far)
• big (+1harm)

Why would you ever choose to take definite hold of a location when you can just kill a guy outright and then presumably take it unopposed?

Dont know. Perhaps there is more than one opponent ? Perhaps you just to make them out of cover or attain some other tactical advantage. Or perhaps you want to seize his gun by force, without harming him. It all depends on the context.

]Wait, am I reading this right, in that the damage you take and the effectiveness of your scare is unrelated to how many opponents you're fighting?

Nope. The damage effects in Seize by Force is on a one-to-one basis, except if you have an SMG (or other gun with the autofire tag) then you can spray on more than one target. The exception to this is gangs, since they are treated as a single unit.

And that a 'hand' weapon can also be used just fine as a 'close' (or maybe 'far'?) weapon?

Nah, I wouldnt do that. Except maybe for giving the minimum damage, and even then under strict circumstances. Id say its another case of bad example writing by the author.

And that the 3-harm weapons are fucking gamechangers because (assuming armor, and with those numbers I'm getting some fucking armor) they take you from never-dead enemies and unscathed players to actually-dead enemies and unavoidable damage to players?

Yup, 3-harm weapons are mean. Even expert combatent PCs (like the Gunlugger above) should respect it. Specially because - and here Im already answering you next question - the biggest armor thats plausibly mobile according to the book is rating 2 armor. There can be better armors but they should be very rare. If I aint mistaken, the book gives the example of a used SWAT anti-explosives suit (or somthing like that) which have 3 armor.

About the NPCs, I dont remember. I think its not possible to give NPCs more than the default damage. I will consult it when I have the time.

[8d8]

8d8, in another thread you referred to Kaelik as "being a bundle of kindling". In this thread you responded to a comment about the game being shitty with the suggestion that it might be because the author likes sucking dick, and it might be "written gay".

If those were honest mistakes I might suggest you put a little more thought into your posts as multiple people have come away with the idea that they were homophobic. Just sayin'.

Calling someone a bundle of kindling (or the abbreviated term that shockingly is edited here) is an insult. If it weren't then calling someone who is gay by that term would be perfectly acceptable. If for some reason insults aren't okay, or if there is a list of insults that are okay and not okay then damn, tgdmb just went into the fucking twilight zone.

I didn't realize that with all the homoerotic comments on this board you would be so easily butthurt, but I'm happy to never mention sexuality again. English isn't so limited that "sucking a barrel of cocks" needs to be a part of anyone's vocabulary.

[Kaelik]

Calling someone a bundle of kindling (or the abbreviated term that shockingly is edited here) is an insult. If it weren't then calling someone who is gay by that term would be perfectly acceptable.

So your argument is that you were using a derogatory term for gays, and this isn't homophobic, just like a derogatory comment for black people isn't racist.

You might want to think this through a little better.

[momothefiddler]

]Wait, am I reading this right, in that the damage you take and the effectiveness of your scare is unrelated to how many opponents you're fighting?

Nope. The damage effects in Seize by Force is on a one-to-one basis, except if you have an SMG (or other gun with the autofire tag) then you can spray on more than one target. The exception to this is gangs, since they are treated as a single unit.

Then why didn't Bran take damage from both H and Marser? And if he did, how does suffering little harm factor in? Would that be (2+2)-1=3, or (2-1)+(2-1)=2?

@the rest of that: Alright. Thanks for clarifying.

[Cyberzombie]

As far as differentiating between opposition skill levels, as far as I know from the couple of sessions I played, there's no good way to do it. Which is frustrating when you're dealing with NPCs and inexcusable when there's intra-party conflict and there's no obvious way for the stealthy PC to avoid being spotted by semi-oblivious biker thug PC. Comparative skill levels don't mean jack, so biker thug Reads the Sitch (or whatever the appropriate move is) and finds stealthy PC if he rolls well, then Goes Aggro or Seizes by Force or whatever.

Yeah, this sounds like a big problem to me.

[silva]

If you're sufficiently armored, have a gang backing you (or are a gang yourself), and going against weak enough opposition, you can take little enough damage that your armor reduces it no effective harm. Yay.

Yup, this reflects my experience as well. Most of times, players will have the upper hand no matter what, because they are the ones to initiate conflict and thus can decide when, where and how to do so (and when NOT do so). Thats the reason the GM must be severe when given the opportunity (that is, when players miss or get 7-9 on rolls).

As far as differentiating between opposition skill levels, as far as I know from the couple of sessions I played, there's no good way to do it.

See above. Gear and custom moves.

Which is frustrating when you're dealing with NPCs and inexcusable when there's intra-party conflict

I would say Apocalypse World is all about intra-party conflict, but not about intra-party harm. The Manipulate/Read Person/Interefere/Go Aggro moves are awesome for this, the Seize by Force not so much. Its like those reality shows where the group is always fighting, but this fight means more giving prejudice to each other in the form of betrayals, stolen food, damaged properties, etc. than actual physical agression (otherwise youre expelled from the show).

and there's no obvious way for the stealthy PC to avoid being spotted by semi-oblivious biker thug PC. Comparative skill levels don't mean jack, so biker thug Reads the Sitch (or whatever the appropriate move is) and finds stealthy PC if he rolls well, then Goes Aggro or Seizes by Force or whatever.

I dont think this is correct. The biker PC taking a crap while reading a porn magazine in the cab is not elligible for Reading the Sitch, because there is no charged sitch happening at all. In this case the sneaking PC simply rolls his Act under Fire (or Get in if he is a Turncoat) and thats it. If he succeeds he can, say, get behind the biker PC unnoticed and Go Aggro on him, but if he fails he will alert the biker PC, which will have his chance to act now (probrably Seizing the sneaker by Force).

Again, I dont thing the problem lies in those kind of maneuvering between PCs. I think the problem is when actual harm is done. Then things get clunky.

...I never really understood the difference between Go Aggro and Seize by Force

Going Aggro gives you leverage, advantage, while Seize by Force dont. You will always want to Go Aggro. Always. Because if you hit the roll, the enemy must do what you want or be punished. While on Seize by Force no one has any leverage, its open fight.

So in the example above, if the sneaking PC succeeded in getting behind the biker PC unnoticed, man, the biker is fucked. "Im right behind you with my sawed-off in your head... gimme your bike keys or I blow you". The only thing the biker PC can do right now is the Interfere move, and hope it hits so the sneaker PC gets -2 to his Go Aggro roll.

But suppose the biker is on a lucky day and his interference makes the sneaker miss the roll (and the shot). Now he can bring pain on the sneaker, but he cant Go Aggro because he doesnt have any leverage, theyre are face to face on a 1 and half meter square cab in the woods. Then he Seizes the sneaker sawed-off by Force while inflicting as much damage as possible. And since he is the strongest of the two, he has a slight advantage. This time its the sneaker who can try to Interfere.

And so it goes. The moves snowball.

[deaddmwalking]

I dont think this is correct. The biker PC taking a crap while reading a porn magazine in the cab is not elligible for Reading the Sitch, because there is no charged sitch happening at all. In this case the sneaking PC simply rolls his Act under Fire (or Get in if he is a Turncoat) and thats it. If he succeeds he can, say, get behind the biker PC unnoticed and Go Aggro on him, but if he fails he will alert the biker PC, which will have his chance to act now (probrably Seizing the sneaker by Force).

It sounds like you're saying that the 'stealthy character' would have the exact same chance to sneak up on the Biker PC (known for being oblivous) or The Most Observant Man in the Universe (known for his ability to recognize when his wife has had a haircut). If the chance for success is the same against someone who is 'bad' in that field is the same as for someone who is 'good' in that field, the game fails to distinguish between relative ability.

You're helping me discover all kinds of new reasons to not try Apocalypse World.

[momothefiddler]

I dont think this is correct. The biker PC taking a crap while reading a porn magazine in the cab is not elligible for Reading the Sitch, because there is no charged sitch happening at all.

“I read the situation,” her player says.
“You do? It’s charged?” I say.
“It is now.”
“Ahh,” I say. I understand perfectly: the three NPCs don’t realize
it, but Marie’s arrival charges the situation. If it were a movie,
the sound track would be picking up, getting sinister.

I'm rapidly starting to think the only time you're allowed to roll to notice something is if you've already noticed there's something to notice.

And I still don't see why I'm not allowed to just call them fucking perception checks.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

And I still don't see why I'm not allowed to just call them fucking perception checks.

Vince's attempts at Clockwork Orange talk permeates the book and is used as GAME TERMINOLOGY (rather than, say, fluff blurbs in side panels) all over. "Perception" has too explicit a definition to work here, it doesn't have nearly the right amount of Mother May I.

[ishy]

Honestly, one of my biggest problems with AW is that it has two slightly different moves for fighting (I think? I never really understood the difference between Go Aggro and Seize by Force) but collapses everything from escaping a burning building to walking a tightrope to sneaking past the guards to taking cover while being shot at into a single move (Act Under Stress).

vincent[/url]]By default, violence is going aggro, but if your enemy is fighting back, it's seizing by force.

One thing I'll let people do instead of seizing by force is act under fire in order to get into a position where their enemy can't effectively fight back, so they can then go aggro on them.

[silva]

I'm rapidly starting to think the only time you're allowed to roll to notice something is if you've already noticed there's something to notice.

More or less, yes. Thats why I prefer to think of it more as a tactical awereness check - where you try to Id things like best routes, vulnerable spots, biggest threats, etc - than a perception one.

And I still don't see why I'm not allowed to just call them fucking perception checks.

A perception check on a traditional game (say, Shadowrun) would allow you to detect incoming foes while distracted, right ? AW Read a Sitch down work for that.

It sounds like you're saying that the 'stealthy character' would have the exact same chance to sneak up on the Biker PC (known for being oblivous) or The Most Observant Man in the Universe (known for his ability to recognize when his wife has had a haircut).

There is not an "opposing test" for the distracting character, like a trad rpg has. Which goes back to the problem pointed previously: the game dont handle direct confrontation between PCs well. The lack of "opposing tests" tend to deprotagonize players, in my opinion. Notice though, that some moves (Seduce/Manipulate/Read Person/Go Aggro) do let the target player to have a say/pick options, and thus alleviate the problem.

If the chance for success is the same against someone who is 'bad' in that field is the same as for someone who is 'good' in that field, the game fails to distinguish between relative ability.

I wouldnt say that. The game fails at distinguishing relative ability only for the kind of PC vs PC confrontational situations we talked above. On normal, PC vs World situations, different capacities confer different advantages. Ie: You Read a Sitch with the Sharp stat, so an intelligent character will read sitches better than a dumb one; a stronger character will have advantage on fights because Seize by Force and Go Aggro are based on the Hard stat; Manipulating and seducing are based on the Hot stat, so a more charismatic character will have the advantage in this field, etc.

[momothefiddler]

I'm rapidly starting to think the only time you're allowed to roll to notice something is if you've already noticed there's something to notice.

A perception check on a traditional game (say, Shadowrun) would allow you to detect incoming foes while distracted, right ? AW Read a Sitch down work for that.

So... yeah? Okay. And it's subjective, too.

So you're best served by assuming everyone is actively hostile, because as soon as you consider someone a potential ally they become invisible. I guess this is just a granularity thing where trust is binary.

EDIT: you reformatted while I was writing and now the quote doesn't look like a quote but the same argument applies.

[silva]

Momo, I think its like that because otherwise the player with the highest Sharp (intelligence) would be Reading the Sitch every 2 steps. I know this hapenned to me: one player from my group Readed the Sitch even when takin a crap, and stopped to Read the Sitch every couple steps in the wilderness - the consequence is that he always had +1 to most tests forward because of that. Then we read the book again and saw we were playing wrong, cause the situation must be charged, and even then you can only read the sitch once. (then the player, a declared munchkin, felt underpowered and decided to create a new character ).

[Cyberzombie]

I wouldnt say that. The game fails at distinguishing relative ability only for the kind of PC vs PC confrontational situations we talked above. On normal, PC vs World situations, different capacities confer different advantages. Ie: You Read a Sitch with the Sharp stat, so an intelligent character will read sitches better than a dumb one; a stronger character will have advantage on fights because Seize by Force and Go Aggro are based on the Hard stat; Manipulating and seducing are based on the Hot stat, so a more charismatic character will have the advantage in this field, etc.

It looks like the AD&D rogue skills, where you had a skill based on the guy acting, but actually setting variable difficulties for the task you were trying to do was clumsy at best because there was no slider to adjust difficulty built into the system.

[momothefiddler]

Momo, I think its like that because otherwise the player with the highest Sharp (intelligence) would be Reading the Sitch every 2 steps. I know this hapenned to me: one player from my group Readed the Sitch even when takin a crap, and stopped to Read the Sitch every couple steps in the wilderness - the consequence is that he always had +1 to most tests forward because of that. Then we read the book again and saw we were playing wrong, cause the situation must be charged, and even then you can only read the sitch once. (then the player, a declared munchkin, felt underpowered and decided to create a new character ).

It's almost as though restricting awareness to active attempts is idiotic. I mean you're basically calling for a roll to open your eyes. So people do that constantly because eyes are fucking useful. So you say no, you can only open your eyes if there's something important in front of you. Except that people have no way of knowing whether there's something important in front of them because their eyes are closed. We literally have a situation where A is sneaking up on B and B isn't allowed a roll to detect A because he hasn't yet rolled to detect A.

And I reiterate my point that now your only option is to view everyone with extreme suspicion so you can still actually see them, because if the other guy thinks the situation is charged and you don't, you're fucked. Does he have a knife up his sleeve? A derringer in his coat pocket? A minigun spinning in his hands? Who knows! You trusted him too much to be able to look and now you can't include that information in your decision on whether to look. Too bad, so sad

Passive awareness is crucial to our understanding of the world and I don't think I could actually play a character without it any more than I could play a character without a utility function (however worded). How do you even look at something without knowing even vaguely what there is to look at? It makes me think of the Shadowrun matrix rules where you had to roll to see the thing but you had to pick it out of all the other possible things first but you had to see it to pick it out and so on, or however it went.

[silva]

Momo, you must remember the GM cant bring pain on you from nothing. Before he makes a "hard move" on you (hurting you, ambushing you, endangering you, taking something from you, etc) he must make a "soft move" (like "announcing future badness"). So, its impossible for a player character to be fucked with from nowhere. This makes the kind of pre-emptive awereness check youre proposing useless.

So, if you are walking calmly by the road, the GM cant say "Bang! Youre hit by a sniper", NO! First he must announce future badness ("hmmm.. You have a weird sensation of being watched" or "pheew! It seems a bullet just passed right by your side!" or yet "weird, this is the third corpse you pass by with a hole the size of an apple in its head"). The exception to this rule is when the player misses a roll (gets 6- on the dice), then the GM can do a hard move on him.

[Previn]

Momo, you must remember the GM cant bring pain on you from nothing. Before he makes a "hard move" on you (hurting you, ambushing you, endangering you, taking something from you, etc) he must make a "soft move" (like "announcing future badness").

Cite the page that says this, because the book is littered with examples that are directly counter to what you're claiming.

[Atmo]

I have a (dumb) question: there is any monster who can execute Sex Moves?