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

[Dogbert]

Ok, reading further ahead into DW, I got to the part about Fronts, Dangers, and GM moves... and yeah, now I see where the collective talk about quantum bears comes from, being moves a sort of "Wheel of Misfortune" (and the GM being instructed to spin it whenever players turn to look at him in unison).

*World seems to go to great lengths to ensure games are a TFOS-grade comedy of errors, making sure players can't do so much as plan for anything, ever (I guess DW's wizards are all Presto from 80's d&d cartoon).

At this point, the only thing that keeps boggling my mind is why trying to emulate d&d on a game not exactly fit for combat. If everyone (except monsters) dies on 2 hits at most, then who would ever consider taking on a dragon?

[Atmo]

At this point, the only thing that keeps boggling my mind is why trying to emulate d&d on a game not exactly fit for combat (if everyone dies on 2 hits at most, then who would ever consider slaying a dragon?).

Crazy people who thinks this game is "cool and functional". And people who wants a "fighter who isn't useless in combat, life and everything else".

[Sakuya Izayoi]

Here's what ends up happening (in DW): every fight against a large monster ends up being Shadow of the Colossus; you can't fight the monster head on, so you have to be like, "I climb its back" or "I devise this clever trap". Basically, spamming Defy Danger until you can hit its weak spot for massive damage (usually the GM just lets you roll damage at that point without Hack & Slash or w/e). People who complained that they couldn't do "stunts in WotC's D&D like it. Explains why the OSR has been grudgingly accepting of it whereas they display disdain for other storygamey stuff like Fate Core.

[GâtFromKI]

I was mistaken, Vincent didn't run it, but he does link, without shame, to where the event was described http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?350 ... ost7710536

... What the hell is that ? O_o ...

So there is a game in which wearing pants every day as a woman is as sinful and depraved as committing a rape and then kill the victim. O_o

And the whole game seems to be about stupid and offensive moral relativism: in this crap, rape is morally the same as mutiny or homosexuality; and the whole purpose is to show your pirate has to become inhuman, ie it is about creating situations like this: "the captain commands you to violate the boy. lol Now your soul is screwed because disobeying him is as sinful as committing the rape rolf". What's wrong with the authors and the editors of this thing?

And what's wrong with the people defending this crap? Anyone in his right mind would rather eat a bucket of shit than defending that...


Edit: I know this is not the subject of the thread, but this shit is so... Offensive, in every conceivable way, I had to say it.

[momothefiddler]

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.

So these descriptions make the situation charged, or at least let you know if they are, and thus allow you to Read the Sitch? That is, can the MC ever put you in a charged situation without letting you know (via announcing badness) that it's charged? If so, the primary problem does seem to mainly exist in pvp situations, which you already acknowledged is an issue, so that's covered.

So basically you have passive perception and automatically succeed on it, but that doesn't do more than give you a chance to make an active roll when something comes up. That works, I s'pose.

[silva]

At this point, the only thing that keeps boggling my mind is why trying to emulate d&d on a game not exactly fit for combat. If everyone (except monsters) dies on 2 hits at most, then who would ever consider taking on a dragon?

Well, while Im not a fan of Dungeon World (for other reasons), I dont understand this logic. Shouldnt it be more interesting to fight powerful monster exactly because players can die more easily, thus requiring a better sinergy of moves/power instead of just "Ok, I hit it" and "it dies" ?

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

Sure, why not ? Just give a threat a custom move related to sex. You could even do a pack of gangbang zombies which infect women with their sperm, exactly like this.

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.

AW doesnt make it so clear, or nicely worded, as it should (some hacks, like Dungeon World, are better at this). But its there, nonetheless:

Here are guidelines for choosing your moves:
Always choose a move that can follow logically from what’s going on in the game’s fiction. It doesn’t have to be the only one, or the most likely, but it does have to make at least some kind of sense.
Generally, limit yourself to a move that’ll (a) set you up for a future harder move, and (b) give the players’ characters some opportunity to act and react. A start to the action, not its conclusion.
However, when a player’s character hands you the perfect oppor- tunity on a golden plate, make as hard and direct a move as you like. It’s not the meaner the better, although mean is often good. Best is: make it irrevocable.
When a player’s character makes a move and the player misses the roll, that’s the cleanest and clearest example there is of an opportunity on a plate. When you’ve been setting something up and it comes together without interference, that counts as an opportunity on a plate too.
But again, unless a player’s character has handed you the opportunity, limit yourself to a move that sets up future moves, your own and the players’ characters’.
The most important and versitile setup move is announce future badness. If you don’t have another move already at hand, announce future badness:
“Someone’s in there, you hear them moving. What do you do?” “‘Oh, hey, Keeler, Ribs is looking for you.’ What do you do?”

Announcing off-screen badness is good too. After all, badness elsewhere now will usually become badness here later:
“You hear gunfire, not too far away. Maybe Hison’s people, hard to know. What do you do?”
“Sometime in the night, an explosion wakes you all up. It’s not in the holding, but it’s nearby. Everything shakes. What do you do? ”
“What’s up this morning? Oh yeah, I remember. ere’s a pillar of black smoke on the horizon, and if you look through binoculars you can see refugees. What do you do?”

WHEN AN NPC ATTACKS
One of your moves is inflict harm. You’re accordingly allowed to say, like, “Fisty opens fire on you. Take 2-harm,” but very rarely will you want to. Usually what you’ll do instead is put someone in a spot: “Fisty opens fire on you. What do you do?”
If the character does anything much, she’s doing it under fire.
Maybe she’ll straight-out run, maybe try to manipulate him, maybe go aggro on him to get him to run instead, maybe try to seize something by force (like his gun or an escape). at’s cool, then she rolls, and you follow the rules for her move. Maybe you inflict harm then.
Maybe she won’t make any move, though. Maybe she’ll be like “peh, Fisty. Shoot away.” Of course if she does that, she’s giving you a beautiful opportunity on a plate, and you should inflict harm with enthusiasm.

[silva]

So these descriptions make the situation charged, or at least let you know if they are, and thus allow you to Read the Sitch? That is, can the MC ever put you in a charged situation without letting you know (via announcing badness) that it's charged? If so, the primary problem does seem to mainly exist in pvp situations, which you already acknowledged is an issue, so that's covered.

So basically you have passive perception and automatically succeed on it, but that doesn't do more than give you a chance to make an active roll when something comes up. That works, I s'pose.

Yup, exactly!

And there is the main problem with the game, in my view: he instigate PvP all the time since the beginning (through previous history between characters in char-creation, the Trust/Hx mechanic, the XP system, the GM moves that pitch PCs against each other, the PC-NPC-PC triangles, the inter-players moves like Manipulate, etc) and then, when its the time for the showdown, it limits the PvP to womanly bickering and slap-fights!

See, I understand some people having problems with the game MTP/improv-relying nature, but I find it more a matter of taste/playing style. On the other hand, this PvP dissonance is a true, and glaring, flaw.

[Previn]

AW doesnt make it so clear, or nicely worded, as it should (some hacks, like Dungeon World, are better at this). But its there, nonetheless:

Here are guidelines for choosing your moves:
Always choose a move that can follow logically from what’s going on in the game’s fiction. It doesn’t have to be the only one, or the most likely, but it does have to make at least some kind of sense.
Generally, limit yourself to a move that’ll (a) set you up for a future harder move, and (b) give the players’ characters some opportunity to act and react. A start to the action, not its conclusion.
However, when a player’s character hands you the perfect oppor- tunity on a golden plate, make as hard and direct a move as you like. It’s not the meaner the better, although mean is often good. Best is: make it irrevocable.
When a player’s character makes a move and the player misses the roll, that’s the cleanest and clearest example there is of an opportunity on a plate. When you’ve been setting something up and it comes together without interference, that counts as an opportunity on a plate too.

It literally tells you to use a hard move when the player rolls a miss. I am beginning to doubt that you've every actually played a *world game using the actual rules.

[silva]

Previn, I said exactly that in my original post (emphasis mine):

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.

[CCarter]

At this point, the only thing that keeps boggling my mind is why trying to emulate d&d on a game not exactly fit for combat. If everyone (except monsters) dies on 2 hits at most, then who would ever consider taking on a dragon?

Dungeon World uses a different hit point/damage system to Apocalypse World. IIRC its a vaguely D&D-esque damage system instead of the Apocalypse World harm clock.

[mlangsdorf]

There's no good way to differentiae between opposition skill levels, 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.

So who the fuck cares if it's harm or just conflict? The point is, there's no generic mechanical way for 3 PCs to have a foot race, a cooking competition, or to cock block each other while trying to seduce the hardholder's daughter. Everybody Acts Under Fire or whatever and the character with the highest Cool is more likely to be the fastest runner, the best cook, and the belle of the ball, because reasons.

Even two player competitions are fucked. Did Derick's character improvise a better disguise than my biker character can see through? Derick's character is crafty but my character isn't perceptive, but the rolls for Act Under Fire or Read the Sitch are completely independent of the opposition, so it's just as easy or hard for Derick's character to Act Under Fire to fool me as it is for him to Act Under Fire to fool Rachel's worldly wise and strongly perceptive character.

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).

Since the actual situation that came up in play was my Biker deciding he'd had enough of Derick's Minder ignoring his repeated warnings and Go Aggro's effects to not mind control members of said biker's gang, and was thus coming to rather deliberately murder the Minder, we had a problem to resolve. The Minder wanted to hide/disguise himself/get the hell away, and the Biker wanted to find him. We rolled some dice, and I think I got lucky, but my chance of succeeding (or Derick's chance of succeeding, either way) was completely independent of the opposition's skill. Finding a ninja and finding an old man are equally hard or easy; hiding from Inspector Closteau and Sherlock Holmes are also the same difficulty, as least if everyone involved in a PC.

It's a bullshit design and it's a puzzling bullshit design, because all games should have some method of resolving interparty conflict in a way that corresponds to the strengths and weaknesses of the characters. Because if you didn't playtest by having an Arena Night at some point, I don't believe you playtested at all.

[silva]

I agree with you on all accounts, Langsdorf. The moves structure are too one-sided so they feel completely inapropriated on PvP situations.

[Atmo]

Here's what ends up happening (in DW): every fight against a large monster ends up being Shadow of the Colossus; you can't fight the monster head on, so you have to be like, "I climb its back" or "I devise this clever trap". Basically, spamming Defy Danger until you can hit its weak spot for massive damage (usually the GM just lets you roll damage at that point without Hack & Slash or w/e). People who complained that they couldn't do "stunts in WotC's D&D like it. Explains why the OSR has been grudgingly accepting of it whereas they display disdain for other storygamey stuff like Fate Core.

That is something i didn't see for ages. Probably Risus or OVA can do that example with some degrees of mathematical fun, but i'll have to test it first.

A hack i did see of *World was Dragon World Hack, a game for 90's fantasy comedy anime (Slayers, Dragon Half and Hikyou Tanken Fam & Ihrlie). The idea is good, but after reading about the system... meh.

[silva]

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.

Huh, I dont remember saying anything like that for AW. Even though, imho, AW resolution is far from being your grandpa pure physics simulating engine, since most moves involve peripheral effects that add to the task at hand in various ways. If I have to classify it, I would say its a mix of trad and storygaming-like drama-generating resolution.

[Previn]

Previn, I said exactly that in my original post (emphasis mine):

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.

You said:

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").

I called you on it, and you failed to provide an actual citation that says that. In fact the section you quoted not only says that on a miss, HARD MOVE them, but to also HARD MOVE them whenever they " a player’s character hands you the perfect oppor- tunity on a golden plate." That's NOT a miss. That's a totally arbitrary decision by the GM on wether HARD MOVE grab your ankles PCs has happened.

On top of that, you only GENERALLY limit yourself to projecting that you're going to make a hard move, meaning there is no actual rule that you have to use a soft move first.

On top of those 3 other times where under the rules the GM can already just throw a hard move at you because reasons, if the GM has setup something and it "comes together without interference" they get to do a hard mov with no restriction.

In fact that whole paragraph you quoted could basically just read: The GM can do a hard move when the frell ever.

FYI, I'm putting you on ignore. You clearly don't know *world games enough to have an informed discussion about them and their rules.

[silva]

Well, suit yourself.

And just to clear the matter, here is a useful guide: http://mightyatom.blogspot.com.br/2011/ ... moves.html

Basically, it amounts to: setup, then follow through. Or, announce badness, then make it hurt. Soft move, then hard move. Easy, right ?

[angelfromanotherpin]

Basically, it amounts to: setup, then follow through. Or, announce badness, then make it hurt. Soft move, then hard move. Easy, right ?

That does sound simple. And if it weren't for the rules you quoted that urge the MC to violate those guidelines at the drop of a hat, you might not look like such a gormless tool.

[Stinktopus]

The more I hear about Anus World, the more it just seems like the rules should read, in entirety, as follows:

"The Storyteller tells a story involving characters you create. If you want to interject an action/event on behalf of your character, state what you want to see happen and roll 2d6. The Storyteller then continues telling the story."

Instead, the system comes across as too many pages of trying to be way too cool for the room. The print edition should come with coupons for Pabst Blue Ribbon.

The traits and moves have the feel of a Steve Jackson card game without the strategic elements. You read the name, have a good laugh, then run out of novelty and wonder why you're bothering with this byzantine pile of hipster verbal diarrhea.

"Insano Like Drano" is embarrassing for an adult to write on a character sheet and has no clear indication of a game effect. Same thing with "Not to be Fucked With." With all of this bullshit being so vague and meta-gamey, you destroy the immersion that has always been the selling point for rules light systems.

"My Wizard casts a Fireball spell," is a phrase that uses the actual game terminology while being (for lack of a better word) immersive.

"My Gunlugger has Not to be Fucked with and Insano Like Drano, so I'm going to Seize by Force against the gang in the bunker that I detected by Reading the Sitch," sounds like you're playing a fucking card game.

I listened to about an hour of a Fallout New Vegas Apocalypse World Actual Play and I wanted to punch everyone involved in the throat.

[Leress]

I listened to about an hour of a Fallout New Vegas Apocalypse World Actual Play and I wanted to punch everyone involved in the throat.

Could you post a link to that?

[ishy]

A link to the throat punching would be fine too.

[erik]

Just watch this and imagine you just rolled 2d6.

[Cyberzombie]

In fact that whole paragraph you quoted could basically just read: The GM can do a hard move when the frell ever.

Well like any rules-lite game, it hands a lot of power to the DM and assumes he won't be a total dick just for the sake of being a dick. And hell, a D&D DM can just have 100 balors teleport in at any time too. I figure the majority of the exceptions in AW are mostly for just if your PCs are acting stupid and inviting surprise attacks.

[angelfromanotherpin]

The 100 Balors thing is a direct violation of the CR guidelines. All the bullshit about AW, the hard moves whenever, the quantum bears, all of it, is playing the game as written and intended. As evidenced by the examples of play in the book, the advice to the GM from the book, and so on.

[Dean]

Holy fuck Cyberzombie you have really gone full troll haven't you. We fucking had this exact conversation like two pages ago. We already told you the difference between the things you're trying to make sound the same. CR is a solid system that tells you exactly why you -shouldn't- teleport 100 balors into the room and it tells your players exactly by what amount you are being a shithead. Comparing that to AW's rules that say "Be a shithead and here's some in-book examples of us being shitheads" is dishonest in the extreme. You're either a shitty troll or a shitty poster so either start typing in all lower case while demanding apologies and shilling for terrible games OR fix your fucking opinions.

[silva]

The 100 Balors thing is a direct violation of the CR guidelines.

..and is a direct violation of AW GM agendas, principles and moves too.

Otherwise, please cite some actual example from the book or actual play report where the 100 balors, or some other nonsensic event, appear. (Tip: Frank theory on the "psychich bodyguards" is already busted, so dont try it ).