Examples of good non-combat resolution mechanics?

[Mistborn]

Apocalypse World.

Any roll is a mini-game.

He asked for good mechanics, not glorified MTP.

[silva]

Apocalypse World.

Any roll is a mini-game.

He asked for good mechanics, not glorified MTP.

If you had actually read the damn thing - instead of talking out of your ass like Frank did in the other thread - you would know AW has nothing to do with "MTP".

Oh, and btw, what game actually relies on "MTP" ? I dont remember ever reading any, really.

[...You Lost Me]

Oh, and btw, what game actually relies on "MTP" ? I dont remember ever reading any, really.

5e actively encourages it. Legend uses it as an answer to anything that isn't combat. I think Scion had some?

[silva]

Oh, and btw, what game actually relies on "MTP" ? I dont remember ever reading any, really.

5e actively encourages it. Legend uses it as an answer to anything that isn't combat. I think Scion had some?

Can you back your affirmations with concrete examples and arguments from the games text, or its just another "Frankinism" at play here where someone launches a meme about game X having Y derrogatory quality and everybody accepts without attesting the fact ?

(no offense intended, but after I heard people around here saying AW is TMP and Runequest/Glorantha depicts religion badly - and at the same level as D&D - Im obligued to check out )

[Mistborn]

Can you back your affirmations with concrete examples and arguments from the games text, or its just another "Frankinism" at play here where someone launches a meme about game X having Y derrogatory quality and everybody accepts without attesting the fact ?

The AW "resolution mechanic" is you roll dice and then depending on the result the MC gives you a rant about how something "good" "bad" or "indeterminate" happens. This is MTP because what actually happens is determined by the MC's imagination, not say a set of concrete rules the you could maybe brush up on in your spare time. This is a shitty mechanic because actions have no identifiable connection to the results. It's also disempowering as fuck if you're a PC, since you can't actually plan from one action to the next if causality doesn't exist.

[Username17]

Yeah, but being told whether the result is "good", "bad", or "in between" is totally enough to have it be non-MTP. Because after all, every single player and the MC always have the same idea of what qualifies as a "good" or "mixed" result.


Seriously though, did I kick Silva's dog without knowing it? He seems awfully convinced that he can win arguments by appealing to the idea that I personally am always wrong. Last time I checked, that only works in Goon Town.

-Username17

[silva]

The AW "resolution mechanic" is you roll dice and then depending on the result the MC gives you a rant about how something "good" "bad" or "indeterminate" happens. This is MTP because what actually happens is determined by the MC's imagination

1. There is no "indeterminate" - this is the proof of ignorance on your part.

2. Can you cite the written rules in the book that accompany the moves structure resolution ? Since it contains very important instructions on how the mechanic works, I think you know it, right ?

Otherwise, it will be the second proof of ignorance from your part (which only corroborates my point that youre talking out of your ass without any real knowledge on the matter aside the rants you hear from other - equally ignorant - people ).

[Chamomile]

1. There is no "indeterminate" - this is the proof of ignorance on your part.

Frank is probably referring to the rules for a 7-9 hit, which are often just instructions to the MC to do something like "offer a hard choice" without saying or giving example of what that hard choice should actually be. That said, since the last time he posted about AW he posted something that is exactly the opposite of true for reasons unknown to me, he could also be referencing rules that do not exist. Hell, for all I know he could be maliciously spreading information because a well-connected psychopath told him that if he ever said a true thing about AW hitmen would be dispatched to murder his wife.

[Mistborn]

1. There is no "indeterminate" - this is the proof of ignorance on your part.

2. Can you cite the written rules in the book that accompany the moves structure resolution ? Since it contains very important instructions on how the mechanic works, I think you know it, right ?

Otherwise, it will be the second proof of ignorance from your part (which only corroborates my point that youre talking out of your ass without any real knowledge on the matter aside the rants you hear from other - equally ignorant - people ).

Bitch please.

As someone above said, there are 3 possible results in a AW roll:

1-6: Shit happens (you miss and the GM creates a complication coherent to the situation at hand)
7-9: Hard choice - you may succeed but with complications, or you can stall, hesitate, flinch, etc. ( a good example is the thief trying to escape the castle through the wall, and noticing his backpack got stuck - does he move on without his backpack, or he backs off to hold onto to it? )
10 - 12: Success.

Its the central principle of Apocalypse World and all its hacks (Dungeon World, Tremulus, Monster of the Week, etc).

Now It's totally keeping with my expectations of you that you would be fangirling over a system you don't understand(you are also a RQ fan after all), but let's assume though you actually did explain the "AW resolution system" here. This really is just the MC MTP ranting at you with only tangential input from the PCs and the dice.

[silva]

Lord Mistborn, thanks for proving my point and showing that "indeterminate" is not "hard choice".

Now, I keep waiting the books´written rules that support the moves mechanics (tips: "principles" and "agendas"). If you cant provide that, you dont know the fucking game and should keep the ass you have for mouth shut.

[Mistborn]

Lord Mistborn, thanks for proving my point and showing that "indeterminate" is not "hard choice".

Oh for fucks sake. Yes it is the same thing asshole because you have no idea what the fuck the MC is going to think a "hard choice" is until he springs it on you.

[nockermensch]

I knew we should had published this back in the 90s...

Roll a d20 for everything you want to do and check the follow table:

1 : you fail hilariously bad
2 - 7 : you fail
8 - 14 : you and the DM argue if you should succeed or no
15 -19 : you succeed
20 : you succeed so good, people will talk about it afterwards.

Because the 8 - 14 item seems too MTP for some tastes, I propose a system where the player and the DM can only argue from a limited number of "bullshits". For example: it's an attack roll against a gargoyle and it comes a 12. The DM starts arguing that the gargoyle skin is "stone-like" (1 bullshit). The player counter by saying his sword is "enchanted" (1 bullshit) and that his character "trained on a monastery to be totally badass" (2 bullshits). The player wins and hits the gargoyle.

Finally, we can make a character creation process that streamlines the number of bullshits you have for each kind of action, leading to something like this:

Attacking +3 (magical serrated adamantine weapon, weapon is a katana, ninja!)
Defending +2 (backflips, has a cape)
Diplomacy +2 (has a cape, mysterious past)
Sneaking +2 (ninja!, cape is black)
...

Same thing for the monsters. Then all the rolls could be resolved quickly. I believe I already saw "indie RPGs" with looser rules than this one.

[silva]

Lord Mistborn,

No, it isnt. "Indeterminate" may acomodate neutral outcomes. "Hard choice" dont. But enough sidestep: just cite the fucking principles and agendas or admit youre a fucking ignorant who never read the damn thing and is talking out of your ass!

[Mistborn]

No, it isnt.

Yes, it is.

But enough sidestep: just cite the fucking principles and agendas or admit youre a fucking ignorant who never read the damn thing and is talking out of your ass!

Nah

[silva]

you know what ? I will keep regurgitating things I hear without attesting the facts. So what ?

Ok, your choice.

Thanks for being honest about it, though.

[Mistborn]

Why don't you actually explain how my assessment of AW is flawed instead of just baselessly declaring victory. You have not at any point addressed my real arguments, otherwise there is a barrel of cocks with your name on it.

[Whipstitch]

Silva, I greatly enjoy magical tea but I still think the hair splitting you're doing here really doesn't warrant gloating; if anything, I feel kinda embarrassed for you.

Ultimately, the reason some people dislike AW's system is because it has transparency and predictability issues, not because a hard choice is indistinguishable from success or failure. Sure, it is possible to create "You do X but..." scenarios. Painfully easy, in fact, and it's not even that hard to create them in such a way that an outside observer could come in and suss out whether a given event was the the result of success, failure or "hard choice" roll after the fact based on the outcome of the scenario. Problem is, that does not make the potential outcomes any easier to gauge before the players even touch the dice. I mean, yeah, you know that a 7 while rappelling down the side of the canyon to ambush the gangers will result in an ultimatum from the MC. But that ultimatum may or may not include choices anywhere from getting rope burns, falling the last few feet, dropping some of your kit, alerting one of the guards to getting stuck and being forced to sit out the fight or god knows what else. The players just don't know, and some people will really hate that way back at step one when the group is deciding whether it's smarter to rappel down or to try and sneak down the goat trail in the first place.

[Drolyt]

Lord Mistborn, thanks for proving my point and showing that "indeterminate" is not "hard choice".

Two questions:

1. I am not familiar with Apocalypse World. Could you explain, in broad terms, how this mechanic works?

2. How is "hard choice" not an intermediate option between "shit happens" and "success"? That seems like splitting hairs, but maybe I'm missing something.
Edit: I misread. I'm not even sure what an "indeterminate" result would be, which is probably why my brain read it as intermediate.

[silva]

Why don't you actually explain how my assessment of AW is flawed instead of just baselessly declaring victory.

The point youre ignoring is that everything the MC comes with must follow the situation internal logic and causality. This is EXPLICITLY stated in the rules (its one of the so called "principles" that drive the game). Further, anything the MC produces must be related to the player intention for that specific roll (as is the case for all conflict-resolution rules really).

So, no. The MC cant produce things out of his ass, since his reaction window is pretty narrow and restricted to what is plausible to the sit at hand. This is no Houses of the Blooded or other narrative game where players and GM dispute for "authorial power" over the game fiction.

Really, if anyone here wants to sincerely see how the game works, just look for some Dungeon World / Apocalypse Wolrd actual play on google. It may even surprise people how traditional it is in play.

[Whipstitch]

Actually, you have to pull things from your ass while running it right, left and center. I mean, yes, the context of the situation informs what kind of hat your ass progeny wears, but the system rarely deigns to spit out numbers and the MC is free to "keep things interesting," so what risks you are -really- taking remain a mystery until after you roll the dice and the MC gives an ultimatum. I don't really see how the you can even argue otherwise when we're talking about a book with game play examples that include a character rolling an 8 on a sneak test through a ganger camp and being told they can either fail or murder a child. Love it or hate it, that right there is a combination success/failure mechanic and magic tea party plot point generator.

[zugschef]

Further, anything the MC produces must be related to the player intention for that specific roll (as is the case for all conflict-resolution rules really).

So, no. The MC cant produce things out of his ass, since his reaction window is pretty narrow and restricted to what is plausible to the sit at hand.

if you can oly pull shit out of your ass but not a house, you still pulled shit out of your ass. there is an infinite amount of points between point a and point b, no matter how narrow the distance between these two points is.

[Drolyt]

Further, anything the MC produces must be related to the player intention for that specific roll (as is the case for all conflict-resolution rules really).

So, no. The MC cant produce things out of his ass, since his reaction window is pretty narrow and restricted to what is plausible to the sit at hand.

if you can oly pull shit out of your ass but not a house, you still pulled shit out of your ass. there is an infinite amount of points between point a and point b, no matter how narrow the distance between these two points is.

Yes, but there are a finite number of differences the player gives a damn about. Not taking sides here, I just don't think your number line analogy applies to a RPG.

[silva]

Yes, but there are a finite number of differences the player gives a damn about. Not taking sides here, I just don't think your number line analogy applies to a RPG.

This.

The Moves structure is the most player-centric ever (in a trad rpg, of course). So what if the char will scratch his knee on the rock, or slip his feet and fall, etc. while climbing down a cliff ? The point is that the GM scope of action is prettty much defined by the rules and players choice. In fact, AW may be the game where the status quo is less in the GMs hands, and if he tries hard to steer the game in a diredction (like in a railroad) the game will break, and he better look for other ruleset.

[Mistborn]

The Moves structure is the most player-centric ever

No it isn't fuckass, a "player-centric" system would at no point say "something happens to you, consult your MC's ass for details", it would have instead a transparent set of rules that generate outcomes.

[silva]

Have you read or played the actual shit ?