Of Bears and Barons (3 of 3 -- D&D is worse than AW)

[Orion]

Hey guys,

I just now had a chance to read through the big apocalypse world "digression" on the non-combat rules thread. It's something I was really interested in when it broke out, because Apocalypse World is the RPG I have personally had the most fun actually playing, but I didn't have a chance to follow the discussion as it unfolded. As it happens, I think it's unfortunate that the discussion ended up revolving so heavily around "MTP," which I think missed something important about player empowerment. Here's how I look at it:

THE BLACK BOX MODEL

Let's think of a resolution mechanic, like "d20 vs. DC" or "2d6 vs. table of improve guidelines" as a black box that takes in some game mechanical inputs and spits out some game mechanical outputs. Those mechanical inputs themselves come from fictional inputs and the mechanical outputs are translated into fictional outputs. All told, task resolution is a five-step process. (Fiction->Mechanical Specification->Black Box Function->Mechanical Output->Fictional Interpretation) Let's look at a D&D example

Fictional Input: I want to use my sword to kill Sir Joffrey, the pompous cavalier standing across the hall from me. Mechanical Inputs: Mister Cavern decides (or has decided) that Sir Joffrey's ceremonial armor is masterwork half-plate and calculates his Armor Class. He consults the previous descriptions of the feast to determine how far away they are from each other, and settles on 20 feet. It looks like it's a standard move and then an attack action against AC 16. Black Box: Roll an attack, compare to AC. Mechanical Output: 12 damage.Fictional Interpretation: You stabbed him in the shoulder; there's blood everywhere.

And now an AW Example:

Fictional Input: Player says "I'm in a scrapyard, right? I want to jerry-rig a car to get back home." Specification: Master of Ceremonies says "It sounds like you're ACTING UNDER FIRE, and the fire is, can you get the car working before anything bad happens?" Black Box 2d6+Cool=9 Mechanical Output: Hard ChoiceInterpretation: MC says "you're giving the car a final tune-up when an angry bear appears. You can hop in the car now and go, but it'll be unstable and glitchy. Or you can stay here and deal with the bear

."

I think when people say a game is "magic tea party," what they mean is the mechanical inputs are not closely associated with fictional outputs. Somewhere during the Black Box->Mechanical Output->Fictional Output chain, specificity is being lost. For instance, there's no reliably way in apocalypse world to predict that "2d6+Cool =9" would lead to "Bears!" rather than "bees!" or "Leprosy!" or "Awkward conversation with your ex!" There's room for almost anything to happen along the way. D&D, by contrast, keeps a very tight lockdown on that. Once you get to "Attack roll 30 VS AC 25, Damage roll 16 vs 10 HP remaining" MC has very little leeway. He can probably decide whether you kill the dude by decapitation or disembowelment, but the dude is going down. This is a scale. We can think of "Absolute Tea Party" as "a black box that creates no relationship between mechanical input and fictional output; in effect, there are no mechanical inputs" and perhaps something like "Newtonian Physics (NP)" as "a black box that deterministically generates a fictional output from a mechanical input."

Apocalypse World is way out on the Tea Party side of the spectrum. That just seems obviously true to me and I don't see how anyone would contest it. However, Frank Trollman asserts that "An MTP mechanic should not take up dozens of pages or be sold for real money" and "AW's reliance on MTP does unacceptable damage to player empowerment." Those are the claims I want to contest.

[Username17]

The problem is not just that any die roll can lead to Bears or Bees or Leprosy. It's that it can lead to Bears or oil splotches on your shirt. And indeed that Bears or Oil Splotches can come not only no matter what you've done, but also no matter what you have rolled.

Whether you basically succeed or basically fail at the thing you actually fucking cared about is not defined by any of the inputs or outputs of the system. That is fucked. Irredeemably fucked.

It does not answer the question of who is right when you're playing Cops and Robbers and someone shouts "Bang!". Not only is not a good game, it's not a game at all.

-Username17

[ishy]

And now an AW Example:

[/b] 2d6+Cool=9 Mechanical Output: Hard Choice

No, the author was clear in his examples that 7-9 does not have any fixed meaning. The DM gets to choose between: Hard choice, straight up worse situation, success but not total success and anything not described in the rules.

[Voss]

Apocalypse World is way out on the Tea Party side of the spectrum. That just seems obviously true to me and I don't see how anyone would contest it. However, Frank Trollman asserts that "An MTP mechanic should not take up dozens of pages or be sold for real money" and "AW's reliance on MTP does unacceptable damage to player empowerment." Those are the claims I want to contest.

You should find some way to contest them, then. You aren't doing so here, at least not with those examples.

You've got one example of a fairly coherent system: stabbing a guy does damage, and the game elements determine if you hit and how hard you hit- the system processes intended action and yields a reasonable result.

Your second example, on the other hand, makes no sense at all. The DM randomly decides that getting a functional car out a scrapyard is possible, urgent, and yields bears. Aside from the idea that is actually possible to get a scrapyard car running, none of the rest has anything to do with what is going on- it came straight out the DM's ass. That requires zero pages of rules, and while it doesn't do straightforward damage to player empowerment, the idea that any action could suddenly yield bears does, at least in comparison to predictable and sensible results from understandable mechanics.

[wotmaniac]

That requires zero pages of rules, and while it doesn't do straightforward damage to player empowerment, the idea that any action could suddenly yield bears does, at least in comparison to predictable and sensible results from understandable mechanics.

I think any claims of player empowerment (at least in any direct sense) may be misapplied. A resolution system such as AW, from my reading of it, seems to have the intent of simply encouraging organically emergent story (silly/dumb/malevolent GMs notwithstanding).
Perhaps the thought goes like this: the presence of such dynamic story possibilities (see Story Now ... 'cause, let's be honest, V.B. is an Edwardsian creature of the Forge) gives more potential plot elements for players to build on .... and that's where the "player empowerment" comes from.

Eh, I gave it a shot.

[Drolyt]

I think when people say a game is "magic tea party," what they mean is the mechanical inputs are not closely associated with fictional outputs.

Hmm, I don't think this is quite right, or at least not worded as well as it could be. MTP is where any step in the function you describe is undefined and so you cannot reliably determine the consequences of an action using the rules alone. Thing is, Frank's critique does not rely on every step being undefined, it works if any step is undefined. See, in this view there isn't a spectrum from absolute magical tea party to Newtonian physics. Rather, any rule should be computable, that is you should be able to write a program that tells you exactly what happens when that rule is used. Any rule you can't do that with is equally MTP, it doesn't matter how many calculations are done along the way.

[Voss]

Yeah, but that isn't really a product of the system. Even assuming you don't get 'Suddenly, Bears!' crap from the DM; off the cuff stuff isn't a system product, it is a product of a group. I can't tell you how many times the 'Are there tapestries? Yes. Then I try to blind/capture/whatever the enemy by pulling a tapestry off the wall!' conversations happened in D&D games, and dynamic stuff happened pretty much without exception as long as someone in the group had seen an Errol Flynn movie.

As for plot elements, those are going to come from specific types of players. If the group all deals in the three sentence background that revolves around 'friendless orphans' and 'lone wolves', you aren't going to get much, and no system is going to push that bar higher.

[hyzmarca]

The only way you can do MTP player empowerment well without risking it either going off the rails or the DM being a dick is by using metagame currency and possibly metagame dice on top of that.

So when you're playing Alan Moore's Harry Potter and the Mid-Life Crisis the DM could spend his metagame currency and say "suddenly, a bear" and the PCs could spend their metagame currency to block that dumb shit.

Harry's player can spend his metagame currency to declare that he he has a dragon heartstring implanted in his penis and can now use it to cast spells, and other players can spend their metagame currency to declare that it will never, ever be mentioned again after that one adventure.


When two players plot-points conflict they can negotiate a a deal usign the metacurrency or they can go to a roll-off by spending the metacurrency to get plot dice.


If you want a system to encourage spontaneity like that then it needs to also give everyone a measure of control over the plot, not just the DM.

[silva]

Apocalypse World mechanics are about fiction manipulation, not physics simulation. The fact that it makes it while in-character like any trad rpg do, instead of OOC, only adds to the confusion (is it a trad rpg or a storygame?).

So, its irrelevant what specific element is produced (Bears, Bees or Leprosy). Whats important is to what direction you thrust fiction to - you move it forward ? Backwards? Sideways? Against you ? In favor of the group? Against the group? Etc.

Thats why I think Orion missed the target slightly with his theory - its not that AW mechanics dont communicate with the fiction, is that it communicates with the fiction flow, or it communicates with fiction in a more macro-scale where specific micro elements have less importance (Contrast this with most trad rpgs, whose mechanics communicate with micro-elements and situations in the fiction.)

[Drolyt]

I can't tell you how many times the 'Are there tapestries? Yes. Then I try to blind/capture/whatever the enemy by pulling a tapestry off the wall!' conversations happened in D&D games, and dynamic stuff happened pretty much without exception as long as someone in the group had seen an Errol Flynn movie.

This is actually a great example. That kind of stuff comes up all the time in D&D, and some rule is made up to make it work. You can do this because MTP is free.

So, the Orions and Silvas of the world, If you want to defend AW against Frank's MTP argument what you need to do is explain how it is better than freeform play by post or improvisational theatre, because those have the distinct advantage that you don't have to pay money to kill a tree in order to play them.

[Voss]

Good groups also make it somewhat predictable and tie it to an existing mechanic, whether attack rolls or saves or whatever (including nets, if such things are already in the game). They can reasonably expect the attempt to eat combat actions and have the potential to fail (doing nothing). But they can be reasonably sure it won't produce bears, but will likely produce conditions like entangled or blind. Something they can understand and predict.

Apocalypse World mechanics are about fiction manipulation, not physics simulation. The fact that it makes it while in-character like any trad rpg do, instead of OOC, only adds to the confusion (is it a trad rpg or a storygame?).

So, its irrelevant what specific element is produced (Bears, Bees or Leprosy). Whats important is to what direction you thrust fiction to - you move it forward ? Backwards? Sideways? Against you ? In favor of the group? Against the group? Etc.

Thats why I think Orion missed the target slightly with his theory - its not that AW mechanics dont communicate with the fiction, is that it communicates with the fiction flow, or it communicates with fiction in a more macro-scale where specific micro elements have less importance (Contrast this with most trad rpgs, whose mechanics communicate with micro-elements and situations in the fiction.)

I'm not following you at all (at least partly because no RPG I've ever played 'simulates physics'). Take the scenario described- junkyard and getting a working car.

For Apocalypse World, you've got player MTP +DM agreement or modification + dice roll = DM MTP. If you delete the dice roll, nothing changes.

For D&D Modern or WoD you've got the same thing. Except the dice roll (whether its knowledge mechanics, INT+Science or whatever) is actually relevant to the task and produces a result that is generally reasonable and predictable in its failure or success states. But they players can still do things, and its to their advantage that the things they can do are predictable and knowable. They don't have to worry about sudden bears or other random factors, just whether their characters have a decent chance of fixing a car.

You can still have players doing odd and not necessarily by the book things, but you don't have to put up with extreme bullshit on either end of the table (whether it is mint condition mustangs or suddenly, bears), and the rolls are actually relevant to the game. At no point does the group have to pretend that 'moving the story' is some mystical force or luck or anything other than the people at the table agreeing to move the story- it happens by default in every game, regardless of system, unless its been boiled down to jerk DM vs passive players.

[Drolyt]

I'm not following you at all (at least partly because no RPG I've ever played 'simulates physics').

I think that is his translation of something I wrote in the other thread. Basically, while RPGs are often characterized as cooperative storytelling games, most don't work like novels or movies. In D&D for example the DM sets up the world the characters interact with, and then the players describe what their characters do. But the players don't have narrative power, they have the capabilities the characters actually have.

[Voss]

I'm not following you at all (at least partly because no RPG I've ever played 'simulates physics').

I think that is his translation of something I wrote in the other thread. Basically, while RPGs are often characterized as cooperative storytelling games, most don't work like novels or movies. In D&D for example the DM sets up the world the characters interact with, and then the players describe what their characters do. But the players don't have narrative power, they have the capabilities the characters actually have.

Yeah, I've heard people say that before and it is still ridiculous. If you want someone with narrative power, you have to look at players. Characters in movies and novels have 0 narrative power- they can't make choices or do anything the author doesn't intend. If your character makes a sudden stop at a merchant before going on the adventure, you (as in the player) are exercising narrative power right there. It may be a trivial example, but it runs all the way up to 'depose the king' (and/or become a god). A character in a novel isn't going into a shop because of a choice, but because the author decides it is the next scene (and theoretically because it ties into the plot or theme, otherwise it is a waste of time).

Of course, players often end up wasting time as well [most people can recount stories of players who have gotten sidetracked for hours by some minute detail of a room description that ends up not mattering], but they're wasting that time because of player agency, not because they lack it.

Now a dick DM might railroad, forbid or otherwise be a douchebag, but the default assumption for RPGs is that the players are involved and are making decisions. A bullshit MTP system doesn't facilitate that in any way, it just obfuscates it with crap.

[silva]

For Apocalypse World... If you delete the dice roll, nothing changes.

This do not reflect my experience with the game. If anything, I would say that in AW every dice roll can change the status quo much more than in micro-scale resolution systems like D&D.

The reasoning behind it is that, while in D&D the player-agency is total in a micro-scale, its null on a macro one. While AW mixes the scales more.

[silva]

So, the Orions and Silvas of the world, If you want to defend AW against Frank's MTP argument what you need to do is explain how it is better than freeform play by post or improvisational theatre, because those have the distinct advantage that you don't have to pay money to kill a tree in order to play them.

Sorry drolyt, I dont understand what youre asking here. I play AW because it provides fast, low-prep, and player-driven gameplay in a evocative, structured and cohesive package. And the ending result gives me joy like no other game has given me for a long time.

And it has nothing to do with its supposed objectively quality towards freeform play or something. Just different games and experiences. Apples and oranges.

[Drolyt]

Snip.

I'm not positive you actually disagree with me on this, but just in case let me explain my original point and then what I think Silva is trying to say. Basically in D&D the players' narrative power comes from their characters' ability to actually do things, this is essentially the same as the players' ability to impact the real world by actually doing things, save that in most RPGs the characters posses much greater ability to affect their world. Contrast this with games like FATE that give players powers similar to the author of a novel, so they have actual mechanics for narrative contrivances like characters being in the right place at the right time. Now, I think that Silva is claiming that AW is more like the latter, with the players and mister cavern working together to tell a story. I'm not sure where he explained how the AW mechanics support this.

Sorry drolyt, I dont understand what youre asking here.

If you accept Frank's argument there is no reason to play AW over freeform because the AW mechanics offer no real advantage over magical tea party (because it basically is magical tea party). If your goal is to argue that AW is in fact a good game then a great place to start would be to explain why you would use it over freeform.

[wotmaniac]

If you accept Frank's argument there is no reason to play AW over freeform because the AW mechanics offer no real advantage over magical tea party (because it basically is magical tea party). If your goal is to argue that AW is in fact a good game then a great place to start would be to explain why you would use it over freeform.

(keep in mind that I do not endorse AW .... at least, not on the whole)
Well, one advantage over freeform is that it actually has a resolution system that creates results that must be followed. Sure, the specific outputs are still kinda freeformish; but it's quite an upgrade from "I shoot you. No you don't."

When your game hard-codes every possible output from each of the potential inputs, you can, oftentimes, end up running in to situations where the outputs simply make no sense within the context of the existing fiction (I'm looking at you, Reflex Saves) -- and since it's hard-coded, you're expected to follow it anyway.
Also, many games use mostly binary outputs .... which is often very dissatisfying (though, we usually just accept it as a concession; as the alternative often increases lag time).
AW, OTOH, attempts to have a more finely granulated set of outputs (i.e., 4 degrees of success), while not hard-coding what those outputs are (allowing for a more dynamic emergent fiction, while attempting to avoid the kind of incongruous outputs that you can get with a more hard-coded system).
The major shortcoming of this type of output determination is that it relies on "common sense" .... which is anything but common.

Also, maybe "... and bears attack" isn't necessarily an absurd output (which is the implication). To me, that would provoke the question of "why are there bears in a scrapyard?" Sure, such an output could be absurd; but it doesn't have to be.
In an environment where people have come to expect that all potential outputs be hard-coded .... well, it seems to me that such a thing would naturally condition RPers to become lazy -- i.e., we've become conditioned to expect everything to be spoon-fed to us (and, thus, go in to apoplexy whenever it isn't). Sure, if a seemingly-absurd output is followed by an equally-absurd explanation, then I'm gonna revolt. However, my first inclination is to ask "why does this seemingly-incongruous situation exist/ what other (currently unknown) conditions need to exist in order for this situation to make since?"
.... and now you have another story hook/thread.

[Dogbert]

The OP may want to revise his definition of MTP because, as far as the consensus here is concerned, it is the OPPOSITE of player empowerment.

I can't even begin to fathom how playing mother-may-I with MC can be called "player empowerment."

[Wrathzog]

Is the Role of the DM necessary for MTP or is that something we add on because of established paradigms for tabletop gaming?

[Omegonthesane]

Is the Role of the DM necessary for MTP or is that something we add on because of established paradigms for tabletop gaming?

Having technically had my start in freeform PbP, no, it isn't necessary to have a Mister Cavern if you don't have a rule set. It does unacceptable damage to player empowerment to have to run every little thing past an MC, but this is not strictly a feature of MTP.

[Wrathzog]

That's what I was figuring. So, with "True MTP," no one is inherently empowered. If Player A says BANG and Player B says NUH UH, there isn't a way to resolve that conflict (other than with a Slap Fight) because nothing (or no one) has the authority to do so.

So, what I'm really trying to get at is that the real problem isn't a lack of rules... rather, an over-reliance on Human Adjudication?

[Drolyt]

That's what I was figuring. So, with "True MTP," no one is inherently empowered. If Player A says BANG and Player B says NUH UH, there isn't a way to resolve that conflict (other than with a Slap Fight) because nothing (or no one) has the authority to do so.

So, what I'm really trying to get at is that the real problem isn't a lack of rules... rather, an over-reliance on Human Adjudication?

Eh, human adjudication and rules are kind of orthogonal to each other, but player empowerment is related to both. The typical wargame or trading card game, for example, doesn't have any MC but you don't have any problem adjudicating the rules, the rules are clear. The primary purpose of the MC in role-playing games was never rules adjudication, it was controlling all the traps, monsters, non-player characters and so on so the player characters have something to interact with. Rule 0 is just a convenience, if there is ever debate about how to interpret the rules (which by their nature are more open ended than in any non-role-playing game) it is useful to have one person with that job.

So here's the thing, the solution to "I shot you" "NUH UH I dodged" is not giving one player (mister cavern) adjudication powers, all that does is take away player agency from everyone else. Rules however solve that problem quite nicely, see for example most games that aren't RPGs. But in games like AW the rules do not provide for clear interpretation the same way Dungeons and Dragons (for example) does. So how do we interpret actions? Mister Cavern! So essentially the MC has all narrative power while the players have none. Now, since the game is supposed to be cooperative a reasonable MC will not abuse his power and will allow the players to have some narrative control. In fact AW has unenforceable "rules" to that effect. But most would agree that clear rules would be better.

[Orion]

@Voss -- You are correct. My first post does not contest ay of the claims I announced an intent to contest. It's just laying out the necessary terminology. My argument for why AW is as good or better than D&D is the next post.

@Ishy -- I was using "hard choice" as a shorthand for "hard choice or worse outcome." The point is that there's a mechanic-- roll 2d6+Cool -- and that die roll can spit out results A, B, or C. The problem isn't in that process -- when you roll an 8, everyone knows you got a "B." The problem is that "B" is weakly associated with the fiction.

@Dogbert: tea party is not the opposite of player empowerment. It a game element which reduces player empowerment. Apocalypse World's reliance on MTP detracts from player empowerment, but other games like D&D sabotage player empowerment in other, in my opinion deeper ways.

[Orion]

OF BEARS AND BARONS, CONT

Improvisation for the Theater (Third Edition)

Viola Spolin, the originator of theater games, was introduced to the use of games, storytelling, folk dance, and dramatics as tools for stimulating creative expression in the 1920s while a student of Neva Boyd at Chicago's Hull House.

That's a textbook about Improv Theater. Those are a real thing. People pay money for them. People pay money to take classes from professionals in the art of making up bullshit, and specifically in making up bullshit at the same time as other people and making sure your bullshit is compatible with theirs. In the context of hobby RPGs, it's important to acknowledge MTP and its problems. You shouldn't pretend to have written a newtonian mechanic that turns out to really be tea party. You should acknowledge that using MTP detracts from player empowerment. You should remember that the more MTP you put in your game, the more the table will be at the mercy of the MC's performance skills and aesthetic judgment. What you shouldn't do is assume that it's not worth talking about how to MTP.

Sitting around listening to someone tell you a story is a real thing people do, and being a good storyteller is a learnable skill. So is being a good storyspinner, or just having good taste. You could write a book with no mechanics whatsoever, a book strictly of advice on how to tell amusing stories off the cuff, and that would be a legitimate product. You could reasonably argue that that book isn't really a game, but you can't jump from there to assert that that book is worthless. People pay money for all kinds of things that aren't games, so you can't get from "it's not a game" to "you shouldn't buy it" without showing your work.

Apocalypse World is mostly MTP, but it's MTP that comes with extensive recommendations. Things like "don't kill characters without foreshadowing" and "it's okay for players to start with wealth and authority if they want to" and "when one PC interacts a lot with an NPC, think about creating relationships between that NPC and the other PCs." Assuming arguendo that "playing apocalypse world" is really just "listening to the MC free associate," I think listening to someone who has read AW free associate is likely to be more entertaining than listening to someone who has not read it. That's why I would argue the book is worth paying for.

[Orion]

OF BEARS AND BARONS CONT REDUX

After that detour into notions of "value" and "money," let's get back to talking about player empowerment. When last we checked in with the Apocalypse train, it had derailed halfway along the track. We were able to get from "declare a desired plot element" to "A, B, or C" without any real problem. Unfortunately, Getting from "B!" to an actual story output didn't to work so well. That's a pity, but It's not crippling. I'd like to take a money to revisit the first half of that journey, because it's something that Apocalypse World does really well.

Players in Apocalypse world have a great deal of control over the process that spits out a "success" or "partial success" or a "fail." After you describe what you want to do, the MC is supposed to tell you what "move" you're making. If you didn't want to do that, you can take it back and re-explain. That means that you only roll dice that you want to roll. In D&D, Mister Cavern can say "as you walk under the ledge, a boulder falls; make a dexterity check." In AW, the best he can do is say "a boulder is right about to fall on you: what do you do?" and then you get to have a discussion about whether you would like to roll Sharp or Cool or Weird or what? When you go to make that die roll, you know exactly what your odds are. There are no hidden TNs. There are no ad hoc circumstance modifiers. While it's true that the MC has total discretion over what a "success" means, he has no control over whether you achieve a "success". He's not even allowed the D&D "+/2 rule." I am not aware of any other game in which is easier for players to ensure they roll a "success."

You might argue that this is unimportant because ultimately the train derails. The rules get you from "I want to scout" to "success," but if they don't get you to "you pass through the camp undetected and learn the following facts," it might appear to be worthless. It's not. Tear Party games settle everything by negotiation with the MC, but when you come to negotiation table, starting positions matter. Being able to point out that you rolled a "success" gives you leverage in the discussion. While the rules don't STOP the MC from turning "success" into "bear attack," you can publicly shame your MC for doing that. That's more leverage than you would have if you didn't have rules for getting to "success." A derailed train is bad, but it really does matter where your train goes off the track.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As it happens, D&D derails player empowerment even faster than Apocalypse World does. D&D doesn't do "MTP" -- it actually does a very good job of tying mechanical inputs to fictional outputs. Unfortunately, Mister Cavern has total control over those inputs. Let's look at sneaking. It's nice that a Hide of 25 beats a Spot of 24 every time with no room for interpretation. Unfortunately, the guard's spot bonus was set by Mister Cavern in the first place. Both when he statted out the guard, and later when he assigned arbitrary circumstance modifiers. But it gets worse than that because Mister Cavern doesn't actually have to let you roll your Hide. He can just declare that they have a dog with Scent and so you automatically lose. Or they have an alarm spell or true seeing or whatever. He can even instruct you to roll Hide, then completely disregard the result and secretly decide that your stealth was negated by Scent. He can tell you that you were detected at any time or never, as seems appropriate to him. That's a level of disempowerment that eclipses anything in Apocalypse World.

The MC in Apocalypse World has to let you roll, can't fudge the numbers, and has to tell you when you fail. That's way more of a fair hearing than D&D ever gives you.

EDIT: People have said that all RPGs give the MC the ability to "place opposition," but that's not strictly true. D&D lets you interrupt a player's action by causing something totally unrelated to happen. In other words, in D&D if you say "I want to make a Gather Information check," the MC can say "don't bother. While you're in the market place trying to find someone to talk to, a bear attacks." In AW the MC can't do that. He has to let you roll your Gather Information check, and then justify how "bear attack" reasonably follows from "success."

Introducing new characters has to be a consequence of a move, and the MC doesn't get to make moves while players have the intitiative. So the players have to willingly roll dice before any new bears can happen.