Understanding Apocalypse World

[Yora]

A week ago I got Dungeon World and I loved it. I had looked at Apocalypse World and while I got the basic mechanic of moves that book just left me completely confused. The organization of the content and the way it tries to teach the rules to completely new GM is rather unconventional, to put it diplomatically. (Is it a soap opera game about super sexy narcists exploiting each other in a wasteland?)
Dungeon World was much easier to grasp for me and now that I understand how that game work I went back to take another look at Apocalpyse World. Having a general idea of what the various elements are makes it a lot more comprehensible (and skipping the first half and starting reading at the middle also helps a lot!) and I think now I am just slowly starting to see why people make such a fuss about it. However, it's still a really perplexing book and I find myself jumping back and forth between completely different sections every two minutes trying to really figure out what is going on.

Does anyone know if there's any good introductory guides that explain how the game is meant to work in a simple and ordered manner?

[Yora]

I got a more concrete question: Am I getting combat right?

Say I am getting attacked by NPCs or I Go Agro on someone and they are not disabled and start shoting at me. Now the only move I can take to defeat them is Seize By Force.

When I chose to make a Seize by Force move, I might deal harm to my opponents if I roll a 7 or better. No harm if I roll 6 or lower.
But in either case I will now suffer harm in turn. Correct?

If I get at least a 7, I can chose to Take Little Harm and reduce the harm by 1. If I also have armor that further reduces the harm, possibly down to 0, so that I don't lose any segments on my countdown.

But regardless of whether my countdown goes down or not, I will have to roll+harm suffered. On a 6 or lower I either only get a minor complication, or the harm that I suffer is further reduced by 1. If that roll is 7 or higher, I get the full harm that remained after armor and also additional complications.

Do I have this all right?

[flond]

I got a more concrete question: Am I getting combat right?

Say I am getting attacked by NPCs or I Go Agro on someone and they are not disabled and start shoting at me. Now the only move I can take to defeat them is Seize By Force.

When I chose to make a Seize by Force move, I might deal harm to my opponents if I roll a 7 or better. No harm if I roll 6 or lower.
But in either case I will now suffer harm in turn. Correct?

If I get at least a 7, I can chose to Take Little Harm and reduce the harm by 1. If I also have armor that further reduces the harm, possibly down to 0, so that I don't lose any segments on my countdown.

But regardless of whether my countdown goes down or not, I will have to roll+harm suffered. On a 6 or lower I either only get a minor complication, or the harm that I suffer is further reduced by 1. If that roll is 7 or higher, I get the full harm that remained after armor and also additional complications.

Do I have this all right?

Well firstly. The primary move you can use to do them harm is sieze by force. (You might be using Act Under Fire to get away or Go Aggro if you've just got a sniper rifle on them or the like. But yes, it's usually gonna be seize by force.)

Secondly. You get to deal your harm no matter what you roll. No matter what happens, harm is exchanged vs harm.

Thirdly, no. You need to suffer harm (that is actually take damage) to roll the suffer harm move. (Also the MC can choose to waive that move if they well, choose to.)

The results of the rolls though, you have down.

[Yora]

So on a miss on Seize by Force, I just don't get to pick one of the four additional effects and the GM also makes an active move against me?

I guess I understand how this is meant to work, but doesn't it make confrontations rather short? Seems to me like any character can make maybe one or two attempts at a fighting move and is then spending the next week in the infirmary. Which I guess makes sense in the context of the implied setting in AW.

But can this work for more action adventure oriented campaigns, like something in the style of Indiana Jones for example? Or would that require giving the PCs a lot more additional staying power?

As a related question, how would one set up a fight against a boss enemy? Like you've been fighting fighting gangs of skeletons all the time, defeated the henchman guarding the crypt, and now face Count Dracula. How could I make the fight against Dracula feel like a much bigger deal than a fight against a lone guardsman?

[flond]

So on a miss on Seize by Force, I just don't get to pick one of the four additional effects and the GM also makes an active move against me?

I guess I understand how this is meant to work, but doesn't it make confrontations rather short? Seems to me like any character can make maybe one or two attempts at a fighting move and is then spending the next week in the infirmary. Which I guess makes sense in the context of the implied setting in AW.

But can this work for more action adventure oriented campaigns, like something in the style of Indiana Jones for example? Or would that require giving the PCs a lot more additional staying power?

As a related question, how would one set up a fight against a boss enemy? Like you've been fighting fighting gangs of skeletons all the time, defeated the henchman guarding the crypt, and now face Count Dracula. How could I make the fight against Dracula feel like a much bigger deal than a fight against a lone guardsman?

That's correct on the seize by force roll.

But...as to the rest of it, yes, this makes confrontations rather short. There's some stuff, especally in the 2e rulebook that makes fights more...fights. There's stuff like the optional battle moves that are intended to draw things out and make them a little more complex...but even then, fights are fairly short and fairly big deals.

As for boss enemies that's...difficult. Giving them a lot of armor could work. As could custom moves. (especially ones that prevent them from dying). However, generally if you want to make someone a big deal, put them in charge of a gang. Gangs are scary. They get all kinds of armor and bonus harm, on top of whatever they already have.

Putting them in a tank or something is also a really good way to make them intimidating. Having to find a way to smash their armored machine is a good fight!

However yeah...Apocalypse world is more...action-drama than action adventure. It's less about digging through an ancient ruin and more about dealing with threats within and without that put pressure on things, and then pressing them with disagreements. There's plenty of room for fights, but those fights are a big deal.

[Grod_The_Giant]

My experience of AW was "man, you should not try that thing, because it doesn't matter if you're supposed to be good at it or not, something bad is guaranteed to happen no matter what you try to do."

It... kind of poisoned me against the system.

[flond]

My experience of AW was "man, you should not try that thing, because it doesn't matter if you're supposed to be good at it or not, something bad is guaranteed to happen no matter what you try to do."

It... kind of poisoned me against the system.

While of course you are free to not like a system, and AW is supposed to snowball. (So yes, lingering consequences and bad stuff do tend to follow you), the counterbalancing factor should be raw power. Specifically, it's usually fairly easy to actually do the thing you're trying to do (barring rolling a six), just with costs. But so long as you've got a plan and succeed at it, you can deal with some threats fairly easily.

(There's also something of a power curve where at the start when you don't have many advances things hurt and snowball...but when you're on the later part (5+ advances, those +12 moves can kick in fairly often, and you're turning enemies into friends right and left (which is why it's designed to end around that point, once you've cleaned up enough loose ends.)

[Yora]

It looks to me like a system in which the GM's whim is more important than anywhere else. The GM has so much room to choose what happens, even with the moves trying to put some kind of order to things.
Things constantly getting worse even when the players succeed at their actions can be a lot of fun. Indiana Jones movies are a great example, or The Empire Strikes Back. Things are always only getting worse, but the heroes narrowly escaping again and again is what makes them awesome.

Of course, the GM can also chose to make every sucess turn into a failure, or to make any failure still turn out as a victory.
Which is why the agendas and principles are such a big deal. When you have to decide on the spot what happens next, you have to have a set of clear guidelines what things are appropriate for the style and feel of the campaign. When every course of action turns into more misery, that's because of the GM's agendas. Even if then GM has not written it down and is not conscious of it.

One of the default principles is "be a fan of the PCs". Which in my eyes is intended to mean that you should base your decisions on what happens next on what you think makes the PCs more heroic and awesome. Simply taking away all their successes doesn't do that in my opinion. Throwing always more complications at them should have the purpose of telling the players "that was awesome, now show me how you do even better".

[Actana]

This is also why on a success many moves allow the player, instead of the GM, to determine what happens due to their success. Successes give the players a lot of agenda, but failures give the GM that same agenda.

It also means that more than in many other games, having a GM who understands the agendas and principles and is of a cooperative nature is extremely important. But at the same time, the game explicitly tells you not to break the rules: if a GM does that, they're really not playing Apocalypse World as far as the rules are concerned. This is in contrast to most other games which just go with "well you can change the rules if you want, you're the GM". With greater power comes greater checks on that power.

[Cluedrew]

My experience of AW was "man, you should not try that thing, because it doesn't matter if you're supposed to be good at it or not, something bad is guaranteed to happen no matter what you try to do."

Hu... I actually enjoyed the fact failure was common because it cut loose the expectation that you are supposed to try and make everything go correctly. If things are going to go wrong eventually, why not now? Of course I played only a few particular hacks which may have been tuned a bit more towards "nothing you can do will hurt as much as doing nothing". Fail fast.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Hu... I actually enjoyed the fact failure was common because it cut loose the expectation that you are supposed to try and make everything go correctly. If things are going to go wrong eventually, why not now? Of course I played only a few particular hacks which may have been tuned a bit more towards "nothing you can do will hurt as much as doing nothing". Fail fast.

I get that, but I found tying "things get worse" to rolls was frustrating. It made it seem much more like we were getting screwed over by random chance, as opposed to struggling valiantly against the chaos. It's the whole single-point-of-failure thing; it's never good game/adventure design to hang significant, campaign-defining moments on a single random roll.

[Cluedrew]

To Grod_The_Giant: Hmm... might have been that we did not get the same level of random (I can think of a few that could have gone terribly wrong against all odds but didn't) or the particular hack I played alleviated some of that. Or maybe our thresholds for that sort of thing are at different levels.

[Grod_The_Giant]

To Grod_The_Giant: Hmm... might have been that we did not get the same level of random (I can think of a few that could have gone terribly wrong against all odds but didn't) or the particular hack I played alleviated some of that. Or maybe our thresholds for that sort of thing are at different levels.

Quite possible. It was a working system and a good GM, just not to my taste.

[Lord Shark]

One of the default principles is "be a fan of the PCs". Which in my eyes is intended to mean that you should base your decisions on what happens next on what you think makes the PCs more heroic and awesome. Simply taking away all their successes doesn't do that in my opinion. Throwing always more complications at them should have the purpose of telling the players "that was awesome, now show me how you do even better".

This is worth pointing out -- too many people read "be a fan of the PCs" to mean "make everything easy for the PCs." I'm a fan of Spider-Man, but that means I want him to face seemingly unbeatable threats while Peter Parker's life spins out of control, because Spidey is most fun when he's fighting as an underdog.

[Airk]

My experience of AW was "man, you should not try that thing, because it doesn't matter if you're supposed to be good at it or not, something bad is guaranteed to happen no matter what you try to do."

It... kind of poisoned me against the system.

Wasn't that the huge thread where it was eventually proved that the GM was breaking rules all over the place and that you basically hadn't been playing AW at all?

[Yora]

This is worth pointing out -- too many people read "be a fan of the PCs" to mean "make everything easy for the PCs." I'm a fan of Spider-Man, but that means I want him to face seemingly unbeatable threats while Peter Parker's life spins out of control, because Spidey is most fun when he's fighting as an underdog.

I am a fan of Indiana Jones and Han Solo. I cheer for them when they get their little successes even when everything in the world is conspiring against them.
Failure is often more exciting than success, as long as it wasn't the fault of the hero that it turned out wrong. And when they still keep on going the whole time and eventually succeed (more or less) it makes them awesome.
AW seems like a system particularly well suited for such a style.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Wasn't that the huge thread where it was eventually proved that the GM was breaking rules all over the place and that you basically hadn't been playing AW at all?

I don't think so.

I am a fan of Indiana Jones and Han Solo. I cheer for them when they get their little successes even when everything in the world is conspiring against them.
Failure is often more exciting than success, as long as it wasn't the fault of the hero that it turned out wrong. And when they still keep on going the whole time and eventually succeed (more or less) it makes them awesome.
AW seems like a system particularly well suited for such a style.

The bolded part is the bit that frequently gets forgotten, I think. One of the keys to (non-slapstick) DMing, I think, is explaining failures so that they aren't the character's fault. If a player fumbles a check, especially one that they specialized in, don't say "you lose your grip on the rope and fall flat on your face," say "unfortunately, the half-rotten rope snaps before you finish your swing, and you land heavily in the wrong place."

[Cluedrew]

I think people should be allowed to make mistakes, even an expert can make mistakes. "You feel the rope shift, instantly you realize you forgot to check the blocks you buried the piton in and remember why you usually do as the piton pulls out of the wall and you fall. You tumble to absorb some of the impact but you are still in the bottom of the pit." That might be a bit long, one reason it shouldn't be used too often, the other is that if it happens to often, they don't seem like an expert.

Larger, royal sized, mistakes also have roles in character growth arcs, but that is not part of a die role.

[Knaight]

The bolded part is the bit that frequently gets forgotten, I think. One of the keys to (non-slapstick) DMing, I think, is explaining failures so that they aren't the character's fault. If a player fumbles a check, especially one that they specialized in, don't say "you lose your grip on the rope and fall flat on your face," say "unfortunately, the half-rotten rope snaps before you finish your swing, and you land heavily in the wrong place."

It depends on the tasks. The characters not being good enough doesn't come across as slapstick when the task is legitimately hard.

[Airk]

It depends on the tasks. The characters not being good enough doesn't come across as slapstick when the task is legitimately hard.

Which is pretty much what you're supposed to roll for in AW.

Though it's also important to remember that this isn't a "skill check"; When you pick up the dice you have BY NO MEANS even ATTEMPTED to discern all the different factors that go into success. A failure in one of these games can easily be "You leap easily across the chasm, landing smoothly on the other side...right before it collapses under you, plunging you into the abyss."

[Yora]

I got an idea about boss fights:

I don't really understand the Optional Combat Moves, but the concept of incidental and concentrated fire sounds interesting. Limiting a fight to six "rounds" and then being over with an outcome based on who had the upper hand by that point doesn't sound that fun. But giving everyone three moves of opening moves to adjust the battlefield while damage is limited to 1 or even 0 seems like a way to give a fight some extra time for additional activities before players really have to worry about suffering actual damage.
Which is actually how a lot of movie fights work. You generally can tell by subtle hints at which point heroes and major villains actually start getting a shot at winning the fight.

[Friv]

So on a miss on Seize by Force, I just don't get to pick one of the four additional effects and the GM also makes an active move against me?

I guess I understand how this is meant to work, but doesn't it make confrontations rather short? Seems to me like any character can make maybe one or two attempts at a fighting move and is then spending the next week in the infirmary. Which I guess makes sense in the context of the implied setting in AW.

But can this work for more action adventure oriented campaigns, like something in the style of Indiana Jones for example? Or would that require giving the PCs a lot more additional staying power?

If you want a really easy way to give players more staying power, make the first quarter of the clock a three-segment quarter too. So it takes PCs 3 Harm to reach 3 o'clock, then one more for 6 o'clock, one more for 9 o'clock, and then the three "dying" segments. Two extra Harm that's safe makes you more willing to take risks early in a fight. Don't give more health to the bad guys. Have more bad guys instead.

As a related question, how would one set up a fight against a boss enemy? Like you've been fighting fighting gangs of skeletons all the time, defeated the henchman guarding the crypt, and now face Count Dracula. How could I make the fight against Dracula feel like a much bigger deal than a fight against a lone guardsman?

More serious penalties for rolls that go bad, and a looming danger that requires non-Seize rolls to manage. Dracula's mere presence is such that everyone needs to Keep Their Cool or else something bad happens. The 7-9 ratings on actions are closer to a wash than they are when fighting mooks. You always need to reduce Harm because Dracula recovers 1 health when he harms you. That sort of thing is within the purview of Hard Moves.

Generally, the GM has a lot of leeway to define how bad drawbacks on rolls are. Narratively, the leeway should match the danger of the situation; things that are risky, but not too bad create drawbacks that are annoying or embarrassing, whereas rolling a 7-9 when Dracula turns into a swarm of bats ends up with a dozen bats drinking your blood.

[flond]

But yeah. Just, mostly as a statement...pay attention to the PC-NPC-PC Triangles! (This is more...core advice than rules advice) Apocalypse world is at its best when violence is a thing, and some NPCs are just bad news, but most NPCs are...trouble you gotta work with. When it's focused on actively trying to solve needs (food/water/strange technological products/safety) as opposed to just adventure.

[Aran nu tasar]

I guess I understand how this is meant to work, but doesn't it make confrontations rather short? Seems to me like any character can make maybe one or two attempts at a fighting move and is then spending the next week in the infirmary. Which I guess makes sense in the context of the implied setting in AW.

But can this work for more action adventure oriented campaigns, like something in the style of Indiana Jones for example? Or would that require giving the PCs a lot more additional staying power?

You really don't need more staying power. Characters in AW that are built for combat are immensely powerful, especially if they work together. A gunlugger with NTBFW, Bloodcrazed, 2-armor, and a grenade launcher/shotgun is going to be pretty unstoppable already. Add in a Battlebabe with Merciless and a 4-harm ap shotgun, and a Chopper or Hardholder with their gang, and suddenly the PCs can stand up against basically anything.

Looking at harm in particular, 2-armor is not a particularly hard thing to get. Then assuming even a failed seize by force roll, you still get to choose one option; if you choose take little harm, that's an effective 3 armor. Now a single PC up against a small gang with 2-harm weapons will be taking 0 harm on a failed roll, and dealing harm as normal. If you've got NTBFW, you are taking 0-harm against a medium gang with 2-harm weapons. If you've got a small gang at your back along with NTBFW, you're again taking 0-harm against a large gang. If that's not staying power, I don't know what is.

Add to that the fact that NPC's go down really easily, and fights can be over in a few rolls. Violence is sudden and brutal and people die. But it is worth noting that the PCs operate with action-movie logic. NPCs go down after taking 2-harm, while PCs can eat a few bullets without a problem. Healing can be a problem if there isn't an Angel around, but if you want staying power just throw in an NPC Angel.

Now, this doesn't hold quite as true for, say, a Skinner or a Savvyhead or a Brainer. But they have their own ways of solving problems without violence. (Unless your Brainer goes the Merciless Bloodcrazed pain-wave projecter route for a 3-harm ap psychic grenade. But that's its own can of worms.)

AW isn't a game that's all about fighting, though; and in my opinion, the combat rules are probably the weakest point of the system. It's about character drama, and violence is a big part of that, but the game is less strong if the players present a united front against some external force that can be defeated with physical means. It's much stronger when you force the PCs to make hard choices about the survival of NPCs and their loyalties to each other.

[kyoryu]

This is worth pointing out -- too many people read "be a fan of the PCs" to mean "make everything easy for the PCs." I'm a fan of Spider-Man, but that means I want him to face seemingly unbeatable threats while Peter Parker's life spins out of control, because Spidey is most fun when he's fighting as an underdog.

YES! Though I usually use Harry Dresden as my example.

I think people should be allowed to make mistakes, even an expert can make mistakes. "You feel the rope shift, instantly you realize you forgot to check the blocks you buried the piton in and remember why you usually do as the piton pulls out of the wall and you fall. You tumble to absorb some of the impact but you are still in the bottom of the pit." That might be a bit long, one reason it shouldn't be used too often, the other is that if it happens to often, they don't seem like an expert.

Larger, royal sized, mistakes also have roles in character growth arcs, but that is not part of a die role.

A failure on a roll doesn't mean *you* failed. It means you weren't successful *for some reason*. That reason could be anything from incompetence to horribly unlucky coincidences.

AW isn't a game that's all about fighting, though; and in my opinion, the combat rules are probably the weakest point of the system. It's about character drama, and violence is a big part of that, but the game is less strong if the players present a united front against some external force that can be defeated with physical means. It's much stronger when you force the PCs to make hard choices about the survival of NPCs and their loyalties to each other.

Absolutely. Running it as a tactical combat simulator is not getting the best use out of the system.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Yeah, the fights are generally explosive and short, so setting up for fights is way more important than blow-by-blow tactics. You don't get a lot of windows of opportunity. I still remember the scene where my Skinner was getting mind-controlled by a mutant NPC Brainer, about to be turned against the group, and the Gunlugger kicked in the door and shotgunned the Brainer in the head. Bam. It was snappy, visceral, and felt a lot like gritty, post-apocalyptic fiction.

Also, if you haven't seen it, here's a great breakdown of an action scene by Vincent.

[Psikerlord]

I dont get why this game needs specific "moves"

Can't I just say: I shoot him with my gun, and roll the 2d6 and see what happens?

What are all the weird "move" labels for? I dont get it

[flond]

I dont get why this game needs specific "moves"

Can't I just say: I shoot him with my gun, and roll the 2d6 and see what happens?

What are all the weird "move" labels for? I dont get it

The purpose of the moves is to provide different and discrete levels of resolution, with the added bonus of the ability to (unless you flub the roll) predict your results. AW generally gives the DM a lot of leeway on results, on what's going on, on what can happen. They don't ever even need to roll! So having things to pick from a list both help get the theme the game is going for AND give the players a fair amount of control.

Likewise, the fact that they're specific helps keep them from being overused. You don't get to roll when you shoot a gun. You only get to roll (or not roll) when circumstances dictate. You don't get to sieze by force or go aggro when it doesn't apply. If you're shooting something and it's just not possible for you to do anything to them, you don't get to plink them. You just get narrative explanations. Likewise, if they can't mix up with you, that's a different move then just sieze by force. It's about having specific fictional situations that determine when the rules happen. As opposed to just a generic round by round combat system.

[Yora]

You don't really need specific moves. They are just ways to make rolls for the most common situations. For more unique situations, GMs are encouraged to make up custom moves.

[Airk]

You don't really need specific moves. They are just ways to make rolls for the most common situations. For more unique situations, GMs are encouraged to make up custom moves.

Actually, you do need moves. Moves are there to tell you what to roll for and what not to. It's entirely possible that you might want to make a game where shooting someone with a gun doesn't require a roll because it's not what the game is about. "Okay, you shoot him. Now his girlfriend is crying and screaming and the other bar patrons are calling 911, what do you?" or the like.

GMs creating custom moves exists to drift the game in directions the GM wants to take it, but fundamentally, the set of moves provided by the game and the playbooks helps you understand what the game is about.