Understanding Apocalypse World

[kyoryu]

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?

That's exactly what a move is.

The reason there's no "hurt people" move (I presume), is that in most cases "hurt someone" isn't the goal. It's a method. And so by basing the mechanic on the goal, we have a better chance of giving the player what they want if they're successful.

[LibraryOgre]

When people say move, think "Actions"

In D&D, if you want to hit an orc, you make an attack action, which means you roll a d20 and add some bonuses and compare it to an Armor Class.
You want to Track someone? You make a skill/proficiency check (or, in 1e, a % check), which gets modified for the situation.

In AW and other PbtA games, those are called "Moves". Some moves are universal... anyone can try to Defy Danger or Deal Damage, if those are common moves. But other moves are granted by your class or race or a combination thereof.

So, for example, let's say you're playing a ranger, and want to track people.
*In D&D, you roll your skill check against a difficulty. Roll well, and your DM might give you a bonus (Natural 20! Woo-hoo!)
*In DW, you roll 2d6+Wis. 7-9, and you can follow them until they change direction or mode of transport. Roll 10+, and you get a bonus on top of that.

Both are the same idea, just with a different nomenclature and associated mechanics.

[Psikerlord]

When people say move, think "Actions"

In D&D, if you want to hit an orc, you make an attack action, which means you roll a d20 and add some bonuses and compare it to an Armor Class.
You want to Track someone? You make a skill/proficiency check (or, in 1e, a % check), which gets modified for the situation.

In AW and other PbtA games, those are called "Moves". Some moves are universal... anyone can try to Defy Danger or Deal Damage, if those are common moves. But other moves are granted by your class or race or a combination thereof.

So, for example, let's say you're playing a ranger, and want to track people.
*In D&D, you roll your skill check against a difficulty. Roll well, and your DM might give you a bonus (Natural 20! Woo-hoo!)
*In DW, you roll 2d6+Wis. 7-9, and you can follow them until they change direction or mode of transport. Roll 10+, and you get a bonus on top of that.

Both are the same idea, just with a different nomenclature and associated mechanics.

Yeah I like the degrees of success DW has (not unlike LFG and roll under half stat or 1.5x over). Taht is something missing from standard d&D.

Ah ok so some moves are actually abilities for certain classes (is that what the handbooks are about - the handbooks really classes?). i shall check it out further.

The change in nomenclature is pretty annoying/confusing though - at least re stuff everyone can do

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Moves exist as such because they push the game in specific directions. You could definitely have a "Barebones World" game where you rolled 2d6+stat, got what you wanted on a 10+, had to compromise on a 7-9, and something unexpected/probably bad happened on a 6-, but it'd be a very vanilla and neutral game.

Moves exist to hook the mechanics into very specific parts of the fiction. This does a few things. One, it encourages players to push actions towards specific aims--you don't invoke Read a Sitch if the situation isn't charged, and if you want to Go Aggro, you have to be really going after someone. Two, it lets the moves include more specific responses that are appropriate to the particular context of each move's trigger. Three, it makes the MC contextualize every player action within the game's framework (and, therefore, the genre--because PbtA games are all about genre).

Also, something that's often forgotten is that you don't always have to roll a move. If you shoot someone, the MC might look at the situation and decide that you just shoot them, and they deal Harm as established to the character you shot. (The game is heavily predicated on the idea that the GM is an interpreter and referee who figures out how the mechanics gel with what the players are describing in the fiction.)

[Yora]

Having read the whole rules several times now, there's still one big mystery remaining.

What is Open Your Brain To The Psychic Maelstrom?

What I get is that the psychic maelstrom is some kind of supernatural phenomenon that is left deliberately unspecified but has the trait of letting PCs and some other people mentally access information from it. It could be magic, some technological system, or even divine and the answer to that is supposed to form throughout the course of the campaign as players are interacting with it.

But what do you do with it? Players can always take the Open Your Brain move and supposedly this also has the potential to actually be helpful in most situations. But what's actually supposed to happen when you do it? What is the GM supposed to say is happening when a player announces that move?

[Blymurkla]

But what do you do with it? Players can always take the Open Your Brain move and supposedly this also has the potential to actually be helpful in most situations. But what's actually supposed to happen when you do it? What is the GM supposed to say is happening when a player announces that move?

When I've played, it's been a kind of fall-back, last resort. AW can get confusing and sometimes you're stumped as to what to do. Maybe the GM looked through crosshairs and killed of the trail you where following. Maybe you succeed, so you need something new. Other times, it just feels appropriate for your character to have a breakdown. So, you open your brain.

If you fail your roll, great, the GM puts you in a difficult situation and now you've got something to deal with. If you succeed, you sort-of-sense something of importance, hopefully something that you can pursue and thus continue to drive the game forward.

Usually, when making the move, the GM (those I've played with or myself) asks »What's opening your brain to you?« and the player gives a brief description. »I lay down, empty my thoughts and let the spirits of the world in« or »Sometimes, when I howl, the malestrom howls back in a beckoning, barely understandable voice«. Building on that description and the dice, the GM explains what you experience.

[Susano-wo]

I don't think so.


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."

Yeah, its so critical, and a lot of people in all sorts of games forget it. experts can make a mistake, but the whole game benefits if you enforce competence through the description. I always try to do this when I GM (which hasn't been much, mind you): IF someone is supposed to be good at something, and they fail, I try to figure out why it makes sense for them to do so in this instance.

As for the topic at hand: There is an odd bit of mechanical absence in AW that came up in the one game I've played of it. One of the PCs was a mountain woman--she was centered near the town the game was based on, and subsisted on trade and hunting and such. So she should be good at, say tracking. We were pursuing people through the forest, and we realized that there are absolutely no rules for "skills," as such. We talked about it and came to the conclusion that, sure, she can track them, but it was odd that it had to be hand waved like that. It felt unsatisfying in a game where people can do all this cool stuff that has specific actions associated that we basically had to say"well, there's no rules for this, so sure she can track them."

[1337 b4k4]

Yeah, its so critical, and a lot of people in all sorts of games forget it. experts can make a mistake, but the whole game benefits if you enforce competence through the description. I always try to do this when I GM (which hasn't been much, mind you): IF someone is supposed to be good at something, and they fail, I try to figure out why it makes sense for them to do so in this instance.

As for the topic at hand: There is an odd bit of mechanical absence in AW that came up in the one game I've played of it. One of the PCs was a mountain woman--she was centered near the town the game was based on, and subsisted on trade and hunting and such. So she should be good at, say tracking. We were pursuing people through the forest, and we realized that there are absolutely no rules for "skills," as such. We talked about it and came to the conclusion that, sure, she can track them, but it was odd that it had to be hand waved like that. It felt unsatisfying in a game where people can do all this cool stuff that has specific actions associated that we basically had to say"well, there's no rules for this, so sure she can track them."

Generally, if tracking were something you would expect to come up, or was considered a key part of the character concept, you'd probably want a custom move. I admittedly haven't played AW proper, just Dungeon World, but my rule of thumb was if a character was doing something specific more than about 3 times in as many sessions that actively required me to decide whether they succeeded or not, we looked into building a custom move around it.

[Airk]

You handled that correctly Susano-wo. When there is no move, you interrogate the fiction to see if the outcome makes sense. Apocalypse World seems to deliberately lack a "catch all" move like "Defy Danger" from Dungeon World, or "Act Under Pressure" from Monster of the Week. The AW equivalent is "act under fire" and unless you are getting pretty metaphorical with "fire" there isn't anything here for this.

You can, of course, as has been mentioned, drift the game by adding a "track foes" move or something, but you should consider whether you think this is an interesting addition to the game.

[kyoryu]

A key thing here is that not everything should be a move.

Think of Apocalypse World as a *movie*, not a simulator. The key things that happen in this "movie" are highly charged situations between well armed psychos. Tracking people isn't really the pace of this movie, and it's not the interesting thing. It's what happens when the people are tracked that's actually the interesting bit.

So unlike a lot of games, not everything should be a roll in Apocalypse World. Only the key tension points in the "movie". The other stuff we mostly just gloss over, resolve in the most straightforward way consistent with what we know, and get to the tension points and major conflicts of the game.

[daniel_ream]

But what's actually supposed to happen when you do it? What is the GM supposed to say is happening when a player announces that move?

Dirty little secret: RPGs that implement a genre straight, especially historical genres, don't sell. For some reason, if you don't throw in some kind of psionics, magic, superpowers, mutations, whatever, the market doesn't latch on to a game.

That means there's huge pressure for game designers to stick that stuff in, whether it makes sense or not. There's a reason why Flashing Blades is a "dead" game, while Seventh Sea and Regime Diabolique are the new hotness.

The maelstrom is a cipher, a blank slate for the GM to detail and decide upon. It's entirely up to you what's supposed to happen. If you don't know what to do with it, simply delete that move and the playbooks that are focused on it. It won't affect the game one bit.

[Susano-wo]

Generally, if tracking were something you would expect to come up, or was considered a key part of the character concept, you'd probably want a custom move. I admittedly haven't played AW proper, just Dungeon World, but my rule of thumb was if a character was doing something specific more than about 3 times in as many sessions that actively required me to decide whether they succeeded or not, we looked into building a custom move around it.

Yeah, it only came up once. And i get the "the interesting thing is when you find them" point, but movies (to use the analogy) also need tension, which can be simulated by the possibility of failure. Not having that can remove tension from what could be a good chase bit. But the point of a custom move is a fair one, and one we didn't think about (of course it seemed more of a background detail when we made the characters)

Kyoryu, I'm not sure that AW requires 'psychos,' though. I think that grey morality might be a genre expectation to some degree, but one can still be an idealist in the apocalypse, though its obviously hard. Of course you might just be simplifying for flavor, but I wanted to throw that out there.

[kyoryu]

Kyoryu, I'm not sure that AW requires 'psychos,' though. I think that grey morality might be a genre expectation to some degree, but one can still be an idealist in the apocalypse, though its obviously hard. Of course you might just be simplifying for flavor, but I wanted to throw that out there.

You can be an idealist, sure.

But you're not the kind of idealist that sips tea while rationally discussing ethics.

So a certain amount of simplifying for flavor, and a certain amount of not presuming that 'psycho' means 'bad guy'. Mad Max is psycho.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Yeah, it only came up once. And i get the "the interesting thing is when you find them" point, but movies (to use the analogy) also need tension, which can be simulated by the possibility of failure. Not having that can remove tension from what could be a good chase bit. But the point of a custom move is a fair one, and one we didn't think about (of course it seemed more of a background detail when we made the characters

The question of tension comes into play with the focus of a particular PbtA game, I'd say. They're designed so the core moves are the areas where you're supposed to look for tension. Custom moves should exist if you think tension should be in your session in an area that isn't covered by those moves. It's about economy of drama.

[Cluedrew]

If you want some tension in a place that doesn't have a move for it, try picking the most appropriate stat and roll for it. You just have to make up the result (miss, weak, strong) you get. That is my best solution, you don't even need a target because they are fixed, -6, 7-10, 11+.

[1337 b4k4]

Yeah, it only came up once. And i get the "the interesting thing is when you find them" point, but movies (to use the analogy) also need tension, which can be simulated by the possibility of failure. Not having that can remove tension from what could be a good chase bit. But the point of a custom move is a fair one, and one we didn't think about (of course it seemed more of a background detail when we made the characters)

I would disagree that "the interesting thing is when you find them". A key thing that AW and it's hacks tries to get at is that every possible outcome of the dice rolls should be interesting. So it's less that finding them is interesting and not finding them isn't so much as it's "Does not finding them create interesting decision trees and paths? If so, roll the dice if there's a chance of failure." But if ultimately the end result of failing (or a partial success) is just "try and try again until you succeed" that is the thing that isn't interesting.

Maybe a good way of thinking about it is that if you were playing AW in the D&D style of "I go, you go, he goes, she goes, I go again ..." if someone would be able to attempt the same roll, for the same stakes, with the same outcome turn after turn without having to go down another path of actions, rolls and setup before they can try again, it's probably not something AW wants you to roll for.

[Airk]

Yeah, it only came up once. And i get the "the interesting thing is when you find them" point, but movies (to use the analogy) also need tension, which can be simulated by the possibility of failure. Not having that can remove tension from what could be a good chase bit. But the point of a custom move is a fair one, and one we didn't think about (of course it seemed more of a background detail when we made the characters)

This is actually kindof a straw man, though you probably don't realize it. Your game already has tons of tension and plenty of possible chances for failure. You don't necessarily need possibility of failure on EVERY action. It's okay to pick the exciting ones - again, to keep it in the context of film, you don't really worry about the characters in your action film being able to find the thing that they're gonna action on. That's not where the tension is. The tension is in who is gonna survive the high stakes firefight that ensues.

This is part of what is GOOD about Apocalypse World and why you should probably -avoid- hacking it - it makes a lot of decisions about what's important and interesting so that you can get right down to the good stuff. It's like a carefully curated library. It might not have books on every topic, but you can be sure that the ones that it has are going to be first rate.

So yeah. You did it right. She's a tracker, so she can track stuff. If she weren't there, the party wouldn't be able to do it. But there's no need to roll. That's not a moment of tension that AW is interested in. So leave it that way.

[kyoryu]

This is actually kindof a straw man, though you probably don't realize it. Your game already has tons of tension and plenty of possible chances for failure. You don't necessarily need possibility of failure on EVERY action. It's okay to pick the exciting ones - again, to keep it in the context of film, you don't really worry about the characters in your action film being able to find the thing that they're gonna action on. That's not where the tension is. The tension is in who is gonna survive the high stakes firefight that ensues.

Exactly. The counter-point of the whole "failure should be interesting" thing (in most systems that espouse it) is "if it's not interesting, don't roll."

So yeah. You did it right. She's a tracker, so she can track stuff. If she weren't there, the party wouldn't be able to do it. But there's no need to roll. That's not a moment of tension that AW is interested in. So leave it that way.

Or decide that tracking things is a high tension, important part of the genre of this particular story, and make a playbook supporting it, or at least some custom moves. If it's not important, gloss over it. If it is important, spotlight it.

Not everything needs a mechanic in AW.

[Susano-wo]

with "the interesting thing is when you find them" bit, I was responding specifically to Kyoryu saying that very thing. I understand that its not always the thing that gives tension (and never said it was the only way to get tension, so I have to disagree with the straw man characterization), but it is a thing that can cause tension, so its not always the finding of them that is interesting. (in the case of tracking there can be many failures that can be interesting, depending on the scenario)

The custom move or ad hoc ability check seems to do allow for that, and I get why some of this stuff is left off in favor of the core aspects of the game dynamics that he wanted to focus on. It was just a weird thing that took us by surprise, and the way we handled it worked, but felt like it was papering over a gap, rather than the game running the way it was supposed to. If I had it to do again, maybe an ad hoc ability roll with a situational +1 to the ability would feel better.

And about not hacking it, why not? the game makes decisions about what is important. Yeah, sure, so if I want other things to be important, or some of those things to not be important, I should just hack it to make those things important. The game doesn't tell me what moments are important to me. Having that agency is part of the 'good stuff' or playing an RPG. (and again, I'm not saying that tracking is so important that its a big hole in AW that its not there. it was just a thing that happened that I found weird)

[Airk]

And about not hacking it, why not? the game makes decisions about what is important. Yeah, sure, so if I want other things to be important, or some of those things to not be important, I should just hack it to make those things important. The game doesn't tell me what moments are important to me. Having that agency is part of the 'good stuff' or playing an RPG. (and again, I'm not saying that tracking is so important that its a big hole in AW that its not there. it was just a thing that happened that I found weird)

And I'm saying that based on this discussion, a lot of people in this thread shouldn't try to hack AW because they don't seem to understand why it does what it does. Basically: If you don't understand a decision, don't change it. Figure it out first.

[solidork]

But what do you do with it? Players can always take the Open Your Brain move and supposedly this also has the potential to actually be helpful in most situations. But what's actually supposed to happen when you do it? What is the GM supposed to say is happening when a player announces that move?

In the actual plays I've listened to, it usually results in the character having some kind of hallucination that reveals the pertinent information. The MC usually let the players choose a particular theme/set of symbols that represented how their character experienced the maelstrom.

For example, I think one player decided that opening their brain would make everyone look like puppets controlled by strings that extended out of sight up into the sky. Frequently the MC would tell the player what information they got from their roll and it would be up to the player (or they'd work together) to figure out how that information presented itself.

[kyoryu]

And I'm saying that based on this discussion, a lot of people in this thread shouldn't try to hack AW because they don't seem to understand why it does what it does. Basically: If you don't understand a decision, don't change it. Figure it out first.

I find this to generally be the case. Far too many people (in many games) presume that "it doesn't work the way I expect!" means the same thing as "it's broken."

When you can make the argument *for* the mechanic being the way it is, then it's a good time to hack it.

[Yora]

Though it doesn't help that AW doesn't really explain what anything is supposed to do if used right. And more often not, asking for clarifications on these things gets you the reply that you're doing it wrong to ask for an official answer and to make up something yourself. Which is somewhat the opposite of helpful.

[Airk]

Though it doesn't help that AW doesn't really explain what anything is supposed to do if used right. And more often not, asking for clarifications on these things gets you the reply that you're doing it wrong to ask for an official answer and to make up something yourself. Which is somewhat the opposite of helpful.

This is not my experience.

Also, like I said before: Figure it out. That's different from "Ask someone to explain it to you."

[kyoryu]

Though it doesn't help that AW doesn't really explain what anything is supposed to do if used right. And more often not, asking for clarifications on these things gets you the reply that you're doing it wrong to ask for an official answer and to make up something yourself. Which is somewhat the opposite of helpful.

Well, generally, if you succeed, you get the thing you wanted. In cases where it's less binary, it's usually spelled out (inflict 1 harm, etc.).

[Cluedrew]

And more often not, asking for clarifications on these things gets you the reply that you're doing it wrong to ask for an official answer and to make up something yourself.

This might seem weird at first, but Powered by the Apocalypse does tend to leave holes in the rules so you can fill them in as you feel appropriate.

[Yora]

I've read parts of the rules several times again over the last year and now got myself the 2nd edition. And I think now I understand it.

Lots of things make much more sense when you have more context by knowing the rest of the game. And I think the 2nd edition at least feels like it's more straightforward. I still think the approach of the book is ill suited for teching the rules, but when you do manage to understand what is meant, they seem to be really good rules.

One thing that actually helped me is to understand how this game is meant to be played. Once you understand what the rules are supposed to accomplish, it seems much easier to understand how they work. My impression now is that Apocalypse World is a game about interesting people trying to keep their community together in the face of great adversity. Holdings and gangs are actually a really big deal, and it feels like they are not meant to be optional additions. The NPCs that support the PCs are a big source of "adventures". Surplus and Want mean that something interesting happens that affects the PC. And the need to pay barter for lifestyle at the start of each session also gets PCs off their asses and do something. Each session, someone will have to generate some incone. And since you're not looking for a great worthy quest but just for some quick money, it can be something almost random and seemingly boring.
And once you do something - and it really can be anything - it sets off all kinds of consequences. And if the GM makes those consequences interesting and quirky, you suddenly find yourself in an adventure that nobody expected. Which I think is why the implied setting is so weird. Moves probably wouldn't snowball much if the world were mundane and the NPCs sane.

I am usually not a fan of examples of play, but in the 2nd edition book the example for combat is actually really helpful. Using just the simple combat rules from the game, with its tiny amount of hits characters can take, there's a great fight of three NPCs attacking a cornered PC by breaking her door with a chainsaw and throwing a grenade at her for 3-harm. And she still ends up disabling one attacker and leaving one dead with a stroke and the other by his own chainsaw. It's an amazing battle scene, but mechanically really simple. And when you think of great fights from fiction, many of them aren't actually that complicated either. Maybe lots of shoting and sword swinging, but in the narrative the characters are really doing somethign substential only two or three times each at the most.

One smaller thing I actually only nocticed last weekend is that Visions of Death is a really powerful ability. It basically lets a Battlebabe kill any NPC with just a single roll, as long as the character can arrange a personal confrontation. If you get that 7 or better, that NPC is dead if you really want it. In other RPGs this would be ridiculously overpowered, but here I find it intriguing. The NPC will be dead, but will that solve your problem? And I think when all you have to do is to use one of your abilities, nobody would seriously expect that it would. The GM is pretty much obliged to respond in interesting ways. But it really mixes things up. Which is perfect for the Battlebabe. Throw a wrench into the gears and reshuffle the deck. And enjoy the spectacle.

[kyoryu]

I think you've got the gist of it.

As far as the game being bad at teaching the rules, I think it and Fate fall into a lot of the same trap at being bad at explaining the rules for people coming from other games.

Which seems kind of unfair, I mean, the game isn't responsible for assumptions that people make, right? But at the same time, given that the vast majority of people coming to these systems do have a lot of the same assumptions, it's super useful for new (to these games) players to have some of this spelled out more explicitly.

[Yora]

What I accuse the rulebook of is consistently using only its own internal slang for everything without ever explaining what these terms mean. You first have to learn the language of the setting before you can learn the mechanics. Using your own made up terminology to describe a setting often works well enough and helps establishing the tone. But to teach mechanics I consider it inappropriate.
Though I think second edition does have lots of small paragraphs added that elaborate on what the ptevious gibberish means in regular terms. This should help quite a bit.

[kyoryu]

Yeah, like the game doesn't really do a good job of explaining what tags are or how they should be applied, or what the difference between hard and soft moves is, or....

Like, once you get it, it's obvious, but getting to that point is difficult.