Do You Enjoy Vague Rules Which Are Open To Interpretation?

[Pex]

I'm a little confused by your preference here, hopefully you can clarify. Do you want every tree to have the same DC no matter what, or just a standard DC for a default tree and then they may individually vary (changing the DC)? The DM in the paladin game might have used DC 20 for just one individual tree in the first place... So is the problem that different trees have different DCs, or that the default is too high, or that it is not consistent for a particular tree?

And do you avoid attempting things in that game because you find the DC too high after asking about it, or do you not ask for each particular DC at all?

The second game sounds fun. Do you think it would be better or worse if the DM instead had to follow strict rules and look up lots of tables to try adjudicate that stuff?

I purposely chose the extremes in terms of ease/difficulty of Skill use. The difference between the games is because skill DC is DC Whatever the DM feels like, so it illustrates my point how the skills change depending on who is DM that day.

In my Paladin game Skill DCs are consistently 15 or 20. It's always 15 if the DM asks for a skill roll, 20 if it's a knowledge check about a BBEG monster. (I actually don't mind that particular DC 20.) I think once a skill DC was 10. I remember feeling surprised about the number. The game is over 2 years old. It's more fun to play than the gripes I have about it so I stay, but I learned it's not worth the effort to try something that requires a skill. The rogue uses stealth easy enough thanks to Expertise. For class-based things out of the box thinking works fine because it's all spelled out. Recently we defended a fort against trebuchet boulder attacks. The DM allowed the warlock to use his repelling eldritch blast to knock incoming boulders off course. I was happy the warlock player thought of it and thrilled the DM allowed it. The DM is allowing great weapon style to work on paladin smites. He's not dun-dun dunnn tyrannical. He follows the printed rules, but since he has to make up skill DCs by whim his style is to lean towards 15 & 20.

My hexblade DM is the opposite. Anything goes. This is the DM who had two goblins from Phandelver join our party that I've mentioned before. For our second campaign he's allowing Unearthed Arcana classes. Skill DCs are consistently low enough we have a chance to succeed. We don't always, of course, but we're encouraged to give it a try because we know we have a fair chance. Guidance spell was Most Valuable Player of the previous campaign. It's a less stressful game.

[Rhedyn]

What's interesting to me is that at this point, the conversation seems to be:

"Yeah, I like systems that are less defined, but, you know, I can see why people might like other systems. Good on them."
"No! Systems that aren't well-defined are bad!"

I don't argue the preference (as long as everyone is aware that they don't want vagueness, they want the results that vagueness can bring). I argue that 5e specifically has a terrible skill system. It tries to codify "winging it" or using a "DM gut check" with it's 6 listed difficulty DCs which in motion causes all sorts of problems or at best a DM can overcome the problems with enough meticulous management that the skill system is only a waste of time.

It's worse than not having a skill system at all. It actively trips up DMs and creates unsatisfactory play where "just winging it" would have worked better.

For players that care about complex rules, the system does nothing for them.

For players that don't care, the system is actively burdensome and gets in the way between player and DM interaction to reduce the process to the DM picking a random number with no real guidance from the system but the system tells him that he needs to pick the correct number to be a good DM.

Bah!

[Pex]

Sure, so it sounds like you accept the latter, the DC might change for individual trees. It looked to me like Pex was arguing for that trees are maybe different in the fiction, but should in a gamist way be abstracted to all have the same DC, independent of their size, bark, branches etc. Hence asking for clarification.

As I wrote before, I suppose technically yes in result but not for the reason. It's not that every tree everywhere must be DC 15. The point isn't that trees are DC 15. The point is to use climb trees DC 15 as a universal reference. If something is harder to climb than a tree then the DC is higher. How much higher? Is it as hard as a generic stone dungeon wall of universal reference 20? If yes, DC 20. If not that hard, then DC 17 perhaps. If equal to a tree, DC 15. A knotted rope is easier so DC 10.

The word I'm looking for is "benchmark". It's the game designers' job to define the benchmark of example DCs then the DM can place the DC of something for his game based on that benchmark and the player can create his character accordingly based on how well he wants to achieve that benchmark. That is what example DC tables provide in 3E/Pathfinder. That is what 5E Xanathar's Guide does for tool use. That is what 5E DMG does for Tracking, Object Hardness, and Conversation Results if you can find them.

[Max_Killjoy]

My problem with this is that consistency between things that aren't consistent is a trap. Consistency is important where the situations don't vary significantly (or do so smoothly). Skills don't seem to be that consistent--fighting someone (in a system where that's a skill) is very different than climbing something, or talking to someone. You could get consistent by having everything being an opposed check, but that has its own issues.

I'm of the "teach correct principles and let them govern themselves" school -- tables are a shortcut that impedes learning how the system works most of the time (in favor of just going "oh, there's a table for that"). It also stifles creativity because it sets an expectation that the tables will be followed exactly (or with only minor deviations).

We're maybe not as far apart as it seems there:

* I'm not sure we mean exactly the same thing by "tables" (I'm opposed to having to look up results on a table for lots of rolls, but I don't mind a "table format" for displaying example difficulties and/or modifiers -- I hate important numbers buried in text and/or scattered around the books).

* My point is that I want the system to work on consistent principles so that it's not necessary to look up every Skill (or whatever) a character uses every time it's used, and so that extrapolation isn't messy or contentious.

I want a system to teach the players how to fish, not spoon-feed them fish soup.

What bugs the hell out of me is when Skill A functions by X rules, and Skill B functions by Y rules, and Skill C functions by Z rules, and on and on, and nothing in the overall system interacts cleanly or intuitively, and every time a Skill is used someone needs to crack the book open, because the designers piecemealed the Skills (or whatever) in as a bunch of disparate subsystems with their own context-laden verbiages with the terminology not crossing over to other Skills (or whatever).

E: this is also one of the reasons I'm big on the system following "the fiction" -- the secondary reality serves as the ultimate fact check on what's coming out of the system.

I think there's a happy medium to be struck here. Either can work (but for different situations), but what I want to avoid is the "one success isn't enough but one failure is catastrophe" model in either case. Stealth is a common issue here--if you have to roll separate checks against each and every thing you encounter, you're going to fail one if there's any chance of failure at all.

That is one of the classic examples, and I'd rather see one or two Stealth rolls instead of once against each of the 20 guards. But to me "conflict resolution" is a gross overreaction to the "roll until you fail" problem, killing houseflies with howitzers...

...especially when it gets really strange with assertions like "your conflict isn't with the guards, it's with the lord of the keep, so roll once against the lord of the keep to see if you sneak past the guards and climb the wall and pick the lock to get into his treasure chamber".

(And yes, I've seen exactly that example used by staunch advocates of conflict resolution.)

[Max_Killjoy]

As I wrote before, I suppose technically yes in result but not for the reason. It's not that every tree everywhere must be DC 15. The point isn't that trees are DC 15. The point is to use climb trees DC 15 as a universal reference. If something is harder to climb than a tree then the DC is higher. How much higher? Is it as hard as a generic stone dungeon wall of universal reference 20? If yes, DC 20. If not that hard, then DC 17 perhaps. If equal to a tree, DC 15. A knotted rope is easier so DC 10.

The word I'm looking for is "benchmark". It's the game designers' job to define the benchmark of example DCs then the DM can place the DC of something for his game based on that benchmark and the player can create his character accordingly based on how well he wants to achieve that benchmark. That is what example DC tables provide in 3E/Pathfinder. That is what 5E Xanathar's Guide does for tool use. That is what 5E DMG does for Tracking, Object Hardness, and Conversation Results if you can find them.

"Benchmark" is a good term. I don't want a hard-coded "all trees are 15 to climb" (or however it works in the system at hand), I want a benchmark tree against which easier or harder trees can be compared and "mapped", and against which my character can be built if I want to them to be good at climbing trees.

(And yes, we know that climbing a typical tree is automatic in 5e, that's beside the point.)

[Rhedyn]

That is one of the classic examples, and I'd rather see one or two Stealth rolls instead of once against each of the 20 guards. But to me "conflict resolution" is a gross overreaction to the "roll until you fail" problem, killing houseflies with howitzers...

...especially when it gets really strange with assertions like "your conflict isn't with the guards, it's with the lord of the keep, so roll once against the lord of the keep to see if you sneak past the guards and climb the wall and pick the lock to get into his treasure chamber".

(And yes, I've seen exactly that example used by staunch advocates of conflict resolution.)

Savage Worlds has a nice meaty approach up stealth (easily the most complicated skill). And since my explanation of Savage Worlds rules to tend to be longer than the actual rules themselves, just know you roll a d4-12 and a d6 for a skill and select the higher, dice can explode, and you succeed on a 4 or higher:

Stealth (Agility)
Stealth is the ability to both hide and move quietly, as well as palm objects and pick pockets. In many Savage Worlds games, knowing exactly when your hero has been spotted and when he hasn’t can be critical.
For a character to sneak up on foes and infiltrate enemy lines, start by figuring out if the “guards” the heroes are sneaking up on are “active” or “inactive.” Inactive guards aren’t paying particularly close attention to their surroundings. The group need only score a standard success on their individual
Stealth rolls to avoid being seen. Failing a Stealth roll in the presence of inactive guards makes them active. Active guards make opposed Notice rolls against the sneaking characters’ Stealth skills. Failing a roll against active guards means the character is spotted.
Apply the following modifiers to all Stealth rolls:

Stealth Modifiers
Situation Modifier
Crawling +2
Running –2
Dim light +1
Darkness +2
Pitch darkness +4
Light cover +1
Medium cover +2
Heavy cover +4
► The Last Step: Sneaking to within 6” of a foe (usually to get close enough for a melee attack) requires an opposed Stealth roll versus the target’s Notice, whether the guard is active or inactive.
► Movement Rate: Out of combat, each Stealth roll covers moving up to five times the character’s Pace. In combat, the Stealth roll covers only a single round of movement.
► Stealth for Groups: Out of combat, make only one Stealth roll for each like group of characters (see Group Rolls on page 63). Use the lowest movement rate to determine how much ground is covered. The observers also make a group roll to Notice their foes. Once a combat breaks down into rounds, Stealth and Notice rolls are made on an individual basis.

[PhoenixPhyre]

We're maybe not as far apart as it seems there:

* I'm not sure we mean exactly the same thing by "tables" (I'm opposed to having to look up results on a table for lots of rolls, but I don't mind a "table format" for displaying example difficulties and/or modifiers -- I hate important numbers buried in text and/or scattered around the books).

* My point is that I want the system to work on consistent principles so that it's not necessary to look up every Skill (or whatever) a character uses every time it's used, and so that extrapolation isn't messy or contentious.

And I'm worried that there might not be consistent principles that join disparate skill uses without forcing them to fit. I'm fine with subsystems that are different, as long as they describe different things. I'm still not entirely clear what you mean by "consistent principles"--does this require an equation with relatively fixed (and limited) variables? Or can it be a more general set of guidelines?

What bugs the hell out of me is when Skill A functions by X rules, and Skill B functions by Y rules, and Skill C functions by Z rules, and on and on, and nothing in the overall system interacts cleanly or intuitively, and every time a Skill is used someone needs to crack the book open, because the designers piecemealed the Skills (or whatever) in as a bunch of disparate subsystems with their own context-laden verbiages with the terminology not crossing over to other Skills (or whatever).

I guess I'm not sure exactly what you mean here--I'm no good at reading telegraphic descriptions like this. Can you give a specific example of one you don't like?

That is one of the classic examples, and I'd rather see one or two Stealth rolls instead of once against each of the 20 guards. But to me "conflict resolution" is a gross overreaction to the "roll until you fail" problem, killing houseflies with howitzers...

...especially when it gets really strange with assertions like "your conflict isn't with the guards, it's with the lord of the keep, so roll once against the lord of the keep to see if you sneak past the guards and climb the wall and pick the lock to get into his treasure chamber".

(And yes, I've seen exactly that example used by staunch advocates of conflict resolution.)

Yeah, I want a more middle-ground approach. Not "Did I swing my sword with the exact right angle in that one attempt" or "roll to win the fight" but "did I meaningfully reduce my opponent's ability to continue the fight during this time-period." I'm fine with varying degrees within one system--crafting an item might be an outcome that subsumes a lot of tasks into a single roll (or just plain narrative), while tasks where the approach strongly matters should get more detailed resolutions.

That brings up one issue for me with stating defined DCs up front:

Often I need to know more about the exact approach before I can meaningfully decide how hard something is, and different approaches can change the difficulty by huge (and non-linear) amounts. That is, I need more than just "I roll Investigate" to decide what the task even is that's being resolved. It's why I'd rather the players tell me what they want to do, and then we'll decided how to resolve it. Sometimes the applicable mechanics are obvious (like hitting someone with a weapon) and we can just say "I attack with my dagger." Other times, it could take a few back and forth questions/statements from DM to player and back to decide how to handle it. I find that once that happens, the question of the DC is almost moot--it's obvious from the discussion how difficult it is, or we realize that it's not going to be reasonably possible (or the converse, that it can't reasonably fail).

It's probably just personal bias, but my knee-jerk internal reaction to people wanting codified DCs for everything is to think that they're trying to avoid actually talking about things and are trying to exploit something. The stench (even if illusory) of trying to gain mechanical advantage through exploiting rules is a major turn-off. Call it a learned aversion from growing up with a (non-RPG) rules-lawyer.

And yes, the consequences for failure/success (and partial success/failure if applicable) is an important thing to establish before the player commits to an action. I'll even do it for non-mechanical rolls--"10 or lower he runs/lets you in/attacks PC X. 11 or higher, he does Y instead."

[Pex]

Popping in quick to clarify I didn't mean to knock my Paladin DM game with regards to talking to the Black Dragon and Dracolich. It's Campaign Plot relevant. Our party has allied, willingly, with the Cult of the Dragon. My Paladin of Torm is ok with it. It's for a Good Cause. Torm knows I'll get dirty, but otherwise there are no Code or Faith problems. At the moment I'll potentially be leading an undead army created by the Dracolich against a city of mindflayers to recover Blue Dragon eggs. Very long story. That will be awesome if it happens.

[JoeJ]

"Benchmark" is a good term. I don't want a hard-coded "all trees are 15 to climb" (or however it works in the system at hand), I want a benchmark tree against which easier or harder trees can be compared and "mapped", and against which my character can be built if I want to them to be good at climbing trees.

(And yes, we know that climbing a typical tree is automatic in 5e, that's beside the point.)

For me, that benchmark would be a waste of ink unless it was accompanied by a picture of the tree that it applies to. Without that, I would have absolutely no idea how the benchmark compares to any tree the PCs are trying to climb. In fact, even with the illustration it wouldn't really be of any use since the range of "typical" tree shapes is so enormous that the benchmark would likely never apply.

From my backyard, if I look in one direction I can see a whole forest of tall, mostly smooth conifers that often don't even branch for the first 20-30 feet. If I look in the other direction I'll see along the sides of the hills a belt of squat, heavily branching trees that rarely even get up to 30 feet high. Climbing one of the latter trees would be a trivial task, as long as you pick one large enough to hold your weight. Climbing the former would be almost impossible without special equipment. Both are typical, ordinary trees for my area.

So to me, talking about a benchmark difficulty for climbing trees is like a benchmark for the number of rooms in a building. You could perhaps use that figure to aggregate (for example, to extrapolate the number of rooms in a city) but for dealing with any specific building the range is simply too great to make any average figure useful.

[kyoryu]

E: this is also one of the reasons I'm big on the system following "the fiction" -- the secondary reality serves as the ultimate fact check on what's coming out of the system.

Absolutely. In most cases, common sense is a better guide of what can or can't be done than a system that is almost guaranteed to have some unexpected results at the edges.

That is one of the classic examples, and I'd rather see one or two Stealth rolls instead of once against each of the 20 guards. But to me "conflict resolution" is a gross overreaction to the "roll until you fail" problem, killing houseflies with howitzers...

...especially when it gets really strange with assertions like "your conflict isn't with the guards, it's with the lord of the keep, so roll once against the lord of the keep to see if you sneak past the guards and climb the wall and pick the lock to get into his treasure chamber".

(And yes, I've seen exactly that example used by staunch advocates of conflict resolution.)

It's an extreme example. I also don't know that I know of a really good definition of task/conflict resolution, as it seems to conflate two things:

1) detail of resolution
2) whether or not you're specifying your desired end goal or not

In other words, I've heard it used in both the sense of "I roll to see if I tackle him, rather than rolling to see the results of my charge" as well as the "I'm rolling a single task vs. a higher-level goal".

As far as the detail of resolution, if you don't care about playing through getting into the treasure chamber for some reason, and want to resolve it in a single roll, then, yeah, I'd make the roll against some kind of aggregate "castle defense" skill. I likely wouldn't do that, though. I generally prefer things be mostly played out at the "scene" level.

"Benchmark" is a good term. I don't want a hard-coded "all trees are 15 to climb" (or however it works in the system at hand), I want a benchmark tree against which easier or harder trees can be compared and "mapped", and against which my character can be built if I want to them to be good at climbing trees.

(And yes, we know that climbing a typical tree is automatic in 5e, that's beside the point.)

Again, as a Fate thing, this works fairly well, because it does two things:

1) Character abilities are strongly constrained. You get one skill at +4, and maybe some stunt support for a conditional +2. Apart from invocations (which shouldn't be factored into setting difficulties), that's it. So you always know that -2 is accomplishable by anyone outside of bad luck, +0 is easy for anyone moderately skilled and a coin toss for the untrained, +2 is going to be challenging for an untrained person but is 50/50 for a moderately skilled person, and easy for an expert. +4 is challenging for a moderately skilled person, iffy for an expert, but doable by a specialist, and then +6 is basically iffy for a specialist and between challenging and effectively impossible for everyone else.

Because slots are constrained (as described above), if you want your character to be good at climbing trees, give them a high Athletics skill, and a Stunt related to climbing trees. Boom, done.

2) Each difficulty has an adjective associated with it. "It would be a <descriptor> effort to accomplish that". Fair, mediocre, poor great, whatever.

Overall, this works.

[Pelle]

As I wrote before, I suppose technically yes in result but not for the reason. It's not that every tree everywhere must be DC 15. The point isn't that trees are DC 15. The point is to use climb trees DC 15 as a universal reference. If something is harder to climb than a tree then the DC is higher. How much higher? Is it as hard as a generic stone dungeon wall of universal reference 20? If yes, DC 20. If not that hard, then DC 17 perhaps. If equal to a tree, DC 15. A knotted rope is easier so DC 10.

The word I'm looking for is "benchmark". It's the game designers' job to define the benchmark of example DCs then the DM can place the DC of something for his game based on that benchmark and the player can create his character accordingly based on how well he wants to achieve that benchmark. That is what example DC tables provide in 3E/Pathfinder. That is what 5E Xanathar's Guide does for tool use. That is what 5E DMG does for Tracking, Object Hardness, and Conversation Results if you can find them.

Thanks for clarifying. I get what you mean about benchmarks. I just think using "climbing a tree" is a bad benchmark for climbing, since that should vary from impossible to automatic. For climbing, using one of these scales for benchmarking would be a lot more intuitive for me.

It sounded a bit like that you are listening for a keyword (tree, stone wall) in a description of a situation, and want a fixed DC relating to that keyword, without caring for the actual difficulty in the fiction.

I use this this approach for benchmarking/calibrating my skill tests, both in 3.5 and 5e (need to be adjusted, though same principles). For me it is much better and easier to adjudicate like this than to stop and look up lots of tables and modifiers.

[Pleh]

To the O P I would say generally yes I do like rules that are more open to interpretation. Part of that is because I feel like very tight rules tend to be somewhat inflexible and can create some rather strange effects. I feel like it's more fun and useful to have rules that can be made to fit the situation kind of like how some wrenches allow you to tighten the wrenches grip to exactly match the nut that you need to move. Though I do also enjoy the eloquent see of a well-written rule that needs very little interpretation.

[Knaight]

Same question but the other way around, if you prefer the open systems can you not see an advantage of the other way of doing things ?

Yes, and I've explicitly listed these. They just tend to be things that don't matter to me, hence my preferences leaning towards the open system (though a lot of that is more an aversion to disadvantages than anything else).

What's interesting to me is that at this point, the conversation seems to be:

"Yeah, I like systems that are less defined, but, you know, I can see why people might like other systems. Good on them."
"No! Systems that aren't well-defined are bad!"

It is GiTP. There's a very strong bias towards the way 3e D&D does things here, and so we get this standard script for basically any aspect of design a rules light game might use, with a chance of a few other scripts on top of it.

[Jay R]

One thing I am curious about, some people on the boards have a preference for different styles of games. I have a couple of questions, if you prefer a system that has fixed rules and less interpretation can you see any advantages at all of more open rules ?

Same question but the other way around, if you prefer the open systems can you not see an advantage of the other way of doing things ?

These questions led me down a long thought process, in which I eventually concluded that I agree with one side in one circumstance, and agree with the other side under different circumstances.

The biggest difference is what we think playing under a rules-light system is like.

The original poster made it clear that he thinks a rules-light system is inherently about arbitrary rulings and long arguments. I share his disdain for both, but I associate neither with a rules-light game.

On the most basic level, the question boils down to this: do you have more faith in the GM’s judgment or in the published rules?

And the most basic answer is this: that depends on the GM’s judgment.

My most obvious example is this. I want to know what the likely results will be when I take an action. So my preference priority is as follows:
1. I understand the consequences of my choices because those consequences make sense in the situation being simulated.
2. I understand the consequences of my choices because I know the game mechanics.
3. I don’t understand the consequences of my choices.

Situation 1 is a rules-light system with a GM with good judgment. Situation 2 is a rules-heavy system. Situation 3 is a rules-light system with a GM with poor judgment.

Many people who say they prefer a rules-light system are comparing situation 1 to situation 2. And many people who say they prefer a rules-heavy system are comparing situation 2 to situation 3.

And I agree with both sides. I prefer situation 1 to situation 2, and I prefer situation 2 to situation 3. Because I have been very lucky in my GMs, I think of a rules-light situation as situation 1.

[Side-note: Others who prefer a rules-heavy situation do so because they prefer playing the game mechanics to playing a simulation. This is a simple aesthetic preference, and I have no quarrel with such people, just as I have no quarrel with people who prefer vanilla to chocolate.]

Similarly, I share the OP’s disapproval of games interrupted by long arguments. I don’t share his belief that this is an inherent aspect of rules-light systems. A GM with good judgment doesn’t tend to have such arguments at his or her table, and deals with them swiftly and fairly when they come up. [This is also affected by the players. I dislike a game with argumentative players, regardless of the rules.] So in this area as well, when I say I prefer a rules-light system, I’m referring to a very different gaming experience than the OP was.

So I think the real situation is this. I would rank games as follows:
1. Rules-light system with GM with good judgment.
2. Rules-heavy system with GM with good judgment.
3. Rules-heavy system with GM with poor-to-average judgment.
4. Rules-light system with GM with poor-to-average judgment.

*Good judgment includes understanding the system. Good GMs for one system can be poor ones for a system they don’t understand.

Most defenses of rules-heavy system seem to be saying, truthfully, that my third choice is better than my fourth choice. I agree completely – but I won’t play in either game.

I’m comparing my top choice with my second choice, and in that range, I prefer a rules-light system. I will play either; they are both great fun.

But I agree completely that a rules-light system with an unfair or arbitrary GM is a bad experience.

[Seharvepernfan]

Do You Enjoy Vague Rules Which Are Open To Interpretation?

Hate it with a passion. Everybody needs to be on the same page. The DM needs to respect whatever rules are in place when the game starts. The rules themselves need to be abundantly clear; ironclad. Even 3.5 with all it's rules can be frustrating vague or confusing at times, like the rules for the hide skill. I'm the kind of person that prefers rules/mechanics for anything that might matter for a game.

[LordCdrMilitant]

There's a fine line.

Mechanics can't be too complicated, people avoid the sort of rules where you read 12 pages, read it again, and still have no ideal what you're supposed to do.

It's also important that results are predictable. I don't like the fact that, in 5e, if you have to roll for anything you're as likely to fail as you are to succeed, and even if you're super min-maxed for it you're still unfortunately likely to fail.

As a player, most of my understanding of what a character can do is defined by the mechanics of the system. I am easily frustrated by systems that are too free form.

At the same time, as a GM, systems must be flexible enough to account for whatever might come up. I always operate on the premise that my judgement overrides the rules. I'm going to be running Black Crusade, and I'm going to have to make some changes, because off the bat a character can have Psy Rating 9 and overchannel up to psy rating 13. They should not be halfway to Magnus the Red or a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch at character creation, or at least that's not how I envision them or my game playing out. I envision my players as playing 4 point cultists and 13 point Chaos Space Marines, not 430 point lord of war daemon primarchs or 125 point Exalted Sorcerers.

[Tetsubo 57]

I despise vague rules with the heat of a thousand suns. I've said for years that regardless of a system's mechanics, all games have the same number of rules. Rules light systems just expect the rules to live inside the head of the GM as folklore. Complete systems put the rules on the page and everyone can reference them equally.

[Selene Sparks]

OP: It's simply impossible, obviously, for a complex system to be completely clear and absolutely independent of interpretation. That, of course, doesn't mean that such an impossible state isn't desirable, and that one shouldn't go for it, and it doesn't mean that rules systems that fail to cover the basic things they should cover aren't bad systems.

I despise vague rules with the heat of a thousand suns. I've said for years that regardless of a system's mechanics, all games have the same number of rules. Rules light systems just expect the rules to live inside the head of the GM as folklore. Complete systems put the rules on the page and everyone can reference them equally.

Now that's not entirely fair. Some systems do, genuinely, have fewer numbers of rules, it's just generally to the system's detriment.

Take Apocalypse World and its ilk, for example. In it, there really is only one rule, which is suck up to the GM to hope they don't shaft you, because it is literally impossible to generate a meaningful result from any task resolution in the book. And, no, I'm not even talking about how the GM decides how your roll is resolved, I'm talking about how, in text examples in the book, there are explicit examples of a "success at a cost" on a hide attempt wherein the cost was "you fail to hide," and examples where a successful check simply means you fail the mission. There are no rules beyond sucking up to the GM, because any actions the players attempt to take are entirely meaningless.

On the other hand, take Munchhausen. Despite not really being a huge fan, it really is the only rules-light system I would argue is, in fact, a good game. In it, there is essentially no vagueness, and the rules can be completely explained to even a complete newbie in under five minutes, and it is both conceptually and mechanically sound.

[martixy]

Now that's not entirely fair. Some systems do, genuinely, have fewer numbers of rules, it's just generally to the system's detriment.

The thing is, in any fully open game, in general the situations a GM is required to arbitrate are generally the same, regardless of rules lite or rules heavy.

However in rules lite, all the guidelines that lead to resolution, as Tetsubo 57 mentioned, have to live inside the GMs head as folklore, while more complete systems obviously lighten this burden.

And while there are instances where leaving something vague is the better choice, these come few and far between.

[ImNotTrevor]

OP: It's simply impossible, obviously, for a complex system to be completely clear and absolutely independent of interpretation. That, of course, doesn't mean that such an impossible state isn't desirable, and that one shouldn't go for it, and it doesn't mean that rules systems that fail to cover the basic things they should cover aren't bad systems.
Now that's not entirely fair. Some systems do, genuinely, have fewer numbers of rules, it's just generally to the system's detriment.

Take Apocalypse World and its ilk, for example. In it, there really is only one rule, which is suck up to the GM to hope they don't shaft you, because it is literally impossible to generate a meaningful result from any task resolution in the book. And, no, I'm not even talking about how the GM decides how your roll is resolved, I'm talking about how, in text examples in the book, there are explicit examples of a "success at a cost" on a hide attempt wherein the cost was "you fail to hide," and examples where a successful check simply means you fail the mission. There are no rules beyond sucking up to the GM, because any actions the players attempt to take are entirely meaningless.

Um.

As the resident expert on Apocalypse World, I'm gonna need the RAW quote on that because I have the opposite quote. Namely:
"A player cannot fail at their goal on a 7-9 because a partial success is still, fundamentally, a success."
Now, this may shift somewhat depending on what the goal is. The goal may be to "get into that building undetected."
On a 7-9 the MC may ask if the player would rather successfully make it in, but be noticed, or successfully go unnoticed, but not make it in.
This is called a Devil's Bargain. You will get one of the 2 things you want (to go undetected, and to enter that building) You decide which.
If there is one goal (Don't get shot) then it also explicitly outlines what can and can't happen. Ie, if the MC inflicts full damage on a 7-9, you can let them know they're doing it wrong since you didn't fail. A 7-9 might produce a LESSER version of the desired outcome. (You are still shot, but not badly) or you avoid getting shot at the cost of something else happening. (You don't get shot, but you drop your gun)
As part of a 7-9, the MC may OFFER a choice to fail but have nothing bad happen, or you even gain a boon related to what you want. But they can always also choose to succeed at cost. That is a choice the player makes.
(You don't get into the cult meeting, but you find a key to the leader's house, for instance.)

I feel like you had AW explained to you once but never actually read it. >.>

[Selene Sparks]

The thing is, in any fully open game, in general the situations a GM is required to arbitrate are generally the same, regardless of rules lite or rules heavy.

However in rules lite, all the guidelines that lead to resolution, as Tetsubo 57 mentioned, have to live inside the GMs head as folklore, while more complete systems obviously lighten this burden.

And while there are instances where leaving something vague is the better choice, these come few and far between.

Hence my example of Munchhausen. It doesn't have a GM. That is a large part of why it is good and the various X-Worlds aren't. That is, the more something turns into Magical Tea Party, the less value there is in having one person with all the power and the rest without it.

Um.

As the resident expert on Apocalypse World, I'm gonna need the RAW quote on that because I have the opposite quote. Namely:
"A player cannot fail at their goal on a 7-9 because a partial success is still, fundamentally, a success."
Now, this may shift somewhat depending on what the goal is. The goal may be to "get into that building undetected."
On a 7-9 the MC may ask if the player would rather successfully make it in, but be noticed, or successfully go unnoticed, but not make it in.
This is called a Devil's Bargain. You will get one of the 2 things you want (to go undetected, and to enter that building) You decide which.
If there is one goal (Don't get shot) then it also explicitly outlines what can and can't happen. Ie, if the MC inflicts full damage on a 7-9, you can let them know they're doing it wrong since you didn't fail. A 7-9 might produce a LESSER version of the desired outcome. (You are still shot, but not badly) or you avoid getting shot at the cost of something else happening. (You don't get shot, but you drop your gun)
As part of a 7-9, the MC may OFFER a choice to fail but have nothing bad happen, or you even gain a boon related to what you want. But they can always also choose to succeed at cost. That is a choice the player makes.
(You don't get into the cult meeting, but you find a key to the leader's house, for instance.)

No. You are wrong here.

Keeler the gunlugger’s taken off her shoes and she’s sneaking into Dremmer’s camp, armed as they say to the upper teeth. If they hear her, she’s ****ed. (On a 7–9, maybe I give her an ugly choice between alerting the camp and murdering an innocent teenage sentry.) She hits the roll with an 8, so the ugly choice it is. “There’s some kid out here, huddled under this flimsy tin roof with a mug of who-knows-what. You think you’re past him but he startles and looks right at you. You can kill him before he makes a noise, but you’ll have to do it right this second. Do you?” “Yes, duh,” she says. “Great. You leave him dead and make your way in. You’re crouching down by a big piece of fallen wall, looking into Dremmer’s camp. He’s eating with a couple other guys, they have no idea you’re here.”
...
Wilson the operator’s blundered into Dremmer’s territory and gone to earth. He’s lying up against a wall amid the debris with a plastic tarp over him, trying to look like not-a-person-at-all, while a 2-thug patrol of Dremmer’s gang passes by. If they spot him they’ll drag him to Dremmer and he wants that zero at all. He hits the roll with a 9, so I get to offer him a worse outcome, a hard bargain, or an ugly choice. “Yeah,” I say. “So you’re holding still and you can’t really keep them in your sight. They, um, they spot you, but you don’t realize it.” I think about this for a second. It doesn’t seem quite right, and Wilson’s player is looking at me like I might be cheating. “Actually wait wait. You hit the roll, you didn’t miss it.” “I was gonna say,” Wilson’s player says. “So no,” I say. “Instead, they haven’t spotted you, but they’re getting closer and closer. They’ll be on top of you in just a minute but if you do something right this second you’ll have the drop on them. What do you do?”

So here we have two different examples of the "cost" of failure at a cost, is to simply fail to do what you were trying to do.

And here's a non-hiding example:

Bran doesn’t like the way things are going, so he takes a quick look around. He hits the roll with an 11, so let’s see. Tum Tum isn’t his biggest threat, Tum Tum’s psychically-linked cultist bodyguards are. His enemy’s true position is closing in slowly around Tum Tum’s temple, where they’re talking. And if things go to ****? I think his best escape route would be to take one or the other of Tum Tum hostage.

So here we have a successful roll turning an encounter from winnable to unwinnable by the power of fiat. The mission transforms from taking out Tum Tum to running away from an unbeatable opponent because someone made a spot check. This is just as dumb.

This is why I said that Apocalypse World doesn't generate meaningful outputs. The example outputs in the book disagree with you.

I feel like you had AW explained to you once but never actually read it. >.>

Funny, given how I'm pulling multiple direct citations. But I suppose making assumptions is easier than actually verifying another argument.

[2D8HP]

....take Munchhausen. Despite not really being a huge fan, it really is the only rules-light system I would argue is, in fact, a good game. In it, there is essentially no vagueness, and the rules can be completely explained to even a complete newbie in under five minutes, and it is both conceptually and mechanically sound.

Hence my example of Munchhausen. It doesn't have a GM. That is a large part of why it is good and the various X-Worlds aren't. That is, the more something turns into Magical Tea Party, the less value there is in having one person with all the power and the rest without it...

Oh!

I've bought two editions of Munchhausen!

I don't think I"m quick-witted enough to be a good player of it, but it looked like it would be fun in the right company.

[Talakeal]

So, at first I thought the OP was one of my RL friends come to the forum, but now that I look closer it appears that the OP is frankensteined together from quotes of my old posts. What does it mean? And further, why is it enough to prompt seven pages of discussion?

[Cluedrew]

These questions led me down a long thought process, in which I eventually concluded that I agree with one side in one circumstance, and agree with the other side under different circumstances.

I have sort of held off on replying to this thread because I felt it was... unnecessarily polarized. But I will now to say: I think you got it. I would add some stuff about rules being general without being vague and so on but it mostly boils down to what you said.

To Talakeal: Well once you get down to it, the topic really comes down to what are the advantages and disadvantages of rules-light and rules-heavy systems. Respectively. I kid, I kid. As Knaight pointed out it is really the opposite around here. I would leap to defend the design decisions of Powered by the Apocalypse, but I learned all I know about it from a friend of mine who I had to check to make sure is not also ImNotTrevor, so I will let ImNotTrevor handle that. More importantly I also had a copy of my post used to create a thread... I wonder what is up with that.

[ImNotTrevor]

No. You are wrong here.
So here we have two different examples of the "cost" of failure at a cost, is to simply fail to do what you were trying to do.

One of those examples is one of the things I described before:
The player is given a hard choice.

The second, I can tell you stopped reading. Because he reverses the call since it would just be a failure. Instead, he remains unseen, BUT the patrol ks approaching and he will need to take further action.

And here's a non-hiding example:
So here we have a successful roll turning an encounter from winnable to unwinnable by the power of fiat. The mission transforms from taking out Tum Tum to running away from an unbeatable opponent because someone made a spot check. This is just as dumb.

Why?
The situation has become more complicated, not unwinnable. The "threat" doesn't get to make any rolls, and it depends entirely on the player how well this goes.

I'm wondering how you managed to read these examples and have the rest of the ruleset fall out of your head. >.>

This is why I said that Apocalypse World doesn't generate meaningful outputs. The example outputs in the book disagree with you.

If you understood what I said and how the mechanics work, you'd know that's untrue.

Funny, given how I'm pulling multiple direct citations. But I suppose making assumptions is easier than actually verifying another argument.

I'm not at my computer, hence requesting the citations. But you've not presented anything outside of what the Moves Snowball section predicts or outside of the MC section RAW.

So... yeah, not really an argument in favor of your position. Every outcome was fairly predictable if you understand the Moves Snowball, which is the core mechanic of the game.

Look, it's ok to dislike how the Moves Snowball works. But what you're currently doing is comparing its outputs to D&D style outputs as if the goal is the same. It's not.

[1337 b4k4]

No. You are wrong here.
So here we have two different examples of the "cost" of failure at a cost, is to simply fail to do what you were trying to do.

I would argue neither of these examples is failing to do what the player was trying to do. In the first example, the character is trying to enter the camp without raising the alarm. The cost of doing so is murdering an otherwise innocent sentry. It is of course the player's option to avoid paying that cost, but then yes, they don't get what they wanted. That is the essence of "success with a cost". In non *World games, I've often seen something like this play out when it's a "by the skin of your teeth" success, except the player doesn't get to choose, usually the GM just narrates that they get halfway into the camp when they cross paths with a sentry and quickly and quietly cut them down.

The second example is a little murkier and I personally would have probably chosen a different tact, but the player is still getting what they wanted. They wanted to hide from the patrol, they have done so and are hidden. They may not remain hidden for long, but for now they are. Again this is a pretty standard trope in games and fiction, where the main character has successfully hidden themselves, but luck is not on their side and the patrol stops right where they're hiding or otherwise makes them have to take additional actions. One of the more famous examples might be Obi-Wan Kenobi and shutting down the deathstar tractor beams. He's made a number of successful hide checks to get there, but at the actual controls, he got a partial success, so while he remained hidden from the patrol as they came, he then had to use the force to trick them into looking another way so that he could escape.

And here's a non-hiding example:
So here we have a successful roll turning an encounter from winnable to unwinnable by the power of fiat. The mission transforms from taking out Tum Tum to running away from an unbeatable opponent because someone made a spot check. This is just as dumb.

This one I don't know enough context to say what's going on, but at the moment it doesn't read like the situation has become unwinable. It doesn't even read like the situation has changed at all.

[Bohandas]

On principle I don't like the look of anythig that falls between D&D 3.5 and Toon crunch wise. That said I don;t really get to play much so I can't really speak as to what works or doesn't in practice

[Selene Sparks]

One of those examples is one of the things I described before:
The player is given a hard choice.

No, the player is not "given a hard choice." They successfully rolled to be undetected, and yet they were still detected. That's the bottom line. You succeed, so you fail.

The second, I can tell you stopped reading. Because he reverses the call since it would just be a failure. Instead, he remains unseen, BUT the patrol ks approaching and he will need to take further action.

No, the person again fails. They fail at hiding. If I roll to hide and the output is ambush, that is not a meaningful roll, because I have both failed to hide and am now pressed into a different like of action.

Why?
The situation has become more complicated, not unwinnable. The "threat" doesn't get to make any rolls, and it depends entirely on the player how well this goes.

The players were invading the cult leader's base with him as the threat. Since they succeeded on a check, there is now a new enemy that spawned from the successful roll that actively makes things worse. And, again, this is PbtA game, so enemies don't actually have stats beyond fiat, and the only resolution possible put forward involved taking a hostage rather than accomplishing the objective.

As a side note, the threat most certainly gets to make rolls, as they're part of the move system and the GM can make a move pretty much whenever they feel like it.

I'm wondering how you managed to read these examples and have the rest of the ruleset fall out of your head. >.>

I'm wondering how you managed to read the rest of the ruleset and have the rest of the ruleset fall out of your head, personally.

If you understood what I said and how the mechanics work, you'd know that's untrue.

I do understand the rules, and that's the problem. The rules are you roll some dice and the GM says whatever they want to happen, on which the actual die roll has no meaningful impact.

I'm not at my computer, hence requesting the citations. But you've not presented anything outside of what the Moves Snowball section predicts or outside of the MC section RAW.

So... yeah, not really an argument in favor of your position. Every outcome was fairly predictable if you understand the Moves Snowball, which is the core mechanic of the game.

Again, you're wrong. It's not that I dislike it, although I do, it's that it's simply bad. The "Moves Snowball" is meaningless and the entire "system" is just a bare cover over mindless GM wankery. The GM decrees how things go, and that's that, with no regard for what they players even attempt to do, much less any petty concerns like what the dice turn up as.

Look, it's ok to dislike how the Moves Snowball works. But what you're currently doing is comparing its outputs to D&D style outputs as if the goal is the same. It's not.

I honestly don't even get what you're even trying to defend here. I mean, seriously, there's not even any model for difficulty in it outside of one one-off "custom move" that the text itself is pretty dismissive of, and even then it's awful, especially with how it ties into the "move" system. So there is no difficulty difference between sneaking into a building with ninja pajamas on or sneaking in with a loud pink suit and squeaky clown shoes with spurs attached and a bell around your neck, save in what the GM fiats up in response to whatever you do, which happens either way.

You're seriously, here, saying that being a not-game is the intent of the game, and so its abject mechanical failure on every level shouldn't be criticized. I mean, that argument could be used to defend any other system from any attack.

I would argue neither of these examples is failing to do what the player was trying to do. In the first example, the character is trying to enter the camp without raising the alarm. The cost of doing so is murdering an otherwise innocent sentry. It is of course the player's option to avoid paying that cost, but then yes, they don't get what they wanted. That is the essence of "success with a cost". In non *World games, I've often seen something like this play out when it's a "by the skin of your teeth" success, except the player doesn't get to choose, usually the GM just narrates that they get halfway into the camp when they cross paths with a sentry and quickly and quietly cut them down.

No. That is a load of crap. The attempt was to get in undetected, and the attempt failed, because they were detected.

The second example is a little murkier and I personally would have probably chosen a different tact, but the player is still getting what they wanted. They wanted to hide from the patrol, they have done so and are hidden. They may not remain hidden for long, but for now they are. Again this is a pretty standard trope in games and fiction, where the main character has successfully hidden themselves, but luck is not on their side and the patrol stops right where they're hiding or otherwise makes them have to take additional actions. One of the more famous examples might be Obi-Wan Kenobi and shutting down the deathstar tractor beams. He's made a number of successful hide checks to get there, but at the actual controls, he got a partial success, so while he remained hidden from the patrol as they came, he then had to use the force to trick them into looking another way so that he could escape.

Again, no. The roll was "I want to hide from these two specific people" and the result on a success was "you do not get to hide from those two specific people." And, in Star Wars(which, I want to remind you, isn't an RPG), Obi-Wan was still not caught by the storm troopers. It wasn't "Oh, that's nice, you don't get to hide," it was a matter of fluff.

This one I don't know enough context to say what's going on, but at the moment it doesn't read like the situation has become unwinable. It doesn't even read like the situation has changed at all.

The psychic bodyguards came into existence on the roll. That is the problem.

[ImNotTrevor]

No, the player is not "given a hard choice."

Go ahead and read that again. Because you apparently are struggling with it.

Firstly:
She is rolling to Act Under Fire, not to hide. Hiding isn't a move. She is in a dangerous situation. The "Fire" she is acting under is the threat of a raised alarm. The outcome is this:

There’s some kid out here, huddled under this flimsy tin roof with a mug of who-knows-what. You think you’re past him but he startles and looks right at you. You can kill him before he makes a noise, but you’ll have to do it right this second. Do you?” “Yes, duh,” she says. “Great. You leave him dead and make your way in. You’re crouching down by a big piece of fallen wall, looking into Dremmer’s camp. He’s eating with a couple other guys, they have no idea you’re here.”

Note that last sentence.
"THEY HAVE NO IDEA YOU'RE HERE."

Their goal of getting to Dremmer without raising the alarm has been met. The cost was murdering some teenager. Bam.

They successfully rolled to be undetected, and yet they were still detected. That's the bottom line. You succeed, so you fail.

She rolled to avoid anyone raising the alarm. Killing the one guy who happened to see you before they can raise the alarm isn't failing to hide. It's succeeding at hiding... except for that one hiccup. Which was dealt with. Nobody knows you're there, now that Slim over there is dead. Overall, the sneak was successful.

No, the person again fails. They fail at hiding.

I see you again didn't finish.

(Emphasis added)
Instead, [b]they haven’t spotted you,[b] but they’re getting closer and closer. They’ll be on top of you in just a minute but if you do something right this second you’ll have the drop on them. What do you do?”

So you're still hidden. Note that IF. If you do something right away, you'll have the drop on them. That, to me, doesn't limit the action to an ambush. If the player wants, they might be able to create a distraction that the guards will be especially vulnerable to. So on this:

If I roll to hide and the output is ambush, that is not a meaningful roll, because I have both failed to hide and am now pressed into a different like of action.

Read the Moves Snowball section.
Failed Moves and Partial Successes create the need for additional moves to be made. This is the core mechanic. Things get more complicated over time. This is the system working as advertised.

So yes, you're hidden. The cost is: not for long. The benefit is: you can play this on your terms.

Come on, man. This isn't even that hard to parse out.

[QUOTE)
The players were invading the cult leader's base with him as the threat. Since they succeeded on a check, there is now a new enemy that spawned from the successful roll that actively makes things worse. [/QUOTE]
Ah yes. Just like how a successful spot check spawns a goblin if you see one. Spot checks with a result other than Nothing are failures, now.

Oh wait. That's terrible logic!

And

And, again, this is PbtA game, so enemies don't actually have stats beyond fiat,

Virtually every NPC dies at 3 or more harm, absolutely all of them die at 4 or more, and at 5 they're chunky salsa. This is in the Harm rules.
Armor does not go above 2, and if they have Armor 2 they're wearing ARMOR. Visible, noticeable metal on their bodies.
Most weapons have codified harm.

Are you 100% sure you read the book?

and the only resolution possible put forward involved taking a hostage rather than accomplishing the objective.

Incorrect. Please read more carefully. Quoting again:

And if things go to ****? I think his best escape route would be to take one or the other of Tum Tum hostage.

There's a conjunction in there. Notice it? The word is "if."
It is used in English to denote things that are possible, but not guaranteed. Most often used as a short version of "in the situation where..."

That means the character now knows that IF things go bad, Tum Tum is their ticket out.

But that hasn't happened yet. It can, but it hasn't.

You also must assume that these psychics are not already an established fact. Which is stretching beyond the scope of the example and into "I'm making up things I might think are problems, using BS extrapolation from limited data" territory.

As a side note, the threat most certainly gets to make rolls, as they're part of the move system and the GM can make a move pretty much whenever they feel like it.

The MC has specific times when they can make moves. Namely:
-In response to failures, they can make as hard a move as they want.
-in partial successes, they may make weaker moves.
-they may make weak moves when things are going slow, to trigger the moves snowball. But if the snowball is going, play by the rules.

Seriously.

I'm wondering how you managed to read the rest of the ruleset and have the rest of the ruleset fall out of your head, personally.

Fascinating. You went with "No you!"
All while demonstrating you didn't actually understand the examples, and don't know the rules.

I do understand the rules, and that's the problem. The rules are you roll some dice and the GM says whatever they want to happen, on which the actual die roll has no meaningful impact.

That would be scathing if I weren't 100% certain you've not understood and just dislike it.
Which is fine. I can live with you not liking it.

Again, you're wrong. It's not that I dislike it, although I do, it's that it's simply bad. The "Moves Snowball" is meaningless and the entire "system" is just a bare cover over mindless GM wankery. The GM decrees how things go, and that's that, with no regard for what they players even attempt to do, much less any petty concerns like what the dice turn up as.

I honestly don't even get what you're even trying to defend here. I mean, seriously, there's not even any model for difficulty in it outside of one one-off "custom move" that the text itself is pretty dismissive of, and even then it's awful, especially with how it ties into the "move" system. So there is no difficulty difference between sneaking into a building with ninja pajamas on or sneaking in with a loud pink suit and squeaky clown shoes with spurs attached and a bell around your neck, save in what the GM fiats up in response to whatever you do, which happens either way.

Ah. You really don't understand how it works. Or you kiiiinda do, but just don't like it and can't separate "i dislike this style" from "this is objectively bad."
Don't worry. Many people have the same difficulty.

You like when a system is more granular, and has things like sliding difficulty. Cool! I like those things, too.
I also like what Apocalypse World does, as both MC and Player.

You're seriously, here, saying that being a not-game is the intent of the game, and so its abject mechanical failure on every level shouldn't be criticized. I mean, that argument could be used to defend any other system from any attack.

That's a super neato strawman. Way to get him.

Too bad nobody in the for realsies discussion is making that argument, or you'd have got 'em real good!


Look, I really don't mind that you dislike a system I enjoy. I get snarky when people try to project an opinion as objective fact, because that's annoying and also very obviously what is happening here. You're unusually histrionic about it, but eh. I've seen worse.

Again, I find myself severely doubting that you've comprehended the game. Even less that you've played it. I've played AW for about 4 years now, and my experiences have not matched your expectations at all. In fact, most people I played campaigns of AW with wanted to play it again right after, and were highly satisfied with their ability to contribute to the storyline, moreso than in games like D&D. I've never had any complaints that rolls didn't matter, both from new and veteran players of various systems.

So....

I dunno what to tell you other than that your rant fails to accurately reflect the things going on, fails to account for the actual mechanics, and fails to have much logical merit beside.

As I'll say to anyone:
AW is weird, and not for everyone. It does not hold the same assumptions as games like D&D, and the play experience it produces is not akin to what D&D does. In any way.
What it DOES DO, it does very well. Namely:
Things escalate.
Things get desperate.
By the end of the campaign, the world will probably not be better. But it will certainly not be the same.

If you dislike that, no problem. It is weird! AW is a game about building up a town/region/place and then letting loose a bunch of badasses to wreck up the place and see what kinds of cool patterns the fires make.
And it's REALLY good at that.
If that's not the thing you want? Don't play it. That's all it does.

Hence why people disliking it doesn't bother me. People misrepresenting what it does, eh. I'm here to fact check.

[Selene Sparks]

Firstly:
She is rolling to Act Under Fire, not to hide. Hiding isn't a move. She is in a dangerous situation. The "Fire" she is acting under is the threat of a raised alarm.

That's crap and you know it. First of all, hiding, like any number of other actions, falls under the Act Under Fire. Second, you are wrong, because, while threatened, she is explicitly sneaking, and is "****ed" if she is heard. Those are her objectives. Sneaking and not being heard. She absolutely fails at the first and obviously fails at the second.

The outcome is this:
Note that last sentence.
"THEY HAVE NO IDEA YOU'RE HERE."

Their goal of getting to Dremmer without raising the alarm has been met. The cost was murdering some teenager. Bam.

Except no. Again, you are flatly wrong. First of all, again, the stated objective was to sneak. Being detected is an obvious failure, period. "were you undetected" is no. There was no "cost" involved. She was detected, and then killed a faceless NPC with no stats. The fact that the alarm wasn't raised is entirely irrelevant to the fact that she was detected, and there is no possible definition of "detected" wherein killing the detector retroactively changes the fact that you were detected unless time travel is involved.

She rolled to avoid anyone raising the alarm. Killing the one guy who happened to see you before they can raise the alarm isn't failing to hide. It's succeeding at hiding... except for that one hiccup. Which was dealt with. Nobody knows you're there, now that Slim over there is dead. Overall, the sneak was successful.

Yes, you succeed except when you fail, which I guess counts as a success despite being failing because I don't know, something something sitch move fire something.

I see you again didn't finish.

So you're still hidden. Note that IF. If you do something right away, you'll have the drop on them. That, to me, doesn't limit the action to an ambush. If the player wants, they might be able to create a distraction that the guards will be especially vulnerable to.

So, you can ambush, or you can make undefined action that you have a 70% chance of having go wrong and the output will still be ambush because the last output was ambush from an action that couldn't generate it again, so there's no reason why it wouldn't give that same output, because the output is disconnected from the input.

Also, it's telling that the first part of that, the first thought of the author, was to go to an explicit, unconditional "you fail" on a success until it was obvious the player wasn't buying it.

So on this:
Read the Moves Snowball section.
Failed Moves and Partial Successes create the need for additional moves to be made. This is the core mechanic. Things get more complicated over time. This is the system working as advertised.

So yes, you're hidden. The cost is: not for long. The benefit is: you can play this on your terms.

Come on, man. This isn't even that hard to parse out.

"You fail" is not a valid "benefit." "Not for long" is simply another way of saying "you fail," and thus the output is ambush, as that's the only remaining option according to the text.

Ah yes. Just like how a successful spot check spawns a goblin if you see one. Spot checks with a result other than Nothing are failures, now.

Oh wait. That's terrible logic!

This is, again, a load of crap. First of all, the example had no indication that they existed prior, the player clearly had no idea they existed, and so on. Beyond that, it's looking like you don't understand how action resolution works. They weren't there until the action that generated them occurred. Second, there is a difference between "super monsters generated by your action" and "successfully sees nothing exists". Furthermore, "make random stuff up" is explicitly listed as a result. So, your logic is indeed awful, thank you for pointing it out for me. And, third, as you pointed out, *world doesn't try to generate logical responses. In D&D, things are already there because that's the model D&D works on, save for random encounters, which are very nearly as dumb, but at least aren't arbitrary in response to any action the GM pleases.

Virtually every NPC dies at 3 or more harm, absolutely all of them die at 4 or more, and at 5 they're chunky salsa. This is in the Harm rules.
Armor does not go above 2, and if they have Armor 2 they're wearing ARMOR. Visible, noticeable metal on their bodies.

Wrong on both counts. First of all, NPCs, generally, can survive up to five wounds(They only explicitly die at the six o'clock position). Second of all, the hardholder has a power that grants their gang +2 armor. In other words, armor can most certainly go above 2. Methinks it's you who needs to go reread the rules.

Most weapons have codified harm.

In other words, damage is whatever the GM says.

Are you 100% sure you read the book?

Apparently I've been doing a better job of it then you, so yeah.

Incorrect. Please read more carefully. Quoting again:


There's a conjunction in there. Notice it? The word is "if."
It is used in English to denote things that are possible, but not guaranteed. Most often used as a short version of "in the situation where..."

That means the character now knows that IF things go bad, Tum Tum is their ticket out.

But that hasn't happened yet. It can, but it hasn't.

Again,*World doesn't have differing difficulties, the GM simply narrates whatever. The only information the GM gave was that they could run away if they did one specific action. Any subsequent actions are under fire, and the GM decides the result against the opponent where the PCs are explicitly told that they might be able to run away maybe and that's it.

You also must assume that these psychics are not already an established fact. Which is stretching beyond the scope of the example and into "I'm making up things I might think are problems, using BS extrapolation from limited data" territory.

Again, no, see above.

The MC has specific times when they can make moves. Namely:
-In response to failures, they can make as hard a move as they want.
-in partial successes, they may make weaker moves.
-they may make weak moves when things are going slow, to trigger the moves snowball. But if the snowball is going, play by the rules.

You missed one.

However, when a player’s character hands you the perfect opportunity on a golden plate, make as hard and direct a move as you like. It’s not the meaner the better, although mean is often good. Best is: make it irrevocable.

In other words, you can make whenever you feel like.

Fascinating. You went with "No you!"
All while demonstrating you didn't actually understand the examples, and don't know the rules.

Worth pointing out your first post on the subject, and nearly every other line in this one, were insults, whereas I've been citing sources.

That would be scathing if I weren't 100% certain you've not understood and just dislike it.
Which is fine. I can live with you not liking it.

In other words, you have no response, but are too attached to the idea of *World to say so.

Ah. You really don't understand how it works. Or you kiiiinda do, but just don't like it and can't separate "i dislike this style" from "this is objectively bad."
Don't worry. Many people have the same difficulty.

Ah, more condescension. Wonderful.

Funny thing is I can say the opposite with greater accuracy, which is you don't really understand how the book is written, but you simply liked the games you've played without going by the rules, and you can't separate those two points. Which is fine, that happens most people who've played White Wolf games, so you're hardly alone.

You like when a system is more granular, and has things like sliding difficulty. Cool! I like those things, too.
I also like what Apocalypse World does, as both MC and Player.

That's cool. But what you've been describing isn't Apocalypse World as it's written.

That's a super neato strawman. Way to get him.

Too bad nobody in the for realsies discussion is making that argument, or you'd have got 'em real good!

Do you not know what a strawman is? You said that the goal of the game wasn't what I wanted, and using that to dismiss my criticism. That argument is the exact same logic as the "not for critics" argument. "It doesn't contain the element you want, so you dislike it so your argument on its merits is invalid" is what your statement boiled down to, dismissing the idea out of hand the notion that my dislike for something and it being bad are two different things, the former having no impact on the latter.

Look, I really don't mind that you dislike a system I enjoy. I get snarky when people try to project an opinion as objective fact, because that's annoying and also very obviously what is happening here. You're unusually histrionic about it, but eh. I've seen worse.

Again, I've quoted sources, you've said "nuh-uh" and have been repeatedly wrong about specific mechanics.

Again, I find myself severely doubting that you've comprehended the game. Even less that you've played it. I've played AW for about 4 years now, and my experiences have not matched your expectations at all. In fact, most people I played campaigns of AW with wanted to play it again right after, and were highly satisfied with their ability to contribute to the storyline, moreso than in games like D&D. I've never had any complaints that rolls didn't matter, both from new and veteran players of various systems.

You're conflating two unrelated points, with a side dose of appeal to popularity based on anecdotes, but more broadly, if that was the case you weren't using the system as it's written, because the system as its written is directly hostile to what you described.

I dunno what to tell you other than that your rant fails to accurately reflect the things going on, fails to account for the actual mechanics, and fails to have much logical merit beside.

Yes, my argument is wrong despite being backed up with explicit quotes, because the "nuh-uh" of a self-proclaimed expert is obviously more valid than what the book itself says.

I'm here to fact check.

No, you're here to defend how you think the game works, rather than how the game works. It's honestly a pretty common thing. I can think of several people I've known who've said they've played Scion, for example, but when you get into specific mechanics, their eyes glaze over. Even on this forum, I've seen people deny the idea of peasant armies being better than everything else in 5e, and simulacra loops, as well as defending the idea that hide rules even exist. If you've ever joined a WoD game, you'll know you have to learn the group's elaborate houserule web. It's fine. People remember how games went more than what the rules say, and people are pretty good at mentally rewriting nonsense into something vaguely usable without even realizing they're doing it. But people's positive memories and mind caulk don't change what the system is, which is a thin veneer of mechanics covering GM wankery.

As a side note, in your "defense" of the system, one thing I can't help but notice you neglected to mention is that the party engaging in constant orgies is the only logical result of the mechanics, and is objectively superior to not doing so.