Adopting Apocalypse World resolution for other games ?

[silva]

I was wondering..

Has someone considered applying the resolution model from AW (success > hard choice > shit happens) to other games ?

Im in love with Runequest 6 right now and cant wait to start a new campaign with it. BUT after we adopted AW for our current Shadowrun campaign the group consensus in that our games got faster, intenser, and focusing on what really matters for us (the in-fiction choices & consequences, instead of math).

Particularly in my case, what bothers me most is the whole spectrum of NOTHING HAPPENS* contained in the old/trad resolution model. Every roll where you get a “fail” (NOTHIN HAPPENS!), is a waste of time and opportunities (and, by the end of a 4 hours session, it amounts to a really significant wasted time).

So, what do you guys think ? Has anyone considered doing this ?


*old/trad resolution model: “critical success > success > fail [NOTHING HAPPENS] > critical failure”.

[Mistborn]

While I have know idea what the fuck your talking about, my gut says that this is a terrible idea.

Also could anyone translate this pretentious fappery into something that doesn't make me want to abandon my dignity and join Tarnowski's band of raving rejects

[Prak]

I thought Apocalypse World's resolution mechanic was for everyone to get tipsy and have an orgy....

[Previn]

Whelp, always curious I went and grabbed a copy. First, there isn't really a mention of the resolution mechanic until page 190. The entire pdf is 303 pages, and there a lot of white space including entirely blank pages, pages with less than 200 words on them, so I'm already skeptical you'd want to take anything from them.

Any who, the resolution mechanic is a 2d6 check + a stat with the final sum determining how good the move is:
6 or less is miss/failure
7+ is a success/hit with 7-9 being week and 10+ being a 'strong' success/hit.

There some extra riders, like a 7-9 while being under pressure isn't really a success, the DM instead screws with you in some way. The example choice is trying to sneak somewhere, getting an 8, and being noticed by some kid watching the camp and being given the choices of either murdering him or alerting the entire camp.

I would not honestly touch that for anything that wasn't basically just MTP, and even then I'd be super leery of getting near it unless I knew the players and GM super well. If you dropped the part about the DM screwing with you it's a pretty basic and uninspired resolution mechanic.

[Stubbazubba]

The 4-fold resolution outcomes ("Yes, and" "Yes, but" "No, but" "No, and") is a popular one. It basically means there are two axes of outcome; success/failure, and mitigation/exacerbation. This means your RNG has to have multiple dimensions somehow, or you cop out and just make it all degrees of success/failure.

But I agree with the sentiment that empty failure is less satisfying than content-rich failure. To that end, see the blog post linked to in my sig.

[K]

If you are just going to MTP up the results of rolls, you might as well not do the rolls.

[Whipstitch]

I thought Apocalypse World's resolution mechanic was for everyone to get tipsy and have an orgy....

I almost think it's the other way around; the goal is to screw people so then they give you presents so then in turn you can afford being tipsy.

[Prak]

I'm pretty sure AW is mostly just Orgy Foreplay.

[OgreBattle]

How exactly is AW foreplay, how is that supported in the game mechanics. I've heard that sex is inevitable int he game, but it hasn't been clarified how exactly it gets there.

[Chamomile]

Having sex is mechanically supported. There are actual mechanics for what happens after you have sex with someone. Also, the creator apparently made the game with the intention that sex would happen on-screen. Other than that, nothing.

[wotmaniac]

(though I can't seem to find the quote at the moment -- it's probably somewhere deep in the recesses of the Forge archive) Also, Baker is on record as having said, in effect, that foreplay is often how he actually uses the game himself (it was actually something along the lines of the best sex he has ever had is immediately following an AW session, thus he plays AW a lot).

[Ice9]

The specific AW mechanics have a significant degree of MTP, which may or may not be good for a particular game, but I'm definitely in favor of eliminating null results. Especially systems where there are multiple failure points (you can miss, they can parry, they can soak, and you can just do insignificant damage, for example) that all yield a null result, it's a waste of real time for minimal benefits that I'm increasingly unwilling to tolerate.

Basically the results that actually mean something are:
* You won / got closer to winning
* They won / got closer to winning
* The situation changed

"Nothing happened this round" is not on that list. If stalling for time actually matters, it should be part of one side's victory conditions (or part of the pyrric result).

For tasks that aren't actually opposed, a series of repeated rolls is a bass-akward way to do them. Just fucking use the margin of success to determine how long it took.


There are actually a lot of mechanics that do this. The problem with many is that they don't handle three-way (or more) conflicts very well. If you're willing to make things a bit abstract in terms of timing, you can handle it as a series of oppositions (if A & B independently attack C, and C wins both times, then he gets to shoot both of them in one round). If you want to keep things strictly concrete, it's a harder case (may have to do something like declare all actions first, then determine how to resolve them based on who's involved).

[Mask_De_H]

As has been said, the positive/negative - mitigation/exacerbation axis is popular and a generally effective resolution mechanic. Declaring actions (through MTP) and then resolving based on (narrative) priority is how AW does it, but it requires chunking for anything more than three involved parties acting simultaneously.

Also, getting laid via TTRPGs is totally a thing that happens. Frank's stated that as the main use of oWoD.

[silva]

Wadda fuck is "MTP" ?

The 4-fold resolution outcomes ("Yes, and" "Yes, but" "No, but" "No, and") is a popular one. It basically means there are two axes of outcome; success/failure, and mitigation/exacerbation. This means your RNG has to have multiple dimensions somehow, or you cop out and just make it all degrees of success/failure.

But I agree with the sentiment that empty failure is less satisfying than content-rich failure

Yup, thats exactly what Im talking about here. And nice blog post over there, if a bit on the complex side for me.

There are actually a lot of mechanics that do this. The problem with many is that they don't handle three-way (or more) conflicts very well. If you're willing to make things a bit abstract in terms of timing, you can handle it as a series of oppositions (if A & B independently attack C, and C wins both times, then he gets to shoot both of them in one round). If you want to keep things strictly concrete, it's a harder case (may have to do something like declare all actions first, then determine how to resolve them based on who's involved).

As has been said, the positive/negative - mitigation/exacerbation axis is popular and a generally effective resolution mechanic. Declaring actions (through MTP) and then resolving based on (narrative) priority is how AW does it, but it requires chunking for anything more than three involved parties acting simultaneously.

Dont know if I got what you said here, if not forgive me. But wouldnt all this be resolved if we also adopted the AW rule that says "The GM dont play dice, only the players" ? I mean, this would resolve the multiple sides/opponents fights, right ?

Do you think this could work for Runequest (or ther more trad games) ?

Having sex is mechanically supported. There are actual mechanics for what happens after you have sex with someone.

Yeah, but those mechanics just say what happens after you had sex. You just say "I bang her" and then the lights are out and you wake up in the morning and your class "sex move" say what happened (Eg: the Brainer gets a full brain scan on the partner). Do not confuse it for mechanics of doing sex, as in, "roleplaying the sex". If you think the game is about that, youre full of bullshit.

[Parthenon]

MTP is Magical Tea Party. A game mechanic is MTP if it has no reliable, actual mechanics, and decisions on whether something happens or not are based on the DM deciding on it happening or the group discussing what would happen and agreeing on it happening.

MTP isn't itself a bad thing- you can have a huge amount of fun when playing with MTP rules. But they are insulting when in a game system because any rules in a game should be better than MTP since the MTP system is completely free.

So, if someone is saying that the Apocalypse World system uses MTP, then they are saying that there aren't any real rules for what you can do and how hard it is, but instead it is based on how well you can bullshit the DM. And that this is bad since other games manage to have actual rules for those things and the makers of AW should feel bad for having the same ability to create rules as a 4 year old girl.

[Voss]

Yeah, but those mechanics just say what happens after you had sex. You just say "I bang her" and then the lights are out and you wake up in the morning and your class "sex move" say what happened (Eg: the Brainer gets a full brain scan on the partner). Do not confuse it for mechanics of doing sex, as in, "roleplaying the sex". If you think the game is about that, youre full of bullshit.

So... the mechanics don't actually resolve the event or action, but instead determine that you wake up in the morning with a case of crotch crickets, and and dictate how you cope with that?

Because that sounds exactly as satisfying as retroactively wiping your own memory every time you have fun.

[silva]

So, if someone is saying that the Apocalypse World system uses "MTP", then they are saying that there aren't any real rules for what you can do and how hard it is

So, what youre telling me is: people around here has the habit of defecating through their mouths, since Apocalypse World (nor Dungeon World) has anything to do with that MTP shit.

Thanks for clarifying.

[Mistborn]

So, what youre telling me is: people around here has the habit of defecating through their mouths, since Apocalypse World (nor Dungeon World) has anything to do with that MTP shit.

Thanks for clarifying.

No put down that barrel of cocks and listen.

When the system tells Mister Cavern to use his imagination to generate a rules outcome the system is telling you to MTP. Now you can go full retard and say that having lots of MTP is good (spoiler warning: lots of MTP is actually terrible).

So maybe you might want to roll on over to some other forum. The Den is not a place you go to say good things about games even if they are good, and gushing about how much you like terrible games is winning you no friends.

[K]

Apocalypse World has heavy MTP, but some rules. This puts it in the Rules-light category.

For example, let's look at this rule:

OPEN YOUR BRAIN
When you open your brain to the world’s psychic maelstrom,
roll+weird. On a hit, the MC will tell you something new and interesting about the current situation, and might ask you a question or two; answer them. On a 10+, the MC will give you good detail. On a 7–9, the MC will give you an impression. If you already know all there is to know, the MC will tell you that.

The mechanics is the actual roll. The MTP part is where the DM decides what the results are.

Now, compare that to a game like DnD where you might have the ability to use detect evil. The information given has been decided beforehand and the player can rely on this ability when it's relevant.

That being said, Apocalypse World is a terrible system because the MTP in almost every mechanic renders most of the rules into pointless dice-rolling exercises. Rules-heavy games like DnD or Shadowrun have a lot less MTP, so rolling dice means something.

Honestly, the system in AW is little better than "roll some dice, and the DM will tell you if it's big enough," and that is going to draw a lot of contempt from anyone who enjoys actual mechanics and discussions about mechanics. It's going to be a tough sell on most gaming forums.

[silva]

No.

All AW moves´ consequences must be coherent/plausible to the situation/context at hand. The GM cannot produce shit from his ass. (exactly the same way a GM cant produce shit from his ass in any other rpg really). This is explicit written in the book:

Play to find out: there’s a certain discipline you need in order
to MC Apocalypse World. You have to commit yourself to the
game’s fiction’s own internal logic and causality, driven by the
players’ characters. You have to open yourself to caring what
happens, but when it comes time to say what happens, you have
to set what you hope for aside.

See ?

That being said, Apocalypse World is a terrible system because the MTP in almost every mechanic renders most of the rules into pointless dice-rolling exercises. Rules-heavy games like DnD or Shadowrun have a lot less MTP, so rolling dice means something.

Its the opposite, actually. Games like D&D/SHadowrun have a signficant amount of rolls where "nothing happens" / you "swing and miss", while in AW every time the dice hit the table, its a decisive moment. No "You miss. Nothing happens" in AW.

[Voss]

No.

All AW moves´ consequences must be coherent/plausible to the situation/context at hand. The GM cannot produce shit from his ass. (exactly the same way a GM cant produce shit from his ass in any other rpg really)

The mutants (or whatever): are all women.
There are five mutants.
The mutants have rifles.

All of those are coherent/plausible. That isn't in opposition to 'pulled from the ass'.

That being said, Apocalypse World is a terrible system because the MTP in almost every mechanic renders most of the rules into pointless dice-rolling exercises. Rules-heavy games like DnD or Shadowrun have a lot less MTP, so rolling dice means something.

Its the opposite, actually. Games like D&D/SHadowrun have a signficant amount of rolls where "nothing happens" / you "swing and miss", while in AW every time the dice hit the table, its a decisive moment. No "You miss. Nothing happens" in AW.

So... You can't ever fail?

[silva]

If you fail, shit happens.

[Chamomile]

The Apocalypse World engine is actually pretty nifty for rules-lite stuff. Ironically, Apocalypse World itself is not an especially good implementation of it because of reasons already highlighted. However, Apocalypse World hacks have frequently created better implementations of what is basically the same "6 is fail, 7-9 is mixed results, 10 is success" mechanic, and it works pretty well. Also, I found Apocalypse World was a lot of fun to read even though the results were basically guided MTP.

[Voss]

If you fail, shit happens.

You just told us that anyone anywhere in the world can pick up a gun and shoot someone in the head with zero percent chance of failure.

I have no idea how you'd reach a failure state, and what 'shit' would happen if you do.

[John Magnum]

His point wasn't that failure is impossible, his point was that dice are only rolled when both success and failure are significant changes to the status quo. So, rolling to attack when a "miss" means that things are left the same as they were before you attacked is out.