Examples of good non-combat resolution mechanics?

[Username17]

Chamomile, how do you think that an example where the MC gives two words and trails off without even a period at the end, gets called on it, and completes the sentence with a two word prepositional phrase constitutes a refutation of my contention that you are only entitled to a single sentence? The player still only got a single sentence in the example you just fucking quoted. Dip shit.

-Username17

[Ice9]

I don't see how Apocalypse World is any better or worse than other RPGs in the case of a bear-obsessed DM. While technically this is an issue of MTP, it's the (lack of) rules for placing opposition, which is MTP in almost every system, including D&D.

Anyway, stupid tangent aside, my opinion (having played several games of it) is that AW is pretty much on the MTP / narrative side, but it justifies it pretty well. For example, I get pissed at FATE because it has huge thick rulebooks, combat takes a bunch of rolls (especially SotC), and yet in the end it's very highly narrative and not tactical. That's a bad use of space / mental energy. In comparison, AW isn't significantly tactical either, but it does run quite fast and the mechanics hit a good spot for providing inspiration.

So - it's a good game for people who like that kind of game. As with many narrative games, it depends highly on how "on" the players are. When everybody's feeling creative and roughly in sync, it's amazing. When people have mental block, it sinks. I've had fun with it though.

[DSMatticus]

I don't see how Apocalypse World is any better or worse than other RPGs in the case of a bear-obsessed DM. While technically this is an issue of MTP, it's the (lack of) rules for placing opposition, which is MTP in almost every system, including D&D.

We aren't talking about whether the campaign will have a lot of bears, though it's getting dangerously close to that. In D&D, the success and failure of your actions changes the environment in relatively predictable ways. If you fail to sneak through the forest around your enemy's flank or whatever, they detect you. In AW, the success and failure of your actions changes the environment in ways that are arbitrary and unpredictable until after the roll. If you fail to sneak through the forest around your enemy's flank or whatever, bears. Or bees. Or mudslide. Or they detect you. Or you drop something. Or you sprain your ankle.

It's not that your DM can put bears everywhere and make you deal with a bear-centric campaign, because that's true in any system. It's that your DM is encouraged to make asspulls every step of the way and that means bears are never more than "the DM opens his mouth" away, and bears is just a stand-in for anything and so the outcomes of any action become very difficult to predict in any meaningful way. Which makes it a bad game, but possibly good for something like roll-guided improv storytelling.

[Username17]

Also, I think it should be noted that fully half of the questions you're allowed to ask with What's The Sitch are in fact deeply disempowering.

• where’s my best escape route / way in / way past?
• which enemy is most vulnerable to me?
• which enemy is the biggest threat?

If you succeed, you get to ask the MC what you should do, and then you get a +1 if you incorporate the MC's answer into your next action. Which, being that you just asked the MC what you should do, probably means that you have to do that thing to get the +1. And if you don't do that thing, you don't get the +1.

Even the player action is just asking the MC how hard he wants his cock sucked.

-Username17

[silva]

Frank, no one is telling AW isn’t MTP. It is (even I admitted that).

But youre ignoring the fact that do exists different degrees of MTP. And the one in Apocalypse World is a really tight one, because mainly of the principles and agendas limiting the GM-agency. I don’t know the MTP games you have seen before, but I would bet it was one with higher degree of MTP - that would explain the misconceptions youre bringing to AW.

Is that hard to admit that, you dumbshit ?

[John Magnum]

Apocalypse World.

Any roll is a mini-game.

He asked for good mechanics, not glorified MTP.

If you had actually read the damn thing - instead of talking out of your ass like Frank did in the other thread - you would know AW has nothing to do with "MTP".

Oh, and btw, what game actually relies on "MTP" ? I dont remember ever reading any, really.

This is you three pages ago in this very thread you fucking stupid asshole. Shut the fuck up.

[Drolyt]

He asked for good mechanics, not glorified MTP.

If you had actually read the damn thing - instead of talking out of your ass like Frank did in the other thread - you would know AW has nothing to do with "MTP".

Oh, and btw, what game actually relies on "MTP" ? I dont remember ever reading any, really.

This is you three pages ago in this very thread you fucking stupid asshole. Shut the fuck up.

If I got it right, you guys equal both methods as "Magical Tea Party", right ? If so, my apologies (:hehehe:). I understood that was the case only with the second method.

He admitted his mistake. That doesn't make his current argument any more coherent, but at least attack him for that instead of things he's already admitted he was wrong about.

[Chamomile]

@silva: Shut up. I do not want the support of a tribalistic fanboy who goddamned worships his favorite system.

When I write my RPG, I'm gonna include an official rule: "Don't be a bad MC." Then, after that, I will include the rule "Don't be a bad player." BAM. Best RPG ever? I think so.

"Don't be a bad MC" is actually subjective and vague in a way that "do not pre-plan things" isn't. Apocalypse World doesn't just say "don't be a bad MC," it says "the rules of the game requires that you MC the game like this" and then spends like 30 pages explaining in detail how to run a sandbox apocalypse game.

My game system has rule zero: play only while eating cake and receiving head. Anyone not doing that isn't actually playing my game, and their criticisms are invalid.

You're being sarcastic, but this is actually true. When people talk about how much fun they had with a game while ignoring its rules they are justly called out for not actually talking about the game. The reverse, people who criticize a game because it isn't fun if you ignore certain rules are also being idiots. So if someone makes a game where you're not playing until you're eating cake and receiving head, the number one criticism should be that the game requires ridiculous prep-time, or that all of the parts of the game that are not eating cake and receiving head are only getting in the way of enjoying your cake and blowjob. And if you want to criticize Apocalypse World for requiring you to GM one specific way that is totally valid. What is not valid is to say that Apocalypse World encourages something it explicitly bans.

You are declaring that details over an unspecified (and unspecifiable, really) and in fact variable threshold of importance have to be shared because reasons, and then expecting that somehow everyone's idea of what is and isn't over those unspecified, unspecifiable, and variable threshold of importance will be exactly the same (they won't).

Well, yes. The Apocalypse World rules are in fact MTP. That was like my first post on the subject, that Apocalypse World is both heavily reliant on MTP and an open sandboxy kind of game.

Chamomile, how do you think that an example where the MC gives two words and trails off without even a period at the end, gets called on it, and completes the sentence with a two word prepositional phrase constitutes a refutation of my contention that you are only entitled to a single sentence?

Do you not know how grammar works? The sentence wasn't ended with a period because it was a quote, with a "said the MC" style ending on the end. It was still a complete sentence.

Bizarre quibbling over punctuation aside, every example includes clipped and truncated, 1-2 sentence responses. The guy has short, clipped responses all the time. What matters is that a player asked for a clarification and then got one, whereas nowhere in any examples does a player ask for clarification and then not receive one. Beyond this, AW makes it very clear in other places that all rules actions describe things that happen in the fiction, so when you find out about stuff it means you went and actually saw stuff. The MC can't say "he has guards and shit" and then when you ask what kind of guards and shit, just not tell you. Because your dude went and saw the guards and shit, so of course he knows whether or not there are bears involved. This is supported repeatedly by the actual text, text which you're ignoring because it doesn't have little numbers attached. The vast majority of rules that people follow in real life don't have numbers attached, don't mess around with the exact number of molecules penetrated before it counts as "assault" or whatever, because the math behind reality is way too complicated to make laws and rules into equations. Outside of law, most rules remain perfectly functional without any particular jargon, either. And yet society still functions, and the memos sent out by HR are still followed.

[silva]

@silva: Shut up. I do not want the support of a tribalistic fanboy who goddamned worships his favorite system.

[fectin]

My game system has rule zero: play only while eating cake and receiving head. Anyone not doing that isn't actually playing my game, and their criticisms are invalid.

You're being sarcastic, but this is actually true. When people talk about how much fun they had with a game while ignoring its rules they are justly called out for not actually talking about the game. The reverse, people who criticize a game because it isn't fun if you ignore certain rules are also being idiots. So if someone makes a game where you're not playing until you're eating cake and receiving head, the number one criticism should be that the game requires ridiculous prep-time, or that all of the parts of the game that are not eating cake and receiving head are only getting in the way of enjoying your cake and blowjob. And if you want to criticize Apocalypse World for requiring you to GM one specific way that is totally valid. What is not valid is to say that Apocalypse World encourages something it explicitly bans.

That's true, to a point. In Monopoly, for example, it's ridiculous to complain about how unbalanced the $50 for landing on free parking is (it's a common house rule); however playing with that rule does not invalidate e.g. complaints about the mortgage mechanics.

If I include arbitrary and pointless requirements in the front material, and they are unrelated to the rest of the game, ignoring those requirements or criticizing them separately from the rest of the game actually can be valid. Opening with crazy is not a Get-Out-Of-Criticism-Free card.

I'm not familiar with Apocalypse World, except as reported here. However, from that, "planning is verboten" seems completely orthogonal to any of the actual mechanics.

Separately, railroading (as I know the term) refers to the MC selecting the outcome of important events. I would say that includes both MC-fiated resolutions, and situations where all resolutions lead to the same end result. While I agree that railroading is most common where the MC has everything pre-plotted, any situation where the MC is dictating what actions the player should take next comes complete with a train whistle, even if there's no end in mind.

As near as I can tell, Apocalypse World is being criticized primarily for two things:
First, it produces results based on MC-fiat, not on the world. That's what the whole weird bear attack thing is about: your MC is generating outcomes, instead of narrating procedurally generated outcomes. That is tremendously disempowering to players, even if they enjoy competitive narration. In a normal RPG, you roll dice when there's a chance for success or failure, and that determines the result. If the MC just decides what the outcome is, that's MTP. If dice resolution mechanic is that 40% of the time you fail, 30% of the time you succeed, and 30% of the time you default to MTP, that's interesting, but it doesn't make MTP any less part of your resolution mechanic. (percentages may be off. Even if they are, the fundamental point still applies)

Second, one of the actual mechanical resolution mechanics requires the MC to determine what the players' next action should be. Then, it is mechanically advantageous to do what the MC thinks you should, which means it is disadvantageous to do anything else. That is railroading. And it's encoded right into the system.

[Username17]

Even if you succeed the MC determines basically every single thing. In the specific example we're talking about, the player achieves 'great success', and the result is that the MC introduces a bunch of new enemies that are surrounding the temple. Not only van any failed roll direct you to bear attack, any successful roll can go to bear attack as well. Player agency is essentially nonexistent.

-Username17

[silva]

As near as I can tell, Apocalypse World is being criticized primarily for two things:

First, it produces results based on MC-fiat, not on the world. That's what the whole weird bear attack thing is about: your MC is generating outcomes, instead of narrating procedurally generated outcomes. That is tremendously disempowering to players, even if they enjoy competitive narration. In a normal RPG, you roll dice when there's a chance for success or failure, and that determines the result. If the MC just decides what the outcome is, that's MTP.

Second, one of the actual mechanical resolution mechanics requires the MC to determine what the players' next action should be. Then, it is mechanically advantageous to do what the MC thinks you should, which means it is disadvantageous to do anything else. That is railroading

Fectin, Youre missing a crucial point:

The mechanics for resolution in AW don’t function in a vacuum - theyre are subjected to the rules called "Principles and Agendas", which, between other things, dictate that, no matter what the GM does, he must:

1. be plausible/realistic
2. follow the situation internal logic and causality.
3. play to see what happens, instead of steering the players on directions he want.
4. NOT PRE-PLAN PLOTS

As you see, the clauses 1 and 2 address your first point. And clauses 3 and 4 address your second point. And these are not mere "tips and guides", these are formal rules the GM must follow.

Further, the structure of how the game is organized guarantees that all/most of the entities (NPCs, Groups, Threats, etc) the players interact with are created as an extension of their own objectives, motivations and agendas, through the concept of "First Session" (a brainstorming session where the GM goes around following the characters in their lifes asking questions) and the "Fronts" concept (the final form the entities take, based on the GM notation of the players input during the brainstorm).

Did this answer your question ?

[fectin]

1 and 2 are completely orthogonal to anything I said. ("Orthogonal" meaning that the truth of your claim has no bearing on the discussion at hand. It's as though I claimed "1+1=2", and you tried to rebutt that with "Elvis was the greatest musician ever." Elvis' purported greatness has nothing to do with the math, and isolated requirements that the GM be reasonable do not change the defined resolution mechanic.)

Point 4 is substance-free. I already addressed it explicitly. You need to rebutt or offer new evidence, not just reassert the same point.

3 is possibly interesting, but the mechanics don't support it. I've already described how the GM is forced to railroad the plot. Ultimately, you need to either explain how I am mistaken on what the mechanic is, or on how it functions.

Incidentally, 1,2, and 3 are not even rules. For something to be a rule, it must be testable. These are not. They are goals or philosophy, or possibly advice. It's nice that AW talks about its feelings like that, but intentions are no guarantee of results.

[silva]

Fectin, Im not a native speaker, so I may be overlooking something here. If that’s the case I apologize beforehand.

1 and 2 are completely orthogonal to anything I said.

Sorry but Im struggling to see how this is true. See, the heart of your argument was this:

AW produces results based on MC-fiat, not on the world. That's what the whole weird bear attack thing is about

To what I responded that there are rules ("situational plausibility/internal logic and causality) that limit the GM-fiat you mention. Not only that, but the very concept of conflict-resolution that the game is based on also limits what the GM may do (because it restricts him to act inside the boundaries of the declared intention of the player). So, in a more practical example:

If a player failures while trying to pickpocket an NPC, the GM CANNOT produce a polar Bear from the vicinities, nor can he say there was a wolftrap on the NPC´s pocket or something. That’s because these outcomes has absolutely no plausibility nor follow the situation internal logic or causality.

So, as you see, my argument directly negates yours, because it proves that AW outcomes are indeed based on the world/setting/situation around, something you negates on the very first line of your post ("AW produces results based on MC-fiat, not on the world"). How is that orthogonal ? (the question is genuine, Im intrigued)

Point 4 ("DON’T PRE_PLAN PLOTS") is substance-free

No, its not. The GM is explicitly and formally forbidden by the rules to PRE-PLAN PLOTS in this game. That, by itself, already negates any possibility of Railroading.

3 is possibly interesting, but the mechanics don't support it

Which mechanics ? How many did you see ? Have you seen all the basic and advanced moves the game has, and know how these work ? Be honest: do you think yourself sufficiently acknowledgeable about the game as a whole to be able to make such a claim ? Yourself admitted having zero to small knowledge in it.

Incidentally, 1,2, and 3 are not even rules. For something to be a rule, it must be testable. These are not. They are goals or philosophy, or possibly advice

No, these are not advice - these are rules. And if the GM don’t follow them, he is not playing by the rules.

And YES, they are testable. Its even simple, really: Just repeat the situation I exemplified above (the PC trying to pickpocket an NPC) and count how many times a polar Bear can appear. Or even better: try to insert apparently absurd or incoherent outcomes in it. And we will say if its possible by the game´s rules. Go ahead. Do it.

Alternatively, try to imagine some situation and describe here. And lets see how many times a Polar Bear is coherent/follow the situation internal logic and causality. What about you try ? (Im not saying it wont happen, BTW, but the logic by which it could/should happen may be made more clear. At the least, I think it could be an interesting exercise)

[Chamomile]

Even if you succeed the MC determines basically every single thing.

Congratulations, Frank, you have discovered the function of a perception check: They allow you to know what's going on with the stuff that the MC controls. With the exception of Inspectres, I can't think of a single game that has ever existed where you can roll to spot an ambush and, on a success, decide whether or not there is an ambush there.

Really, I'm not sure you understand what a sandbox even is, because half your complaints have nothing to do with sandbox vs. linear gameplay. Like, let's say we have two versions of Final Fantasy VII. And in the one version you can fight Sephiroth with no other options except using your basic sword attack over and over until he dies, and each time the computer/GM comes up with some awesome spectacular combo move but the limit of your input is hitting the attack button. Or you can say "screw this" and be on Sephiroth's side and use the attack button on the rest of your party until they die. In the second version, you have your standard attack and also your fire and blizzard and thunder spells and also you can try and convince Sephiroth you're defecting and then stab him in the back and you can go rally an army to help you fight him or whatever the Hell, but all roads lead to killing Sephiroth. The first game is more sandbox, because it gives players more control over their ultimate destiny, and their lack of control over the details of conflict resolution are completely irrelevant.

A sandbox game does not need a nuanced and interesting conflict resolution mechanic to be a sandbox game, only the ability to pick sides and choose goals for yourself. The more freedom you have to make your own destiny, the more sandbox the game is. For purposes of determining sandboxiness vs. railroadiness, it really doesn't matter whether the player escapes by taking a hostage, running away, or fighting their way out. What matters is the player deciding "I should escape now" rather than "I should switch sides" or "I should kill this guy while I still can and damn the torpedoes" and then he rolls dice at the problem until it goes away. Or gets worse. Depending on how the dice go.

I'm not familiar with Apocalypse World, except as reported here. However, from that, "planning is verboten" seems completely orthogonal to any of the actual mechanics.

Assuming by "mechanics" you mean "rules that are equations," then basically, yes. So what? Apocalypse World as a whole is still built with an entire chapter of rules dedicated to telling an MC who does not know how to run a sandbox game how to do that, and tells the MC that these are rules of the game and not just GM advice. The mechanics of the game are built around the assumption that the MC will be following these rules. That the same mechanics would hypothetically be awful if you used them for a D&D adventure module is like complaining that After Sundown doesn't handle a dungeon crawl very well, or that D&D can't do spaceship battles. That's not the type of game the mechanics were built for, and it should come as no surprise to anyone that it doesn't work very well with them.

If dice resolution mechanic is that 40% of the time you fail, 30% of the time you succeed, and 30% of the time you default to MTP, that's interesting,

Not exactly. On a 7-9, there are rules...Usually, but not always (especially the maddeningly unhelpful Act Under Fire 7-9, which is important since it's the move you default to when nothing else fits and comes with rules that really are just guidelines on MTP, and that is super annoying). On a 6 or below, the MC gets to make a hard move. Apocalypse World has a failing rectified by most of its hacks in that it does not explicitly say which moves count as hard (the implication is that most moves can be hard or soft depending on context, but that isn't really true: Capturing someone or inflicting harm are always hard moves and announcing future badness or putting someone on a spot are always soft). It is most definitely true that an immediate improvement to Apocalypse World is to officially sort out the MC moves into hard and soft categories, with perhaps a firm category between for moves that can be either/or. The idea behind the hard/soft divide is that soft moves are things that you use to provoke a reaction whereas hard moves are things that are actual setbacks. You can make a soft move ("there's bear tracks here") whenever you want. You can make a hard move ("the bear attacks you") under special circumstances only.

You as MC can't do anything that isn't on your list of moves, but the list is vague and reliant on MTP so that's not a huge deterrent, although it is still something and still more than D&D provides. More significant is that the MC can't do anything until the players turn to you and wait for you to say something. That's a contextual opportunity and all, but still: The MC is actually not allowed to interrupt with a move of their own until a player tries a move and fails or shrug their shoulders, turn towards you, and ask what's up (interrupting to say "you need to roll <whatever move>" to do that is still kosher).

First, it produces results based on MC-fiat, not on the world. That's what the whole weird bear attack thing is about: your MC is generating outcomes, instead of narrating procedurally generated outcomes. That is tremendously disempowering to players, even if they enjoy competitive narration.

How so? In a normal RPG, the MC sets up the situation such that he controls what happens should the players succeed or fail. He decides whether there's an ambush to be spotted. He decides whether the wall is slippery or not, and what's at the top of it. He decides whether or not there are bears, how many, and where they are. In a regular RPG, when you try to climb a wall you can either succeed and then be attacked by a bear or fail and then be attacked by a bear, or you can not do anything at all and then be attacked by a bear anyway. The MC controls the NPCs actions and can have them attack whenever he damn well pleases and why is that news? The MC controls the horizontal and the vertical, and Apocalypse World has the decency to sit him down and say "control it like this."

Even worse, in a standard RPG the MC sets the DCs, so he can also decide how much AC that bear has, how hard that wall is to climb, what the bear's BAB and HP are, etc. etc. Even assuming he follows the rules verbatim, there's nothing stopping a D&D MC from putting his Elminster railroad NPC in the plot to herd the PCs along to the end. This isn't true in Apocalypse World, because in Apocalypse World the TNs are always the same. 6 is a miss and the MC MTPs on you, 7-9 is a hit but with drawbacks that have rules attached (except when they don't), 10-11 is a hit and sometimes there are rules and sometimes you MTP on the MC, and 12+ is a super extra mega hit if you have the right advancement unlocked (and your character can have a certain bonus to different kinds of rolls and etc. etc. rules, but I think you get the point). The MC can justify literally any DC by saying it's a magic wall, but in Apocalypse World if you get a 10, you get whatever it is you were rolling for. That has serious drawbacks for fighting like a tank or something where it should logically be way harder to harm than some random thug, but it makes it impossible to have a dick-wavey Elminster NPC because a player with a high Hard score and a shotgun can blast Elminster's head off 58% of the time, and Elminster doesn't even get a chance to retaliate unless it's the other 42% of the time. If multiple players are shooting at Elminster, his survival odds plummet.

In a regular RPG the MC can demand you make a roll for something regardless of your actions (a save, for example), in Apocalypse World all rolls are initiated by the player, usually because they want something, and the MC can't do anything especially nasty (make a hard move) unless they've either set it up with a soft move and given the players a chance to make a move of their own in response (and they didn't), or else the players tried to make a move and failed.

That isn't a perfect cocoon of anti-railroading. A sufficiently determined MC can still force the players to do whatever the Hell he wants, because they're going to miss rolls sooner or later and the MC can warp logic and plausibility to drag his plot halfway across the map in order to dump the PCs back into it. But the number of MCs who are going to railroad while actually following the printed rules for Apocalypse World is much smaller as compared to those for D&D.

Second, one of the actual mechanical resolution mechanics requires the MC to determine what the players' next action should be. Then, it is mechanically advantageous to do what the MC thinks you should, which means it is disadvantageous to do anything else. That is railroading.

Not really. See previous discussion re: What sandbox gameplay actually is. If the MC tells you that you need to escape and have a +1 bonus to doing that and no bonus for not doing that, that's railroading. If the MC tells you that if you want to escape the best way out is the air ducts and that being the best way out is hardcoded with a +1 bonus, that's not railroading. That's the player making the decision to escape, making a perception check for a buff to the escape attempt, and then using what is basically guaranteed to be the act under fire move to get out. If your idea of "sandbox gameplay" is a completely linear plot but you get to decide whether to kill the end boss with a fire spell or an ice spell, your idea of sandbox gameplay is wrong.

[Username17]

No, Chamomile, you are still being a bumblefuck. With Apocalypse World's "no plan" rules in the house, the bear attack literally isn't there before you make that check. Rolling and succeeding at the perception check is the proximal and only cause of the bear attack. Rolling and failing at a perception check could equally easily be the proximal and only cause of bear attack. As could any other roll, success or not.

This is not a sandbox, this is a railroad. An ad hoc railroad, but that doesn't make it any better or different from the player's point of view. You take whatever actions and then you get attacked by bears. No matter what you have chosen, no matter what you have rolled, you still get attacked by bears.

Every choice is a blind choice, every success or failure is irrelevant. All roads are of equal length and end in bears.

[DSMatticus]

Apocalypse World has actual specific examples in its text in which the MC makes up shit on the spot in response to a character's attempt to gather information. A lack of defined specifics in an encounter that is currently happening is definitionally disempowering to anyone who doesn't have the power to declare what those defined specifics will become (which in most TTRPG's, including AW, is mister cavern).

Honestly, pointing out that the MC wasn't supposed to preplan bears into everything didn't really help your case at all, and won't, because bears are just a metaphor for "whatever the fuck the MC wants to happen at that particular moment" and the MC doesn't have to decide beforehand for the fact that the MC is the one making the decisions to continue to be true. The term railroad is evocative of a linear, predetermined plot, but it actually just refers to the MC having nearly unilateral control of the overall narrative, and is wholly separate from whether he's a train conductor or a taxi driver who ignores whatever you say and drives you to Pizza Hut on a whim instead.

[silva]

You guys keep ignoring the principles and agendas rules, and assuming moves work in a vacuum.

Whats the point in discussing how the game work, if youre seletively ignoring rules ?

[DSMatticus]

You guys keep ignoring the principles and agendas rules, and assuming moves work in a vacuum.

Whats the point in discussing how the game work, if youre seletively ignoring rules ?

Just stop. Just fucking stop. These are the rules under Agenda and The Principles:

Make Apocalypse World seem real.
Make the players' characters' lives not boring.
Play to find out what happens.

Barf forth apocalyptica.
Address yourself to the characters, not the players.
Make your move, but misdirect.
Make your move, but never speak its name.
Look through crosshairs.
Name everyone, make everyone human.
Ask provocative questions and build on the answers.
Respond with fuckery and intermittent rewards.
Be a fan of the players’ characters.
Think offscreen too.
Sometimes, disclaim decision-making.

Not only are those vague, empty bullshittery, they don't contradict anything anyone is saying. Everything you're saying is terrible and I deeply, deeply want you to stop because your fanwanking hurts my fucking brain.

[fectin]

You guys keep ignoring the principles and agendas rules, and assuming moves work in a vacuum.

Whats the point in discussing how the game work, if youre seletively ignoring rules ? :confused:

Silva,

A long, long time ago, "rule" meant straight edge (like on a measuring stick). That kind of rule was needed for geometry, and until 300 years ago, geometry was the highest and best math. You needed a rule to draw and solve the those problems. You can imagine how easily a "rule" guiding your pencil became an example for laws guiding people's actions.

English has grown since then, but some of the original meaning is still there: just like a straight edge guides your pencil predictably and unambiguously, it must be clear how to follow a rule. It's like how a scientific theory must be falsifiable, or a requirement must be testable.

The four rules you quoted do not really restrict what the GM can do. They're more like suggestions for what he should think about. You say that because of these goals, failing a roll can't create something new in the world (specifically, your example was pickpocketing and bears) but that is obviously false: one of the book examples has failing a sneak roll create a child. Either those "rules" are much less restrictive than you think, or Apocalypse World's rules are so screwed up that even the examples can't follow them. I assumed the first, but if you want to argue that AW is actually an incoherent mess, I'll defer to your expertise.

[Chamomile]

With Apocalypse World's "no plan" rules in the house, the bear attack literally isn't there before you make that check.

As opposed to D&D, where the DM can't make up new encounters on the spot? Frank, if you want to say that Apocalypse World is more railroad than a standard RPG, you need to find ways in which the MC has power that a D&D GM does not also have. All you are doing is whining about the way perception checks work. There is no game in the world where the PC gets to control what he sees when he succeeds on a perception check (except Inspectres). Like, yes, if you succeed on a perception check then the GM tells you what you have just now perceived and you get no control over what that is, and also it may or may not be something that the GM just barely made up.

Also, Apocalypse World MCs aren't supposed to plan ahead. Figuring out what's already there in the setting is totally kosher.

A D&D DM can put whatever opposition he wants in front of you, can stick Elminster dick-wavey NPCs in front of you to force the plot in whatever direction he wants, can make the result of every die roll, success or failure, be bears. The DM controls the entire world, so if he puts bears everywhere then every decision and the result of every action is bears because there is nowhere else to go. The Apocalypse World MC actually can't quite do this, although it's close. If players interact exclusively with one another and never miss rolls, the MC doesn't ever have a chance to make a move according to the rules, and therefore the MC has no opportunity to include bears no matter how badly he wants to railroad the players. In any case, trying to determine whether a system is railroady by assuming the GM is absolutely determined to railroad and then checking to see whether it's possible is stupid, because I can't think of a system that could completely outlaw railroading using hard, precise rules. The best you can hope for is to discourage, or else you aren't leaving the GM with the tools to do his job. Or you make the game GM-less, which would be cool.

If you have something to contribute that isn't ranting about how you're not allowed to control NPCs or how the location of every single NPC isn't planned out in advance or anything else that isn't exactly the same in D&D, please feel free to speak up. If all you have to say is that oh God Apocalypse World perception checks work like perception checks, shut up.

A lack of defined specifics in an encounter that is currently happening is definitionally disempowering to anyone who doesn't have the power to declare what those defined specifics will become

Well, yes, so really the smart thing to do is usually going to be to read a sitch first so that you know what you're dealing with before you walk into it. The only reason you might not do that is because you're not certain what questions would be helpful, in that, for example, if you walk into an abandoned ruin it's probably wisest to ask "what should I watch out for" immediately but things like "what's my enemy's true position," "who's most vulnerable to me," or "what's my best way out" may or may not be useful, depending. So it might be best to save those until you have a better idea of what's around.

Regardless, the entire purpose of the Read A Sitch move is to tell you what's up. It forces the MC to define details about the situation. No, it does not let you say what those details are yourself, because it is a perception check and that is how perception checks work. Again, quit whining about how perception checks don't let you alter the world. They never have in any game that has ever had them.

Not only are those vague, empty bullshittery,

I stopped reading Silva's posts on the subject a while ago because they are not interesting, illuminating, or worth arguing with, so I have no idea exactly what point you're making with this. However, point of order: Only some of them are vague and empty. The Principles in particular are nearly half actual rules that you can follow. "Name everyone" is totally a rule you can follow. If an NPC interacts with the PCs directly, they should have a name. "Make your move, but never speak its name" is also a rule you can follow: If the MC does not say the name of a move while he's making it, the rule has been followed. "Ask provocative questions and build on the answers" does not have rigid requirements for what questions should be asked or how often, but it does require you to ask questions and gives a few examples of what sort as precedent.

In any case, the MC moves and the circumstances under which the MC is allowed to make them serve far better to limit the possibilities of railroading, especially in hacks that went the extra mile and segregated them into hard and soft moves officially.

[DSMatticus]

As opposed to D&D, where the DM can't make up new encounters on the spot?

You are conflating two completely different things. When the MC suddenly bears in D&D, he is exercising his unilateral power over encounters to suddenly bears. And that can be problematic, but it's not the same thing: when the MC suddenly bears in AW, he is doing it because a player made a roll, and the rules for what happens when a player makes a roll explicitly tell him to make shit up on the spot, as long as it's something that matches the vague definitions of plausible and interesting.

It is the difference between, "I feel like bears, so... bears," and "you took an action and the game's core resolution mechanic is telling me I have to make up something arbitrarily to represent the outcome, so... bears."

Again, quit whining about how perception checks don't let you alter the world. They never have in any game that has ever had them.

Fucking read, man. The point Frank and I are trying to hammer into your brain is that AW's perception checks (and nearly all rolls, really) let and require the MC modify the environment arbitrarily on the fly. You're the one that fucking pointed out the MC isn't supposed to preplan things (and there are at least two examples I've found of the MC adding details to a scene on the spot because a player made a perception roll - I'll throw a quote at the bottom of this post for the first and I'm having trouble finding the second again), and that means that making a perception roll is asking the MC to transmute the encounter into whatever he feels like at the time in a completely arbitrary way. Considerably more than half of AW's core resolution mechanic is the player asking the MC to pull something out of his ass. And D&D has many problems, but having to consult the oracle between the MC's asscheeks to figure out what happens when a creature succeeds its saving throw is not one of them.

(See me misdirect! I just chose one capriciously, then pointed to fictional details as though they’d made the decision. We’ve never even seen Mill onscreen before, I just now made up that he’s 12 and not violent.)

[Username17]

Let's consider the Monty Haul problem. You have three doors, you choose one. Then the MC rants at you and offers to let you change your choice, and whichever way you go, a door is opened and you get either a new car or a goat.

Now the initial choice of doors is a blind choice. There is nothing to tell you whether you should select Door #1 or Door #3. But so long as the positions of the Goats and Cars are fixed before your selection, the choice is at least meaningful. If the MC's ranting between the first selection and the door opening conveys actual information (as it did in the original formulation of the problem), then the choice is no longer blind and continues to be meaningful.

It is, I should think, trivially obvious however that if the position of the Cars and Goats is decided after the choice is made, then the "choice" is completely meaningless. At that point, it really truly doesn't matter whether the choice is blind or not, because there's no fucking choice at all. The entire door selection is just window dressing, and the MC decides arbitrarily whether you get the car or the goat.

This is the fundamental problem with Apocalypse World. The choice of where there are goats and where there are cars is made after the players choose their door, which means they aren't really choosing anything at all. Players get to announce their actions, and the dice are rolled to see whether they "succeed" or not, but none of that shit actually matters, because they are still rolling to open a door that is populated by a car or a goat by the MC according to his whim after the action is declared and the dice are rolled.

It's worse than a game of "guess what number I'm thinking of", because there isn't even a fixed number you could ever guess. You throw out a number, and the MC decides post hoc whether to pretend that had been the right answer all along or not. You're playing Battleship with a guy who is explicitly moving his ships around after you announce your firing location and before he announces whether you hit or miss. Whether you win or lose, your choices still never fucking mattered.

-Username17

[talozin]

There is no game in the world where the PC gets to control what he sees when he succeeds on a perception check (except Inspectres).

Actually, I'm pretty sure that's also exactly how Donjon works. The example of play is literally someone using his "find secret doors" skill, rolling a success, and there now being a secret door there that wasn't previously placed.

[Chamomile]

and there are at least two examples I've found of the MC adding details to a scene on the spot because a player made a perception roll

And GMs who preplan their plots have to add details to a scene on the spot in regular RPGs all the time. Being good at making up plausible stuff in response to things you weren't expecting is one of the necessary skills to being a GM in any system. This is not news.

You are conflating two completely different things. When the MC suddenly bears in D&D, he is exercising his unilateral power over encounters to suddenly bears. And that can be problematic, but it's not the same thing: when the MC suddenly bears in AW, he is doing it because a player made a roll, and the rules for what happens when a player makes a roll explicitly tell him to make shit up on the spot, as long as it's something that matches the vague definitions of plausible and interesting.

And from a player perspective it doesn't make a lick of difference whether or not the results of your perception check were determined during pre-game prep or on the spot, because you're still receiving that information at exactly the same time. Previously you didn't know about the problem and now you do, and once you've succeeded on the check the GM is nailed down to his responses. Unlike in D&D where a GM penis-extension NPC can hide under an arbitrarily high DC, in Apocalypse World if you ask the question "what should I watch out for" the MC is required to tell you about every significant threat in the area. He can't just invent new ones after that. That is the function of the Read A Sitch move: It nails the MC down to his answers and also gives you a mechanically enforced bonus to dealing with them. That doesn't mean there aren't other details unrelated to the answers the MC can't make up as he goes, but that's how RPGs work. The GM of any game can never hope to plan out every detail in advance, and must make up some of them on the spot.

You're the one that fucking pointed out the MC isn't supposed to preplan things

You aren't supposed to plan ahead. Planning what's already there is kosher (there is an entire chapter dedicated to it), planning future plot points is not. I have explained this already.

(and there are at least two examples I've found of the MC adding details to a scene on the spot because a player made a perception roll - I'll throw a quote at the bottom of this post for the first and I'm having trouble finding the second again)

Yeah, because that's how RPGs work. The GM cannot possibly hope to determine every detail in advance, so some of them must be made up on the spot.

and that means that making a perception roll is asking the MC to transmute the encounter into whatever he feels like at the time in a completely arbitrary way.

As opposed to D&D, where the DM makes up whatever encounter he feels like in advance in a completely arbitrary way, particularly when DMs can (and are often encouraged to) change whatever details they like in an arbitrary way up until the moment a player actually sees them.

It is, I should think, trivially obvious however that if the position of the Cars and Goats is decided after the choice is made, then the "choice" is completely meaningless.

This is true. However, the choice was meaningless to begin with, because ultimately it was always a lottery. Choosing a door without any method of determining what is behind it and rolling dice to see whether you get the goat or the car are functionally identical.

Regardless the entire Monty Haul analogy is both nonsensical and further whining about how you can't choose to defeat Sepiroth with the fire spell or the ice spell. There is no difference on the players end of rolling a perception check to find something the MC put there an hour ago and something he put there just now. This is the fundamental conceit of anything that involves random tables, since obviously nobody knows what's up with a random table until it's rolled. Yet random tables function just fine, and an entire game GM'd by nothing but random tables is hypothetically possible, even though that would mean no living creature knows what the encounter is until it has been perceived by the players. Once you know it's there, you can deal with it, and that's really all that matters.

In any case, you keep trying to pretend that the same basic logic applies to the moves that involve players actually acting on the world. It doesn't. Success on moves like going aggro or acting under fire gives you whatever the Hell you want. You, as the player, get to tell the MC what happens, and he narrates it back to you. The reason the read a person and read a sitch moves are different is because they are perception checks and they function as such.