(whatever)-World: Finally read it, here's my veredict

[MGuy]

You know what? I played Apocalypse World, just the other day, and it was a lot of fun. And I've played it a few times before, and it's been fun. There was no cabin boy rape or quantum bears either.

Specific traits that I enjoyed about it:
* Efficient use of rules. That is, it had a surprising number of widgets and combinations for how rules light it was.
* Combat actually runs at a speed that doesn't cause players to fall asleep or die of boredom. This may be my own preferences changing - I can no longer really stomach HERO or Shadowrun combat, and even D&D can push over the threshold of suck sometimes.
* The rules usually product shit actually happening, not "you fail/they fail/no change" results.
* Gives the illusion of more apocalyptic flavor and depth than MC actually prepared. Given how some systems do the opposite, I'll call this a significant plus.

Now maybe AW is just trying to take credit for existing stuff, and there are other better games that have all these things. If so - tell me what those games are, I want to see them.

Otherwise - who gives a shit that a hypothetical game could be better in every way? Or that AW can be shit if things go wrong? Until a better game actually comes along, I'll be using AW for the things it does well.

I'm not sure what your point is in this post. Your points are all generic throwaway quotes that I could use for any number of RPGs (shitty or not). Hell I could use this to describe DnD by just changing a few words. All I get out of this is you saying "I had fun with it so I don't see the problem" which is a thing that's been covered over and over across the board. What's more its a thing that has been explained already.

[Ice9]

My point is mainly that I was annoyed by all the recent complaints about how terrible AW is without any actual "here's what you should use instead". It's useless, and a lot of the arguments are pretty shitty (quantum bears, really?) There are actual flaws in AW, but most of the complaints have been about hypothetical bullshit.

And also that I am once again disappoint to find a thread of vitriol - not even particular amusing vitriol for the most part - and nothing actually useful like post-apocalyptic RPG recommendations. Not surprised, but disappoint.

[Kaelik]

My point is mainly that I was annoyed by all the recent complaints about how terrible AW is without any actual "here's what you should use instead".

So your point is that you can't read and you are a whiny baby?

Apocalypse World has zero advantages over pure improv storytelling. There are absolutely no innovations in it that make it better than Munchhausen in any metric or subjective standpoint. The bear problem is not only real, it's hard coded into the actual examples of play. It literally says that the way you are supposed to play the game is for a character to succeed at a roll and then have the MC arbitrarily declare that they fail at the current mission because bears. If you don't pull that kind of insulting horseshit, you are playing the game wrong.

Seriously, the game has very few rules and guidelines that make it different from pure improv storytelling. And empowering and encouraging one of the people at the table to make any player succeed or fail at any mission regardless of whether their action nominally succeeded or failed because bears is one of them. It's actually rather central to the game as written and as practiced by the designer if you believe his RPG.net threads.

In all cases, if someone wanted to play a *World game we would all be better off if they played FATE or Munchhausen instead. No *World game has any advantages at all over either of those other games.

No. There are many forms of pure MTP that I respect greatly. Apocalypse World is not on that list because it is an insult and a travesty. If you're going to go full or nearly full MTP, you need to spread out narrative control among the different players and what objective resolutions you use need to actually fucking resolve things.

Munchhausen is the simplest fucking game in the world, and it's great. I declare some stuff, if you don't like it you suggest an alternate narrative, if I like yours better we go from there, and if we're still at logger heads we play RPS and go with the winner's version. Done. That's a perfect MTP RPG and it cannot be improved upon.

Contrast with the horseshit bear rain that is Apocalypse World: I make a declaration, I roll some dice that determine whether I succeed or fail, but then no matter what the MC gets to railroad the fuck out of things at that point and render either success or failure meaningless at his whim. That is bullshit. It's too much power in one hand and too little in the way of solid effects from the RNG to bother having one.

[LR]

Otherwise - who gives a shit that a hypothetical game could be better in every way? Or that AW can be shit if things go wrong? Until a better game actually comes along, I'll be using AW for the things it does well.

If you really want a game that has a post-apocalyptic setting, extremely fast combat, situations where something bad always happens to someone, bear attacks that happen for no reason, and that is less embarrassing to be seen with in public than Apocalypse World, might I suggest Maid RPG?

[fbmf]

And also that I am once again disappoint to find a thread of vitriol - not even particular amusing vitriol for the most part - and nothing actually useful like post-apocalyptic RPG recommendations. Not surprised, but disappoint.

Occasionally, we'll get someone tell us that we need not be so brutally honest. It always surprises me, because this is TGDMB. We have a rep in internet gaming circles for clear communication through brutal, hate-filled honesty. Do not come here to feel good about yourself, come here for honest critique and conversation.

Now then, you're "not surprised, but disappoint" is...baffling. if our methods didn't surprise you, why did you set expectations you knew were unrealistic?

Game On,
fbmf

[Cyberzombie]

No shit. But here's a revolutionary idea: maybe if you have no idea whether or not someone is full of shit because you haven't actually read 99% of the conversation, you should not jump into it and accuse people of being full of shit. It's fucking stupid to assume that somewhere in those dozens of pages the evidence you're asking for doesn't exist because you're too lazy to look for it. And it's annoying as fuck to just go ahead and do that and say "well, you refused to do all that hard work for me, so I just assumed."

When I ask 2-3 times for a citation as evidence and get none, yeah, I'm going to start assuming that the person has no facts to back up their point. I didn't initially start my posts accusing people, in fact I was just asking questions about whether or not there was a citation backing up either side. Chamomile provided citations, while the other side did not. Maybe there was some citation posted 2 threads ago, I don't really know, but if you want to start up another thread beating the same dead horse, you should at least be willing to link to the other citations from the other debates. Otherwise, just let the debate die and be done with it.

Also, all the people here who say they've actually played AWorld are saying that the hypothetical "bear" problem doesn't exist. So I've got one side with no citation and no play experience and another side citing paragraphs who have actually played the game. Who seems more credible?

Funny story: we have a bajillion different Apocalypse World threads because when silva first started posting here he did nothing but wander into threads and start talking about Apocalypse World. It was like having a Jehova's fucking Witness, here to hand out pamphlets about the holy book known as 'Apocalypse World.' Silva went to great lengths to make every conversation he could about Apocalypse World, and the end result is we had a bunch of conversations about Apocalypse World. And you are calling that an epic crusade against it?

Well all I can say is that this thread certainly was not started by silva, and it was all about Apocalypse world. Nobody is forcing people to debate in an AWorld thread, and if you want to, that's fine. And if you choose to take up the whip to lash the dead horse a few more times, be prepared to at least cite some actual evidence, like you would in any other thread. I don't think I'm being unreasonable here.

[Chamomile]

It's also not the first time you haven't provided any quoted text to back up that assertion.

This is also completely false, because the last time I brought this up it came with a whole battery of relevant quotes, with the extremely explicit "think about what's going on offscreen" one coming in at the end: link.

This thread is moving fast, and I'm late to the show, but I can't let that slide.

Prep circumstances, pressures, developing NPC actions, not (and again, I’m not fucking around here) NOT future scenes you intend to lead the PCs to.

This is you quoting a portion that explicitly and enthusiastically tells the MC not to prep scenes.

I am genuinely stunned that you could read such a straightforward "don't railroad PCs into pre-planned set pieces" bit of advice, some of the most common and most valuable advice ever given to starting GMs, and get that out of it. I am seriously pretty sure that you are just not arguing in good faith at this point, and strongly considered just not responding to any of the rest of your post because of that. The MC is not being told to prep specific scenes. Please meditate on how that is different from not being told to keep track of NPC actions. It says right there in the single sentence quote you just posted to prep developing NPC actions how could you miss that?!

Think offscreen too. When it’s time for you to make a move, imagine what your many various NPCs must have been doing meanwhile. Have any of them done something offscreen that now becomes evident? Are any of them doing things offscreen that, while invisible to the players’ characters, deserve your quiet notice?

I want you to read that very carefully. You are using this quote as evidence that the MC can prepare things in advance, but the actual quote tells you to wait until it's time to make a move then decide retroactively what your NPC's have already done.

No, the quote asks you to consider 1) if your NPCs have done anything already and 2) whether they are currently doing anything right now you should be keeping track of even though it's not already apparent. It is true the quote alone is ambiguous. It could mean to retroactively decide what NPC actions have been, because when it asks if NPCs have done something offscreen that becomes apparent, it does not specify that they're talking about things you had earlier decided they were doing offscreen. But it does ask you to keep track of the things they are doing offscreen which do not have any impact on the current scene, which would rather imply that it makes a difference because their offscreen actions are not in a quantum state. Also, other sections of the book, which I have already quoted, suggest you keep track of NPC actions all the time as a general rule. This would very much suggest that when they tell you to consider if any NPC actions now become apparent, they're talking about stuff you set up in advance. In fact, the section on MC moves is pretty explicit about it: Don't make hard moves unless you've set them up, or the players fail a roll. You're going to have to actually go and provide a real quote from the actual book that actually says to make things up as you go along, because I have provided several that say to have your NPCs be setting things up in advance. And again: No, advice against planning the plot out in advance is not the same as advice against having NPCs do things offscreen.

Or how about instead of jumping into the middle of an ongoing conversation spread out over multiple threads with several dozen pages between them and accusing someone of not providing evidence because he refuses to provide evidence that has already been provided multiple times to multiple people in multiple threads,

Oh, shut up and make an argument, you whiny little bitch. When people had forgotten the months-old pile of evidence I shot out in the last thread on this, I didn't tell the opposition to get lost for having imperfect memory, I google searched some terms and linked the thread. It took me like two minutes. In any case, the evidence you're talking about revolves around two examples from the book, one of which assumes a quantum ambush when there is absolutely zero evidence that the ambush was not planned in advance, and whining and stamping your foot and insisting that every statement that does not explicitly tell you not to asspull mission failure is exactly the same as a statement telling you to do so is not evidence. It's Fox News tactics designed to obfuscate the discussion. And the other example is one which assumes that the PC's goal is not to be detected at all, rather than not be detected by specific people, but the example text given does not make this clear and fairly strongly implies exactly the opposite.

@ACOS: I'm not sure you understand the post-apocalyptic genre. While there are signs in the book that Vincent Baker is the kind of guy you would not want to play a game with, the example you're referring to is not one of them. It's not especially contrived, and it's not even particularly vicious so far as genre standards are concerned. "There is a kid in your way, are you willing to kill him to get things done?" is a perfectly valid question to ask of players in a post-apocalyptic genre story. Now the sex moves are less defensible. In a game with so few rules, having a specific section dedicated to sex moves is actually really creepy. A similar amount of rules dedicated to sex in 3.X wouldn't really bug me, because 3.X has tons of rules and sex is a thing people do, but when AW doesn't have specific rules for repairing pre-war tech or scavenging for food or other standbys of post-apocalypse stories, instead opting to have them covered by a handful of very broad moves, it is really weird when sex not only gets its own move, but a different move for every splat.

That said, Vincent Baker's creepiness is irrelevant to the work he's produced, and to argue otherwise is ad hominem. The sex moves are a black mark against AW, but they're also easily ignored, and so not much of one.

[Neurosis]

In Apocalypse World, there is no concept of "already there." Things are quantum until introduced. There is no map, there is no enemy list. There's just moves and exposition. That's the whole game.

This in and of itself is my problem with games like ButtWorld.

[Username17]

Cyberzombie: stop concern trolling. I'm ebarrassed for you every time you do it.

That said, Vincent Baker's creepiness is irrelevant to the work he's produced, and to argue otherwise is ad hominem. The sex moves are a black mark against AW, but they're also easily ignored, and so not much of one.

This is totally wrong. The fact that Vince Baker is a horrible and creepy man whose actual purpose in creating Apocalypse World was to be domineering and sexually exploitative of his players is in fact incredibly germane. Apocalypse World as a holistic entity is only about two steps better than RaHoWa, and supporting the game in any context, whether financially or otherwise is morally wrong. By supporting Apocalypse World, you are a worse human being than you would be if you didn't do that. And if people want to shun you on that basis, that would be extremely understandable.

That being said, we are a game design forum, and discussing whether and to what degree games have mechanics and ideas worth lifting is kind of what we do. So if there were any good ideas in Apocalypse World, it would be reasonable to talk about them shorn of their original and disgusting rape fetishizing context. However, Apocalypse World does not have anything to offer, making the fact that people keep fucking talking about it even more puzzling. Simple prompt driven improv storytelling has existed since before dice came with twenty sides, and Apocalypse World does not provide any concrete advantages over that.

-Username17

[Chamomile]

That said, Vincent Baker's creepiness is irrelevant to the work he's produced, and to argue otherwise is ad hominem. The sex moves are a black mark against AW, but they're also easily ignored, and so not much of one.

This is totally wrong. The fact that Vince Baker is a horrible and creepy man whose actual purpose in creating Apocalypse World was to be domineering and sexually exploitative of his players is in fact incredibly germane.

No, it isn't. What matters is whether Apocalypse World successfully encourages that kind of gameplay, and it doesn't. Vincent Baker might personally run his games that way, I dunno, but it is possible and not even hard to run an Apocalypse World game that isn't like that. The system doesn't even particularly lend itself to that, and even the examples given in the book don't particularly lend themselves to that. Actual sex comes up like once, and it's not even the sex, it's being jumped by muggers or something while having sex. The vitriol in this post is utterly bizarre: Apocalypse World is a game with sex built right into the rules, and that's kind of an odd focus for a game that has very few things built directly into the rules. But rape fetishizing? Where the Hell did you get rape fetishization out of this game?

This whole thing is not only a red herring, it's a baseless accusation against all of your opponents. Forget DSM, that post has got to be the most Fox News-esque thing I've ever seen on this forum: We don't have any evidence so quick! Accuse our opponents of heinous crimes and hope that people will believe it without bothering to investigate! Seriously, Frank, what the Hell is wrong with you?

[Ice9]

Double post.

[Ice9]

Occasionally, we'll get someone tell us that we need not be so brutally honest. It always surprises me, because this is TGDMB. We have a rep in internet gaming circles for clear communication through brutal, hate-filled honesty. Do not come here to feel good about yourself, come here for honest critique and conversation.

Wha ...? I wasn't complaining about the fact that there was vitriol! That would be like coming to a bar and complaining that they served alchohol.

I was complaining that there was nothing here (or any other AW discussion I've seen here) than just vitriol. It's like all the damn Fighter threads. Saying that the Fighter sucks is not actually exciting or useful, because everyone (here) knows that. And they never have much in the way of proposed solutions, rather just circular arguing.

Oh, but I see there was a recommendation - to go pure storytelling instead. Having tried both, I'm going to disagree with that.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

That said, Vincent Baker's creepiness is irrelevant to the work he's produced, and to argue otherwise is ad hominem. The sex moves are a black mark against AW, but they're also easily ignored, and so not much of one.

This is totally wrong. The fact that Vince Baker is a horrible and creepy man whose actual purpose in creating Apocalypse World was to be domineering and sexually exploitative of his players is in fact incredibly germane.

No, it isn't. What matters is whether Apocalypse World successfully encourages that kind of gameplay, and it doesn't. Vincent Baker might personally run his games that way, I dunno, but it is possible and not even hard to run an Apocalypse World game that isn't like that. The system doesn't even particularly lend itself to that, and even the examples given in the book don't particularly lend themselves to that. Actual sex comes up like once, and it's not even the sex, it's being jumped by muggers or something while having sex. The vitriol in this post is utterly bizarre: Apocalypse World is a game with sex built right into the rules, and that's kind of an odd focus for a game that has very few things built directly into the rules. But rape fetishizing? Where the Hell did you get rape fetishization out of this game?

This whole thing is not only a red herring, it's a baseless accusation against all of your opponents. Forget DSM, that post has got to be the most Fox News-esque thing I've ever seen on this forum: We don't have any evidence so quick! Accuse our opponents of heinous crimes and hope that people will believe it without bothering to investigate! Seriously, Frank, what the Hell is wrong with you?

This feels like you're trying to play it both ways:

1) Quantum bear example: "The rules don't say quantum bear! You're reading something that isn't there."

2) Murdering kids as a "lulzy" fail-forward: "That's just one example interpretation of the rules! Maybe instead of murdering a kid, you get attacked by a quantum bear!"

[DSMatticus]

It says right there in the single sentence quote you just posted to prep developing NPC actions how could you miss that?!

You are focusing on the "developing NPC actions" part... and what, just not reading the rest, because it's uncomfortable for your argument? The developing NPC actions is almost certainly an attempt to say "move the plot along," but it very clearly does not give you permission to prep scenes, because the very next string of words is do not ever fucking prep scenes.

I get that you are fanboying hard enough to genuinely believe that "developing NPC actions" means "bolt down into the specifics of your fronts' actions in a way that means prepping future scenes" instead of "think about how the overall plot is advancing in broad strokes," and therefore disagree with me.

But it is really fucking weird to point that out in my own post and then have you ask me how I missed that. The answer, quite obviously, is that I did not miss that. It's right there, stop being dumb. Anyway, Apocalypse World has a couple of interesting sections Chamomile should go read:

Page 124, before the 1st session: four paragraphs telling you to prep nothing, not even fronts. The entire first session is meant to be improv between you and the players.

Page 132, after the 1st session: take the shit that you improv-ed up in the first session, and turn the important parts into fronts. Prep complete. Repeat for all following sessions.

Page 136, Prep for Play - Fronts: this is a section about prepping for play, subtitled fronts. That might lead you to believe there are sections about prepping for play with different subtitles. You would be wrong. You prep fronts. That's it. A front is almost entirely high-level statements about some organization intended to guide your improv.

Think offscreen too. When it’s time for you to make a move, imagine what your many various NPCs must have been doing meanwhile. Have any of them done something offscreen that now becomes evident? Are any of them doing things offscreen that, while invisible to the players’ characters, deserve your quiet notice?

But it does ask you to keep track of the things they are doing offscreen which do not have any impact on the current scene, which would rather imply that it makes a difference because their offscreen actions are not in a quantum state

This part first because it's easiest: offscreen =/= out of scene. The sniper lining up a shot on the PC's is offscreen, but not out of scene. The thief looting your camp while you're out is both offscreen and out of scene. The use of the word offscreen is non-evidence. But "something offscreen that now becomes evident" implies very strongly that the author is talking about something happening in that scene. Similarly, describing something happening out of scene as "invisible to the players" is not technically inaccurate, but it's awkward phrasing. I sure as fuck can't see anyone in Iowa right now, but I wouldn't use that to describe Iowans as invisible to me. Two out of three of those suggest the author is talking about actions related to the current scene that are happening offscreen. I.e., "Is the sniper finished getting into position? Does he take the shot?"

No, the quote asks you to consider 1) if your NPCs have done anything already and 2) whether they are currently doing anything right now you should be keeping track of even though it's not already apparent.

This part is honestly just sad. The rest is "okay, whatever, you're dumb," but there's no way to adopt this position that doesn't involve crippling fanboyism-induced illiteracy.

"When it’s time for you to make a move, imagine what your many various NPCs must have been doing meanwhile." This sentence is unambiguous. It tells you to think during your current move about what your NPC's must have already done. There is no way to read that sentence as anything other than an instruction to think backwards and retroactively make things true.

[Kaelik]

Also, all the people here who say they've actually played AWorldD&D 3e are saying that the hypothetical "bearfighter" problem doesn't exist. So I've got one side with . . . no play experience and another side . . . who have actually played the game. Who seems more credible?

Probably the people who are not relying on the Oberoni fallacy.

Well all I can say is that this thread certainly was not started by silva, and it was all about Apocalypse world.

No, it was created by Dogbert after he specifically read goddam apocalypse world after being asked to do so and then form an opinion by silva. Silva asked for the creation of this thread.

[Chamomile]

@Sakuya: I legitimately have no idea what you're on about. I never said anything about the kill a kid example that is even slightly like what you're accusing me of saying. In fact, I specifically said that being forced to kill a kid to get stuff done is part of the genre space of the post-apocalypse. Apocalypses are not good times. Shanking a fourteen year old doesn't really have anything to do with rape fetishization.

@DSM:

I get that you are fanboying hard enough to genuinely believe that "developing NPC actions" means "bolt down into the specifics of your fronts' actions in a way that means prepping future scenes"

No, I do not believe that. Because prepping future scenes is bad. DSM, this is GMing 101. Do you not get the difference between prepping a scene and keeping track of what NPCs are doing? They are importantly very different things.

Page 124, before the 1st session: four paragraphs telling you to prep nothing, not even fronts. The entire first session is meant to be improv between you and the players.

...Yes, and? Are you suggesting that the Water Temple scene could only have happened in the opening minutes of the very first session? Are you suggesting that the MC can only keep track of what NPCs are doing offscreen between sessions? I seriously can't even figure out what point you think you're making with this.

I really don't think you grasp this: Outlining your RPG sessions like they are levels of a video game or chapters of a book is railroading. It is very commonly preferred to have GMs focus on keeping track of the actions of organizations and individuals within the game world, leave the players with an interesting situation and at least a few ways to influence it, and then just let them have at it. No preplanned scenes is a selling point, whether you are playing AW or 3.X or what. Players pick whatever side they want, or make their own. Come at the situation from whatever angle they want. Ignore some problems, and focus on others, possibly things you did not expect them to consider problems at all. And if any of this requires you to scrap material you prepared or prepare new material, it means you're doing it wrong. You're establishing a plot instead of a setting, and unless your group is the sort that really doesn't put much thought into it anyway (and therefore does not care if things are quantum or not anyway), you'd be better off doing the reverse. There is no version of prepping scenes to lead the PCs into that is good for sandbox gameplay, and advising the MC against doing it is most definitely good advice for anyone who is telling you how to run a sandbox game.

My take away from all of this is that you just don't have a clue how sandbox games work or even that they are a valid way of playing at all, which makes it super weird that you are coming down on the "AW isn't sandbox" side because you have zero incentive to even care if the GM is invalidating your choices, since you evidently want the GM to be invalidating your choices (or at the very least expect it). If the GM is pre-planning scenes and not setting, then your options are inherently limited to things that will produce the scenes the GM has prepared, and if the GM is leading the players to specific pre-planned scenes, your options are limited to what the GM has planned for you or walking away from the table completely. You are arguing that this quote is advising the MC to do exactly the opposite of what it advises the MC to do.

But "something offscreen that now becomes evident" implies very strongly that the author is talking about something happening in that scene.

In that particular sentence, sure. It turns out that there is an entire paragraph there, and the different sentences within it refer to multiple things. You go on for a while about how something isn't explicit, therefore it must support your side of the argument, but that is not how evidence works.

The statement you want to claim is unambiguous is, in fact, ambiguous. You're basically just plopping down your interpretation and saying it cannot refer to anything else except completely making up everything on the spot, as opposed to, say, updating on the assumptions you made the last time you made a move. Because again, the MC makes a move once every five minutes if not faster. He will be asking himself the question "what have my NPCs been up to" a lot. You pretty much can't get from "players discover that the Water Temple is a thing" to "players detects ambush at Water Temple" in one MC move, which means the MC is asking himself this question at multiple points throughout the course of the adventure. You are assuming that it is asking the question of what your NPCs have been doing since the last time the players saw them rather than since the last time you made a move, but this doesn't gel with any of the other things Apocalypse World says about how you run your NPCs. Like this:

When a player’s character makes a move and the player misses the roll, that’s the cleanest and clearest example there is of an opportunity on a plate. When you’ve been setting something up and it comes together without interference, that counts as an opportunity on a plate too.

But again, unless a player’s character has handed you the opportunity, limit yourself to a move that sets up future moves, your own and the players’ characters’.

There are two examples of when it is appropriate to make a "hard move," i.e. a move that doesn't just set up other moves. And that's when a player's move fails, or you've been setting something up. And it explicitly tells you not to make hard moves except under those circumstances specifically.

Also: in context of AW, off-screen does, in fact, mean out of scene. Check out the complete set of three examples of "announcing off-screen badness":

“You hear gunfire, not too far away. Maybe Hison’s people, hard
to know. What do you do?”
“Sometime in the night, an explosion wakes you all up. It’s not
in the holding, but it’s nearby. Everything shakes. What do you
do?”
“What’s up this morning? Oh yeah, I remember. ere’s a pillar
of black smoke on the horizon, and if you look through binoculars
you can see refugees. What do you do?”

Every single one of them involves something out of the scene. It's not entirely clear exactly how close the gunfire in the first one is, but it doesn't seem to actually be directed at them the way some of the examples from "announcing future badness" are:

“She’s about to figure out where you are. What do you do?”
“Dude you have a split second before that thing gets its teeth
into your arm. What do you do?”
“You hear a dog outside, sniffing and whining. ‘You found
something, boy?’ What do you do?”

These are immediate physical threats. Some of them are more like immediate threats to your stuff than to your person, but it's still a problem that's happening right now:

“‘Hey boss, it’s cool, but I don’t think everybody’s happy. ere’ve
been more fights down in the stews, I think somebody’s maybe
trying to move in on somebody else’s biz.’ What do you do?”
“‘Oh, hey, Keeler, Ribs is looking for you.’ What do you do?”
“Someone’s in there, you hear them moving. What do you do?”

"Future badness" covers active threats, things that are actively seeking to do you harm. "Off-screen badness" refers to threats that are still manifesting, things that are going wrong but which aren't yet threatening you directly, things more along the lines of "give players fair warning they should check this out" as opposed to "inform players that they are actually under attack."

So when AW says "think off-screen," what it's saying is "have any out-of-scene threats become obvious and should now be announced? Are any out-of-scene threats that aren't obvious becoming more dangerous?" That's what those words mean in AW. It doesn't come with a glossary, because again: Terrible organization. But it is all written by one dude, and you can pick up from context what that one dude means. Seriously, this is falsifiable: Is there any point in the book where something is referred to as "offscreen" in the sense of "hidden, but still potentially an immediate threat?" Because every reference I've found, it means "out of scene, not an active threat, you can, for now at least, ignore it just by walking in the other direction and neither you nor your character's stuff will be negatively affected."

[Username17]

Do you not get the difference between prepping a scene and keeping track of what NPCs are doing? They are importantly very different things.

Do you not get the difference between a past participle and the present progressive? The quote you keep throwing around as if it supported you in any way uses the action in the present tense, but the NPCs' actions in the subjunctive past participle.

The action is being taken now, and it's being justified retroactively by the idea that NPCs "must have been" doing stuff while not being discussed or thought of in any way. You're just fucking wrong. You're pretending that sentences mean things they don't say. Either you're really bad at English or you're a really bad liar. Either way: stop it.

-Username17

[tussock]

I enjoy how people who like anusWorld are the same people who insist that constant improv is such a terrible thing that no one could ever write rules demanding it's use.

Wait. Let's make up some examples and see if they feel natural.


[*]I drive my car to work (7-9).
Yes, but you get carjacked and have to walk.
[*]Wait, I flee in the car (7-9).
Yes, but you get shot and are going to die.
[*]...
[*]Uh, can I get help (7-9)?
You hear an ambulance nearby, but it's speeding away.
[*]So ... I try to catch it (10+).
Success, you ram the ambulance off the road as you pass out, killing three innocent children and further injuring yourself. Your character is crippled ...
[*]WAIT! I ... can I ... not crash (6).
No! It's worse, a massive pileup! You die, and take out scores of innocent people! Children lie screaming in the flames before being ....
[*]I was just driving to work. Is this the game?
... bears emerge from the nearby zoo! They're eating the burning children and growing ...
[*]This is the game.
... aliens appear and begin pouring green goop on the surviving women ...
[*]OK, so I'll ... leave you to it then.
... now fifty feet tall, the tentacled monsters begin ....

[DSMatticus]

Chamomile, what the fuck?

On one hand, you are arguing that the uberleet bodyguards were not necessarily a quantum bear attack because the MC could have decided they would participate in that scene before the scene had occurred. By the power of tautology, this is deciding something about a scene (a scene that may or may not occur) before that scene occurs. On the other hand, you are arguing that 'DSM is a fukkin noob railroader and needs to lrn2sandbox, bro' for suggesting that Apocalypse World's emphasis on retrocausality over forward-planning leads to quantum bear attacks and that's bullshit.

There are only two possibilities, Chamomile: either the MC decided the uberleet bodyguards would be there before the scene, or during it. There is no third option. It's a true dichotomy. If the MC declared in advance "if the PC's go to location X at time Y, then uberleet bodyguards will wreck their shit," then he prepared a scene in advance. And that's bad, because

No preplanned scenes is a selling point

And if any of this requires you to scrap material you prepared or prepare new material, it means you're doing it wrong

You're establishing a plot instead of a setting

If the MC declared "I don't know where the uberleet bodyguards are right now, so they will be right here, right now," then that's a quantum bear attack, and that's bad because the MC could have done the same thing in any scene and the meaningfulness of player choices is drastically reduced.

Now, the reality is you are pulling a little trick and distinguishing between "preparing content" and "preparing content, then also shoving that content down the players' throats" only as it suits you, so that you can offer straight-faced contradictions like "it wasn't a quantum bear attack because preparation and preparation is bad because it's railroading and apocalypse world doesn't railroad because it doesn't have preparation."

That aside: you gave a lot of terrible fucking advice. If you're running a sandbox, you can and should prep content. Your party will give you clues about what they want to do. Usually, those clues will be subtle, like "hey, let's do X," but if you really pay attention and read between the lines you should pick up on them. And yes, that means some of your material will be scrapped when players change their minds between sessions or you guess wrong, and that means you'll still have to wing a great deal of material no matter what you do. But "you shouldn't take advantage of your players' plainly-stated intentions to spend a little bit of time making and polishing content for them because RAILROADING WARBLEGARBLEFLARBLEBARBLE."

or tl;dr fuck off.

You are assuming that it is asking the question of what your NPCs have been doing since the last time the players saw them rather than since the last time you made a move, but this doesn't gel with any of the other things Apocalypse World says about how you run your NPCs.

Bullshit. Every single front has a main cast of 3-4, and then a secondary cast numbering in the vicinity of "who fucking knows." Every campaign will have multiple fronts that come and go as story dictates, and then there's a whole front dedicated to catching misc bullshit that doesn't fit elsewhere. You are seriously suggesting that the MC is updating the entire game world in his head every couple of minutes. This is absolutely not true, not what the game expects you to do, and not what anyone actually ever would do, and may not even be possible without grinding the game to a halt depending on specifics. What is actually happening is every few minutes you are supposed to stop and think if there are any interesting details you can pull out of the ether and make true - any quantum waveforms that you want to collapse, possibly into bears. And because you are not in fact modelling the entire game world in your head, a great deal will always be left in the quantum ether.

[silva]

You are seriously suggesting that the MC is updating the entire game world in his head every couple of minutes. This is absolutely not true, not what the game expects you to do

Not the entire world, but the events related to the main factions and NPCs. Thats why there are the countdown clocks in place - to help the GM to track the advance in entities plans/agendas/goals. So, for example, you could note "Dirk, the slaver" as an important NPC that some player came up with, and then give him the following countdown clock:

0 o'clock - infiltrate Bartertown
3 o'clock - dominate local slave market
9 o'clock - expand to Redding and New Reno
12 o'clock - coup detat and create the Dirk Slaving Empire.

Note though that these "states" are not set in stone. Its possible that you need to scratch some of those in reaction to unforeseen changes in the world or because of players actions.

The game not only provide the countdown clock as a conceptual tool, but give you lots of little sheets full of little blank clocks.

[Cyberzombie]

I don't really see how encounter building in sandbox D&D (or any other game) is different from AW. If you've got NPCs moving around obviously a DM will need to dynamically build encounters based on where those NPCs happen to be at the time. I'm really not seeing the "AW sucks" in all of this, because I imagine a D&D sandbox game might run similarly.

[silva]

Cyberzombie, I dont know if the idea of "encounters" fit AW well. I mean, if you state that the group will have an encounter, arent you prepping a plot in a way ? On the other hand, I think the GM should prep NPCs and how they would react to the players presence, mainly through the creation of custom moves for the NPCs. Ie:

"if the player threats physically Dirk the Slaver, roll +Sharp:

on 7-9 Dirk confuses the player by arguing its unwise to start a fight in mid of Bartertown where he is wll known, just enough time so reinforcements arrive. Now the player has the choice of avoding the fight altogether, or face 4 more goons to Dirk side.

on 10+ Dirk cant convince the player and is taken by surprise with only 3 goons by his side."

This, complemented with the overall resources available to Dirk group (which you can deduce on the spot based on their profile - if they are rich, give them good guns and armor, if theyre poor, give them melee weapons and jagged clothes, etc) would be enough to prep for any "encounter" the group finds itself in, without the need to "prep a encounter" in a more railroadish sense.

[Emerald]

I don't really see how encounter building in sandbox D&D (or any other game) is different from AW.

Because D&D doesn't tell you "If the PCs pass a Spot check, it would be a good idea to decide to have a great wyrm dragon fly by and start strafing them with fire breath so there's something for them to have spotted" or "When the PCs enter a wizard's tomb, decide right then whether the wizard has totally been scrying on them this whole time and wants to teleport-ambush them" or any other terrible advice like that.

In fact, it tells you the exact opposite, giving a way to calculate appropriate CR ranges for a given party and the appropriate proportions for encounters of different CRs, and it gives players tools to discover what you decide and gives them spells and other abilities that Just Work rather than relying on your judgment call every time they want to take the simplest action.

[ACOS]

Also: in context of AW, off-screen does, in fact, mean out of scene. Check out the complete set of three examples of "announcing off-screen badness":

“You hear gunfire, not too far away. Maybe Hison’s people, hard
to know. What do you do?”
“Sometime in the night, an explosion wakes you all up. It’s not
in the holding, but it’s nearby. Everything shakes. What do you
do?”
“What’s up this morning? Oh yeah, I remember. ere’s a pillar
of black smoke on the horizon, and if you look through binoculars
you can see refugees. What do you do?”

Every single one of them involves something out of the scene.

Um, no.
I think that you do not understand the difference between "off-screen" and "out-of-scene".
If it is currently being perceived (on- or off-screen), then it is part of the scene. If it were out-of-scene, then there would be no point describing it, and the PCs wouldn't be prompted to do something about it.


Also, given that Mr. Baker has gone to great length to after-market tell people how they're suppose to be using his game, I'd say that your post-modernism is a bit misguided.

[Kuri Näkk]

I don't really see how encounter building in sandbox D&D (or any other game) is different from AW. If you've got NPCs moving around obviously a DM will need to dynamically build encounters based on where those NPCs happen to be at the time. I'm really not seeing the "AW sucks" in all of this, because I imagine a D&D sandbox game might run similarly.

Many games, certainly D&D, have many specific rules on encounter building. AW apparently has only a few general rules and seems to prohibit specific encounter building off-screen. Isn't it a rather distinctive difference?

Perhaps you confuse rules as written with the actual application of rules? In my experience D&D encounter building rules are rarely applied literally. Typically they are considered rough guidelines and sometimes ignored entirely. Consequently, a D&D sandbox type game may run very similarly to an AW game. (Of course, application or non-application of rules in an actual gameplay is not directly relevant in discussing the rules as written. )

AW rules appear to be guidelines how to MTP more effectively. D&D rules are much more objective in comparison. That said, it is debatable how much (D&D) specific rules help to prevent the “quantum bear” dickery. I have yet to see an in game conflict between a dickhead GM and players where rules arguments were decisive in resolving the conflict.