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OscarDiggs posted:I mean, it's text so it's like I spoke to fast and you misheard me... Motivation, background, and personality massively affect everything you'd want to possibly do in an RPG. AW isn't like D&D where the bones of the game are a board game you have roleplaying interludes in, the way moves function ties them to the roleplaying bits and vice versa.
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Sep 14, 2018 00:29
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There is a reason that PbtA games limit each playbook to a single player, and its because yes, there is some overlap in utility/role between two different Battlebabes, or Hocus, or what have you. Two Hocus will probably be very different, since cult leaders and their cults and beliefs also vary significantly. But at the end of the day, every Hocus leads a community that mostly does whatever they say, but has some needs you need to keep on top of if you want to stay in charge, so two Hocus shouldn't be in the same game. I don't understand why this is supposedly a bad thing, though.
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Sep 14, 2018 00:40
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spectralent posted:Motivation, background, and personality massively affect everything you'd want to possibly do in an RPG. AW isn't like D&D where the bones of the game are a board game you have roleplaying interludes in, the way moves function ties them to the roleplaying bits and vice versa. Okay I can understand the base of that, but I don't think I've quite got enough context. So, in Fate Accelerated, it's just a matter of picking which trait fits best for what you want to do. But in AW, if the BB wanted to... I don't know, corouse with someone to get information. "Roll corouse with a stranger plus whatever." "I didnt pick that move yet." "Welp, that's a shame. You can't do that then..." If a character only has five or so moves that get something to happen, how do you make those happening things unique. And this example is specifically wanting to roll for something, so failure would be possible and interesting. But the BB wouldn't be able to interact with the world in that way because they didn't pick the thing that let's them interact in that way yet. Also I'm going to keep saying it, but I know next to nothing about AW.
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Sep 14, 2018 00:45
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Your particular choice of moves and gear actually informs the stories you tell in AW much more than, for instance, how many percent you have in Library Use in Call of Cthulhu. Which ones you choose help form your character to a very large degree, and your character concept likewise informs how you end up using the moves. I've never felt like moves were in any way limiting, if anything it prompts characterization where other systems merely have you reach for some dice. edit: Also, you should read the game. All characters have like 8+ basic moves that they all share, and the moves are really only systems that activate when you do specific things. You can still do everything you can in other games, they just might not invoke a move (although, if they are recurring setting or character-specific actions the MC might very well create a move related to that action). thotsky fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Sep 14, 2018 |
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Sep 14, 2018 00:47
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OscarDiggs posted:Okay I can understand the base of that, but I don't think I've quite got enough context. So, in Fate Accelerated, it's just a matter of picking which trait fits best for what you want to do. Have you considered maybe looking at the actual game in any way shape or form before asking questions because there’s these things called basic moves for starters. Christ.
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Sep 14, 2018 00:49
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OscarDiggs posted:Hello, I have another question for the thread. I kind of understand where you're coming from - if you consider the essence of a character to reside in the crunch and mechanics, then I can see how AW and most of the derivative games critically lack character variety - there are only a couple of ways to "build" each playbook, and it's almost like the game wants all battlebabes/gunluggers/whatever to work the same way. And that's because it does. The thing that takes (or, at least, took for me) a while to grasp is that AW treats the fiction of the character with importance, more so than the mechanics. The established fiction of a scene is more binding than the moves, in play. As a result, the best approach to rolling characters in AW, is to think of the character's personality, and then "express" it with the mechanics. If you think that way, it makes total sense for all battle-babes to work the same way mechanically - but that doesn't mean it can't represent characters as different as Junkrat and James Bond, or Han Solo and (early) Vash the Stampede. They technically have the same role in their stories - face danger head on and give no fucks, face down people much more powerful than they are, get out safely when things turn to chaos, and look stylish all the while - but they're also pretty drat different Drop Database fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Sep 14, 2018 |
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Sep 14, 2018 00:52
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Mr. Maltose posted:Have you considered maybe looking at the actual game in any way shape or form before asking questions because there’s these things called basic moves for starters. Christ. Not all of us are rich enough to buy games at the drop of a hat you bougie prick. I'm trying to work through any misgivings and misunderstandings I may have about the system before I commit.
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Sep 14, 2018 00:52
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Mr. Maltose posted:Have you considered maybe looking at the actual game in any way shape or form before asking questions because there’s these things called basic moves for starters. Christ. Yyyeah. I would recommend reading it before spouting judgement. But in case it wasn't clear, yes, everyone has access to basic moves that let them do stuff that all characters in a certain game can do, such as threatening/cajoling someone, fighting and opening their brains to the psychic maelstrom.
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Sep 14, 2018 00:53
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The game is literally free, you can just go get it now, for free, instead of wandering in “just asking questions”, you stupendous dipshit?
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Sep 14, 2018 00:57
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Mr. Maltose posted:The game is literally free, you can just go get it now, for free, instead of wandering in “just asking questions”, you stupendous dipshit? Wait, it is? I actually didn't know this, I got 2e from the kickstarter.
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Sep 14, 2018 00:58
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Okay, that's a very good explanation of the meat of it, thank you. paradoxGentlemen, as I said to Mr Maltose (albeit more rudely) $15 is a bit of a large investment this far away from my next paycheck, so actually looking is going to be beyond me. But I didn't know about basic moves, so knowing about them now does belay some of my suspicions, so thank you.
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Sep 14, 2018 00:58
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Can’t even pay my loving rent but watch out, I’m gonna swing my ownership of production privilege here because I know how to use loving google.
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Sep 14, 2018 00:59
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Mr. Maltose posted:The game is literally free, you can just go get it now, for free, instead of wandering in “just asking questions”, you stupendous dipshit? It's $15, poo poo head.
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Sep 14, 2018 01:00
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OscarDiggs posted:It's $15, poo poo head. http://apocalypse-world.com/ApocalypseWorldBasicRefbook2ndEd.pdf This is basically all you need to play. Go have a read, and try not to react so defensively when people tell you that you're acting like a dick, because most of the time people are right.
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Sep 14, 2018 01:04
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The MC stuff and the full book, sure, but you can get the core mechanics for free on the site here and there are other free downloads with additional playbooks.
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Sep 14, 2018 01:04
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON1s1JgqGQE Some nice French people playtested my PBTA game live on Youtube! I have a lot to work on to make it better, and it'd be nice if I understood half of what they were saying. But they were nice enough to email me in English to let me know they had fun.
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Sep 14, 2018 01:05
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The playbooks and basic rules (including the basic moves and such) are available for free if you click the "Apocalypse World" link in the OP. The full book costs money, but the reference sheet practically gives you enough info to play it, let alone decide if you want to buy it.
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Sep 14, 2018 01:06
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The actual rules to this game. Threat construction, playbooks, basic moves. They’re free downloads. It’s not every single word Vincent wrote about the game Apocalypse World but it’s actually all the rules you need and you can just get and look at them. It’s amazing.
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Sep 14, 2018 01:06
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Okay. Every time I looked at the website it was $30 for covers or links to drivethrurpg for pdfs. Mr Maltose, I'm sorry for going off on one on you; I literally did not know the base game was free.
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Sep 14, 2018 01:09
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I’m also sorry for going in on you, this poo poo is just pretend games and I shouldn’t get so mad about it.
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Sep 14, 2018 01:12
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Ran another game of Dungeon World today! I think it went well, though I’m really still a beginner at it. Some observations: I think I managed to overprepare somehow. I wanted to run a dungeon crawl-y game involving ruins and cults and ancient cultures and - it was supposed to be La-Mulana, okay? Anyway I did a mind-mapping type thing to work the players into it and as soon as I kicked off the starting situation I knew it wasn’t going to work. I feel like trying to justify why your players are in a particular situation rather than working backwards from the players themselves hamstrings the poo poo out of you, such that it would have been better to not prep at all. Considering that improv led to ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃｓ ｃｕｌｔ and the invention of the reverse mohawk and saving the session at large, I think I’ll take the time in the session to come up with something fitting instead. But goddamn, is improv and trying to be believable/interesting hard, especially after a tough work day. I still really goddamn suck at NPCs and I’m nowhere near as imaginative as I thought I could be. My descriptive prose and communication skills could use a lot of improvement. I did a lot better at roping the entire party into the situation this time, not so much at playing to their strengths. Was extra hurt by the fact that a bard, a ranger, and an immolator somehow ended up ruin diving - poor ranger was totally out of his element. I also ended up acting naturally in snowballing and moving the fiction along rather than explicitly looking at the GM moves for what to do. How closely should I be sticking to them?
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Sep 14, 2018 01:48
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@Pollyanna: The GM moves are just a reminder of poo poo you should be doing anyway. Go with the flow, control your scenes well, keep the action punchy, and you'll do fine. @OscarDiggs: The first thing that separates two Battlebabes (for instance) is the moves they choose. Of the six moves unique to the Battlebabe playbook, you only get to pick two of them during character creation. A Battlebabe who is dangerous & sexy and has perfect instincts is going to play a hell of a lot differently than one who is merciless and ice cold. The first one is apt to be a much more social critter, the second is more along the lines of a steely-eyed killer. Next, their "signature weapons" may be completely different, which again is going to inform how they operate; an ornate, antique handgun says something very different about you than a big, semi-auto shotgun - both narratively and mechanically. Tack on varying looks and outlook and the two characters won't play even remotely the same. That's not to say there won't be similarities; I don't think I've ever seen someone play a Gunlugger and not take NOT TO BE hosed WITH as either a first pick or their first advance, but being the baddest motherfucker in the valley is pretty much the Gunlugger's schtick. But any playbook that gives you options to tailor your crap (Chopper, Hardholder, Hocus, Maestro D', Savvyhead) can diverge pretty radically in a hurry. I've seen Maestros D' run everything from a revolutionary coffee shop to a film noir cabaret to literal Fight Club. So yeah, there's actually a ton of variation built into the base playbooks.
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Sep 14, 2018 03:41
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Pollyanna posted:I also ended up acting naturally in snowballing and moving the fiction along rather than explicitly looking at the GM moves for what to do. How closely should I be sticking to them? I find it really valuable to have the GM moves in front of me, this is why: Given any given situation in the fiction, there are a wide variety of plausible outcomes. Most GMs are pretty good at going 'here is the situation and the action, therefore here is an outcome that follows' But I find that if I look at the situation and skim down the list of GM moves I'll often work backwards and produce an outcome that's more interesting than the most obvious one - the outcome's still completely as valid a followup to the situation and action, but I wouldn't have necessarily thought to introduce the new elements that the GM moves encourage. They don't particularly constrain you, but they do a great job of kicking off your improvisation in the plausible-but-unexpected directions that make life interesting.
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Sep 14, 2018 03:55
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Pollyanna posted:But goddamn, is improv and trying to be believable/interesting hard, especially after a tough work day. I still really goddamn suck at NPCs and I’m nowhere near as imaginative as I thought I could be. My descriptive prose and communication skills could use a lot of improvement. The last PbtA game I ran, we spent three sessions on one planet. This group was more about trying a lot of different RPGs than running an extended campaign, so things sort of came to a natural end point. The feedback I got was that players wished the sessions were longer. We never did break three hours in a session. Let me tell you, we ran short because I was mentally wiped out well before three hours rolled around. This system is very taxing on the GM, especially in big chunks. On reflection, I should have taken a couple of breaks and ended up with 4 hours actual playing time. So my advice is pace yourselves and use breaks to both rest, plan, plot, have off-table discussions, and give the players a chance to do the same.
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Sep 14, 2018 05:12
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paradoxGentleman posted:Yyyeah. I would recommend reading it before spouting judgement. But in case it wasn't clear, yes, everyone has access to basic moves that let them do stuff that all characters in a certain game can do, such as threatening/cajoling someone, fighting and opening their brains to the psychic maelstrom. to elaborate a bit more, every PBTA game has one very generic basic move (Do Something Under Fire in Apocalypse World, Defy Danger in Dungeon World, etc) that is perfectly capable of doing anything you'd use a basic skill check for in another system. The basic mechanic of "roll 2d6, succeed on 10+, succeed with caveats on 7-9, fail forward on 6-" is just as scaleable and universal as rolling a d20 or some fate dice The other 10-20 basic moves are refinements for when you'd want to have some more specific subsystem, and the playbooks' advanced moves are there for when you want your player characters to be uniquely cool. There's no situation where you're just not allowed to roll dice. stopping the action with GM rulings like "You can't do that" or "You fail, nothing happens" is specifically prohibited in the rules of every PBTA game I am aware of. PBTA rulebooks are usually like 85% GM advice, most of which can also be applied to other systems. Pollyanna posted:
To help with NPCs, I like to use an idea I stole from the (otherwise middling) indy retro sci-fi game Cosmic Patrol. Namely, Character Cues if there's an NPC or even a type of NPC (blacksmith, drifter, cop) that might appear in your game, take an index card and write a few short phrases that represent the sort of things they'd say. Definitely keep em all under 10 words, preferably no more than 6 or so. In a PBTA game you are likely to have to make up some characters on the fly, but you can re-purpose and re-use as needed. you're not scripting, you're just getting a feel for the character's mannerisms and perspective. Though, as a bonus, you'll have the lines available to use in-session if you can't think of anything. City of Mist does the same thing, in the form of the little quotations that go with a character's tags One of my players pointed out this is also like the prerecorded Barks and verbal cues characters in multiplayer videogames have Tango Down Enemy Donut Spotted etc. I also think it is kosher to write out some short bits of opening narration for any scenes, areas or set-pieces that are kicking around in your head, even if you're playing a story game where the book tells you not to prep these will help your initial narration pop and give you imagery to work off of once you're improvving just keep a notebook page or a few cards full of little short jots and snippets you can plug in. improv story games, imo, don't have to be about not prepping. They can be about using economical prep that you can squeeze into a 5 minute lull or a bus trip here or there. PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Sep 14, 2018 |
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Sep 14, 2018 05:30
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PupsOfWar posted:you're not scripting, you're just getting a feel for the character's mannerisms and perspective. Though, as a bonus, you'll have the lines available to use in-session if you can't think of anything. I agree wholeheartedly. Play to Find out What Happens is a fundamental agenda, but there's nothing stopping you from finishing the sentence as "...when this person I just invented and their crew intersect what the players are doing." I've run PBTA with an extremely narrow focus, and I've ruin published adventures in a PbtA hack. That cool idea you had ? If it's only cool if it goes one way, then congrats, you have an idea for a novel. If it's something any character that comes along could interact with, it works for PbtA. Have lots of index cards. Use them to keep track of what's happened, and ideas about what might happen. Always be ready to throw one in the bin if it stops advancing the fiction.
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Sep 14, 2018 07:18
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PupsOfWar posted:to elaborate a bit more, every PBTA game has one very generic basic move (Do Something Under Fire in Apocalypse World, Defy Danger in Dungeon World, etc) that is perfectly capable of doing anything you'd use a basic skill check for in another system. While Do Something Under Fire can cover a lot of things, it isn't "always use this when doing something not covered by another move." Sometimes what happens if a PC wants to do something not under a move is that they're looking at the MC to see what happens, so the MC should make one of their moves. Also not every PbtA has a move like it.
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Sep 14, 2018 07:19
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Polly, I think you’re a pretty good GM, so I’m going to post some advice from Ira Glass. —- Nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish somebody had told this to me — is that all of us who do creative work … we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there’s a gap, that for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, OK? It’s not that great. It’s really not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste — the thing that got you into the game — your taste is still killer, and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you, you know what I mean? A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people at that point, they quit. And the thing I would just like say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be — they knew it fell short, it didn’t have the special thing that we wanted it to have. And the thing I would say to you is everybody goes through that. And for you to go through it, if you’re going through it right now, if you’re just getting out of that phase — you gotta know it’s totally normal. And the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work — do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week, or every month, you know you’re going to finish one story. Because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions. It takes a while, it’s gonna take you a while — it’s normal to take a while. And you just have to fight your way through that, okay?
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Sep 14, 2018 07:35
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Heliotrope posted:While Do Something Under Fire can cover a lot of things, it isn't "always use this when doing something not covered by another move." Sometimes what happens if a PC wants to do something not under a move is that they're looking at the MC to see what happens, so the MC should make one of their moves. Also, I think it's worth noting that sometimes that doing a thing is just doing a thing. Moves provide variability but sometimes a thing has a really obvious outcome. I guess strictly speaking this is use of GM moves, but it feels a bit of a different emphasis to me.
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Sep 14, 2018 11:36
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I moved maybe five years ago and after a long time not finding a folks who were into RPGs I said gently caress it, went on a local facebook group, and found players for a one shot of World Wide Wrestling. I havn't played any rpgs in half a decade, havn't run anything for longer, and I don't really know these people. Please send your most helpful tips/thoughts and prayers/laugh at my hubris.
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Sep 14, 2018 12:49
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Are you going to be the Creative or a player?
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Sep 14, 2018 13:21
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Tevery Best posted:Are you going to be the Creative or a player? I'm running the drat thing. Hubris
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Sep 14, 2018 14:28
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I'll add that I find PBtA games to be some of the easiest systems I've run but that's because I find improv easier than preparation.
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Sep 14, 2018 15:19
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GladRagKraken posted:I'm running the drat thing. Hubris Then just BRING IT ON, BROTHER WWW is super easy to run with even minimal prep, just watch some WWE highlights and come up with stupid match gimmicks and the players will do the rest for you if they enjoy each other's company in the slightest.
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Sep 14, 2018 17:32
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GladRagKraken posted:I moved maybe five years ago and after a long time not finding a folks who were into RPGs I said gently caress it, went on a local facebook group, and found players for a one shot of World Wide Wrestling. I havn't played any rpgs in half a decade, havn't run anything for longer, and I don't really know these people. Please send your most helpful tips/thoughts and prayers/laugh at my hubris. Listen or watch a game of it being played. It really gave me a good idea of WWW's flow. Six Feats Under and One Shot have short series.
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Sep 14, 2018 18:07
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Any good playthroughs of City Of Mists? I've been reading through the book and am really liking it, just not used to running a FATE based system.
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Sep 14, 2018 18:21
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OscarDiggs posted:Hello, I have another question for the thread. The last time I played Apocalypse World our Gunlugger was an uplifted chimp whose weapon of choice was triple uzis. Not expected withing the game but we weren't playing with any house rules at all. Unique enough or you? Seriously, the fundamental premise behind Apocalypse World playbooks is that you are what you do, and the playbooks are basically collection of common roles in a post-apocalyptic society. The Hardholder is the local settlement boss, the Chopper the gang leader, the Angel the best medic around, the Brainer that creepy guy that can melt you with his mind, the Hocus the cult leader, the Gunlugger the biggest lone badass around, the Maestro D' the owner of the local important bar/saloon/watering hole/gin joint/casino/whatever. What makes two hardholders mechanically different? The way they organise their settlement and its guards. Size, resources, how unruly it is, what happens when things go wrong. Two brainers are different in what sort of creepy psychic powers they have - and they only have some of the brainer equipment options. Two hocuses? What sort of cult do they have? How big? What's it devoted to? How does the "leader" relate to their cult? In essence most playbooks get to pick one of four sets of stats (customised to the playbook) and then three out of about six moves - fewer if they've followers, but then they customise the followers.
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Sep 14, 2018 19:58
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The gunlugger is a good example because it's so straightforward. Mechanically, they're good at dishing out damage and surviving damage. Their gear is potent but not always unique or stylish. On the surface, that's it. But... First, that's an identity in itself. AW is realistic and gritty enough that most characters can't just kill a whole gang by themselves and walk away with no more than a scratch. The gunlugger can. It turns expectations on its head. Second, the gunlugger has a "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" problem. And no one is invincible, and everyone has limited resources. So for the gunlugger, the game is typically about two things: how you use those abilities in pursuit of what you actually want, and how you deal with people who want you to kill for them.
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Sep 14, 2018 20:08
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And given those two things it's very important if the Gunlugger is a cheerful idiot who'll kill people on a whim because he has no sense of right and wrong or if he's a morose, haunted veteran of The War*, who prefers to deal in threats than violence because he knows its terrible cost. *Your MC is probably now going "Ooh, tell me about The War!" too; setting also changes your calculus a lot.
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Sep 14, 2018 21:30
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Okay; reading through the reference book and looking back at what a few people have said, particularly Ilor and neonchameleon, I think I've come to understand what my issue is. I'm used to storygames coming from the FATE angle so I was approaching PbtA in the same way. However, it looks like the narrative side and the mechanical side are utterly seperated in AW and the like, unlike in storygames I'm more familiar with. Taking two Gunluggers; Jangles the Moon Mokey with his triple uzis vs the morose "The War" veteran. From how I'm reading it, it doesn't matter that one is a monkey and one is a veteran. If one uses uzis and another likes to avoid conflict. If they both pick Battlefield Instincts, Blood Crazed and Prepare For The Inevitable, then they're fundamentally the same characters. But because narrative and mechanics are so distinct, it doesn't matter that they are the same. Or rather, they are only the same when it comes to the mechanics side. So the players play in their game, one a pulpy piece as an uplifted monkey and another a philosophical tale about redemption, rising from hatred blah blah blah whatever floats the players boats. Then a thing happens when rolling is needed. And for this example both sheets are exactly the same, so both fights or conflicts or what have you play exactly the same. Then the mechanical bit ends and we get back to the narrative side and the two different players get back to their two narratively distinct but mechanically cloned characters. But ultimately because the mechanics side is so streamlined, it doesn't matter that both play exactly the same because the mechanics aren't the point. The narrative is. Hence, story game. At least, that's what I think is the case, having thought about it for a day.
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Sep 14, 2018 22:58
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