A massive not-quite-review of #tremulus, which is based on AW engine.
“Like a chisel to the stone
That’s the metaphor I’d go with for describing how the game works. You start with a giant boulder of mystery. Inside it, there are veins of hard plot, things you know are true or that you know will happen unless thwarted. The hazards and the framework they build. As players interact with the story, they feel out the stone. As they make a move and roll dice, they take a chisel to it. With each swing, each roll of the dice, chunks of stone fall off, revealing the true plot underneath. That’s the principle of “play to find out what happens” in action, the result of allowing meta-consequences. Clink. The mayor is hiding something. Clink. There’s a doorway behind the fireplace. Clink. There is fresh blood on the blade. Clink.”
http://magbonch.wordpress.com/2013/07/04/first-impressions-tremulus/
I’m running tremulus intermittently at the moment. It’s had its ups and downs, although it seems to be getting better as the players get the hang of the game and the Ebon Eaves they’re in.
I agree with you about Sanity in particular; I think the Sanity Check and Shock Damage moves should be combined and allow the player or Keeper to pick some options. At the moment it’s purely a mechanical action, with no input apart from a dice roll, and that just makes it feel dull. It doesn’t help that you can make your Sanity check and take one less Shock, and then roll the Damage move and take one more Shock!
I’m not sure if I agree with you about the Hard Moves, or if I really approve of how tremulus uses them. I’ve only used one so far, and it did make the situation a lot nastier. However, I don’t really agree with your point about making the move anyway; surely you set up a soft move such as “the cultist’s coming at you with a knife” and then apply the harm if they fail, rather than presenting them with a fait accompli right out of the gate?
100% agree Craig. It needs some hacking to play well.
Craig Judd Regarding the hard moves, the situation was a bit more complex. The party had sailed to a creepy island to investigate, and after a couple hours there they returned to the shore to find the boat gone. That felt like a hard move, something terrible happening that they couldn’t affect. It could have been a soft move if they saw the boat departing and had a chance to jump into water and climb aboard. But that would have taken away from the mystery.
That’s just “take away their stuff” isn’t it? You make a move that makes sense when everyone looks to you to see what happens.
This is where I think tremulus‘concept of Hard Moves runs into problems with AW’s ideas about “soft” set-up moves and “hard as you like” moves on a golden opportunity. Because tremulus doesn’t tell you to generally make soft moves and then follow through with hard ones (the cultist is attacking > you failed so take 2 harm). It just says you can use general moves at any time, situational moves when they apply (which is a furphy since all moves have to be made in context anyway), and hard moves when you spend hold.
The RAW says I can try to separate them or take away their stuff or make them buy or announce trouble elsewhere at any time, but it’s only irrevocable (a fait accompli) if I spend hold to make it a hard move. This gets a little odd, since that implies:
– I can give them a reason to separate, but I can’t force them apart unless it’s a hard move.
– I can ask them to pay for something, but I can make it a hard move and just take their money.
– I can give them a reason to leave stuff behind, but I can’t just take it unless it’s a hard move.
– I can announce something bad about to happen offscreen (Jimmy’s about to fall down the well!) but I can’t have it happen unless it’s a hard move (Jimmy’s fallen down the well!).
Obviously that doesn’t really work, so I think there is some Keeper procedure that’s missing from the RAW or that needs to be implied from AW. The atempt to classify Hard Moves sounded nice to me on first read, but in practice it makes the Keeper’s procedure less then crystal clear if you’re trying to actually play it by the book.