Just a thought:
If character choices (Playbook moves in PbtA games, Aspects in Fate, etc.) are signals from the player to the GM about the kind of content they want to see , stats and moves (especially the basic and MC moves) are signals from the designer to the MC for the kind of content they had in mind for the game.
When a player makes a choice about their character in terms of abilities, characteristics, instincts, and the like, it should send a clear message to the GM saying, “I want to use this in this game, please work with me to make that happen.” Otherwise, why make those choices, if they go unanswered? (This is an important point in and of itself.)
Likewise, MCs can look to the stats and moves (again, especially the basic moves) as clear choices the designer has made to indicate the sorts of situations they had in mind that the characters would find themselves in, and more specifically, the significant parts of the situations, those that they want in the spotlight and incorporating the dice to help decide what happens in the fiction. Not that MCs should be pre-planning storylines, mind you, but instead looking to the stats and moves and seeing if they get excited by the inherent stories set up by those elements.
Furthermore, the MC moves count here, too! They’re just as important a signpost for suggested content as player moves and the Agenda, Principles, and “Always Say”s, e.g. when there’s not an explicit player move for harm against another, look to the MC moves for guidance on adjudicating violent situations.
So, whether you’re designing, running, or playing a PtbA game and you’re coming up short, look to the stats and moves, not as prompts for circumventing the fiction (“I Go Aggro.” “Roll to hit.” “11!” “Okay, you deal two harm. Next?”), but as indications of fictional elements that are supported mechanically, and are therefore charged with risk and reward.
I may be wrong (or it may be obvious), but this is how it appears to me. Thoughts?
This is precisely why I feel system matters. The creator of a game intended that game to do a certain thing, which is reflected in that game’s mechanics. There’s a reason why Go Aggro, Hack and Slash, Lash Out Physically, and Kick Some Ass all work differently
This is also why I feel like there can never be a truly generic game. 😉
Certainly! The apocalypse engine makes these both very visible and very relevant in play, as you just can’t ignore the basic moves: of you trigger one, you roll.
I just love how the system approaches this by selecting a series of situations and actions that are specifically relevant to the fiction and themes the game wants to address, and attaches meaningful consequences to those, and these instantly become the core mechanics of the game. It’s direct, it’s clean, it’s elegant (in the sense of solving a complex issue in a simple and efficient way) and it is super accessible, both for players and MCs who clearly see what matters, and for prospective game designers, as it is a clear structure that can be followed (even though it’s by no means easy to do so).
Christopher Stone-Bush: Agreed, system does matter. That linking of concept and mechanics is crucial. It’s something that I’ve acknowledged for a while, but as I’m working on my first PtbA game and really digging into how this system is put together, I’m confronting this specific instance of it, hence the “obvious” disclaimer. 🙂
As to the idea of a generic game, I’m inclined to agree, it seems like one can’t create a generic game; but I also think it’s a design challenge worth taking up. I can’t yet see how you can separate purpose from mechanics; even randomly selected mechanics with no links between them set up a specific system and feel. Maybe one of these days….
Alberto Muti: I’m right there with you. The intertwining of fiction triggering moves triggering fiction is a strong one, and codifying it the way it’s been done in the PbtA games reinforces that bond.
One of my questions has been whether there’s any set of fictional situations and actions that would be inappropriate to model with the apocalypse engine. I think that it could be asserted that some work better than others, but I wonder if there are some that don’t work at all, even given correctly aligned system elements (Agenda, et al.).
There are several conversations on G+ right now about how to hack *World for playing suspense/mysteries, the prominent area where the engine doesn’t perform very well.
Tim Jensen Oh cool! One of the first things Apocalypse World inspired me to do was create a little game about lovecraftian mysteries. It has a mystery tracker for cases that is all very Baker-ish. Very much like fronts.
Dylan Nix, you are spot on in this 🙂 Glad you can see it so clearly.
Tim Jensen, I would suggest looking at Murderous Ghosts as our first PbtA design for mysteries.
And Murderous Ghosts is awesome too, though not quite what I was looking for. In the clue gathering, suspect tracking, and slowly dawning cosmic horror category. Sort of Clue (big “C” the board game) meets Call of Cthulhu is where I landed on.
Meguey Baker, thanks! Glad to hear it 🙂
Robert Burson have you had a look at Black Stars Rise? It does suspense and horror very well.
That’s cool, but what I had was for horror mysteries and it was hard scifi. Not Apocalypse World, but the GM prep was very inspired by my first read through AW.