One thing that I am having a hard time wrapping my head around is how experience is earned. The issue is that if you have someone highlight a combat related stat, and there is a decent amount of conflict in a session, it seems like someone could get a few advances a session. Now that might be by design, I am not sure. Is that how it works? Or is there a limit on how many advances you can get in a single session? I’ve read things over a few times, and unless I am just missing it, I don’t see any limit.
Enlighten me please.
That’s by design; there is no limit. Some games — like Monsterhearts — say you can only gain one XP per highlighted stat per scene (i believe — it might be per move per highlighted stat, its been a couple years).
The point of highlighting stats is to say “hey, I want to see you do THIS this game.” This works better in the open-ended game structure of Apocalypse World where the MC is not preparing scenarios, and is instead just presenting the world to the players. If someone highlights your Hard, and you know there’s some guys over there in need of a head knocking, then there’s really not too much inconvenience getting that XP.
When AW hacks drift further afield into structured adventure, highlighted stats become slightly more troublesome insofar as, well, who knows what stats are going to get their workout if no one realizes that its time for a slow and quiet thriller ‘episode.’
No you are in the right. Some sessions people will get multiple advances. Others they might get none. Highlighting is essentially your vote for what the PC will do this session. They can work with it (and advance) or against it. In general I find it averages out. Typically i find players who push hard make an advance or two on average per session.
As far as I know you get the xp every time you roll that stat. No exceptions. If someone highlights hard then you are going to see some combat. That’s ok. Once I highlighted an entire groups cool just to see them take more risks. It worked great.
That’s how it works. There’s no limit on how many advances per session.
There is no limit! Here’s how I’ve seen it play out, though:
1. Apocalypse World is super player-driven. Let’s say we’re playing a game and my Sharp and Weird attributes are highlighted. It’s in my best interest as a player to put myself into situations that make use of those attributes. And, because a fellow player and the MC were the ones who highlighted those attributes, chances are I’ll be seeing those challenges come my way!
2. Combat tends to be quick and decisive, and there are things to do during a fight besides Roll+Hard. A player with Sharp highlighted might prioritize reading the sitch, feeding helpful information to the other characters. Someone else might try to reach an objective, Acting Under Fire.
3. The only way you should wind up with a ‘decent amount of conflict in a session’ is if you create it deliberately. If you know you’re planning on a twist that leads to a lot of fights, make sure that YOU highlight Hard for people! 🙂
The reason that I think there might be some violence happening is that the group has specifically said that their intention is to be mercenaries. They have a bounty hunter and a scoundrel in the group that they want to use to keep the gigs coming. I don’t have any ideas on where this will take them, I sort of trust them to cause their own issues. I just see them doing a gig, and getting a bad roll on it, and things going all combaty. It will be interesting to see how highlighted stats influences them.
Thanks again for the help guys.
In PbtA games like AW or SWW or whatever, people can be mercenaries, but that doesn’t make it a mercenary game — the game is still a sandbox. Sure, a ton of combat may happen, but you’re representing the wide wide world/galaxy and not every thing they bump into will be target practice, and not all the fallout of their actions will be toting guns.
Alfred Rudzki That’s certainly what I am hoping is the case here as well. I think 3 or 4 of the players have crews/gangs/techs of some sort. So there will be those personalities in the mix causing trouble. They will have contacts that they get gigs from, and all the different people they interact with. Rival groups are always out there as well. Hell, the clients and the targets are all good sources as well.
I asked them if they wanted to be ship or ground based, and they said ship, so sadly I will not have just one place were trouble brews. We will just have to see where the drama pops up at during their first day where we just follow them through their day.
There are potentially many threats and sources of drama. I am not really trying not to think about them however because I don’t want to start getting stories going in my head before they start giving me some seeds to work with.
So their intention is to merc it up, but I am sure things will go sideways on them and they will get pulled in to something thats fun and not just about fighting other peoples battles.
One thing that I predict is that something will happen and they will just say “We have a space ship, this is too sticky of a situation, lets go to a new sector/planet.” Which is fine, but it just sets up a building off screen threat. I can’t wait to get to have their bad situations return to them fully matured.
In AW in particular, combat happens fast. It’s rare that any given PC needs to make more than 2 +Hard rolls in a scene. So you won’t see more than 1 advance per PC per session very often.
Two things to watch for in this: tracking that one player isn’t rolling hella more than others, and tracking moves snowballs. The first can build resentment; shift the action around, give everybody a chance to roll. The second can bring on the advances alongside the pain, and at a remarkable clip too.