It took nearly 15 sessions of play, but I think I’ve finally come to grips with being okay with relying so heavily on Face Adversity.
Last night’s session pitted the crew against an alien jungle environment that posed a threat around every tree and under ever stone. At one point in my GMing I’d have languished over the idea of calling for the same move repeatedly.
This session solidified for me what was the intent of the design all along. The varied flavor of the fictional situation shades the Face Adversity any number of ways. We had what I consider one of our most enjoyable and up tempo sessions in a while and it was all drive off snowballing hard moves thanks to a slew of triggered Face Adversity moves.
What’s an example of something just clicking for you?
Acquisition and the wealth system clicked for me when Sean Gomes used “oops, your card was denied” as a consequence of failure. It made untracked wealth start to make sense – that running out of money is a risk, not something you need to manage digit by digit.
I’m still waiting for an epiphany with really managing debt and favor well. I think I do okay, but I still feel like I’m missing something…
Aaron Griffin Debt & favors just don’t seem pressing enough. I don’t know if you’ve played The Sprawl, but during creation you have to explain where your cyberware came from. If you fucked someone over for it, add the tag +hunted. If it was supplied by a corp, add the tag +owned. If you installed it yourself, +unreliable.
Those essentially cover the situations in which a UW character would find themselves when it comes to starting debts, and you can see right off the bat GM and player alike have fictional positioning for how that debt is going to make itself part of the game.
Edited to add: I don’t mean to sound overly critical of the system or anything. I don’t think as a group we really explored where our starting debts came from or how we thought they should impact the world we play in, so that’s on us.
This will sound a little goofy but the fronts in AW didn’t click for me until I saw encountered the mission and corporate clocks in The Sprawl. I’d say that it’s because I find cyberpunk more relatable than anything else but honestly I think it’s because they’re digital clocks and not analog. 😮
Something about Fronts that clicked for me recently: the types and impulses always seemed artificial and limiting to me, but that’s on purpose! If you use the listed threat types, you get the sorts of challenges the game was designed for. Dunno why it took so long for that to click.
/sub
Aaron Griffin try bolting AW scarcity fronts onto a hero focused Pathfinder system.
It forced me to look at the driving factors outlines in AW in abstract ways. When you pick them apart critically it’s easier to find that they can be a root cause to a great many types of conflicts.
How would you fix Face Adversity if you wanted to? Split it into several Move types? It’s already split according to several characteristics you can use.
This might count as a “clicked and reset and will click again,” but the idea that the consequences of a failure don’t have to spring as a cause from the PC’s action.
FOR INSTANCE: the PCs are trying to acquire a comms kit Asset. They make an Acquisition roll and fail. I (the GM) don’t want to turn the hunt for a comms kit into some painful ordeal, but I’ve been given an opportunity here. Announce Impending Threat* is an available move: perfect!
“The trader rummages for a while before pulling out a dusty but still sealed box. ‘Last one in stock. Ever since the Candavian Radical Front stepped up their guerilla bombing campaigns on [NAME OF PLANET PCs WERE PLANNING TO VISIT], these things’ve been flying off the shelves.”
The moves are meant to pace the narrative, so anything that adheres to the moves and honors the principles should do it.
* or whatever the game names it; sorry, don’t have the book handy
John Perich I’m brushing up on Apocalypse World and what you just described is “Make your move but misdirect”. Very cool to see an example in action like that!
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