Where does “hard and soft moves” come from?

Where does “hard and soft moves” come from?

Where does “hard and soft moves” come from?

In discussing PbtA games, I often hear talk of hard and soft moves, but in my (admittedly limited) reading of the books themselves, I have yet to come across the term.

What game innovated this language? What games use it?

(Note: I’m not seeking definitions of hard and soft moves, here. I just want to understand the idea’s origins.)

47 thoughts on “Where does “hard and soft moves” come from?”

  1. Dungeon World starting on page 164 it describes what Hard and Soft moves are and what it means for a player to ignore a Soft Move.

    Monster of the Week (revised) pages 174 and 175 describes what these mean as well in its terms.

    Monster of the Week May have been the first to spell it out though since I think it was the ‘first’ Pbta game following AW1e

  2. AW page 89 (in 2e, not sure about the page # in 1e but the text is the same:

    “Generally, limit yourself to a move that’ll (a) set you up for a future harder move and (b) give the players’ characters some opportunity to act and react. A start to the action, not its conclusion.

    “However, when a player’s character hands you the perfect opportunity on a golden plate, make as hard and direct a move as you like. It’s not the meaner the better, although mean is often good. Best is: make it irrevocable.”

    So no specific reference to “soft” moves but you can see where the language came from. IIRC, the idea was already well established on the Barf Forth forums by the time the game was published.

  3. On page 117 of the first edition PDF:

    “Generally, limit yourself to a move that’ll (a) set you up for a future harder move, and (b) give the players’ characters some opportunity to act and react. A start to the action, not its conclusion.

    However, when a player’s character hands you the perfect opportunity on a golden plate, make as hard and direct a move as you like. It’s not the meaner the better, although mean is often good. Best is: make it irrevocable.”

    Reiterated on 142 and by example throughout. The phrase “hard move” appears in the text 8 times. But “soft move” never does.

    ETA: In fact, Vincent only used the word “soft” five times — in “soft body” and “soft face” for character descriptions.

  4. Forum culture makes a lot of sense for how this became a thing and why I don’t know it (plus being not that into dungeony stuff).

    And interesting that so much grew out of that implication in the original text.

  5. I’m looking for 2 things:

    1) the origin of the idea of hard and soft moves

    2) what games use hard and soft moves

    Hard moves alone are outside the spectrum of this (except how their presence in AW suggested soft moves to some people).

    Honestly I guess at this point the better way to say this would “Who innovated the term ‘soft moves,’ and what games use soft moves?”

  6. Christopher Weeks – Disagree that hard moves necessarily imply soft moves. From my reading of AW, “hard” is an intensifying adjective meant to remind you of how your moves should feel.

  7. In AW a “hard move” is no more a thing than a “soft move” is. He only says “as hard a move as you’d like.” Hard is regular language in AW, not jargon or game terminology.

    I agree with the others that the soft/hard distinction came from discussions about the game in order to help others (and themselves) understand the system.

    Two of the second generations pbta games encode the soft/hard distinction in their texts (Monster of the Week and Dungeon World) and two do not (Monsterheart and Saga of the Icelanders).

  8. Robert Bohl I mentioned earlier Dungeon World and Monster of the Week using both terms and defining them.

    They were both two of the earliest games to use the Apocalypse engine besides I think Monsterhearts (which only defines hard moves).

  9. I believe the Soft/Hard distinction originates from a web post discussion. I’m not sure of the exact post who did it but I’m just about 100% it wasn’t in a book first.

    Pretty sure it’s from John Harper tho.

  10. Urban Shadows had a specific breakdown of Soft, Softer, Hard, Hardest and what that looked like, and a fair amount of guidance as to when to use which kinds of moves.

    That was something that we similarly borrowed for The Watch – those are all described in detail in the MC chapter, along with guidance as to how to not screw your players so often that it becomes unfun.

  11. William Nichols I mean, I’m not going to claim Drew came up with it. It may have arisen from forum discussions. But that’s the first game that I saw that articulated that clearly in the game text.

  12. Robert Bohl cool got ya. Just naming off some early games I remember first reading he terms in and spelling out when and how to portray them.

    At least regardless of when the terminology was put to page it’s all the same thing.

    Hard moves mean real and true bad business for the player while soft moves are just setting up that hammer to drop if ignored.

  13. I don’t find “what hard and soft moves are” very clear but I haven’t read any texts that use them yet. It sounds like The Watch has a method that’s closest to my preferences.

    To me, the fan consensus on what those mean is not as interesting as what any particular game says. I run games rules as written.

  14. Here’s an example:

    Using dungeon world as an example,

    Fighter rolls a 7-9. He succeeds but with a complication (I get to make some soft move) so I say: “Yeah you hit that orc alright, stabbed him right in the belly… but now your sword is stuck and that ogre flailing a tree stump is coming up on you hard.

    What do you do?”

    My soft move was a few things:

    Put someone in a spot (the fighter)

    Show signs of impending danger (the ogre)

    Turned their move back on them (their hack and slash got their sword stuck)

    You could say use up resources as well I suppose since his sword is stuck in the belly of the orc.

    Finally I could add “Ok so you can defy danger with Dex to avoid the ogre or you can defy danger Str to spend the moment pulling your sword free but you’re probably going to get smacked by that tree stump. What do you do?” and that’s the move ‘tell them requirements and consequences and ask.’

    A hard move might’ve been like,

    Fighter rolls a 6-,

    Same deal because I’m a generous gm (and a fan of the players’ characters) I’d say, “ok you deal your damage to the orc but you were so focused on this tough bastard that you didn’t even see the ogre with the tree stump coming! He brings his huge gnarly club around hitting you hard! (Take X damage)!”

    Or I could make it softer, not deal the damage, and instead say, “your armor takes the blow crumpling in (I’m using up resources, I’m damaging his armor) and sending you flying across the room into Snarlbad (the group wizard). You both fall to the ground in a heap, the ground is shaking like crazy when the ogre leaps into the air above you.

    He’s going to bring that tree stump down on the both of you in a moment.

    What do you guys do?!”

    Or harder, “you take X damage, your armor is crumpled from the massive blow and you release your sword as you’re sent hurtling across the cavernous chamber. You land hard and slide across the dirt floor when you suddenly realize the ground is gone from under you and begin to slide further into the darkness over the ledge. Make a defy danger Dex to grab the edge and hold on!”

    You basically just as always follow the particular game’s GM moves that they have written out for you when opportunities present themselves.

    Maybe a soft move is simply smoke on the horizon as the characters eat some breakfast at their favorite local tavern. What’s that? You might not even know yet. Do they go out to discover what it is? Yes? Cool, there’s an adventure hook. No, they don’t go and investigate? Ok well the: dragon wipes out a town; the forest fire rages forward; the goblin horde advances… and so on.

    I mean you could be a real dick too with hard moves. That ogre? He hit you really effing hard. Your arm is limp and your shoulder is on fire, there’s definitely something broken. You can’t use your right arm… shit and that’s your sword arm isn’t it? Oops.

    But the whole thing is follow the fiction, be true to the tone of the game, all of that stuff.

  15. I can’t speak to its origin, but tremulus has a hard/soft move description. The soft move would be “You see a police car pull up outside, lights flashing. What do you do?” The hard move would be: “The police lunge at you from behind the truck and pin you to the hood of your car. What do you do?”

    The other example involved an enemy with a knife. In the soft move, he jumps out with the weapon bared. In the hard move, he jumps from hiding and stabs you. Then: “What do you do?”

    In both cases, the soft move gives you a chance to avert all the threat a new situation presents, while a hard move doesn’t.

    That’s how I read it, anyway.

  16. This is basically just reiterating what’s already been said above, but since you’re interested in specific examples, here’s what MASHED says:

    “Soft Moves

    You’re making soft moves whenever you establish the fiction, introduce situations, and give players a chance to react after a ‘weak hit’ (i.e., a move result of 7-9). When you make a soft move, follow it up by asking “What do you do?” For instance, “The delirious Chinese POW grabs a scalpel from the tray and staggers to his feet. He doesn’t see you. What do you do?” or “Your diagnosis reveals that Private Sanders’ wound must have been self-inflicted. What do you do?”

    Hard Moves

    You make a hard move when you narrate an immediate, irrevocable consequence to an established threat. You might do this when a player ignores the setup that you introduced with soft moves, or when a player ‘misses’ ( i.e., gets a move result of 6 or less). Make the consequence as light or severe as you want, as long as it makes sense and follows from what’s already been established. For instance, you might say “The delirious soldier turns and sees you. Surprised, he grabs your company clerk and holds the gleaming blade at his throat!” or “Private Sanders lies there, motionless. You see what appears to be an empty bottle of pills clutched in his hand.” As always, ask “What do you do?””

  17. Page 129 of the second edition Apocalypse World book uses the term hard move. I don’t have the PDF of the first edition with me.

    “I dive for—”

    Sorry, I’m still making my hard move. is is all misdirection.

    “Nope. ey cooked it o and it goes o practically at your feet. Let’s see … 4-harm area messy, a grenade. You have armor?””

  18. Right so like, no “soft moves” in AW. And not any “hard moves” either, as a game term, I’d say. As I said above, I think in AW “hard” is not a categorizer of moves, it’s an adjective reminding you to make your moves hard. Like, as someone else said, “Deal a mighty blow” or something. There’s not mighty blows and weak blows as game terms, but maybe there’s a power called “Deal a mighty blow.” Well, the MC has “Make as hard a move as you think you need to.”

  19. If hard (moves) can be interpretted as reflective of Hard (stat), then it has me thinking of Soft as an implied stat you could maybe build moves off of; like, maybe Soft = -1*(Hard).

  20. “Hard move” is definitely used as jargon in some of those eight occurrences. At least in advance combat moves and custom moves contributed by other authors near the end of the book.

  21. The Quantum Move (“Schrödinger’s Move”): All moves simultaneously exist in both a hard and soft state until triggered by a player and expressed in the fiction by the MC.

  22. I just deleted my own post because John totally contradicted it at the exact same moment, and now I have to go find where I actually saw it the first time. 😛

    Looking up earlier in the thread, at least I know I am in good company in totally misremrmbering that post. 🙂

  23. In trying to find the first place I’d read the concept of “soft moves,” I found multiple different forum discussions or blog posts crediting the same source: John Harper’s Mighty Atom post, linked above. It’s funny, since he does not in fact use the word “soft,” nor does anyone in the comments. So, I think it’s fair to say that the term was already in use in forums by then (one example above dates weeks before John’s post), but that blog post helped a lot of people understand the concept of some moves being harder than others … and then they filled in the blank for what to call “less hard moves” on their own blogs and forum posts.

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