Do you “win” on a 10+ for go aggro?

Do you “win” on a 10+ for go aggro?

Do you “win” on a 10+ for go aggro?

The go aggro move says if you get a 10+, they have to choose to either give you what you want, or force you to hurt them.

I’m writing a similar rule, and one of my readers said, “Isn’t this a failure?”

My take is that this move is meant to indicate that trying to force someone through violence is never a reliable method to get what you want.

What do you think?

29 thoughts on “Do you “win” on a 10+ for go aggro?”

  2. I agree with your read. Go aggro is about putting your target in a tough spot, not about success. You might get what you want, but you’re handing the keys to the Escalation Machine to your target. AW isn’t a game about clean, easy decisions. If go aggro was reliable, it would be the wrong move for the game.

  3. Yeah, you don’t win in the sense of ‘I roll to convince your character to do something.’ But if I’m not mistaken, this is one of only a couple of ways of reliably bringing violence to bear without risking taking violence yourself (as opposed to seize by force). Still not a ‘win’ unless you want to hurt someone without risk and can’t, you know, maneuver into being able to sucker them.

  4. I can’t speak for Vx and Meg, but I think that’s a good read on it.

    For most of the moves in AW that somehow try to make other people do stuff, it seems to be the case that the person being manipulated has a lot more agency when they’re being manipulated by non-violent means (contrast Hypnotic and In-brain puppet-strings, for instance).

  5. Actually, for contrast, take a look at mix it up from The Sprawl. I can’t remember the exact move offhand, but I do recall that on a 7+, you get your objective. You just get it. 7-9 produces some additional complications, but it’s consistently a win, which fits the hypercompetence nature of that game.

  6. Adam D Great example! The move goes like this:

    When you use violence against an armed force to seize control of an objective, state that objective and roll Meat.

    7+: you achieve your objective

    7-9: choose 2:

    – you make too much noise. Advance the relevant Mission

    Clock

    – you take harm as established by the fiction

    – an ally takes harm as established by the fiction

    – something of value breaks

    So roll 10+, it’s a total, unmitigated succes. You don’t even take harm. AW is a lot more about making that compromise.

  8. Robert Bohl It’s still there as a battle move isn’t it? Either way, the answer to your question is that there’s no ‘I convince your character to do something’ move. There are only shades of it that aren’t reliable, as you’ve suggested. Even seduce/manipulate requires you to promise them something in return, which I guess comes pretty close.

  11. I think success and failure are a bad paradigm to build AW moves on, because one of their best advantages is that they don’t have to rely on setting those expectations before the roll.

  12. I’m the reader in question. For me, the difference is in the name of the Move. Go Aggro implies you are ready to hurt someone, but you might discover they cave on you, and you get that in return.

    The Move in Bohl’s game is sort of the opposite. It’s called Coerce with violence. So you pick that move because you want something else, but might end up hurting them.

    I don’t know. In the first one, you want violence, but on a good roll may get something else positive. In the second, you want something non-violent, but on a good roll might end up with violence.

    I think there is a difference, but maybe I’m reading too much into it.

  13. It’s not a (full-on, clear) success, but I think of it as a way of circumventing the “mind control” problem you get in a lot of games. I.e., player wants something from an NPC, player rolls a nat 20, player expects NPC to consent to absolutely all their demands no matter how bizarre. Like Nicolaj points out, the game goes out of its way to preserve agency (and to extend consent, even to NPCs).

  14. Rob: what’s the text of the move you’re working on? Words are super tricksy and “I’m writing a similar rule” is not clear enough for me to see what you’re asking.

    Also, Johnstone Metzger has it. As Vincent says (here in our kitchen where we are chatting about this): it says hit and miss, not succeed and fail. That word choice is very intentional.

    Tying hitting with a 10+ to succeeding is not a helpful or solidly useful way to design moves. Like I said on twitter the other day, designing good moves for PbtA games is Not Easy.

  17. Coerce with violence

    When you coerce with violence, make it clear what you want from your victim, and what you’ll do to him. Roll+Brutish. On 10+, he has to choose:

    * Force your hand and endure your wrath

    * Bend to and obey your will

    On a 7-9, he can choose 1 of the above, or 1 of the following:

    * Make way for you, with urgency

    * Seek certain refuge from your fury

    * Offer you what he believes you want, or want to hear

    * Relent slowly, meekly, showing no threat

    On a miss, the Demiurge may ensure savagery turns against you in some way, now or in time.

  20. If the player reads any of the 10+ outcomes as “failure,” my first guess would be that they chose the wrong move for the situation.

    In this case, why is the player rolling to coerce with violence if they don’t want to follow through on their threat? If they just want to bluff, shouldn’t they be rolling to seduce or manipulate (or whatever the Demihumans equivalent is) with the threat of violence as their leverage?

    Or to flip it around, why is the player rolling to go aggro if they don’t want the target to cave? If they just want to deal damage, wouldn’t one of the handful of battle moves be more appropriate?

  21. I very much agree with Sebastian Baker here. I don’t see in what way “Go Aggro” is a loose-loose situation, since you know from the start that if the target doesn’t cave than he/she is toast (on a 10+, that is). Leverage in “Manipulate” can be the threat of violence, so if you’re bluffing and don’t really want to follow through with the threat than “Manipulate” is what you should be rolling. Also, and very relevant, is that “Go Aggro” seems to me to be a thematic move that fits the fast and hard, “don’t think too much” world of AW. It may NOT be a move that fits thematically in your game.

  22. Go Aggro has a philosophy of Vincent’s that I agree with: when you perpetrate violence against someone, that player is the one given options – even if they only get bad choices.

    Its about making sure the victim (which may be another PC) isn’t being robbed of all their agency.

  23. Adrian Thoen That is right, but I would say that it’s actually part of a more general philosophy of design that was discussed back in the days of the Forge, in which rolling for social conflict is very desirable over endless inter-player bickering but player agency should always be conserved. In other words, a roll should never dictate what a loosing PC actually does (for NPCs it’s not so problematic, but the same choice is there). In first edition of AW this was somewhat “violated”, requiring an Act Under Fire to refuse, but 2ed got it right.

  24. In my experience some players really don’t get the whole Go Aggro/Manipulate distinction. I had a player who literally every time would announce he was Going Aggro and get confused by the 10+ result. He had Hard +2, and thought that should make him good at intimidating people. His Hot-2 made the safer option much less likely to go in his favour.

    So yeah… the Move makes sense but isn’t intuitive.

  26. Pedro Pereira – The Hard equivalent is Brutish, and I’ve got playable orcs and trolls. “Do violence don’t think too much” is totally on theme. 🙂

  27. Robert Bohl when I said “you” I actually meant anyone’s game and not specifically your game, but yeah, based on the move description you gave, it was clear your game wasn’t about sunny Sunday walks in the park 🙂

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