In your experience, does the “concrete assurance, corroboration, or evidence” language in the 7-9 result of Seduce or Manipulate (in Apocalypse World 2E) produce bad play outcomes? The idea that a 7-9 then becomes a failure unless something else is produced? I’ve never noticed this as a problem myself, but I have someone asserting that it’s something he’s seen a lot of.
What do you think?
That’s a table culture thing, imo. My games haven’t produced a problem with that result.
It’s not a bad play outcome for a 7-9 to become a failure if the character can’t produce. That’s the move’s design.
That was my sense, Vincent. That this is a situation where it only works out if you can go, “Oh fuck, well, look, you can trust me cause I got this!”
Every once in a while there will be a hiccup when an MC (or GM, in similar games with similar moves) gets too locked in their mechanical preconceptions. Basically, the PC will have already provided the corroboration before the roll but the MC demands more and play freezes up a bit because there’s nothing more to say in the fiction. I’ve seen it happen three or four times.
They thought the fiction wouldn’t move forward if they couldn’t produce the thing… or what? I’m having trouble trying to think of what a bad play outcome would be other than players being dicks at the table and resenting it or something.
Robert Bohl: Right on.
There are a few fans of the game out there who think that no hit should ever ever ever become a miss or feel like one, and I’m just like, well, tough!
The thing was provided before the roll. Basically the MC punishing the player for being fictionally assertive. Not in these words, but essentially: “You should have waited to do the corroboration until after the roll now you have to do something else too.” The PC could have said just the first half of their dialogue, rolled, and said the second half on the 7-9.
Scott Udall: Oh, yeah, I do know that hiccup. It happens to me sometimes, when as MC I don’t realize that the player’s already provided the corroboration that the 7-9 requires.
But, yeah, the player’s already done their part, as far as the move’s concerned. Once that’s clear, the MC’s obliged to recognize and accept it, not to demand more.
Ah, that makes sense. I misunderstood the question, then.
I think we just came at the same question from different angles!
In addition to “Well, I have this!”, I’ve also had players go out and get that conrete evidence after the 7-9. “Okay, fine, I’ll kill Boogie now. Gimme ten minutes.”
BANG
“Here’s his head as promised. Now let’s have your end.”
I don’t think this is a problem with the move, but if I understand what you are asking, here is how I have seen players get pissed at it:
I imagine we all know (of) some players who play EVERY game like it’s an episode of Supernatural. They’re cool monster hunters who can talk their way into anyplace they want to be.(And so things go great when they are playing those games – no roll needed, welcome to the crime scene, time to get started. But in a game where bullshitting your way into a place you should not be is a big deal, and you have to roll for it, and you get 7-9 on this move, and the person at the door asks to see your badge or for a warrant or whatever, you gotta actually have something like that to show them. On that 7-9, no amount of bullshitting will convince the dedicated guard that these young dudes in flannel who pulled up in a muscle car are actually with the FBI. Some players think, “but it’s a success!” To them I say: yes, and for your success, you have learned what tools you need to proceed further. That annoys some of these people – but oh well. I think it’s those players who need to recalibrate expectations of what makes sense in the fiction rather than getting mad they did not “win” with a good roll.
If I’m the player you’re thinking of, Robert Bohl: This is not specific to one move. It’s a problem I’ve seen in a lot of PbtA games– including my own!– where the 7-9 result gets turned by the GM into effectively a failure.
For example, if I’m trying to cross a rope bridge and it’s difficult, and I roll a 7-9, the result needs to be something other than “the bridge breaks and you fall and take a shit-ton of damage.” Because that result? That’s the result I expect from a miss. Now, if the rope breaks after there’s been a soft move or two– the first 7-9 got me into a precarious position, I’m hanging onto the rope and the bridge is half-collapsing, and then I’m rolling a 7-9 on my attempt to save my life? Sure, that’s fine. The stakes were already high, and my choice to move forward with saving my own life (instead of waiting for a rescue, perhaps)– that’s on me.
Worse, I’ve been in games where the MC gave those kinds of hard choices on a 10+. Because, I don’t know– they don’t trust the player to move the fiction forward on their own? And I do think there’s something carrying over from railroady culture that leads to this, based on my own experiences having done the same during games.
Tl;dr: A lot of MCs turn a success into failure.
Stephanie Bryant – You are not; I was referring to a different reader. But yeah, I can definitely see that as a problem. I feel like the game gives you the power to say, “No, I’m sorry, the rules say I got a hit and I don’t see the hit here.”
At the table, that has not been my experience. And there is that culture (you can see it in the comments here) that if you push back on that, you’re being a bad sport or something.
I’m always ready to be a bad sport!
Stephanie Bryant Does this happen for a lot of moves for you? I really only see the unhappy reaction to seduce/manipulate and go aggro 7-9’s, I think, because the less-than-optimal results are built right into the move. I can’t even imagine being in a group that pulls that bridge meanness. 😬
Edit to add: and for all my “shrug players gotta deal” posturing, I am definitely a softie at the table when people get mad and aren’t having fun … until after the game, when I bore the hell out of them trying to explain my reading of the rules. Probably there’s a better way to GM, but boring is part of my brand, I think.
Yeah. I play with a lot of mediocre GMs at conventions and stuff. (Let me tell you about the railroady FATE game I was in sometime!)
I once played in a horrifyingly awful Dread game that the GM totally railroaded. When he would ask me for an obscene number of pulls for something reasonable, I just did them.
I don’t think anyone ever hasn’t been able to “produce”, though we’ve experienced it being irritating to lose stuff when we were never going to deliver on our promises…
The move is great. On PCs it seems like the “you get an XP”-option is chosen, I’m not sure that’s intentional. This might be better in 2nd ed.