Originally shared by T. Franzke
Reading the Apocalypse World fight scene example (again) makes me so want to play/MC this game again.
Just glorious.
Example here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1he1eh174fuxdk0/Apocalypse%20World%20-%20A%20Combat%20Example.pdf
Example with commentary:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1he1eh174fuxdk0/Apocalypse%20World%20-%20A%20Combat%20Example.pdf
I know, so evocative right? Folks seem hell-bent on making custom moves to cover ‘situations’ that they feel the vanilla moves don’t cover straight out of the box. But they do! I like showing potential players this example along with DW’s 16 HP dragon. So awesome.
Wanna start a game sometime soon Tim? I’m finished my course now, so I have more free time 🙂
I might be yes. In what timezone are you?
And i totally at the “handle it with basics and GM moves whenever you can” camp.
Ha. I’m in Australian Eastern Standard 🙂
Early Morning gaming for one of us.
Vanilla: flavor most underappreciated.
Just a comment here;
Combat in AW doesn’t take into account the capabilities of the opponent. Poorly skilled, or expertly trained, you have all the same chance of taking them down.
What are your thoughts on this?
Combat in AW takes these things into account.
Hey Richard Extall Can you explain your reasoning? Im curious. In my experience, the MC can use tags to cater to these variables and also choose their moves accordingly.
To add to what Nathan said (which I agree with), people who are “harder” make harder moves in my games.
If young SallyButtercup has never used a heavy shotgun in her life and opens fire on you it might knock her on her butt. If Buttercup is a badass battle babe she can reload the thing with 1 hand and shoot at you while running along the wall.
Hi Tim Franzke & Nathan Roberts
Yes, I agree, we can handle this in the narrative, and to a degree reflect this in the type of Moves they make, but mechanically, when it comes to the dice roll crunch, I have the same chance of successfully going aggro against an idiot with a gun as I do going against a ex-special forces survivor of the apocalypse.
Has anybody tried a solution to this? or is it just a case of handling it narratively?
Sure. Maybe you decide that you can’t go aggro against this hard-as-nails survivor, the move just doesn’t trigger. Or maybe you write a custom move… When you go aggro on the Ex-special forces survivor, roll +Barter spent, since it doesn’t matter squat how hard you are. Or maybe you just roll with the move as is ( I would).
On a 10+ the bad ass would just suck it up every time
On a 7-9 they could chose any of the options really and colour them according to what the player thinks they want to hear.
On a miss I’d Love love love to turn the player’s move back on them.
Richard Extall the main difference is how hard it is to get to a point where you can make the roll.
On the other hand it is also not a problem when you roll and have the same chances. That is now what AW is about.
Hi Nathan Roberts ,
Thanks for the reply.
So, perhaps a custom Move would probably be the way to go for situations which are beyond the ordinary or require special consideration?
Are there any guidelines anywhere regarding the creation of custom Moves?
In the book yes. In the advanced fuckery chapter.
But I am not a big fan of handling that stuff with extra moves. It is not my job to make sure my hardass NPCs are hard to kill. I’d rather see them dead.
No worries Richard Extall Yup, there is a whole chapter called Advanced Fuckery for just that purpose 🙂
Vincent encourages you to have a play with the form. I’d encourage you to listen to the What’s in a move? Masterclass discussion run by Pete Figtree last month, its full of good ways to perceive and adjust what moves are and what they accomplish in the fiction of the game.
Tim Franzke
I agree. The ‘getting there’ will definitely be much more difficult. But when it comes to the crunch, the actual dice roll, your odds of success against one or the other are the same. Because everything is player/character-centric, the mechanics of the game only take into account the character and doesn’t take into consideration their opponent. Its not only about how good I am, its about how good I am in relation to my opponent.
I probably agree with Nathan Roberts and say that a custom move would be required.
But from a philosophical standpoint I don’t think it is required.
Both ways work yes? Make a custom move if you like, or go with the basic move (I would).
I think though Richard Extall that the mechanics of AW go far, far beyond a dice roll+stat. Its a very nuanced system, where narratively, there is no such things as ‘fluff’ separate from the ‘mechanics’. The story is the mechanics.
I would suggest that Tim Franzke and I have given you a few ways of appeciating how the fiction is influenced by not only the mechanic of rolling +stat, but also the tags of the opposition, PC moves, the MC’s understanding of their NPCs and honing their MC moves by using their principles to set stakes in the fiction. Everything you own as MC is a target, that is mechanically dictated through the principles.
Richard Extall the MC narrative choices in AW are equivalent to mechanics. Separating the moves from the MC decisions that trigger them is like discussing half a system, and then trying to fix it with new custom mechanics. Sure, you can do that and make something that’s more to your taste, but required? Nope.