[Apocalypse World] Authority in Action

[Moreno R.]

This thread is a duplicate of "[D&D 3.5] Authority in action (split)", but with a different game.

Why? Because with D&D 3.5 I have difficulties in seeing where is the border between outcome authority and narration authority. In that thread Luke Mula used Apocalypse World as an example, and I wanted to ask some questions about that specific case, but I didn't want to hijack the thread.

Apocalypse World Example:

My Gunlugger is in a fight with a group of bandits. At a certain point I decide to use the move "seize by force" to take their car and flee the scene leaving them stranded.  Ron, if I understand what you mean with "situation authority", all this I described, the decision to fight, the authority to say "I am going to take their car" and the MC saying that they are shooting me is situation authority, right?

A couple of doubts:
1) If the bandits were parts of a front, I take that their existence at that place was content authority (the MC used content authority writing the fronts). If they weren't in any front but they were added as a "plausible presence" as an Hard Move from the MC, it's still content authority (seeing that they are part of the setting now) or it's situation authority (seeing that they were simply the MC move in the scene)? The MC used what authority to put them there?

2) If I had used the "read a sitch" move, the narration of the MC after a successful roll is both the narration of a success (narration authority) and the description of the scene as "it already was in the gaming world fiction". That narration can be of part of the geography, too. How do you see the authority differences here?

Returning to my "seize by force" move, I roll, and I get a partial success. This mean that I can choose 2 events from the list.
- Outcome authority: is the the roll of the dice (can an authority be given to a die?), or it's the specific choice of items from the list, or both?
Let's say that I choose "take definite hold" and "suffer little harm". The MC then describe the way I jump on the car and drive away (narration authority, I suppose) and looking at the wapon table decide the amount of damage the bandits should be able to inflict, reduce it by 1 ("little harm"), reduce it by my armor, and say if I am hit or not and where and with how much damage.  All the part before this narration (deciding the standard damage the bandits do, applying the rules, calculating the final damage) what authority is?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Moreno,

I'll break my usual habit and answer line by line.

Why? Because with D&D 3.5 I have difficulties in seeing where is the border between outcome authority and narration authority.

I am currently musing over the possibility that in some games, the procedures cram two (or more) authorities together such that you can't tell the difference, or rather, that they are both there, but the same spoken sentence accounts for both (or however many). In D&D 3.5, and many other games, Narration authority is exerted in tandem with Outcome authority - you see them both in the same sentences.

Which leads me to two minor ideas: (i) that many arguments during play arise because people aren't happy with one of the authorities thus exerted, but the speaker is defending the other or both; and (ii) that IIEE is really an example of authorities operating in very fine grain, and therefore the fact that systems can be I/IEE, II/EE, et cetera et cetera, should open our eyes to the same at more coarse levels.

Apocalypse World Example:

My Gunlugger is in a fight with a group of bandits. At a certain point I decide to use the move "seize by force" to take their car and flee the scene leaving them stranded.  Ron, if I understand what you mean with "situation authority", all this I described, the decision to fight, the authority to say "I am going to take their car" and the MC saying that they are shooting me is situation authority, right?

A couple of doubts:
1) If the bandits were parts of a front, I take that their existence at that place was content authority (the MC used content authority writing the fronts). If they weren't in any front but they were added as a "plausible presence" as an Hard Move from the MC, it's still content authority (seeing that they are part of the setting now) or it's situation authority (seeing that they were simply the MC move in the scene)? The MC used what authority to put them there?

Content Authority. The Hard Move could have used material that was already known/established, in which case it would have been only Situation Authority, but since the MC invented material which back-dates or up-dates it or expands content, it's Content Authority.

This may also be an example of the combination-concept I mentioned above, in that exerting Content Authority in such a dynamic, in-your-face, this-is-happening fashion, that it's also Situation Authority. Whereas bringing in the bandits as a feature of a front, perhaps writing them down as part of preparation, would have been Content Authority alone - and important as such too, because only this particular person (the MC) can do that in this game.

2) If I had used the "read a sitch" move, the narration of the MC after a successful roll is both the narration of a success (narration authority) and the description of the scene as "it already was in the gaming world fiction". That narration can be of part of the geography, too. How do you see the authority differences here?

Same thing exactly. The only difference is that the MC is using a cue from the player to do it, rather than a Hard Move on his or her own initiative.

Returning to my "seize by force" move, I roll, and I get a partial success. This mean that I can choose 2 events from the list.
- Outcome authority: is the the roll of the dice (can an authority be given to a die?), or it's the specific choice of items from the list, or both?

Both, and because English is a little bit ambiguous for this concept, I'll make sure to include the two items you chose, not merely the fact that there's a list to choose from and you get two.

Let's say that I choose "take definite hold" and "suffer little harm". The MC then describe the way I jump on the car and drive away (narration authority, I suppose) and looking at the wapon table decide the amount of damage the bandits should be able to inflict, reduce it by 1 ("little harm"), reduce it by my armor, and say if I am hit or not and where and with how much damage.  All the part before this narration (deciding the standard damage the bandits do, applying the rules, calculating the final damage) what authority is?

You're right that the MC's description of your two items is Narration authority. But notice that the item you chose requires another consultation of the text to determine some more concrete outcomes, hence the MC rapidly switches to Outcome authority to determine the final damage. And as you probably already figured out, when he or she describes it, that'll be Narration - in this case, it's probably another example of mashing the two authorities together in the same verbal delivery, which was not the case for the immediate mechanics/events of your "seize by force" move.

H'mmm. I think that made a lot of sense.

Best, Ron