[Apocalypse World] I just care too much

[Graham W]

Some quick notes on our third session of Apocalypse World.

A good session, this. We're heading towards a zombie ending, so this week, we had one or two zombies. They were all previous NPCs, who had died, then came back to life.

Two things I want to note.

1. The characters seemed more three-dimensional. I can think of two reasons for this: firstly, as a GM, I wasn't hitting them with fronts every five minutes. My feeling is that, although fronts advancing provokes a response from the characters, they can stop the characters developing. After all, if a load of kids invade your camp with AK-47s, there's not much choice apart from combat.

Instead of hitting them with fronts, I was responding with fuckery and setting up PC-NPC triangles. For example, Gerry (an amiable NPC) was left in charge of prisoners and decided, for fun, to shoot some of them in the stomach and watch them squirm. It led to a pretty nice scene with Ma Baker, Steve's hardholder. There were a few quirky little scenes like that, with NPCs, which I liked.

Also, the Brainer was asking people questions, which required character introspection: Ma Baker, in response to "What makes your character's body and soul vulnerable?", said "I just care too much". That helped to flesh characters out, too.

Finally, some characters had sex, which made them a little more well-rounded, just because it was interesting to see who was willing to have sex with whom.

2. I'm having trouble with some of the rules. Like, here's a situation: Adrian has found Jacky standing in the middle of the field. Jacky is now a zombie. However, Adrian is still talking to her nicely, like she's a normal person.

What do I do? What I want to do is make an attack roll, but I can't, because the MC doesn't roll dice. My second choice is that Adrian attacks her: but Adrian's not attacking her, he's talking, which is a perfectly reasonable character choice.

According to the rules, what I probably should do is narrate her about to do some harm and, if Adrian doesn't respond, hit him with harm. But I don't know. It's unsatisfying. Advice welcome.

Graham

[agony]

You kind of answer your own question Graham; if you want to attack her then attack her and ask how Adrian responds?

What do you want the zombie attack to accomplish exactly?  That me be more enlightening.

[Mikael]

I have problems with wrapping my head around some of the rules as well, but this one seems easy to me: about two "warning moves", gaining momentum, then zombie teeth tearing at PC flesh.

I prefer the warnings to be a bit more of slow build-up, but if I am sort of surprised without the chance to preshadow things, within-scene warnings will have to do: low growling and drool from the corner of the mouth, slow shuffle towards the PC, arm bloody up to the elbow.

[Graham W]

I understand what the rules are. I just find them unsatisfying in this particular situation and I'm unsure how to make them satisfying. I'm not sure it's possible.

Honestly, the first thing I'd hack about Apocalypse World, at the moment, is allowing the MC to make attack rolls.

Graham

[agony]

I understand what the rules are. I just find them unsatisfying in this particular situation and I'm unsure how to make them satisfying. I'm not sure it's possible.

Honestly, the first thing I'd hack about Apocalypse World, at the moment, is allowing the MC to make attack rolls.

Graham

I find this kind of interesting.  I'm assuming you want to make an attack roll because you don't think feel it would be right to simply cause Harm to the PC; so you want to leave it up to chance to some degree.  But why does the MC have to be the one rolling the dice for it to feel satisfying?  If you can't articulate why that's totally cool, I'm just really curious.

[lumpley]

Graham knows this, but for others, here's what the rules say now:

The MC says: "the zombie attacks you! You have a split second before it tears into your face with its teeth. What do you do?"

The player answers with something that boils down to "I go aggro," "I make a break for it," "I act under fire," some move specific to their character type, or possibly one of the other basic moves. The player rolls, and the results of the roll give the player or the MC a few more quick decisions to make. Odds are very good that the PC is going to avoid harm, although that's not a given. Either way, the MC doesn't get to carry out the attack at all; all the attack is, and all it can be, is a spur to player initiative.

...Which is philosophically pure, I guess, but I'm pretty sure I'm just being difficult. ("Maddening" is how Graham's put it elsewhere, about Poison'd.) Is there any reason why I have to design the game so that it's a pain in the ass to MC? Or can I just, y'know, give the MC something to do that's fun and easy, like make an attack roll? Dunno. I'm thinking hard about it.

-Vincent

[Krippler]

While I don't know the first thing about Apocalypse World, wouldn't it be kind of cool to have the zombies not aggro till the living do? Driven by their deep seated need for other people they try to hang around. As more people turn into zombies more gather by the human settlement. Imagine that each morning you wake up the number of walking corpses stinking the place up has doubled. Wouldn't you sooner or later hack them to pieces simply to make them move? And if the PCs don't want to kill their reanimated friends but realize all that rot is gonna make them sick they'll simply move and leave a village full of zombies behind to stand around and be a total mystery in the wasteland.

[Mikael]

This seems to be very much about personal preference. As a data point, I find it easier to just threaten and threaten and then make a fiction-justified hard move, without having to worry too much target numbers or what sort of arbitrary-ish damage I am going to deal with my attack. From my point of view, attack rolls have zero built-in fun.

Having said that, I have stated elsewhere that I might want to have some modifiers on player's rolls based on specific NPCs. I guess this is me being worried about my bad-ass NPC being too much of a push-over when faced with someone with +2hot - but I think I can do a lot with my description of both the situation and the way the person "does something the you tell them to", and I know there's the limit of 5 hold...

Vincent, does your example mean that I must not inflict harm on a PC without them rolling something first?

[Graham W]

Mmm. Actually, Vincent, I don't think I did know that. At least not exactly.

How I MCd it was this:

Graham: So she's climbing up on the tank. She looks vacant, like she's on drugs or something.
Adrian: OK, cool. I wait for her to get up. [Adrian knows she's a zombie, but is playing that his character doesn't know.]
Graham: And she's having some trouble, like there's something wrong with her. She's reaching out for you...
Adrian: OK, I give her a hand.

And all the while I'm hedging, thinking: how do I get him to attack? If he doesn't attack, there's no roll, and I can't just say "OK, she bites you, suffer 1 harm".

So what I should have done was the "split second" thing.

Graham: So she climbs the tank, grabs your arm and bites down. You've got a split second. What do you do?

Which prompts Adrian to go aggro, flee or do something else that's a die roll. If he fails the die roll, he'll suffer harm. If he chooses something that isn't a dice roll, like deciding his character freezes with terror, then he suffers harm.

That's fine. That's all the attack roll I need. It's a defense roll, actually, which is just as good.

Vincent, now I know that, I'm cool with the rules as they stand. The "split second" rule is an important part of it: it's effectively how the GM attacks. Could you put that rule in the Master of Ceremonies book that I'm not allowed to mention?

Graham

[lumpley]

Ha ha! Of course.

The split second move appears, by the way, as "announce future badness."

But so now it's just me. Hm.

-Vincent

[Graham W]

Here's something I asked on Story Games, but you just like totally ignored me because you're too popular to be seen talking to me.

You said:

I've been reflecting for a couple of weeks, in fact, on how pivotal our brainer's asking those questions, and my asking similar questions as GM, has been for our game.

And I said: what do you mean, asking similar questions as GM? How did that happen? I didn't know about that. What questions and when did you ask them?

Graham

[lumpley]

(My workplace's netnanny blocks Story Games. Sometimes I enter into a conversation on a weekend, forgetting I won't really be able to stay in it. I'm glad you asked again here.)

From the first moments of play, I was all "what's your living space like?" and "what do you do in your day?" with, y'know, active listening and whole little conversations about it. I figure the conversations to be more important than the particular details for creating depth. Adding "describe your living space" as a step in character creation wouldn't have the same effect - the conversation means that I'm bought in as a co-owner and I'm well-prepared to reincorporate things. (I figure the same about "give your character a motto," too: better to learn what a character cares about through conversation about the character, not as a simplified private step in character creation.)

I also asked about the characters' shared histories. Starting with "who's known each other the longest?" and following up on all the interesting threads and answers. "Wait, so are you two lovers?" and the two players exchange a look like "wanna? Sure."

This all throughout play, as part of play, not pre- or post-play. Along these lines: "Foster's people drag you into this little cement room. Dustwich is in there, chained to a wall. She looks terrible, they've kicked the living shit out of her. Hey, how long have you known Dustwich?" So while Foster's people beat the character, the player and I have a conversation about the character's history and relationships. Then when the player has her character make a break for it, what about Dustwich? is a compelling question.

Anyhow, then Mary had sex with Roark (an NPC) and we all got a deep brain scan glimpse into Roark's head, and I think that it was a signal to us all. Like, if even ROARK had inner depths, everybody must. "Aha, that kind of game," we all said, so that's the kind of game we played.

Later in the game, I did ask some more brainer-like questions, under psychic-maelstrom-intense circumstances. It fit so well that I wished I'd thought of it sooner. So I think I'm going to add it to the rules: when a character opens her brain, on a 7-9 the MC can (and should, generally) ask about the character's past or inner life, and on a missed roll the MC should ask especially probing questions.

-Vincent

[Graham W]

That bit about asking players questions sounds incredibly important. I haven't been doing it. Well, I've asked a bit about how the encampment works, but not about character history.

On psychic maelstrom brain opening:

So I think I'm going to add it to the rules: when a character opens her brain, on a 7-9 the MC can (and should, generally) ask about the character's past or inner life, and on a missed roll the MC should ask especially probing questions.

Could I persuade you to do it the other way round? On a 10+, you ask especially probing questions; on a 7-9, you ask (perhaps less probing) things about the character's past or inner life. It makes opening your brain to the psychic maelstrom risky, somehow: the more you find out, the more you reveal about yourself.

Graham

[lumpley]

Sure! Play it that way and tell me how it goes.

-Vincent

[Matt Wilson]

Pardon my nosy intrusion.

So while Foster's people beat the character, the player and I have a conversation about the character's history and relationships.

Presumably captured and tortured is a move the MC makes, yeah?

So how does your group figure out how much mileage you get out of a move? Is the MC like, no, you don't get to make a break for it yet, because Foster needs to give you a few more paper cuts? At what point do I get to be like, dude, I'm escaping this place!