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Author Topic: Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?  (Read 17968 times)

two_fishes

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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #15 on: January 14, 2012, 09:29:12 PM »
Quote from: silva;505082

Now, I didnt found anywhere in the text a "narrative-sharing" feature at all, at least not in the same sense as those story-games where the players have the "right" to narrate/create what happens next from his hat. Am I right in this assessment ? The game dont contain this feature, right ? Because, to be frank, Im not very fond of this kind of thing. I prefer a more traditional approach.

Can someone confirm it for me ? :confused:


In terms of parceling out the narration amongst the players, it seems fairly traditional, with final authority given to the GM.

Benoist

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« Reply #16 on: January 14, 2012, 09:34:40 PM »
Quote from: silva;505085
I know what Ive read in various rpg books since my youth. And yes, the "railroading/GM takes players by hand through a (more or less) pre-planned adventure/chronicle/story" is a feature from most of them.


EDIT: yes Ben, youve heard it right.


Ok. How old are you, and what games come to your mind when you say this?

Benoist

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« Reply #17 on: January 14, 2012, 09:46:24 PM »
Hey silva. Not trying to scare you man. I'm just trying to understand where you come from to say something like this.

silva
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« Reply #18 on: January 14, 2012, 09:50:14 PM »
Thats ok Ben. Im 32 years old. From Rio, Brazil.

Began playing with the old Fighting Fantasy books (here in Brazil called "Aventuras Fantásticas") "Wizard from Firetop Mountain", "City of Thieves" and "Citadel of Chaos". Then met AD&D, Shadowrun, Gurps and Vampire, in this order. And later met a whole lot of systems.

And - if I remember correctly - all of the games cited above explain what is a roleplaying by suggesting the GM creates a story/plot/adventure for the players, with an expected "kick-off point" (the old man in the tavern ? ;) ) and forward "chokepoints", "milestones" or "scenes" (reminds me of a flowchart) and make the characters roll on. Yes, they cite that flexibility is important, and reacting to the characters decisions, and all that... but in the end it sounded more like an illusionist thing than anything else. Well... just look at all published adventures/modules in the industry - 99% of them are predominantly linear/railroady. Only a fraction of it involve some kind of freeform / sandboxy approach.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2012, 09:58:37 PM by silva »

two_fishes

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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #19 on: January 14, 2012, 09:54:41 PM »
Quote from: Benoist;505087
Ok. How old are you, and what games come to your mind when you say this?


I think it's something that was found in a lot of TSR era GM advice, especially in modules. I remember being particularly struck by it not too long ago, reading the sample adventures from the City of Greyhawk box set. They were very much pre-plotted stories that the GM led the players through. I also encountered this sort of attitude from many more traditional players, that the GM is the storyteller, and the players are characters in the story. It's something I've seen quite recently, hearing the details of a 3.0 campaign here on campus. The GM lead the players through a story, and the climax is planned out ahead of time. I suspect it might be a lot more common than you'd like to think.

my understanding of AW, from talking to the GM who ran the game I played in is that it has a lot of advice and methods for running a situational game, where you set up characters with built-in conflicting goals, and limited resources, and you play it out, with the GM following the players' lead and responding to their actions. That sounds pretty typical of other games by V. Baker, like Dogs in the Vineyard or In a Wicked Age. It has also struck me as very similar to the style that is touted at this site as "emulation".

Benoist

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« Reply #20 on: January 14, 2012, 10:20:40 PM »
Ah man I see what you're talking about and that sucks so bad... look. I really want to address this, the difference between an adventure scenario and a script, how to build a scenario without it being railroady, ... but I don't have the time, I'm on my cellphone, and I risk going on a rant if I answer right now. Later.

arminius

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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #21 on: January 14, 2012, 10:43:34 PM »
Unfortunately, many games published since the early 80s gave story-plot-based GM advice and published adventures in that vein. Since I didn't buy modules much (even the non-railroady early D&D dungeon modules), this wasn't something I really noticed, but it seems often to have been the case even for what I would have considered the early leader in "simulationist" systems, RQ/BRP. (Probably earliest in Call of Cthulhu, but certainly later in some Elric! and RQ3 modules.)

It's still mistaken to refer to the storified/scenified/illusionist style of GMing as "traditional"--and especially to link it to systems which didn't have any particular style baked-in mechanically, but I can understand why people would get the impression.

Just look at (again) The Keep on the Borderlands (Gygax, 1979), Griffin Mountain (Jaquays, Kraft, et.al., 1981), the Wilderlands of High Fantasy (Bledsaw & Owen, 1977), the original instructions not only for designing dungeons but also outdoor adventures in OD&D (Gygax, 1974), the various adventures published for Dragonquest (most around 1981, by such authors as Gerry Klug).

The earliest heavily scene-ified scenario/campaign I've found is Master of the Desert Nomads (Cook, 1983). Shadows of Yog-Sothoth (1982) is another candidate. There may be earlier ones (Desert of Desolation?, Hickman, 1977-1982; Against the Cult of the Reptile God, Niles, 1982); the point, though, is that scene-ification didn't become a major strain in publications until somewhat into the 80's.

arminius

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« Reply #22 on: January 14, 2012, 10:58:45 PM »
Addressing the OP, I think AW has an uphill battle here due to ill-will between the author's fans and many of the posters here. But before you dismiss this as pure "tribalism", you only have to look to your own posts and consider that if you don't start by assuming that "storified is traditional", AW may look more like a correction to a path that's already off-course--or a solution looking for a problem.

Color me disinterested, but if forced to consider the game, my impression from skimming is that even though it doesn't have strong "player-empowerment", which is the usual mark of "story games", it does tell the GM to handle the game as an interactive story rather than an imagined reality, which makes it rather different from world-modeling-sandboxes with neutral GMing.

silva
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« Reply #23 on: January 14, 2012, 11:18:14 PM »
Quote
it does tell the GM to handle the game as an interactive story rather than an imagined reality, which makes it rather different from world-modeling-sandboxes with neutral GMing.

Elliot, I must disagree. From my reading, I found the author very clear about making the gameworld as real as a reality as possible, suggesting the players to act as his characters were real people living in this world, and respecting intra-world causality and logic.

Quote

In terms of parceling out the narration amongst the players, it seems fairly traditional, with final authority given to the GM.

Thanks man. I m more happy now. ;)

arminius

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« Reply #24 on: January 14, 2012, 11:52:21 PM »
I might be mistaken, true, but I've seen so many claims of the "traditional" or "immersive" properties of this or that Forge game, esp. from V. Baker, which just haven't panned out, that I just discount them heavily against the probability that the claims are coming from a perspective with which I have very little in common.

I gave a few specific reasons for my impression here (and in later posts to the same thread):  http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?p=457368#post457368

Justin Alexander
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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #25 on: January 15, 2012, 03:11:17 AM »
Quote from: silva;505009
So, anybody else have read it or played it? Am I the only to have this reaction ?


You're not the only one. It's a really great game. This and Technoir have been consuming an increasingly large portion of my gaming consciousness over the past couple months. There's some seriously exciting stuff in these games and it really does stand up during play.

Quote from: Rincewind1;505043
It's all fun and games, until you read fucking pretentious writings of the author in the matter of that RPG, and people who compare it to Next Coming of Gygax.


Yeah. We've already been over this. You haven't actually read the rulebook and whatever random ass corners of the internet you're pulling your quotes from are actually contradicted in the rulebook itself.

The fact that you keep repeating this nonsense after being explicitly corrected on it does not speak well of you.

Quote
Also - it's not terribly flexible, and of course like all true pigs, has the "THOU SHALL STICKETH BY THE RULETH" paragraph,


Case in point. Rulebook says the exact opposite. It actually includes entire chapters dedicated entirely to modifying the rules and making custom moves.

Quote from: Benoist;505089
Hey silva. Not trying to scare you man. I'm just trying to understand where you come from to say something like this.


For the past 25 years, I'd guess that at least 90% of the published modules have been of the "shut up and lemme tell you my fuckin' story" model. I think that sucks, but it doesn't surprise me that a lot of people consider that "traditional".

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;505105
I might be mistaken, true, but I've seen so many claims of the "traditional" or "immersive" properties of this or that Forge game, esp. from V. Baker, which just haven't panned out, that I just discount them heavily against the probability that the claims are coming from a perspective with which I have very little in common.


Apocalypse World does have some non-simulationist mechanics, but it's pretty firmly and steadily a traditional game. (And I say this as someone who pretty virulently argues that there is a rather huge and important distinction between STGs and RPGs that needs to be acknowledged.)

This is particularly true from the player's side of things. On the other side of the screens, AW shakes things up by giving the GM a very specific list of moves. And these moves are the full extent of what the GM does.

The temptation is to describe this as "constraining" the GM's power, but that's not really it: Baker is instead channeling the GM's power.

In a day and age where virtually every RPG just assumes that GMs are magically grown on trees, AW's approach of providing the GM with an actual structure for governing play is more than refreshing. It's needed.
Note: this sig cut for personal slander and harassment by a lying tool who has been engaging in stalking me all over social media with filthy lies - RPGPundit

Rincewind1

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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #26 on: January 15, 2012, 04:22:56 AM »
I've decided to cut down the vitriol, and perhaps actually (maybe) help silva a bit. First though, I must feed my inner hater.

Anyone who claims that normal RPGs are all about catstringing neeeds to learn how to fucking GM rather then waste time posting on forums. And Apocalypse World is a cunningly constructed deceit, that when you read it between the lines, makes you sadly agree with Pundit.

Also Alexander - learn  to read between the lines then. I'm not going to do the job that elementary school teacher should've done for you. You pretty much prove my point with that channelling the GM's power bollocks. It's about as much channelling as those liar - pyramids are channelling life's energy. Baker is the bloody Archbishop of RAWtenbury.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2012, 08:16:55 AM by Rincewind1 »
Furthermore, I consider that  This is Why We Don't Like You thread should be closed

DominikSchwager

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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #27 on: January 15, 2012, 04:29:06 AM »
Quote from: Benoist;505087
Ok. How old are you, and what games come to your mind when you say this?


Like... all trad games for which there ever was a published adventure or that had a gamemastering section.

Rincewind1

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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #28 on: January 15, 2012, 05:16:32 AM »
With that out of the way.

Silva, first of all - perhaps I lashed out too frantically, for which I apologise, but I had seen that shit too much lately on RPG.Net to not bring out one of my cannons.

Now - first of all, you must understand that prebought modules, just like RPGs, are not complete products. They are paints and easels. You as a GM make the initial sketch, but the players colour the painting with their decisions. I hope you will forgive me my pseudopoetical approach, but I like that metaphor. With prebought modules, you always should tailor with them - adjust them to the party, and create conflicts and moments of decisions in them. They can be fine suits, but you will need to tailor the hell out of them.

As for railroads in GMing - that is your duty as a GM to remove them. You need to make the players feel like THEY are the main stars of the evening, the bloody primadonnas, the big damn heroes/investigators/villains...whatever they wish to be.

Of course - being main stars does not mean being the most powerful beings of the game's world. Plenty of movies about Average Joe are a testimony to a fact that it's not needed to be a hero.

How do you do that? It's simple. You open the world for them. Start small - create a city, or a town perhaps, and few hundred miles around them. Put the villages on the map, a swamp and/or a forest perhaps. Some mysterious cursed ruins on an island, that people will warn them about when they ask them. Invent a plot, and imagine how the plot will play out if nobody special intervenes. Then think how to introduce players to that plot - I myself like the way of master Hitchcock, but there are many ways to do that. After the players discovered the intrigue or whatever, do NOT force them to pursue it if they do not desire so - but describe the consequences. If they had stolen a pile of gold from rogue's hideout that was going to be used for bribes necessary to abolish the King, you can be pretty sure that the thieves' guild will come knocking, with crossbows and poisoned daggers, to ask for their payment.

If the players will decide they'd rather take a boat and start living as tobacco farmers in Southamericus (sorry >.>) - fine. Perhaps the thieves' guild will come after them - perhaps not. Perhaps 5 years later. And after all, when they want to acquire tobacco farming land, the problems begin to pile up again - first there's a corrupt magistrate allied with a local tobacco tycoon, then there are rebels trying to secede the country from the Crown, and worst of all, an odd sort of worm seems to be plaguing the tobacco farms, and the only cure for it may be found in ancient ruins of Azteci.

And of course, if the players'd rather just farm tobacco then go adventuring in those damned ruins - then let them. Worms will eat their crops - or perhaps  they will not, and there are still many problems that just simple tobacco farmers will face, such as oppression from the Governor's tax - gatherers, bandits, bandit - rebels, opposing farmers, etc. etc.


So what I am  trying to say here is simple - just toss the players out into the world. Give them a small clue at first perhaps - like they are all a part of military unit. Nothing more then what's needed to just bind  the party at first. But after that? Just release those bloody Huns on your carefully crafted world and story, because, you see - it's not your story. It's theirs, and it's important to know that. Even in Call of Cthulhu or Trail of Cthulhu, or whatever other investigative game you are running, it's their story - if only a story about people who died to cosmic horror with their heads proud, or with heads low. Or perhaps they managed to escape the horror. Or perhaps they will never truly do so, as horror is part of them, in style of Shadow over Innsmouth.

And always, always listen to players' theories, players' input on the world, and players characters' histories - they will be full of NPCs for you.


If you will use Apocalypse World to do this to your players - sure, no problem with that. Just go and have bloody fun. But if someone tells me that I absolutely need AW to deliver this to my players, then I will ridicule such a person.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2012, 05:30:00 AM by Rincewind1 »
Furthermore, I consider that  This is Why We Don't Like You thread should be closed

Anon Adderlan

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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #29 on: January 15, 2012, 05:52:16 AM »
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;505096
Unfortunately, many games published since the early 80s gave story-plot-based GM advice and published adventures in that vein.


THE greatest irony in all this 'swine' bullshit is that so called story games such as Apocalypse World and Sorcerer actually have LESS emphasis on story than earlier so called traditional games which typically emphasized a MANDATORY story which either HAD to be followed, or couldn't be deviated from regardless of the player's actions. Neither of those two swine games have any scenarios in the form of a mandatory sequence of events or player choices, and at least one has rules specifically to prevent such, yet plenty of traditional games I know did.



Anyway, the rest of this is just me calling Rincewind1 on his bullshit, so feel free to ignore it.

Quote
Quote from: Rincewind1;505043
It's all fun and games, until you read fucking pretentious writings of the author in the matter of that RPG, and people who compare it to Next Coming of Gygax.

Blergh. I am not exactly the Ultimate Foe of Storygames, but it's one of those pretentious pieces that make me want to nuke Forge into oblivion.

Also - it's not terribly flexible, and of course like all true pigs, has the "THOU SHALL STICKETH BY THE RULETH" paragraph, which automatically sends any RPG in my eyes into a nearest trash bin. Those Forge RPG Makers really must had had some terrible GMing experiences that they try to marginize the GM's role by all costs.


Quote from: Rincewind1;505159
Apocalypse World is a piece that made me believe that Pundit actually MIGHT be right about Forge and all that comes from it.


Man I remember when your opinion of Apocalypse World was completely different back before being a persecuted minority became the next hip thing (which was about two weeks ago).

(* Quotes from RPG.NET, so you don't have to go there *)

Quote
Quote from: Rincewind1
Warhammer's mechanics were deadly - you had to immerse yourself in that grim world, or die.

AW for example premiums sex between the characters in such a way, that it really becomes a must.

I like both games, but one favours freeform more, then the other.


Quote from: Rincewind1
Quote from: Dr_Nick
Table top gaming is a social hobby. No ammount of marketing is going to bring in new players if they have to learn to play the game from most of the guys I meet down at the local game shop.
If you are trying to suggest "grognards are killing the RPG industry and keeping it down", to quote AW - if you do it, do it.


Quote from: Rincewind1
Plus, sometimes, it's just easier to grab Apocalypse World for a game about detailed interpersonal interactions in the times of Apocalypse, then to do the same in modded Traveller or BRP.


Quote from: Rincewind1
Apocalypse World is rather borderline - it has a strong mechanic that support storytelling from the players' standpoint, but it also has certain effects of classical rpgs. And both are still RPGs - because despite the Immersion vs Story's Importance, in both examples you also sometimes think of a story, and sometimes think of the immersion.


Quote from: Rincewind1
I for one found AW an interesting and well - written game


Also...

Quote from: Rincewind1;505071
No class in trolling, no class indeed.


So says the one with the Sig calling him the biggest threat to GMs around :D