Hey look, it's Chaosvoyager to threadcrap again and tell us:

I am better then you.

I still find it a decent RPG. It's just cunts like you who claim it to be the God On Earth of RPGs, and claiming that "oldschool RPGs are only good for catstringing, yo" I despise. I even said here that there are parts of it I like. Hells, I'd buy Vinnie a beer, if it was not for the fact that catering to the likes of you probably makes him a hipster fuck as well.

And yes, I do consider it a RPG, and a decent one, except that whole "Thou Shall Play As Written" attitude - which discards it in my eyes. But I guess reading comprehension's too much to bother, ey? Not to mention that only an ass never changes opinions. There are great pearls there, but there are also crude turds, and I for one will protect someone from the smell of shit, if I can.

In fact, just to be fair - I will hurt something I love by saying that GUMSHOE's game, Esoterrorists, is also written in a pretentious manner - the whole "You were a rollplayer, now you are a roleplayer" crap is found there. Fortunately, Trail of Cthulhu can deliver a good game without jumping on high horse of hipstershit - and that's why I love it. There is a slight smell of I am better then yourism in it, but not as much as in AW or Esoterrorists, which is why I am also going to say - stay the hell away from Esoterrorists.

Also, here I say good things about AW and I am not ashamed of it.

Quote from: Rincewind1;505047Says the lad who bothered to, oh wait, answer me?

:forge:

Of course, if you prefer that your character is good at shooting people because he just had sex with another character  rather then because he trained shooting guns, this is a game for you.

The sex mechanic, irony aside, I actually like - but I'm adapting it for a game in spirit of "Here I Stand" - PCs gain special XPs when they defend their Protestant or Catholic beliefs.

So without much further ado.

Learn how to fucking GM.

And cry harder. Your tears of frustration are icings of joy on the cake of my day. Maybe one day you will understand that you are just a more elitist 4venger, but I doubt it. Then again, it's the same problem with you people as with 4vengers, except in this case, I like some of the games - it's not game I spite, but the advocates of it.

To answer the OP:

I really enjoyed playing it. I wasn't the GM (or MC or whatever the rules call it), just a player, so I can't speak for how difficult or easy it is to run, but I had a whale of a time in the game.

The only thing I'd say is that the rules are very good for generating a fun narrative, but a bit creaky outside of that. If you're interested, I wrote a blog post about liking it and another one about some problems I had with it.

Also, my group is 4 guys. Sex played absolutely no part in the game.

Quote from: noisms;505185Also, my group is 4 guys. Sex played absolutely no part in the game.

I am no prude, but I do have a slight problem RPing sex with a bunch of guys as well .

My suggestion - swap that rule. If you'd use AW to run a 30 Years War game, use it to mark points when a player defends his religious beliefs against actions of another player. If you are running in the default Apocalypse, swap it maybe for when a player is selflessly helping another player, since IMO the problem of "homo homini lupus est" is more important to post - apocalyptic fiction then "sex is commodity".

Quote from: Rincewind1;505186I am no prude, but I do have a slight problem RPing sex with a bunch of guys as well .

My suggestion - swap that rule. If you'd use AW to run a 30 Years War game, use it to mark points when a player defends his religious beliefs against actions of another player. If you are running in the default Apocalypse, swap it maybe for when a player is selflessly helping another player, since IMO the problem of "homo homini lupus est" is more important to post - apocalyptic fiction then "sex is commodity".

Or just ignore it, which is what we did. It's not essential. Or anyway we didn't notice, or care, that it wasn't there.

My feeling is that Vincent Baker put that in there because, you know, I'm Vincent Baker and ooh, edgy, etc.

Quote from: noisms;505187Or just ignore it, which is what we did. It's not essential. Or anyway we didn't notice, or care, that it wasn't there.

My feeling is that Vincent Baker put that in there because, you know, I'm Vincent Baker and ooh, edgy, etc.

Probably. Though as I said - I find that little snippet actually one of the few pearls that make AW worthy of being RPG, rather then a full - blown crappucino - an idea of rewarding a very specific type of interaction between players, and putting an emphasis on it in mechanics is hardly new, but good to know.

Quote from: Rincewind1;505043Also - 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.

We buy books to find out how to play particular games, and if the author knows that a particular thing doesn't work in their game, then I want them to tell me, in the book.

Not in a forum post, not ten years later in a piece of propaganda for a different game, not in an email, not through an unpleasant session-ruining surprise at my table, I want it in the book that I paid good money for.

Intentionally withholding that information, if the author knows it, just makes the book less usable for no real gain.

On-topic, I own AW but haven't had the spare time to run it. I really want to some time, though, because it looks like a great game.

There's an Atlantic Ocean space of difference between writing an advice that "Hey, you know, it might be not too great to change this and that because it may destroy a game", and writing "Play as written". RPGs should be always written with authors acknowledging the fact that people will, and should, modify the games to their liking. Anything otherwise is pretentiousness that's pure poison.

There was a rather good example given on RPG.net on this topic, of Night's Black Agents - Hite wrote that if it was up to him, nobody should play vampires in that game, BUT he understands that some players will try anyway - and he wrote guideliness to houseruling vampires in NBA.

Quote from: two_fishes;505092It has also struck me as very similar to the style that is touted at this site as "emulation".

Last time i looked, i can't remember 'sexy moves' being a PA genre trope.

Quote from: One Horse Town;505197Last time i looked, i can't remember 'sexy moves' being a PA genre trope.

Zombie Strippers is technically a zombie apocalypse movie .

Quote from: Rincewind1;505195There's an Atlantic Ocean space of difference between writing an advice that "Hey, you know, it might be not too great to change this and that because it may destroy a game", and writing "Play as written". RPGs should be always written with authors acknowledging the fact that people will, and should, modify the games to their liking. Anything otherwise is pretentiousness that's pure poison.

We could argue about this all week, but we're not going to get anywhere - I do agree with you, but I read AW as the former, and you read it as the latter.

That's fine.

Quote from: Ladybird;505203We could argue about this all week, but we're not going to get anywhere - I do agree with you, but I read AW as the former, and you read it as the latter.

That's fine.

Fair enough indeed - as I said, I liked AW before I read Forge's commentary on it. Talk about Lovecraftian warning about knowledge .

It is a gimmicky mechanic though. Just a bit better designed one.

I think it's a cracking read, with some excellent and cool rules and it has great atmosphere. The sex moves is a bit silly and 'meh', but they appear easily replaceable with a more general social type of rule/play. Also, it's a thing you can use to insert in your game heavily or lightly - it's very much a "the apocalypse is what you make it"-game.

I haven't played it yet, but a couple of groups I'm affiliated with have had great, and very varied, fun with it - from the very violent and actionpacked campaign to the very gritty, dirty and emotional stuff.

It's high on the list of games I would like to give a shot as a player.

Can somebody tell me about these "conversation mechanics" two_fishes mentioned earlier?  Trying to wrap my brain around that.  It sounds more specific and different from the usual "social mechanics" we sometimes see.

Does AW actually have rules for conversation?  [Mind: blown.]

Quote from: VectorSigma;505213Can somebody tell me about these "conversation mechanics" two_fishes mentioned earlier?  Trying to wrap my brain around that.  It sounds more specific and different from the usual "social mechanics" we sometimes see.

Does AW actually have rules for conversation?  [Mind: blown.]

It's all about the "moves" - if you want to narrate something to one of the players, you make a Move called "Separate Them".

It's a bit bizarre.

I don't know if I'd call them mind-blowing, but I think they're clever and useful. They're fairly simple, and would be easy to port to other games. The player rolls a skill-check (or a Move in AW). Depending on the degree of success, the player may ask the GM one or more questions from a list at any time during the conversation. The questions are things like (I'm lifting them from Storming the Wizard's Tower--the AW set might be different):

Ask if the person's lying;
Ask if the person knows more than she's saying;
Ask how the person feels about it;
Ask what it would take to make the person feel a particular way;
Ask what the person intends to do;
Ask what the person wishes your character would do