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Author Topic: Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?  (Read 17960 times)

noisms

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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #225 on: January 23, 2012, 05:44:56 AM »
Quote from: Rincewind1;507766
In Arkham Horror you have

1) Classes
2) Stats
3) Hit Points
4) Skills

Though as well, terminology is a bit different.

The board is largely the one which tells you what's going on and decides how events unfold.

Is Arkham Horror therefore an RPG, or a board game?


A board game, because the thing telling you what's going on and deciding how events unfold is a fucking board, you tit.
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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #226 on: January 23, 2012, 06:59:11 AM »
Quote from: brunz;507916
I've been trying to get an education in new games, and new styles of game lately. So I looked at some character sheets, or whatever they're called in the case of Apocalypse World, and... aaaargh. :confused: What a nightmare! :eek: It might be a great game, if you play it, but that scared me off, everything else aside.


5 stats, a hit point counter, a space for equipment, and a list of class abilities scared you off? What RPGs are you playing, exactly?
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 #227 on: January 23, 2012, 09:32:52 AM »
Quote from: Justin Alexander;507912
This is a guy who claims that a rulebook which contains an entire chapter specifically dedicated to the GM changing the rules is, in fact, secretly insisting that the GM is not allowed to change the rules.

He's trolling you.

Keep on flying those banners, laddie. And difference - there's a chapter on adapting the rules for different settings. Not modding the rules themselves. But, I am still waiting for that mystical energies explanation.

Quote from: noisms;507971
A board game, because the thing telling you what's going on and deciding how events unfold is a fucking board, you tit.

Exactly - GM in Apocalypse World has little more influence then board in Arkham Horror. In fact, a well - designed set of cards would probably easily replace a GM in AW.
Furthermore, I consider that  This is Why We Don't Like You thread should be closed

noisms

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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #228 on: January 23, 2012, 09:36:15 AM »
Quote from: Rincewind1;508023
Exactly - GM in Apocalypse World has little more influence then board in Arkham Horror. In fact, a well - designed set of cards would probably easily replace a GM in AW.


Have you seriously actually played it?

In-game it feels more or less exactly like any other RPG. The players have a bit more narrative control than in more 'trad' games, but not much.

Unless my MC was doing something incredibly wrong with the rules, which I doubt.
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Rincewind1

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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #229 on: January 23, 2012, 09:46:21 AM »
Quote from: noisms;508026
Have you seriously actually played it?

In-game it feels more or less exactly like any other RPG. The players have a bit more narrative control than in more 'trad' games, but not much.

Unless my MC was doing something incredibly wrong with the rules, which I doubt.


I did play once, yes, and I did have fun.

Well, technically, by the author's intent, he was doing something wrong, probably ;). Just kidding.

I've really been more opposed to this game on a basic of certain idiotic and heretical ideas being spread in it about GMing and RPG design, rather then the game itself - which I think I had detailed in other my posts here.

I still stand by my decision then in AW, there's no GM but rather a narration/crisis generation parser, that could be replaced by a board game designed like Arkham Horror.
Furthermore, I consider that  This is Why We Don't Like You thread should be closed

Sigmund

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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #230 on: March 07, 2012, 02:10:34 PM »
Quote from: two_fishes;506369
No, you have a drum you like to beat, and you're using a comment I made in passing as an excuse to beat it. Here i'll make an actual assertion for your benefit. I think that the sex moves cheapen sex in the game. They make it into a commodity, and make it more difficult for the player to create sincere intimacy for their PCs. I think this is very fitting to the post-apoc genre. I wouldn't go so far as  to call it a trope of the genre, but it definitely fits my sense of what PA is all about. It fits with the whole question of whether or not people can maintain humanity and decency in the face of scarcity and the struggle just to survive. I'm sure you will disagree, but i'm equally sure that I do not care.


I have read this thread with great interest, and decided to acquire AW based on it. I get Rincewind's argument, and agree, but am able to ignore the Baker douche efectively enough to make use of AW anyway (and him being a douche doesn't mean he can't write a decent game).

I completely agree with two_fishes here in spirit, about sex being both de-humanized and turned into a commodity (see Book of Eli, where an offer of sex was used as an attempted bribe), however I completely agree with DW that the "sex moves" mechanic is completely pointless and would be much better off as one of DW's variants. The sex "commodity" can be handled quite effectively in the RPing without any mechanic needed. It can also be handled indirectly by the conversation mechanic when used cleverly.

I'd also like to say that IMO DW pretty much made everyone his bitch in this thread. I find it very refreshing to see his argument style and I am resolved, and I'm not being sarcastic at all, to try to imitate it in the future, only with more profanity (because my inner teenager needs to have fun too).

Silva, I think AW is nowhere near as great a game as the various BRP games, but it's not a bad game at all and if it trips your triggers then rock on brother. The "indie/storygame (although I don't think AW is one completely)" that rocks my world is Freemarket by Luke Crane and Jared Sorenson. I think Luke Crane is a douche too (Sorenson seems nice though), but he writes damn good games too, so I get over it and hand over the cash :D

Just my pocketful of change on the thread.
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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #231 on: March 08, 2012, 02:05:13 AM »
Quote from: Sigmund;520272
The "indie/storygame (although I don't think AW is one completely)" that rocks my world is Freemarket by Luke Crane and Jared Sorenson. I think Luke Crane is a douche too (Sorenson seems nice though), but he writes damn good games too, so I get over it and hand over the cash :D

Just my pocketful of change on the thread.


I'd like to know more about this game.
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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #232 on: March 08, 2012, 07:33:57 AM »
Quote from: Rincewind1;508032
I did play once, yes, and I did have fun.

Well, technically, by the author's intent, he was doing something wrong, probably ;). Just kidding.

I've really been more opposed to this game on a basic of certain idiotic and heretical ideas being spread in it about GMing and RPG design, rather then the game itself - which I think I had detailed in other my posts here.

I still stand by my decision then in AW, there's no GM but rather a narration/crisis generation parser, that could be replaced by a board game designed like Arkham Horror.


I play arkham horror as an RPG and Escape from colditz , I give each little wooden man a backstory... Winger won't go down a tunnel because he got trapped when he was a kid in a cave etc ....

I have a very inclusive RPG defintion that stretches from the murder mysteries I write for hotels all the way to Talisman, escape from Colditz and Arkham Horror of course I draw the line at 4e D&D :)
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Rincewind1

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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #233 on: March 08, 2012, 09:17:39 AM »
Quote from: jibbajibba;520486
I play arkham horror as an RPG and Escape from colditz , I give each little wooden man a backstory... Winger won't go down a tunnel because he got trapped when he was a kid in a cave etc ....

I have a very inclusive RPG defintion that stretches from the murder mysteries I write for hotels all the way to Talisman, escape from Colditz and Arkham Horror of course I draw the line at 4e D&D :)


If you tried that tunnel stuff, I'd be all like "Bitch stop pretending you're an elf we loosing game".
Furthermore, I consider that  This is Why We Don't Like You thread should be closed

Khimus

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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #234 on: April 06, 2012, 02:06:38 AM »
Quote from: DW
Your entire refutation of my statement, therefore is this: "The 'have sex to gain a bonus' mechanic is optional. And people pointing this out are wrong to say so. (Even though they're factually correct.)"

I don´t think sex moves are there to give you a mechanical bonus for having sex. Some of them do, but many of them not. In fact, the driver, the chopper, and the operator, all of them have moves that make sex something to avoid. The hardholder has a sex move that´s only good for the other one involved. The battlebabe has a sex move that cancels any sex move, so sex doesn´t trigger any bonus for them. Those are... 5 playbook (classes) for whom sex doesn´t provide a bonus. If you want, we may annalise each sex move.

I think sex moves only highlight how each archetype (playbook) relates to sex, as they all do in a special way.

I don´t think the sex moves emulate the PA genre, but then again, neither do the rest of the rules. It´s a game set in a PA setting. To look for VB´s fiction inspirations, the lasts pages contain games and movies/books that shaped AW.

As for the solution you propposed (turning sex moves into different things that reinforce how is or should be each archetype), Dungeon World does something like this with its alignments. But I´d preffer if they weren´t in AW. I think it´s design purpose that AW doesn´t have any "personality mechanics": players run their characters as they wish, nothing guides them toward playing a "caring" angel or a ruthless gunlugger, as long as they commit to run their characters as if they were real.
So your solution, while not bad at all, would feel awkward to me given what I most like about the game.

But anyway, the sex moves are hardly "core" to the game. I´ve run AW like... 15 times, sex only happened 3 or 4 sessions, and the game didn´t break. In fact, in half of the sessions, the sex appeared because the player wanted it, and he was playing a battlebabe, so he didn´t get any bonus out of sex.
VB itself says that nothing´s wrong if players prefer to stay away from PC-sex.

On the other subjects, I´ve found AW to be quite the opposite to a GM-constraining game. It only gives very good advice to how to GM without railroading or playing against-the-players. When I´m the GM, it feels like any other RPG (RPG, yeah, not "other game").

I don´t really get why is this discussed in "other games" :S
« Last Edit: April 06, 2012, 02:12:36 AM by Khimus »

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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #235 on: April 06, 2012, 06:02:20 AM »
Quote from: Khimus;527445
On the other subjects, I´ve found AW to be quite the opposite to a GM-constraining game. It only gives very good advice to how to GM without railroading or playing against-the-players. When I´m the GM, it feels like any other RPG (RPG, yeah, not "other game").

I don´t really get why is this discussed in "other games" :S

Most seminal indie games (Sorcerer, Dogs in the Vineyard, Shadow of Yesterday, Burning Wheel) are just regular RPGs who may difer on the GMing advice, which tends to be very precise and oriented to achieve a certain kind of game. But when you run them, indeed, they're regular RPGs.

Don't try to understand the subforum classification, it makes no sense.
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Peregrin

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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #236 on: April 09, 2012, 01:19:04 AM »
Quote from: Sigmund;520272
I think Luke Crane is a douche too (Sorenson seems nice though), but he writes damn good games too, so I get over it and hand over the cash :D

Just my pocketful of change on the thread.

Have you met and/or interacted with Luke IRL?  Because I saw both Luke and Sorenson over the weekend, and judging from my brief time taking part in their panels and seeing them around the indie booths, they seemed like stellar dudes who just want to spread their love of games.

I can also confirm that even if his games are weird, V. Baker is a generally polite and chill human being who does not eat babies for breakfast or wants to destroy other people's fun.

Then again, Real-Life has a way of keeping the Sanity Meter within normal constraints.

Quote
Most seminal indie games (Sorcerer, Dogs in the Vineyard, Shadow of Yesterday, Burning Wheel) are just regular RPGs who may difer on the GMing advice, which tends to be very precise and oriented to achieve a certain kind of game. But when you run them, indeed, they're regular RPGs.

Don't try to understand the subforum classification, it makes no sense.

Well, it makes sense when you consider a lot of trad games (a lot, not all) are the same game in different guises or with different colored buttons.  So a forum for adventure-gaming and another for the full gradient of possible design.  ;)
« Last Edit: April 09, 2012, 01:27:51 AM by Peregrin »
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Apocalypse World: really awesome or am I missing something here ?
« Reply #237 on: April 09, 2012, 05:22:28 AM »
Quote from: Peregrin;528380
Then again, Real-Life has a way of keeping the Sanity Meter within normal constraints.

Who would have thought about it, huh? ;)

Quote
Well, it makes sense when you consider a lot of trad games (a lot, not all) are the same game in different guises or with different colored buttons.  So a forum for adventure-gaming and another for the full gradient of possible design.  ;)

Ha! :D

Actually, the stupid division into subforums of bullshit ceases to be a problem when you use the New Posts button, as it presents you with threads regardless wich subforum they belong to.  So it's not a big deal for me.
My name is Ramón Nogueras. Running now Vampire: the Masquerade (Giovanni Chronicles IV for just 3 players), and itching to resume my Call of Cthulhu campaign (The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand Man).