What I found was a game that was not so much revolutionary from my standpoint as it was a game designed with the principles I find important hard-coded into the rules. The innovative part of the game was that it spelled out what the person running the game was supposed to do (and what not to do) and then explicitly limited their options to ensure they would run the game as it is supposed to be run. I'll get into why I think that is both a great and bad idea later.
Let's start with the crunch. Apocalypse World uses strictly player facing rolls, by which I mean the GM never rolls dice. The outcomes are determined solely by success and failure of player characters' (PCs') rolls. Obvious this pushes the players to be active, if only slightly, which I think is a great thing.
The die rolls themselves consists of rolling two six-sided dice (2d6) and adding the appropriate attribute (plus possibly some of the very limited set of modifiers). What is interesting here that there is a notion of a limited success. If you get a total of 10 or higher you get what you were looking for but if your character's total is between 7 to 9 then you get a marginal success. Typically this means you get some of what you were trying to achieve but also possibly get some sort of complication. This serves to drive the story forward. By either adding complications or leaving the players wanting more, it helps draw the players into pressing forward.
Of course there are also failures. Rolling a total of 6 or less is the opening for the game master (called the MC in this system, or Master of Ceremonies) to use one of their moves, or options for driving the story forward. These moves are strictly limited to ensure that MC doesn't drive the story but rather the player. For example they can choose to separate characters or capture them but the point is that the move should always leave the situation at a point where the PCs have to choose how to react or what to do next. Another facet of these moves is they always make things get worse. "There is not status quo" is one of the game's mantras. None of the NPCs has any special status, both villains and allies, and any of them can die at any time (and generally they die easier than PCs). So the game has a tendency to spiral into nasty situations.
The rolls themselves describe things abstractly. This is a not a tactical game. While there is a player option, again referred to as a move, called 'seize by force', this is an abstract term. In the case of 'seize by force' this refers to any action where the gloves come off and a character decides to seize something violently, whether that be somebody's gun, a fortress, or a situation. Apocalypse World is a very narrative game and making a move requires the players to describe their characters action: how they steal their gun, how they take the fortress, or take control of a situation. So the outcome of the roll then allows one to determine how to describe the resolution of the action: they wrestle the gun away but get shot in the process, the men in the fortress drive you off, or the situation is brought firmly under control.
Obviously this isn't everyone's cup of tea. Tacticians might be upset that their hard planning might be undone by a blown roll or that the status quo can't be protected.
As for the characters themselves, each character gets a well-defined niche via what is called a playbook. Despite posturing I've seen otherwise, these are very similar to class as you would see in D&D. Each playbook has its own distinctive moves and equipment. What is interesting is that there can only one PC for each playbook. For example, the Hardholder is the playbook for controlling a fortified community in Apocalypse World. He or she gets a gang of violent people,wealth from the community, and a lot of responsibility. But more importantly the Hardholder is the only person of this type in any one game. There may be other settlements but none of them are run by someone with the same strengths. Niche protection is very important in Apocalypse World.
As for the various playbooks, they range over the common and not so common archetypes of the apocalyptic fiction. They include such ideas as the Angel, who is the selfless medic, to the Brainer, the freaky psychic, to the Gunlugger, who is the combat monster.
One thing I thought was interesting was the Hx mechanic. Hx refers to history and determines how well a character knows another. I've seen similar things elsewhere like in White Wolf's Mirrors but here it is used in a very simple but elegant manner. Hx rises as your character learn more about of another PC: through game play, by helping heal their wounds, and by being hurt by them. Hx can be used to help or hinder their actions and also acts as a source of experience. I think the mechanic might work well in tandem with Fiasco style relationships or if used with NPCs as well. In the latter case it would work that getting to know your enemy or ally builds experience as well bonuses to dealing with them.
So let's look at what I think are the game's major turn offs. Besides potentially narrativist game mechanics, the game is explicitly not PG rated. There is cursing and violence. I can see the goal is to foster a feel for setting but at some points it just comes off as crass. There is also a lot of sex and not just in the artwork. Each playbook has special bonuses they get when having sex with other characters. This can be an awkward subject for some groups, something I was a little hesitant about when involving my wife in the game (it turned out okay though, she chose the Battlebabe, the sexy but deadly warrior, but made the character a man. In some ways Apocalypse World sometimes seems to be provocative for its own sake.
I feel that the emphasis on R-rated material is a shame because the rest of the game would be an excellent starter for beginning gamemasters who want to run sandbox type games. The advice for the MC is spot on and very similar to the advice I would give new gamemasters (and have in earlier blogs). The limits to the available options for the MC is helpful in this regard as it teaches the MC how to run a game well through basic principles, such as not getting attached to the plot or NPCs. In Apocalypse World, there is no predetermine plot for a given session and as I mentioned before every NPC should always be in the crosshairs. Sentimentality can ruin otherwise good games.
Other good advice includes reacting to the players and improvising the story as you go. The players are the most important characters in the game with better health and vastly better abilities. The MC mainly gets to act when someone fails a roll. This pushes the MC into a reactive stance. Meanwhile the narrative mechanics demand improvisation from everyone. Description become part of the fun, free of any mechanical hindrances. You don't need to know how hard it is to shoot somebody while sliding down a zip line, you just roll and determine the results.
Now an experienced gamemaster doesn't need these training wheels but I have found there are often fewer gamemasters who work with these ideas in mind than there are gamemasters who like to run railroaded games against reactive players. For me, the gamemaster section offers relatively little and the system as a whole has some nice bits but nothing amazing. But as a player Apocalypse World really stands out. The idea of playing in a game where the GM will actually work off of my ideas over of his own, sounds really wonderful. I'm excitedly looking forward to our next session.
No comments:
Post a Comment