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Post by jazzisblues on Jan 2, 2014 16:49:25 GMT -8
In Apocalypse World, where is the line between setting the stage and railroading? I assume that you're specifically talking about times when the MC isn't making a hard move (cause then you can take sole control of the narrative and do whatever you like). Unfortunately, I don't think there's a hard & fast rule about this. It's really more of a feeling. Something that helped me with this issue when running AW-based games is to never come up with the "solution" to any situation I throw at the PCs. I've run Monsterhearts most frequently, and I am constantly surprised by how my NPCs react to player action. I name the bitchy head cheerleader, wind her up, then send her stomping over to one of the PCs in a fury. But that is simply to push the player into reacting and to cause drama. When the cheerleader confronts the PC, I ask them what she's so mad about. By doing that, I am pretty much saying "yes" to whatever the player comes up with, unless it is completely out of genre or off tone. (That's the social contract jazzisblues has mentioned a few times on the podcast. You, the player, agree to answer my questions, and I, the MC, agree to make your answers matter.) But there is a trick you can use if you don't really like the answer the player gives you. You can say something like "That's what your character thinks/believes." That doesn't completely invalidate the player's answer but also allows you to modify the answer to suit your tastes a bit more. Don't do that all the time though, as it'll just become another way to railroad the players. This is really why I focus on the other people (npc's) and what they're up to. That way whatever the players come up with I can respond with something that should theoretically make some sort of sense. Might not, but it should. JiB
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Post by Grog on Jan 4, 2014 19:47:24 GMT -8
As an example, in the session we were playing I was thinking of a very realistic world in which society kind of slows down, not actually an apocalypse. However, within fifteen minutes of the players picking playbooks. the chief agricultural commodity of their hardhold was giant lobsters which had to be hunted in the style of a medieval boar hunt...from the back of a war-llama of course.
I didn't want to quash creativity, but by the end of the session I also realized that that wasn't the apocalypse I was interested in.
So I guess it's a question of maintaining tone in the game.
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Jan 4, 2014 21:38:32 GMT -8
I've heard (it was in the Master Plan podcast interview with Jason Morningstar and Steve Segedy) and agree that the first time players are exposed to a a system that gives them a large amount of narrative control, they tend to go over the top gonzo. The power of being able to do anything goes to their heads, and you end up with people fighting giant lobsters from the back of war-llamas. It's not only Apocalypse World. I completely understand not wanting to crush creativity, Grog. As MC, saying something like "Yeah, that's out of genre" feels like you're slapping down the player. Doing that too often (and to certain players) can cause people to not contribute. Which is not what you want to happen. There's basically two things you can do: 1) Just go with it. Accept that this particular game is not the apocalypse you envisioned, but just sit back, hold on, and see where the players take you. Meet the player's level of nuttiness and you might start to enjoy the game as well (I'm not saying that you aren't enjoying it now, mind). There's also the added benefit of letting the players get the crazy out of their systems so to speak. When they start to get bored, you can say something like "OK. Now that we've done that, let's tone it down a bit." 2) You can stop the current game here and tell the group this isn't what you envisioned. Tell them it was a practice run, lay out your expectations and ask if they're interested in starting again. After our "three and out" experience with AW, when I started up our game of Monsterhearts, I was better prepared to lay out the setting before playing. The entire first session (about 3 hours) was character creation, a discussion of how they knew each other, what kind of school they went to, what the town was like, and so on and so forth. One of the players started to get antsy and complained a bit that we weren't playing towards the end of that session, but it helped. Everyone was on the same page about the tone and setting of the game, so we didn't have that over the top, out of genre, gonzo stuff. If I were to run AW again, I would spend that first session discussing exactly what everyone expects from the game. Monsterhearts, Dungeon World, and Monster of the Week are all much tighter genres. As soon as you say "supernatural teen romance, like Twilight", "traditional D&D-style fantasy", or "bad ass monster hunters like Supernatural" everyone has a pretty clear idea of what the game is. "Post-apocalyptic" is like the pulp genre; it covers a lot of material, elements, and tropes, and needs further clarification. How interested do your players seem in continuing their war-llama, lobster-hunting game? If they're enjoying it, I say keep going (unless you absolutely hate it), so that they learn the AW system. Then you can go back after this game ends (maybe play something else in between) and start something that's more to your tastes.
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Post by guitarspider on Jan 6, 2014 10:58:47 GMT -8
My advice, based on personal experience, is to ride it out, let them get it out of their system. Next time you will sit down for AW (or any other system with that much narrative control), your players will engage more with the game and the tone will be different, you don't even need to say anything. Of course a first session like hyvemynd described should be part of the game anyway. Stopping the game as a practice run seems like a mistake to me. You don't have to drag the game out, but have fun as a group and use that fun to goad your players into more AW games.
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Post by Grog on Jan 7, 2014 11:48:12 GMT -8
Well, that group is sort of a "holidays" group as one of the players lives on the left coast and another lives 6 hours away in the flatest city ever. We played several different games, but I think that they preferred my World of Darkness procedural game anyway. It started as a one-shot that everyone demanded a sequel for. I just didn't have a third sequel prepared for the night in question. and had just finished reading Apocalypse World. We might turn the World of Darkness game into a G+.
I think that everyone was very clear that it was a practice run, which may have even contributed to the gonzo-ness. What's interesting is that the guy with the most experience in narrative-free games is the one who created the borderlands/mad maxx lobsters. We all discussed after the game in the very frank way that people who have known each other for decades do. I think they know that we probably won't play that particular world again, but they aren't really too hung up on it. Like I said, it's a group that is really better for one-shots anyway.
I'll probably try to move my savage worlds steampunk group over to apocalypse world once I finish the current campaign. I'm thinking about writing some custom playbooks, moves etc, although I should probably play a few more times before going too far down the rabbit hole. You know, because I won't have enough to do with working, having kids, taking classes in the evening, and running a game. Sigh.
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HyveMynd
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Dirty hippie, PbtA, Fate, & Cortex Prime <3er
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Post by HyveMynd on Jan 7, 2014 17:51:09 GMT -8
I'll probably try to move my savage worlds steampunk group over to apocalypse world once I finish the current campaign. I read that backwards at first and nearly flipped my desk in rage. Making completely new playbooks is a big undertaking. I haven't made any for Apocalypse World, but I've made some for Monsterhearts, and it's not easy. Good luck.
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maxinstuff
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Post by maxinstuff on Jan 7, 2014 20:33:31 GMT -8
You know, because I won't have enough to do with working, having kids, taking classes in the evening, and running a game. Sigh. Knowthatfeelbro.jpg Exactly my situation. And HyveMynd, thats mutant SPIDER LLAMAS thankyou very much.
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tomes
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Hello madness
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Post by tomes on Jan 7, 2014 21:12:22 GMT -8
All I can say is EARTH ABIDES!
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Post by Grog on Jan 8, 2014 8:27:15 GMT -8
I'll probably try to move my savage worlds steampunk group over to apocalypse world once I finish the current campaign. I read that backwards at first and nearly flipped my desk in rage. Making completely new playbooks is a big undertaking. I haven't made any for Apocalypse World, but I've made some for Monsterhearts, and it's not easy. Good luck. RRAAGGEE! You know, I was thinking about how I could really use the savage world powers system to run the brainers... I probably won't make entirely new playbooks....maybe. A lot of the Apocalypse World stuff will work, but I'm thinking of refocusing a lot of the playbooks and cobbling some new ones together. My goal would be to make an "apocalypse" that wasn't so end of the world. Also, the work I'm thinking of could easily be ported over to a frontier/western style. Know of anybody who has done some work to make un-weird west playbooks. Read Selection Event. It's very Earth Abides, except more modern. It might not be quite as good, but it'll scratch that itch.
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