Difficulty scales

Sometimes when MCing an game using the Apocalypse World engine I find myself reaching for some sort of difficulty scale like a limb I had removed long ago but from which I still feel an itch.

Difficulty scales and target numbers for tasks is a hangover from traditional games, and are simulationist in nature, acting as a mechanic to replicate the notion that some things are easier to do than others. Vincent and Meguey of course junked that in their efforts to create an entirely narrativist game. And once I started looking at all the things I love in Apocalypse World, I see all the conscious rejections of anything that can be tied to the simulationist traditions.

A rolled initiative? Screw that. Keeping tracks of money? Abstract the fuck out of that. Experience points? Check these boxes when you use the things that make your character awesome. Advancement? Here are more awesome things that you can do, so choose where you want the narrative to go and pick it. Hit points? Ha! What’s that weapon’s range? Far. Deal with it. Every aspect of traditional games has been given an abstraction or turned into a narrative moment. Any time the dice are rolled, it’s the narrative that’s going to be affected.

God damn! That’s why it has changed RPGs like it has.