103. Moves Snowball: Part XI – The conversation and the fiction

”Right,” Marie’s player says. “That’s okay. I pick up his chainsaw and chop into them both.”

Damn. I’m impressed.

”I think that makes it a battle,” I say. “You’re seizing something by force, yeah? Seizing your room back I guess?”

”Yeah.”

”Roll it.”

I have absolutely no interest in saving these NPCs, none. I’m looking at them through crosshairs, and as much as I like them, I do not make them safe.

She rolls+hard and hits a 7-9. “How much harm will I inflict?” she says. She has to decide which seize-by-force option to choose, and first wants to know what’s what.

”With a chainsaw? 3-harm. Messy, so you might hit one or both of them. They’re wearing armor, though, 1-armor.”

”And I’ll suffer . . . ?”

”Well, none from Plover, you’ll hit him first and since he dropped the chainsaw he’s unarmed anyway. Pellet still has her handgun, it’s just a 9mm, so 2-harm from her.”

”That’s fine. I’ll choose to inflict terrible harm, and to impress, dismay or frighten my enemy” (130-131).

I have talked about the conversation created by Apocalypse World several times already, but I think there is (at least) one more thing to say, and I think this passage demonstrates that thing to some degree.

It is very easy to confuse the conversation for the fiction being produced by the words that come out of our mouths at the table. It is easy to think that the conversation that the game constructs is “my dude does this,” “the worlds reacts thus.” But the conversation encapsulates everything said at the table, not just the bits that actively contribute to the fiction. Here, the question about which move might be triggered (“You’re seizing something by force, yeah?”), about how much harm has been established by the situation (“With a chainsaw? 3-harm” and “none from Plover”), and about what options are available to the player by the rules (“I’ll choose to inflict terrible harm, and to impress, dismay or frighten my enemy”) are all parts of the conversation that are structured by the game.

Think about how different the conversation surrounding the players’ actions and choices are during play of any other RPG. Universalis will include conversations about pennies, and established facts, and how much it costs to destroy this or create that—that’s part of the conversation of the game. Dread creates conversation about the pulling of blocks, which block you might want to draw out, etc. To play Call of Cthulhu is to talk about your skill sets, sanity points, target numbers, and bouts of insanity. Part of the conversation of Ten Candles is whose Moment is up, how hard it is to read the dice in the dwindling light, and whether you want to burn a trait or not. In Bubblegumshoe you need to talk about whose rank is highest in this skill so you know who gets the clue, and whether that player wants to spend more points to get extra information. Or you might discuss who has to pay what in order to successfully piggyback off someone else’s roll.

It’s not just that each game creates different fiction in different ways, but it structures and limits the very way that we discuss the rules surrounding those processes. And all of that is part of the conversation of the game, part of the back and forth between players.

Part of exemplifying the conversation is exemplifying this part of the conversation, and that seems to me to be the purpose of including this part of the conversation here. This whole section could have been summarized in a couple of sentences saying that Marie’s player chose her seize-by-force option and harm as established was exchanged, but it wasn’t summarized. So what do we learn from this part of the conversation?

We learn that the MC is entirely up front with everything going on in the fiction. There are no surprises for Marie’s player, and the fiction can be frozen in place while all the elements in play are identified and accounted for. We see again the negotiation of moves being triggered as the players come to an agreement that Marie is seizing something by force. We see that while the MC is playing characters whose interests are diametrically opposed to Marie’s interests, the MC’s and Marie’s player’s interests are in perfect alignment. Because the MC is playing to find out, looking through crosshairs, saying what the rules demand, and saying what honesty demands, her interests mesh with those of Marie’s player, who is also playing Marie as though she were a real person trying to survive this encounter and come out on top.

Side point #1: Yes, technically the conversation includes the requests for bathroom breaks, the discussion of that project you’re laboring over at work, and who wants what on their pizza. I can’t think of any games whose rules attempt to control that part of the conversation, so I’m not including any discussion about that here, but they are part of the conversation all the same.

Side point #2: “Damn. I’m impressed” is for some reason another one of my favorite lines from the text. It makes me smile every damn time. It’s right up there for me with “A moment of silence please for poor fucking Plover.” I think they both capture beautifully and with humor how the MC is in for these moments of surprise and delight as an audience to the fiction unfolding in play.