119. Confessions of My Own Ignorance: MC, Dice, and NPCs

Everyone knows that the MC in Apocalypse World never rolls the dice.

I’ve been thinking that keeping the dice in the hands of the other players was a solution to several problems. First, it speeds up conflict and moments that call for resolution. The player throws the dice, instantly sees the result, and game play continues. There’s no back and forth as the PC acts and the player rolls followed by the NPCs’ reacting and the GM rolling. The entire back and forth of action and reaction are smoothly folded into one roll. Similarly, opposed rolls by two players have to be compared, read, and interpreted before the fiction can be finalized.

Second, it keeps the MC honest by making it impossible for her to fudge a roll, to roll behind a screen, or to falsely inflate an enemy’s roll because it feels right to make the moment more dramatic. Third, it lessens the MC’s investment in the results of the roll because it reinforces her role as observer and interpreter only. Fourth, limiting who can roll dice keeps the narrative focused on the PCs. When the GM in a game can throw dice for their NPC, it temporarily raises that NPC to equal status with the PCs. There’s none of that in Apocalypse World.

So here’s the confession part. I didn’t think about how the fact that the MC never rolls dice is directly related to the fact that NPCs don’t require any stats or written attributes. If I’m going to roll for this nasty NPC against your awesome PC, I need to know what I’m rolling, which means the NPC needs to have enough pre-decided information for me to have a meaningful dice roll. By folding all the NPCs’ actions and reactions into the PCs’ rolls, the game removes any real-world cues that measure and define the NPCs. The result is that the NPCs exist entirely within the fiction. As the MC, all you need is a name and an idea, and you can whip up an NPC as quickly as the developing story demands it.

Why is that solution particularly fitting for Apocalypse World? Remember that whole “DO NOT pre-plan a storyline, and I’m not fucking around” thing? The MC needs to be completely reactive to the other players and what they decide their characters will pursue. Moreover, the threats in Apocalypse World are almost exclusively human, so the landscape is going to be full of all kinds of NPCs, and no one knows which ones will end up being important. Having the NPCs exist solely as fiction is a way that the game lets the MC be flexible with the story. It’s the way that the game lets the MC names everyone and make everyone human. It’s the way the game lets the MC look at the NPCs through crosshairs.

The more laborious NPC creation is, the more the game needs to allow the GM to plan NPCs in advance, and the more precious those creations will be to the GM. Look through your RPG collection and see how the different games balance NPC creation with the rest of the game design. How does the game accommodate the GM to be able to create NPCs quickly and easily, and where does the game demand more attention and resources be spent? I had not thought of the relationship between NPC creation and the way a game is GM’d or the way a game develops narrative and conflict, but for now I can’t stop thinking about it.