133. Peripheral Moves & Concentric Design

These are basic moves that come into play less commonly, or optionally, or that might not come into play at all (158).

That’s our one-sentence introduction to the chapter on peripheral moves. From it, we learn that the moves ahead are “basic,” but we don’t really have a working definition for what “basic” means here. The moves under the “basic moves” banner are moves that “[e]verybody gets” (136). On each playbook, under the “moves” heading, we are told, “You get all the basic moves.” Looking at the peripheral moves, that certainly true for the harm and healing moves, the barter moves, and the highlighted stat move, but it is not true of augury and insight. Basic certainly doesn’t mean simple or easy, as these moves are no less or more complicated than other moves. Basic could just be a category that separates these moves from “battle” and “character moves. Perhaps basic has the meaning of fundamental here, the base of the structure that supports and props up the rest.

I think that last definition gets to the heart of it. In that meaning, these peripheral moves are still part of the foundation, but they aren’t load-bearing pillars, and nothing will fall apart if they appear “less commonly, or . . . not come into play at all,” either because they never get triggered by the fiction, because you forget about them, or because you choose not to use them. It doesn’t make any difference to the game or the designers why you omit these rules, because the game is built to be able to function without them.

In fact, Vincent discusses this design structure in one of his blogposts on “anyway,” calling it “concentric design.” To describe how he imagines this design, he uses the metaphor of a lightbulb suspended above a table in a room. Here’s most of that post from 2011:

1. The core of the game is barely visible. It's like the filament in the light bulb. It's these things:
- Vivid color
- A few stats and a simple die roll
- On a 10+, the best happens. On a 7-9, it's good but complicated. On a miss, it's never nothing, it's always something worse.
- The MC's agenda, principles, and what to always say.

That's a complete, playable game. Details of the dice aside, it's most of Over the Edge, for instance.

2. Built around that, the light bulb, is what I'd call fundamental Apocalypse World:
- The basic moves
- How harm works
- How experience works
- The MC's moves
- The structure of fronts and threats, but not their details.

That's also a complete, playable game, even though it's not the entirety of Apocalypse World. (Over the Edge has a light bulb around its filament too, but it's smaller than Apocalypse World's.)

3. The table we're playing at! This is all of Apocalypse World by the book:
- The character playbooks, character moves and special moves and all
- The details of fronts and threats
- Some of the peripheral moves
- All the crap, like holdings, angel kits, weapons, vehicles, gangs and all
- Character improvement, including the ungiven future.

This is the Apocalypse World we all play most of the time.

And finally...
4. The room we're playing in. This is all the potential Apocalypse World that we can bring in if we want. Much of it isn't even in the book!
- The optional battle moves
- All kinds of custom moves
- MC love letters
- New playbooks
- New threat types
- New kinds of crap like monsters, hoards, caravans, space stations.
- Co-MCing.

Most of us who play Apocalypse World bring some of these things in sometimes, but nobody has to, and obviously nobody can play by ALL the possible potential rules. Potential Apocalypse World is bigger than us.

Okay! Here's a cool thing about Apocalypse World's design in particular, if I may say it myself: Apocalypse World is designed to collapse gracefully downward.

- Forget the peripheral harm moves? That's cool. You're missing out, but the rules for harm have got you covered.
- Forget the rules for harm? that's cool. You're missing out, but the basic moves have got you covered. Just describe the splattering blood and let them handle the rest.
- Forget the basic moves? That's cool. You're missing out, but just remember that 10+ = hooray, 7-9 = mixed, and 6- = something worse happens.

- Don't want to make custom moves and countdowns for your threats all the time? That's cool. You're missing out, but the threat types, impulses, and threat moves have got you covered.
- Don't want to even write up your fronts and threats? That's cool. You're missing out, but your MC moves have got you covered.
- Forget your MC moves? That's cool. You're missing out, but as long as you remember your agenda and most of your principles and what to always say, you'll be okay.

The whole game is built so that if you mess up a rule in play, you mostly just naturally fall back on the level below it, and you're missing out a little but it works fine. (“Concentric Game Design,” http://www.lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/594)

These peripheral moves that we’ll be looking at fall into the 2nd and 3rd layers as Vincent describes them above. Keep that in mind as we look at each move. One thing I’ll be interested in looking at is how Vincent and Meguey designed the moves to make you want to use them, especially since you have explicit and implicit permission to ignore them.

(A further note: If you read the anyway post and read through the comments, you’ll see that Ron Edwards disagrees with this model because he feels that advancement in Apocalypse World is central to play since they are crucial to what the game is saying thematically: “For example, what about the rule in which you get moves from other character types, or the rules concerning removing a character from play? I consider these absolutely fundamental to the ultimate reward system of the game, which concerns what the character becomes (especially in light of the insights about the apocalypse which have undergone some development by this point).” It’s an interesting discussion, and worth reading if that kind of thing floats your boat.)

Oh, and a final note: I think the word “basic” as used throughout the text is naturally comfortable to experienced RPG players because there is a long history in the hobby of using the word “basic” to denote a stripped-down, introductory ruleset, usually replaced or added to later with “advanced” rules. I feel like there are echoes of that meaning here, in the sense that the “basic” rules are what the GM in those other games can fall back on in the heat of play without flipping through the rulebook to settle an issue. Most RPGs have this concentric feature with its rules; what’s interesting here is how the game purposefully plays to that design to allow the game to keep functioning under nearly any gameplay experience without breaking down.