19. Meditation on Character Moves: Part II

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19. Meditation on Character Moves: Part II

5/14/2017

30 Comments

One of the recurring features of Vincent’s games is the clear defining of the GM’s role and the delineation of her power. Depending on the whims of the GM for fair and exciting play is dangerous on two fronts. The more a game leaves everything in the hands of the GM the less consistent play will be and the more good play is going to rely on a GM’s abilities. The second front is that there is a clear power imbalance between the GM and the player, and leaving “fairness” of play up to a GM is begging for injustice to be done.

The moves of Apocalypse World necessarily limit the power of the MC.

In a lot of RPGs with fortune resolution systems (dice, cards, tea leaves, etc.), the success or failure of a task is to some extent set by the GM. The GM might set a target number to be rolled. The GM might award bonus dice or subtract penalty dice from a pool to represent advantages and disadvantages present. The GM might put together a dice pool for an opposed roll. In short, the GM is making decisions that affect the likelihood of the roll’s success or failure, and while these methods will usually come out alright, they open the door to the possibility of unfairness, both real and perceived.

Moves take the MC out of the equation for the roll itself. The MC is part of the conversation about if and when a move is triggered, and the MC is part of the conversation about how the results of the move become a part of the Fiction, but the roll itself never involves the MC. There are no opposing rolls. There are no difficulty factors that affect the roll.

There are many other ways that the MC’s powers are limited in AW, and there are many other ways to limit the power of a GM in other games. Character moves are beautiful because they do so without drawing any attention to what they are doing. In that moment, it’s just the player and her dice.

30 Comments

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 01:45:27 pm

Robert Bohl said:

I like the Powered by the Apocalypse system a lot, but it is way more comfortable with MC fiat than I am. It's a struggle to design within that, to not always feel like I'm abandoning people who play my game to the whims of one person.

(The fact that it never asks for the MC to come up with difficulty numbers, though, I greatly appreciate.)

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 01:46:53 pm

Moreno R. said:

About the GM-players authority divide, the breakout game I think it's "The Pool" in 2001 (I don't remember if I already linked to this in my comments to these posts, but just in case... in this lecture at the Milano University Ron Edwards talks about The Pool's impact on rpg design:
youtube.com - Designers on stage Ron Edwards [ENG] )

The Pool is, as far as I know, the first rpg to actually give authority over the narration to a player different from the GM (the difference with other games where the players had some kind of input on that, like for example Ars Magica played with the troupe rules, was that in previous games the authority was still on the GM, to accept or reject that input)

The discussion about the Pool at the forge brought this aspect (until then not acknowledged in roleplaying culture) to the fore, and other games began to include these rules. Starting with a simple "who win get to narrate" as in The Pool, to a more complex "you resolve who win the conflict AND who will narrate it, independently" as in PTA 1st and 2nd edition, to the nuances found in Trollbabe (with the narration rules used to emphatize the Trollbabe larger-than-life status by having the GM narrate success and the player narrating failures) and DitV (with a back-and-forth of narrations, with the end of the conflict narrated by the loser, as another incentive to giving).

After that, it gets even more varied, with the complex authority rules in games like Annalise or Dirty Secrets, or games where authorities are even more shared like Spione (where there are not PCs)

From this point of view (and remembering that this only one of the ways we could look at games, and that a game is not simply "a way to assign authority" - Vincent even reject the utility of talking in terms of distribution of authority at all, if I understand correctly his point - Apocalypse World is a return to the times before the Pool. It's different from games where there was an "all-mighty GM" because the MC, by the letter of the manual, has to follow rules, play moves, play "to discover what will happen", but most of that is actually a sort of "ethic self-limitation", the MC still has almost all the "powers" of a traditional GM.... he simply choose to not use a lot of it, IF he follow the letter of the rules.
If a traditional GM read AW, it's easy that he would consider all that only "advice", say to himself "I can avoid reading this part, i already know how to GM a rpg", and play it as a totally traditional rpg (this happened to me playing Dungeon World with a GM used to play D&D, even if I had tried to explain to him that these were rules and not advices a lot of times...). Sadly, I think that this possible confusion is part of the reason of AW (and DW even more) success (I think that a lot of people are playing it in a totally "traditional" way with the MC ignoring most of the rules that would apply to his/her role)

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 01:47:33 pm

Vincent Baker responded

I never know what to make of your assertion, +Robert Bohl, +Moreno R., that Apocalypse World gives a lot of authority to the MC. To me, it gives the MC the absolute minimum authority it can, to be functional.

To my mind, many Forge games gave their GMs too much responsibility, with way too little authority to make good on it. Screw that!

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 01:48:11 pm

Moreno R. responded:

Vincent: "To me, it gives the MC the absolute minimum authority it can, to be functional."

Well, it depends on the system, obviously. In systems where the GM have to judge so many things (from "did the character do that move?" to the exact move, to how much harm as established, to the narration of every outcome, etc.) he has to have a lot of authority. Or, to say it better, that kind of system GIVE him/her a lot of authority.
So, yes, I could agree that AW gives the MC enough authority to be functional, and it would not be functional with less authority, but it would be a sort of paradox: a system where the MC has less authority than the one the system gives him/her would be impossible.

But if you change the system? DitV doesn't give authority on the narration of every outcome to the GM, but it seems to me a fully functional game.

"Responsibility" is a trickier concept because maybe we think about different things. Years ago I proposed to use that word instead of "authority" to avoid tripping up people misreading "authority" as a sort of "I have the power! Bwah ah ah" ego trip, and using "responsibility" would include more explicitly the work and the task behind the game (for example: who has the responsibility to draw the map of the dungeon? To calculate the xp total of a monster? Or to pay for a adventure module to use instead?). So hearing that word about AW I think about writing the fronts, drawing maps, having to keep the character's lives interesting, etc, but I don't know if you are using it in that sense.

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 01:48:44 pm

Vincent Baker responded:

+Moreno R., see, I don't know what to make of this! Dogs in the Vineyard and Apocalypse World give their respective GMs basically exactly the same authority, with basically exactly the same limitations. (This isn't surprising, as they both closely follow Sorcerer.)

Neither game addresses "authority on narration of outcomes," because I think that's a poor way to design rpgs, The Pool notwithstanding. However, both games do address the GM's role in the conversation as play proceeds, and they're pretty much identical.

There are, obviously, a lot of differences between the games. But the GM's authority isn't one of them!

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 01:49:11 pm

I interjected:

(I don't want to interrupt this exchange, so please carry on like I'm not here. But at some point, I would love to hear why you think authority on narration outcomes is a poor way to design rpgs, +Vincent Baker.)

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 01:49:39 pm

Vincent Baker responded:

+Jason D'Angelo It's not lengthy! Designing an rpg by arranging who has authority to narrate literally means conducting your conversation by arranging who gets to speak and be heard. This is a useful way to conduct some conversations under some circumstances, but I think it's a poor way to conduct fun, entertaining conversations between friends.

This is the precise reason, as an example, that Apocalypse World puts so much emphasis on asking questions about what you're interested in.

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 01:50:42 pm

Moreno R. continued:

By the other hand, I think that every time we hairless apes have any kind of conversation, we can have it (instead of growling at each other) only because we have built a social "system" (or better, a lot of different systems) that tell us who can talk, how, for how long, in which way, etc.
For example, when I ask a friend how he passed his holidays, I am using a sort of social procedure to allow him to talk about it (I am signaling that I would be interested), and that I am going to listen to him. During his tale he has fully "narration authority" on what happened, I can ask details or to elaborate o even ask him to skip the parts I don't want to hear, but i can't (socially) begin to tell him that he did things that he did not really do in his holiday. If I start narrating the time he did rob a bank in a place where he never was, it's a totally different conversation where I am, making up tales, and he would probably look at me as if I was mad (and maybe even get angry), because the "tell me about your holidays" conversation has other rules and doesn't give me the authority to say what he did regardless of the truth.

Games are the same. There is a very, very popular card game in the region I live where there are LITERALLY rules about what I can say and when (for example: when I get my hand of 10 cards at the start of a turn, I can say one of three specific words that tell my partner how he should play in the first turn: "fly", "knock" or "scratch"). Ha can't reply using the same words, I can ONLY say them before making my first move, I can't say any other word, but I HAVE to say one of them.
Playing that game, hours after hours each evening among friends at the local bar (you could find tables of people playing it at every bar, so our group occupied the exact same table, "our table", each day to avoid having other people occupy it) we talked about school, about comic books, about girls. The rules of the games, even if they tell the players what they can say and when are ONLY about the game. You can still talk about everything else, and you do. There no reason to be afraid of rules about who can say what and when, they really don't impede conversations among friends, they only allow us to play a game DURING that conversation.

Or, to make another example you should be familiar with: the GM describe the room you character just entered and say to you "there is a can of peaches on the table", and the player reply "No, there isn't any can of peaches on the table, there is not even the table"
This is a conversation, but it's a conversation that allow you to play together?
Well, actually, it could... if the system you are using actually would give him the authority to say something like that, without breaking the game. But without a system like that? You can't play together. You can't play if you don't even know who is the guy who can decide if the can is there or not. But.... you can't even TALK about the can of peaches without a similar kind of agreement about who can say what (for example, if you are narrating your summer holidays, and you actually have seen the can, I don't have the authority to tell you that you did not actually see it... games are not a special kind of conversation where people have the authority to tell things and be "believed", they are a conversation where people have different authorities BECAUSE it's a conversation, and that happen in EVERY conversation (by the other hand, if it's not a conversation, and you are playing tennis, you don't need any kind of rules about what you can say, because Tennis is not a conversation)

A conversation without these social authorities... is a shouting match, where people try to drown the voice of the others. This is something we know so well, that if you don't describe who has the authority in the various parts of the game, people still informally or formally assign the various authorities among them in a way that "makes sense" to them.

A couple of examples about this that I have seen:

1) A game of Fiasco at a Con. I still had not read the game, so it was explained to me verbally by the guy who was organizing the table. He was the social "leader" at the table, so with no idea about who could decide what at the table, we gave him "suggestions" about how the scenes ended, but he was always the one to decide each time (after lengthy and often boring unreconstructed conversation among the player about what would happen).
It was a typical case of what actually happen when people try to "create a story" at the table without a shared understanding of who can decide what: we discuss a lot about what should happen until the social leader decides. I actually use role-playing games INSTEAD of having that sort of "group story-creation" to avoid that standard social system.

2) Dungeon World, at a weekly gaming table. I did know the GM, he usually play and GM "traditional" role-playing games, but he wanted to try Dungeon World, and a

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 01:52:25 pm

Moreno R. continued:

2) Dungeon World, at a weekly gaming table. I did know the GM, he usually play and GM "traditional" role-playing games, but he wanted to try Dungeon World, and asked me to play with him to check if he was following the rules well.
Well, i realized almost from the beginning that he was talking about checking if people were using the right dice or the right damage modifiers, because about the authorities at the tables... he was using the usual "traditional" rules, the "The GM has authority over everything" ones. To the point that he did not even used the GM rules of the game ("the GM has authority even over the game rules") and the adventure was a total railroad.
But, you see, I did tell him that he was "playing it wrong" (after the game, not during it - there are social rules about what you can say and when in a conversation), why it didn't work and he continued to play that way?
Because I didn't have to the social authority to tell him that he was playing "wrong" and make him change the way he played. EVERY conversation has authorities. Having the role of being "the one who know these games", I could tell him that he was not playing by the written rules, it was not a social misstep. But at the same time, being "the all-mighty GM", he could reply with "so what?i never play games by the rules", and he did. And he still "played Dungeon World", rules doesn't matter anyway...

("Rules doesn't matter" is a direct social consequence of having people play with their usual authority rules about who can say what and when, with games that doesn't assert their own different authority rules with enough force. In my experience, "you should not tell people who can say what and when in your game" is a direct equivalence to "rules doesn't matter", in the same way that believing that "rules doesn't matter" means that you always use the "GM has authority over everything" distribution of authority. Because you can't really play anything without rules about authorities and that one is the default one in our hobby)

I have anecdotal informations about A LOT of groups playing Apocalypse World in that way, with an "all-migthy GM" that has authority over everything and doesn't have to follow the rules (so much that I think it's a big part of his commercial success: you can play indie without having actually to play indie...), but my only actual experiences with this happening to me were with other PbtA games (that Dungeon World one and another, earlier, with another PbtA). I have instead A LOT of experiences with games that were not clear about who could say what and when, and not wanting to fall back on the "all-mighty GM" way, trying to understand how to play them. Sometimes failing (the games were unplayable if you didn't presume an all-mighty GM or some other unwritten and unexplained authority distribution), sometimes giving up because it was too frustrating to try to find out a fundamental aspect of the game that the designer didn't want to tell us. I think that is not even a bad design decision, it's actually a design error if you want to explain a game (and you are interested in people actually playing your game and not the All-mighty GM version, of course)

A final example, from my own experience: the very first time I played DitV at our weekly gaming table. I and another player had already played the game, but the guy who wanted to GM it had not. It was the very first time he had seen a rpg without an "all-mighty GM", so, obviously, even if me and the other player insisted that he had to follow the rules... he didn't. He did take a look at the city creation rules, he thought (he confessed it himself, later) "rules for the GM? Ah, rubbish!" and created a city with a "mystery" to solve, and a breadcrumbs trail of clues to follow.
It ended badly, of course (badly for the game session, but very well for the group, seeing that we were able to explain to the GM where his error was), but I don't want to talk about the entire session now, but about the end of the very first conflict. The GM did try to use half of the city population to push us to go where he wanted, but the stakes were not actually about that. So I simply gave up on the conflict. The GM at that point started to tell us what happened... but I stopped him, telling him that by the rules, if I drop out of a conflict I can avoid the last raise, and I tell and narrate how. He was floored and contrary but I was able to show him the page where the rule was (because DitV DO tell the players who can say what and when)

Now, three questions:

1) Do you see explaining that kind of distribution of authority on the pages of DitV as an error now? I should not have been able to "force" my reading on the rules on the GM?

2) If the GM could have used his own idea about the distribution of authority in that scene, because the game would not have spelled out who could say what and when, we would have still played DitV? (or, more generally: how can "

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 01:53:18 pm

Moreno R. continued:

2) If the GM could have used his own idea about the distribution of authority in that scene, because the game would not have spelled out who could say what and when, we would have still played DitV? (or, more generally: how can "system does matter" and "it's not important that the system tell you what you can say about what and when" be compatible?)

3) If we were playing AW, and not DitV, the GM would have explained how the mob would have pushed us to the exact place the GM wanted us to go, and I would not have any page on the gaming manual to tell him that he couldn't. So, how can you say that the GM in the same scene in the two games has exactly the same authority?

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 01:54:31 pm

Vincent Baker responded:

+Moreno R.

1) No. You should.

2) Not Dogs in the Vineyard. I never said that systems DON''T distribute authority. They do. You've made a straw man!

When you ask your friend about his holiday, his authority to speak isn't what makes the conversation enjoyable.

3) You're mistaken!

In Apocalypse World 2nd Ed, you're looking for p.136-7, p.141, p.166-9, or p.175-6, depending on what stakes you as a player want to declare. One of the differences between Apocalypse World and Dogs in the Vineyard is that Apocalypse World handles escalation differently depending on what's at stake.

Anyway, in Apocalypse World 1st Ed, you're looking for p.190-2, p.195-7, or p.212-214.

(For convenience of reference, abbreviated versions of all the text you're looking for should be on 1-page reference sheets on the table. You can download the sheets for both editions from apocalypse-world.com.)

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 01:55:44 pm

Moreno R. responded:

Hi Vincent!
"I never said that systems DON''T distribute authority. They do. You've made a straw man!"
Honestly, I could never understand where you were going with these "don't think about authorities" comments, and seeing lately a lot (way too many) new Indie games that hand-wave the problem of who-has-to-do-what in a game with old 90s style platitudes about "roleplaying it up", I thought that you actually meant doing that. Sorry. No straw-man, but simply "me still not seeing your point re:Authorities."

But let's say that we agree on this: in a well designed game, you should never be finding yourself stopping cold because you don't know if you can say or not something, or, if somebody has to say something, you don't know if that someone can be you, or it SHOULD be you, or CAN'T be you. (i.e.: "Murk"). And I think we can agree that "knowing who can/must do what in this game" is what we could call authority/responsibility distribution or whatever. So, in a well designed rpg, you can see a clear distribution of authorities (even if it's not spelled out like that and the text don't use the word "Authority"), and if you can't understand the distribution of authorities in the game, the game is not well designed (or at least, it's not complete as written, leaving out some important procedures). Do we agree on this?

Because, even if it's true that...
"When you ask your friend about his holiday, his authority to speak isn't what makes the conversation enjoyable."

... knowing who of us should narrate his holidays (me, or him) is what makes the conversation POSSIBLE!

A conversation can be boring, stupid, or irrelevant, but still work technically because we understand each other. We still could communicate. Without all these very complicated social rules about who can say what, we could not even reach that point (and about these social rules... you can totally see, during a conversation, who mastered them, who has difficulties remembering or using them, and who power-play them)

The same, with authorities in games that work like a conversation: a game, even BEFORE reaching the point when it's "fun", has to be "playable". If you don't know who can say anything about what and when, it's like trying to play chess without understanding who can move what and at what time. You literally can't play.

It's for this reason, that when you say that people should not think about authorities when designing game, or even that thinking about authorities is harmful, it seems to me like saying that in a boardgame you should not bother to tell the players when they can move the pieces, and how.

Did I misunderstand your point? It's possible, and to tell the truth i could not believe at first you would say that when I first read these comments. But if misunderstood you, I was not probably the only one, seeing how many people are these days do out of their way to write games that never, ever, would give other designers the impression that they would be so "old style" to actually be clear about distribution of authorities at their game.

When a game without that clear distribution of authority DOES work? When everybody, designer and players, share the same blindness about other kind of distribution, and assume from the beginning a "standard" distribution, usually in this hobby "the GM (or the guy who usually play as GM) has total authority over everything, game rules included". And this is the death of game design, at that point you actually write pretty books to be looked at but not followed in actual play.

But, in the same way incoherence helps to sell rpgs (if the book doesn't say what it's for, you can sell it to everybody for everything), i think in this hobby murk help sell GM Guides (gamers usually like to believe the GM is a superior being that has no need of written rules, and as you said, a lot of GMs resent being told what to do by "mere" rules...), so I don't know if this recent sloppiness in game manuals is due, even in part, to your comments, or if it was caused simply by the sudden influx of a lot of "traditional" players and values in the indie niche. All I know is that when I recently translated a recent French game with clearly spelled-out rules about who can say what and when, I realized how much I missed seeing THAT in gaming manuals. Probably I should start to look more to the indie scene outside of the USA...

Changing topic, and returning to the scene in my DitV game, and how it would have played out in Apocalypse World, let's review the facts:

1) The GM has a story already written in his mind, and he wants us to follow it: this is already a violation of the rules of both DitV and AW, but it's a violation of the rules that would be considered "the way RPG are always played" by a lot of gamers, it's very common occurrence that happened to me a lot, and I cited it to show the difference in "robustness" of both games in this situation, due to their different authority distribution, so let'

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 01:57:01 pm

Moreno R. continued:

s continue.

2) The GM had a big group of NPCs attack the group, to force us to move in the exact place where we had to go in his "story". This group was strong enough to defeat the players, but still....

3)...thanks to the rules about who can say what clearly spelled in DitV, the GM still could not railroad us. We narrated our own defeat and what we did following that, maintaining the agency and forward motion of our characters.

4) The question is: what would happen in AW in the same situation?

I am not trying to say that AW is "broken": as I said, the GM already stopped following the rules at point (1), we are not really playing AW anymore, exactly how we were not really playing DitV. I am trying to show a different thing. You said that both games have the same distribution of authorities, I am trying to show how they are different enough to give very different results in this situation, a very common one when people used to traditional rpgs start playing them.

First, i think you are mistaken in saying that the results I can choose from when i win a roll in "acting under fire" or "take by force" are relevant to the situation: we didn't "win" with the dice rolls. DitV has a lot more dice rolls and a more back-and-forth narration, but if we roll too low, we lose in both games. And that was happened in DitV: we lost the conflict. So let's see what happen when you lose the roll in AW in these situation. (i will use the first edition rules, i don't have access to the 2nd).

The game manual says that in that case, the GM is the one who says what happen, following the game agenda, principles and moves. The problem is that the one who will have to follow them (the GM) is the only one who is addressed by them, the only one who has to interpreter them, the one who has to put them into concrete actions, and translate them into things he says to the players (not saying the name of the move and using misdirection): in other words, these rules are played in his own head, it's a conversation with himself, where everybody always agree with him, and they enter the shared imagined space only after he has already "translated" them into words.

This is a problem that can't ever show up in DitV: DitV directly assign narration of defeat to the players. Railroading is not even possible, no matter what the GM believe (as our GM discovered that evening)

The exact same GM, the same one who saw the rules of DitV and said "f### it, i already know how to GM a rpg", would have done the same in AW, and simply said to us "they push you back, forcing you all to take cover in the house you were trying to avoid". That kind of railroading-on-failed-rolls is very easy on AW, much more than in DitV, because the distribution of narration authority is VERY different: in AW, apart from when the times the GM ask (and he is the one who decide what to ask) and the times the players choose from a limited list, the outcomes are always decided and described by the GM.

But this is too easy. with a GM like that, that totally ignored the rules (apart from the ones we could cite at him in DitV and that don't exist in AW). He was totally breaking the social contract so blatantly that even in AW he would have been discovered soon. let's see a more subtle case... let's see what happen if the same GM (full of old "traditional" ideas about rpgs) actually try to follow AW rules...

Let's review the agenda:
* Make Apocalypse World seem real. (by having them live a realistic pre-planned adventure)
• Make the players’ characters’ lives not boring. (by having that adventure being fun! And it will be, I am a great GM!)
• Play to find out what happens. (Yes, they will play to find what happens in my adventure)

What the GM should say?
• What the principles demand (as follow).
• What the rules demand. (yes, I do make them roll d6s, not d12s....)
• What your prep demands. (Yes! My prep is my pre-written nice adventure!)
• What honesty demands. (I am honestly trying to make the players have a great time! It would not be honest for me to be lax in my duty to create pre-written adventures...)

With the principles is even easier: I already did follow most of them, in my old career as a master railroader (I guided my players hoop by hoop for years and i was never caught, I was the best railroader ever!)
• Barf forth apocalyptica.
• Address yourself to the characters, not the players.
• Make your move, but misdirect.
• Make your move, but never speak its name.
• Respond with fuckery and intermittent rewards.
• Think offscreen too.

I even did follow the other ones, in my way...
• Look through crosshairs. (I was convinced I did, after all the big boos could die at the end...)
• Name everyone, make everyone human. (ditto)
• Ask provocative questions and build on the answers. (I even did this... for things that did not impact too much on the "story")

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 01:57:59 pm

Moreno R. continued

• Be a fan of the players’ characters. (Fan? I was actually wring fanfiction about them and then had my friend play them out...)
• Sometimes, disclaim decision-making. -(yes, sometimes. Not often)_

What about the GM moves?, well...
• Separate them.
• Capture someone.
• Put someone in a spot.
...just the first three and i have already all I need to put them where i want, every time I want...
(I still need a failed roll from them, but it's simple to make them roll a lot waiting for a bad roll...)

Am i saying that AW doesn't describe well what it really means with these agenda, principles, and moves? No. As everyone who has ever written a book (or a G+ post) quickly discover, there is simply no way to write well enough to be perfectly understood by everyone with no chance of misunderstanding. When you write a rpg there is simply no way that you can totally avoid people misreading what you wrote. You can reduce that risk by being more clear and concise, but you can never eliminate it.

What i am saying is that to "pervert" DitV the GM had to willfully ignore everything the rules said about the GM role. Concrete, visible and social things. To "pervert" AW, there is no need of this, simply misunderstanding the meaning of agendas and principles is enough. Because they are about intentions, objectives, philosophy, and much less about measurable things.
And why is this? Because the two games have a very different distribution of authority. The GM in AW has SO MUCH authority, that the only "checks and control" the game can put on him are self-inflicted, self-interpreted, and self-checked. (as in D&D, after all)

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 01:58:39 pm

Vincent Baker responded:

On authority: I disagree. Negotiated assent is fundamental to roleplaying, not clear authority. Clear authority is just one way to negotiate assent.

In our conversational example, you're the one who must judge whether your friend's telling the truth about his holiday, how far to believe him, and what to make of his story. He's speaking, but he doesn't have the authority to make what he says true. In a roleplaying game, a conversation about fictional things in which we all have a stake, the gulf between who's speaking and the (fictional) truth only widens.

It's clear systems for negotiating assent that solve "murk," and while assigning authority is often clear, it's also often poor negotiation. There are other ways that are just as clear and make for better conversations.

So no, assigning authority is not the pinnacle of rpg design, and I'm glad when games don't use it.

On Apocalypse World: Do you want me to point out the checks and balances that you've missed and minimized? If not, I'm content to let your complaint stand. I know what to make of it now.

I will say, though, that in Dogs in the Vineyard, you don't "narrate your own defeat." That would be a TERRIBLE rule.

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 01:59:17 pm

I interjected:

(Unobtrusively butting in again. Why would narrating your own defeat be a terrible rule? Terrible in general, or terrible for Dogs in particular, +Vincent Baker?)

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 01:59:48 pm

Vincent Baker responded:

Good question. It's like any rpg rule: terrible for most rpgs, but perfectly good for the games designed to make good use of it.

In Dogs, the player who wins with the dice, their character must and should win what's at stake. Every other rule in the game assumes that this is true. So, giving anyone any other "outcome authority," like having the players narrate their own defeat, would mess up this essential function.

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 02:00:20 pm

I responded:

Makes sense. But why terrible for most rpgs?

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 02:01:30 pm

Vincent Baker responded:

I mean, "players narrate their own defeats" is just a rule, same as "when you get hit, roll on the hit location table," "when your character encounters something horrific, make a SAN save," or "take turns in descending initiative order, unless you have fast instincts."

For any given rule, some rpgs work that way, but most rpgs work a different and incompatible way. No big deal.

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 02:03:48 pm

Moreno R. responded with a comment too long to reshare. Here's Vincent's response to that comment:

+Moreno R. Sorry, Moreno! Bad news. I don't have a problem with the word "authority." I think it's the right word to use when you're talking about authority.

If anybody wants to "design games like Vincent Baker," they should worry about how their game systems handle negotiating assent, not about how they assign authority.

Consider, +Moreno R., the idea of responsibility instead.

One thing a game rule can do is assign authority. Another thing a game rule can do is assign responsibility.

When do you want a game rule that assigns authority, and when do you want one that assigns responsibility?

Now, game rules don't have to assign things, they can also defer them.

When do you want a game rule that assigns authority, and when do you want one that defers authority?

When do you want one that assigns responsibility, and when do you want one that defers responsibility?

Or it can share them! When do you want a game rule that shares authority instead of assigning it? When do you want one that shares responsibility instead of assigning it?

Or what about permission, which is related to authority and responsibility but isn't identical to either. When do you want a rule that assigns authority, and when do you want a rule that grants permission instead? When do you want a rule that grants permission, but defers responsibility at the same time?

There are also game rules that inspire a contribution, or shut a contribution out. Also game rules that invite elaboration, or cut elaboration off. Also game rules that set expectations, or invite defiance of expectations. Also game rules that provide a constraint, or remove a constraint. Also game rules that apply pressure upon someone's decision, or relieve pressure on it.

There is no reason on earth to treat, of all these possibilities and many more besides, assigning authority as the fundamental one. It's not! It's just one thing you can create your rules to do, suited for some situations, unsuited for others.

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 02:05:56 pm

Moreno R. responded:

Hi Vincent! Just to be clear: i don't consider assigning authority as the most important thing in a rpg.
As I said in the AD&D example, having a clear distribution of authority is about playability, being able to play the damn thing at all. It's not about fun . A game can be really clear about the authority distribution, and still be a terrible, boring game.

it's not the point of rpg design in the same way breathing is not the point of our life. It's something that operate on the most basic level of having a conversation, a necessity that you don't even notice when it's satisfied. (I am bringing it up in these discussion because a lot of games are lacking on that front, and it shows, not because games should be based about it)

Nor I am saying that you can't assign and share a lot of OTHER things in a game.

At the end, it's a very, very simple question: no matter how do you conceive your game, no matter how do you tell the players how to play, no matter if you write it in terms of enticement, responsibilities, authorities, o all of them or none of them.

The very simple question is: at the end of all your work, your game let people know who can (or must) do things, or not?

If you play a game and you don't even know what you can do or say in that game, it's a good game?

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 02:07:07 pm

Vincent Baker responded:

I aspire to write rules that people can follow, yes.*

"Authority distribution" is not a good term for this. I suggest "rules that people can follow" instead, please.

For instance, here's a rule that people can follow, that assigns authority: "You have the authority to insist that the other player roll on the hit location table."

Here's a rule that people can follow, that assigns responsibility instead: "It's your responsibility to keep track of your own hit points."

Calling them both "assigning authority" when all you mean is "a rule you can follow" is, yknow, poorly considered.

*Usually I do, anyway.

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 02:08:31 pm

I responded:

+Vincent Baker Been turning over negotiating assent in my head, and I keep comimg back to the thing that I keep coming back to in many of our brief exchanges: questions. Is the ability to naturally negotiate assent yet another reason to love questions in RPGs?

Since all entries into the Fiction are really offers anyway, no matter how authoritatively we frame them, questions make that offer apparent, especially a loaded question, yes? To take the example from your Hx section under Character Creation: "hey, when Dune left Keeler bleeding, was that the time that . . . Preen attacked the holding, or a different time?" The question of course proposes that Preen attacked the holding, and the other player is invited to work that into the fiction. If they do so, it is accepted and officially part of the fiction, or they are free to make a counteroffer. Such loaded questions mimic how we naturally converse with each other anyway, so we are all skilled at negotiating the give and take that comes with it.

Questions then not only make for interesting conversation, they make for easily negotiated assent, and they offer a great possibility of creating fiction that is interesting to all the players involved in the conversation.

I'm beginning to think that you placed Hx building at the point that character creation ends and play proper begins in order to give everyone their fictional sea legs. By giving us set questions, you guide the conversation enough to make sure that what comes out of it is not only interesting but useful in creating the drama to come. Also, it lets us work out what the world will look like in answering the questions without ever having to have a conversation about what the world will look like. Additionally, it lets us have a messy space to see how we all negotiate the construction of the fiction together before things get rolling and we'll especially want to be on the same page for the high drama to kick in. And it gets everyone used to the MC throwing in loaded questions. It is, in essence, like an exercise done by improv groups to warm up for the show, only the exercise is productive in creating the foundation of our fiction as well.

You did that on purpose, didn't you?

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 02:10:25 pm

Vincent Baker responded:

Yep!

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 02:12:15 pm

I responded:

Was there a moment that you saw what questions (loaded or otherwise) could do for RPGs, or was this an understanding that came to over time and through experience?

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 02:14:15 pm

Vincent Baker responded:

Huh. I don't remember the occasion, but I remember the light bulb sensation pretty clearly, now that you mention it. Working on the very first version of the Apocalypse Playbooks, probably.

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 02:17:05 pm

After more exchanges with Moreno R., Vincent said:

A game doesn't need to give anyone any authority. Instead, it needs to provide ways for the group to come to mutual agreement.

These may include assigning authority, but there are many other ways. Assigning authority is just one way to go about it.

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 02:18:39 pm

Finally, Vincent Baker said:

So now. If what you want is to create exciting, dynamic play, you don't need to assign authority, you need to create exciting, dynamic play. You need your game to grant and withhold permission boldly and thoughtfully. You need it to create both expectations and the opportunity to affirm, subvert, or defy them. You need it to inspire the players, startle them, provide fruitful constraints, provoke them, tease them, draw them out. You need it to create creative tensions that only fully engaged, nothing wittheld play can resolve.

Assent, not authority, is fundamental to play. Permission, expectations, inspiration, and tension, not authority, are essential to good design. Authority is just a theoretical footnote.

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 02:20:19 pm

Moreno R. asked on final question:

+Vincent Baker , sorry to bother you again (i will have to buy you a beer next time you visit Italy), but can you point to an example of a rule or a play procedure in a specific rpg that in your opinion works very well in absence of clear narrative authorities (or with unclear narrative authorities)?.
(Any example of a good procedure I can think of has clear authorities, and any example of unclear authorities that I can think of is not, IMHO, a good procedure. I want to understand if it's a disagreement about what is a good procedure, of if my bias are making me not see these procedures )

Jason D'Angelo

1/24/2019 02:22:25 pm

Vincent Baker responded:

+Moreno R. I can give you some examples from Dogs in the Vineyard, since I happen to have it open in front of me.

I think that Dogs in the Vineyard's set of procedures for setting stakes, assembling your dice, launching a conflict, making your raises and sees, bringing in your traits and stuff, escalating, and resolving the conflict is a good one. It includes many unassigned authorities, or ambiguously assigned, ranging from the critical to the minor:
* The authority to set stakes. (This one isn't ambiguous, it's quite explicitly no one's.)
* The authority to set the stage for a conflict.
* The authority to say how a conflict begins. ("Have someone say," the text says.)
* The authority to rule on an ambiguous escalation.
* The authority to rule, when you're using an improvised tool or weapon, whether you're using it to its intended purpose or, if not, whether you're doing something desperate, dangerous, or stupid with it.
* The authority to rule whether, bursting into a conflict already underway, your character is excellent or not.
* The authority to rule whether, when you change the description of your coat to include damage it's suffered, you should also change its dice. ("If it's called for," the text says.)
* The authority to rule whether your opponent in a conflict is a person of authority in an institution you have a relationship with, if it's ambiguous.
* The authority to rule whether your character's committed or resisted committing a sin you have a relationship with, or whether it's relevant to the current conflict, if it's ambiguous.

(These are all between pages 53-69. I probably missed some, and there are other examples in Dogs in the Vineyard's other procedures, as well, of course.)

When any of these come up - and look, this includes setting stakes and launching conflicts, crucial parts of the game - the group has to come to an agreement without anyone having the authority to decide it.

Now, not only do I think that this whole set of procedures is pretty good, I think that it would be fundamentally worse if it resolved these questions by assigning authority instead of demanding group consensus.

19. Meditation on Character Moves: Part II

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