91. Moves Snowball: Part I – “Conflict” and “Resolution”

Any given conflict between characters, one move alone probably won’t resolve it. Very often it’ll take several moves and countermoves, a whole back-and-forth between them. Hitting rolls on a 7-9, especially, usually leaves a whole lot unresolved, primed for followthrough or a counterstrike (126).

That’s the first paragraph of the chapter Moves Snowball, and it seems to me to be carefully worded to conjure of the issue of conflict resolution without ever calling it conflict resolution. The word “conflict” only appears in one other place in the whole text, and that is in reference to the MC having a conflict of interest with the players if the MC plays her part adversarially (top of page 82). Resolve appears not once, but twice here, both times letting you know resolution is not the end result of a single move. Added all together, this paragraph states that moves are not about conflict resolution.

Why not just say that? While conflict resolution is a common term or art, it is still a term of art, and the Bakers don’t seem interested in having the game burdened with preconceived ideas of RPG theory, even casual ones. In this paragraph, then, if you are sensitive to the theory, it’s there for you to see. If you’re not, then you just read the paragraph as meaning exactly what it means. Easy enough.

For those of us who look at an RPG and think in terms of resolution mechanics for conflicts and tasks, we are told here not to think of moves in Apocalypse World in terms of conflict resolution. Conflict resolution is about seeing how the conflict as a whole is settled, if the goal of a character is achieved through the conflict. I want to subdue this woman and get the information out of her. I state my goal, work out the stakes with the other players, roll the dice, and interpret them to decide whether my goal was achieved or missed, and translate that into the fiction.

But moves in Apocalypse World aren’t designed to resolve conflict but to generate and perpetuate it, as the rest of this chapter shows us through the example of play. Moves are not designed simply to denote success or failure but to permanently alter the situation from one state to another.

The moves cascade very naturally. Holds overlap, outcomes nest and double up and flow seamlessly into the new moves. Just remember the rule - if you do it, you do it; to do it, you have to do it - and see their logic through.

That “see their logic through” is the part that permanently alters the situation into a new situation. I have spoken many times in past posts about how internal logic and causality within the fiction are the backbone of play in Apocalypse World (posts 27, 35, and 47 in particular, I think). A 10+ is as permanent a change as a 6-, and when followed through logically, should have as much impact on play as a 7-9, even if it is potentially not as immediate or frenzied. (Remember: “the way to make a character’s success interesting is to make it consequential. When a character accomplishes something, have all of your NPCs respond. Reevaluate all those PC-NPC-PC triangles you’ve been creating. Whose needs change? Whose opinions change? Who was an enemy, but now is afraid; who was an enemy, but now sees better opportunities as an ally? Let the characters’ success make waves outward, let them topple already unstable situations. There are no status quos in Apocalypse World” (86).)

Now, a skilled GM can take an RPG with resolution mechanics and make those results alter the fiction in permanent ways that simultaneously push the story forward by pressuring the characters and demanding actions and reactions from them. The brilliance of Apocalypse World is that its moves mechanize the creation of unstable situations out of other unstable situations. Moves are situation-propelling mechanisms rather than resolution mechanisms, which is precisely what the opening paragraphs in this chapter point out, and ultimately what the whole of this chapter demonstrates.