98. Moves Snowball: Part VIII – Free play

”Cool. Keeler – “ turning to Keeler’s player “ – you’re passing by your armory and you hear some of your gang people in there. It’s Plover, Church Head and Pellet, arming themselves. What do you do?” I’m_ announcing future badness_.

”Hey, what’s up?” Keeler’s player says.

”Marie attacked Isle,” I say, in Plover’s blunt, heavy voice. And in my own: “he stops what he’s doing and looks square at you, he’s still got a shotgun in his hand. Church Head and Pellet, you know they’re going to back him up.”

Let’s talk about free play and how it works in Apocalypse World.

Free play is not a term that’s used in the text, nor is it to be found in Ron Edwards’ Provisional Glossary, but I think it’s a common enough term to use here. Free play, as I think it is commonly used – at least it’s how I’m going to use it here – is the part of RPG play that is not governed by mechanics or procedural rules. It’s the part of play during which we talk to each other in our characters’ voices and build up fiction together without rolling dice or engaging any mechanics of the game. Way back on page 8, Vincent and Meguey talk about the way the rules of the game “mediate the conversation”: “They kick in when someone says some particular things, and they impose constraints on what everyone should say after.” Free play is that time before the mechanics of the game “kick in.”

It’s perhaps overbroad to say that free play is unique to roleplaying games (under which umbrella I am including larp and games like Once Upon a Time – any game that has a shared fiction that must be agreed to to some extent for play to happen). At no time during a board game or a card game are you doing things that affect the game but that are not regulated by rules and mechanics. In roleplaying there are these free-flying moments that we all partake in by the grace of our own imaginations and social agreement. Then when we get to a part of the game that has mechanical teeth, we lock into those rules, follow the event through, and then go off soaring again.

I think we can all agree that free play is one of the most incredible parts of roleplaying. But free play is also a huge challenge to designing RPGs, in that the designer has to be mindful of where things can go during that free play and how to smoothly transition from free play to mechanics and back to free play. Even when mechanics are not engaged, there might be procedures (or not) that keep the free play focused, keeps players in the proper tone, or themes, or whatnot. How intrusive do you get as a designer? How do you help the players get the most out of free play without hindering them in the process?

What I see in Apocalypse World is half an answer to those questions and half an analysis of what actually happens during free play in order to identify the natural procedures playgroups adopt in mediating their own conversations. The Bakers then use that analysis to provide a soft structure for free play (or at least to identify and point out the soft structure we unconsciously use).

Now back to the passage quoted above. Let’s start with that “what do you do?” I have talked about “what do you do?” as a reminder to the players that their characters are the heroes of our story, that it is their actions that drive the narrative, as opposed to some preexisting idea or plot presented by the MC. I have also talked about “what do you do?” as a tool for clarifying the fiction so that moves can be made without confusion. Here we see a third use. Here, even as the “what do you do?” accomplishes those first two goals, it also serves to mediate the conversation taking place at the table. Back to page 8: “You and other players go back and forth . . . Like any conversation, you take turns, but it’s not like taking turns, right?” With this “what do you do?” and every time it occurs, it is a way of passing the conversational conch to the other player. The MC has made her move (announcing future badness) and now it is the player’s turn to describe Keeler’s actions. And how do we know when the player is done with her turn? Page 88: “whenever there’s a pause in the conversation and everyone looks to you to say something,” make your move, Ms. MC. These are the basic building blocks of conversation in Apocalypse World. I make an MC move and ask “what do you do?” You describe your character’s actions, either triggering a move or not, and then looking at me expectantly, at which point we can repeat the exchange.

In our example here, the MC makes her move, announcing future badness, and the player slides effortlessly into character and free play, engaging Plover with a question, “what’s up?” The MC joins in the free play, and although the text doesn’t specify, it looks like the MC lands on another move, for when she says that Plover has a shotgun in his hand and Church Head and Pellet are going to back him up, the MC sounds like she is telling the possible consequences and asking, or possibly offering an opportunity (to interfere), or maybe just continuing the announcement of future badness. Either way, there’s an unspoken “what do you do?” a clear challenge to Keeler’s player to get involved or step aside.

During free play, the natural restrictions on the PC players is to stick to the fiction, say what their characters do and think, ask questions about the fiction, and answer questions asked of them. There are no mechanical or procedural limitations to their end of the conversation stated in the text.

The conversation on the MC’s side is much more explicitly structured. Moves, for example. One of the things Apocalypse World does by structuring the MC’s side of the conversation with MC moves is that it forces free play to be productive narratively one way or the other. The MC is doing one of a few things at any given moment: 1) asking questions to create fiction or make the current fiction concrete; 2) answering questions by the players to create fiction or make the current fiction concrete; 3) creating fiction in response to a move that has been triggered, rolled for (or not), and needs resolving back into the fiction; or 4) making a move. You could make a case for a fifth option in engaging as NPCs in a dialogue, but I suspect that even then, the MC is making (or building up to) some kind of move or another.

Now this limited range of MC participation in the conversation is never explicitly laid out like that, but it structures the conversation at all times all the same, and it’s one of the reasons game play runs so smoothly and eventfully. The back and forth and inevitable escalation of situations is built right into what is traditionally free play. Mind you, I still believe it is free play because the MC’s actions are governed by procedural rules rather than the hard teeth of mechanics. The Bakers have merely, to my understanding, analyzed what free play consists of and broke it down into its parts in order to shape the conversation in a way that gives the players the best possible chance to create a compelling, engaging, and interesting fiction.