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When you do single combat with someone, no quarters, exchange harm, but first roll+hard. On a 10+, both. On a 7–9, choose 1. On a miss, your opponent chooses 1 against you:
• You inflict terrible harm (+1harm). • You suffer little harm (-1harm). After you exchange harm, do you prefer to end the fight now, or fight on? If both of you prefer to end the fight now, it ends. If both of you prefer to fight on, it continues, and you must make the move again. If one of you prefers to end the fight, though, and the other prefers to fight on, then the former must choose: flee, submit to the latter’s mercy, or fight on after all. Single combat is strictly for times when two enemies meet head-on on neutral ground, with no purpose other than to harm one another, with no acceptable outcome other than injuries and death. If either enemy has any other objective, or any advantage of terrain, use seize by force or the other battle moves instead. Single combat is an interesting addition to Apocalypse World’s moves. Before, there was no clear way to simply fight someone. You would need to phrase it in terms of seizing something by force if both participants were ready for a fight, with “their life” or some equivalent as the thing being seized. As it is, single combat has some pretty restrictive conditions, as that first explanatory paragraph makes clear. And it’s neat to see how those limited parameters shape this variation of the seize by force move. Obviously gaining definite control of the things is out of the question because there is no objective other than injury or death. The removal of “impress, dismay, or frighten your enemy” is the interesting choice to me. It tells us that this battle will end under no other conditions than death or mutual agreement. If I want to kill you, you can’t soften my anger and determination by frightening me. We’re way past that by the time this move is triggered. So with only two options, how do you maintain the 3, 2, 1 progress of the strong hit, weak hit, and miss? By making it a 2,1, -1 progression instead. It’s a simple solution that makes the miss meaningful without letting the MC barge into the conflict with a hard move. I feel like this move is a capitulation to player demand, one that is occasionally useful, rarely necessary, and totally uninteresting to the designers. I conclude this by the accompanying example passage: Anika the maestro d’ conducts cage fights in her establishment, and Bran’s challenged Plover, an NPC, to meet him there. The terms are: no armor, crowbar vs crowbar. Bran hits the move with an 11, which, well done Bran. In the exchange of harm, Bran inflicts 2-harm for his crowbar, plus 1 for inflicting terrible harm, minus 0 for no armor, for a total of 3-harm. He suffers 2-harm for Plover’s crowbar, minus 1 for suffering little harm, minus 0 for no armor, for a total of 1-harm. 3-harm is enough to take Plover out. There’s no continuing the fight. Do you see what’s missing? Yeah, there’s no dialogue. The move and its explanation are all mechanics. There’s no reincorporating here of the die results back into the fiction for us readers. Bran and Plover have fight. Bran rolls. Ban wins. Cut and dry. And utterly unsexy. Since NPCs can only take 2-3 harm, and since you the MC need to look at them through the crosshairs, a straight fight will likely end in an NPC’s death, and a rather inglorious and dramatically uninteresting death at that. There is nothing in the presentation of the move to inspire the reader to bring this move into their game if any other solution is possible. (As an afterthought, I’ll add this. Since the exchange of harm is entirely a mathematical issue, and since the outcome is known to the players involved in the fight, there is no real need for them to turn to the MC for a fictional explanation of the results. If they don’t, there is no trigger or need for the MC to make a move. This could be part of the reason that there is no reincorporating of the mathematical results into the fiction.)
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This is our second section titled “PC vs PC.” The first one is on pages 132-133, and I cover that passage in post no. 104. Whereas the first PC vs PC section was about general opposition between PCs, this one is specifically concerned with two PCs attempting to seize the same thing by force. Everything here is straightforward, so I just want to make two quick observations concerning the example.
Here’s the example: Bran’s trying to kill Birdie but he’ll have to get through Keeler first. Bran’s armed with his 9mm (2-harm close loud) and is wearing his 1-armor welder’s jacket. Keeler’s wearing her 2-armor body armor, but she’s still not in a killing mood, so she’s armed only with her bare hands. Both roll. Bran hits the move with a 7, so he gets to choose 2. Keeler hits it with a 12, so she gets to choose 3. They commit to their choices before revealing them. Bran chooses to inflict terrible harm and to take definite control of Birdie. Keeler chooses to inflict terrible harm, suffer little harm, and protect Birdie from harm. In the exchange of harm, Bran inflicts 2-harm for his 9mm, plus 1 because he chose to inflict terrible harm, minus 2 for Keeler’s armor, minus 1 because Keeler chose to suffer little harm, for a total of 0-harm. Keeler inflicts 1-harm with her fists and boots, plus 1 because she chose to inflict terrible harm, minus 1 for Bran’s armor, for a total of 1-harm. Furthermore, they’ve chosen contradictory fates for Birdie, so those cancel out too. “It’s a standoff,” I say. “Bran, you shoot Keeler, but her armor takes it. Keeler, you land a couple satisfyingly crunchy body blows, but Bran’s not down or anything. Birdie’s still cowering behind you, but maybe she’s about to make a stupid run for it or something. What do you both do?” (169-170). The first observation is how little progress is made in the PC vs PC exchange. Even if one or both players missed their roll, they can still opt to get definite and undeniable control of Birdie, so as long as the goal is really what the fighting it over, it’s going to end in a standoff some huge percentage of the time. The only thing to be determined then is who is willing to get closest to killing the other. In the end of this exchange, Bran and Keeler are in the exact same situation as before, only Bran is down one harm. This example, then, serves to demonstrate not only how PC vs PC works by the rules, but also how the move doesn’t work to actively settle the matter. I like that. The second observation is that the MC makes a neat move when resolving the dice rolls by adding this detail: “Birdie’s still cowering behind you, but maybe she’s about to make a stupid run for it or something.” That little detail applies pressure to the conflict between Bran and Keeler. As the two of them are fighting each other, Birdie isn’t a thing to be simply fought over, but a character with decisions and impulses of her own. That simple statement makes the players have to keep one eye on Birdie going forward, complicating their decision tree for their next move. This keeps the players from simply rolling and rerolling rounds of seize by force combat. In reply to my last post, Nachiket Paktar linked to a thread in the Barf Forth forum that began in early 2017, here: http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=8835.60. It’s a lengthy discussion about the changes made to seize by force in the second edition. On page 4, Vincent joins the discussion and clarifies, through a conversation with Paul T. why seize by force was moved from the basic moves into the battle moves, and why in doing so, the miss was given a specific consequence rather than the “prepare for the worst” warning that comes with all the basic moves.
Here’s what he says in reply #64: I changed seizing by force in order to put it into position at the head of the new battle moves. This requires it to put more of its consequences off into the snowball than it did in 1st Ed, to make the opening for the other moves to lead and follow it. That notion of putting “more of its consequences off into the snowball” is I think a pretty mind-shaking idea, at least it is to me. He goes on to further clarify in reply #79: The basic moves have to work across contexts. You can act under fire, for instance, in battle, in the bedroom, trying to fix a car, trying to sneak away without causing any problems for anybody, trying to wait for a signal before you move. They can specify what happens on a hit, because those are the effects you're hoping to introduce into play, but they can't specify the miss because they can't presume the context. Imagine if acting under fire said "on a miss, you take harm as established," for instance. Now it only works when there's harm established, not when you're in the bedroom and not when you're waiting for a signal and getting impatient to move. The non-basic moves, all of them, contrariwise, have to specify or create the context in which they work. One of the ways they do this is by specifying misses. Another is by specifying who can make them (in the case of the character moves) and/or where you have to be to make them (in the case of the peripheral moves) and/or what has to be going on for you to make them (in the case of the battle moves). They have to do this because otherwise they would be basic moves: whoevs would be able to do them whenevs. In the 1st Edition, the battle moves were specifically flagged as "optional," meaning that they were presumed out of play unless you specifically chose to bring them in. Seizing by force was the basic move alternative to the whole set of battle moves. In the 2nd Edition, though, the battle moves are only the normal amount optional: presumed in play whenever you want to use one. This is why "do battle" appears on the 2nd Ed playbooks under hard. Doing battle, not seizing by force, is now the basic move. He continues this thought in reply #83: In 2nd Ed, seizing by force has a specific context. It's prescriptive and descriptive: you can only seize by force in battle; if you seize by force, that's great, now you're in battle. Since it has a specific context, the move no longer needs to work across contexts, so it's no longer a basic move and now it gets a miss effect. Its miss effect plays its part in creating what "in battle" means, along with all the other battle moves, the rules for exchanging harm, and a bunch of other stuff. So now. You can always resolve a battle with a single seize by force move, treating seizing by force as the basic move it was in 1st Ed. The move is written now with the presumption that you won't always do that, but in fact you can do it whenever you want, including always. That's no problem by the rules and I think we've been over that. Instead, can you imagine situations where, as the player or as the MC, resolving the battle with the single move feels kind of abrupt, or else feels kind of overreaching, or else doesn't give you the precise outcome you hope for, so you WANT to: - Turn the tables before seizing by force? - Hunt prey after seizing by force? - Escape a hunter after seizing by force? - Outdistance another vehicle before seizing by force? - Board another vehicle before seizing by force? - Etc? And reply #85: So, yes, exactly: seizing by force now has a more concrete, less abstract range of possible outcomes, explicitly on the miss, implicitly on the hits. But the broad range of possible outcomes still exists, in battle, not in the single move. Each of the battle moves has narrower possible outcomes individually, but when you consider how they might organically combine, you don't lose any of the possible scaling, any of the possible zooming. You trade away the range of outcomes in the single move, and in return you get, not the identical range of outcomes, but as broad a range, embedded in a broader range and diversity of possible battles. Plus better pacing. That's how it's supposed to work, anyway. I wouldn't claim that it works perfectly and universally, because who knows. But from all I've heard, and from my own play, it works very well overall. The new battle moves get a million times more enthusiastic play than the old ones ever did, which means that seizing by force is doing its new job of leading people enthusiastically into them. That's where I was going! And finally (for my purposes), he sums things up in reply #92: It's not about simplifying seizing by force at all. It's about putting more of the move's consequences off into the snowball, like I've been saying, to create the opening for the other battle moves to lead and follow it. Explicitly follow on the miss, implicitly lead and follow on a hit. I don't want to oversell it as a big part. It's just one piece of it. But it does play its own small, definite part in making battles flow. The miss conditions in a move shape how moves connect to continued situations and other moves. In the case of battle moves, the matter of harm creates and clock that gives characters a limited time (and corresponding pressure) to achieve the overall goal of a battle, not just temporary goals. The specific narrative ramifications of an action shape the choices available to the player, and the player’s choices from the seize by force picklist shape the choices available to the MC. Seize by force can solve the whole battle in one roll as it always has been able to do, or it can easily fit together with the other battle moves that have now been put on an equal par with seize by force. The shape and particulars of a move’s miss condition (as well as it’s hit options, of course) determines how it fits in with other available moves. Snowballing is not an accident of narrative, but a structure of possibilities determined by a move’s construction. How much does a move resolve at all die results? How much does a move change the situation and leave new room for other actions, again at all die results? These are important things to think about when looking at moves. To assault a secure position, roll to seize by force, but instead of choosing to take definite control of it, you can choose to force your way into your enemy’s position.
To keep hold of something you have, roll to seize by force, but instead of choosing to take definite control, you can choose to keep definite control of it. To fight your way free, roll to seize by force, but instead of choosing to take definite control, you can choose to win free and get away. To defend someone else from attack, roll to seize by force, but instead of choosing to take definite control, you can choose to protect them from harm. In the first edition of Apocalypse World, the Bakers give this point of clarification: “Read ‘seize something’ broadly — a character can seize the upper hand, seize momentum, or even seize the moment — but ‘by force’ is strict” (195). In the second edition, they have restructured the presentation of the move for clarity. Personally, I miss the sentence I quoted, but I understand why that gave up the broad reading of “seize something” for these variants of the move. This new presentation does nothing to impair the way I read the move while at the same time makes the move more understandable to those who prefer their moves more literal. These four variants are probably the most reliably common ways that seize by force is used beyond literally seizing a thing. Offering the variants as variants is in some ways an invitation for players to create their own custom move in the form of a variant of seize by force, a baby step for players who are uncomfortable creating a whole new move but who can alter another move. Even a casual read of the variants reveals that the only things that shift with each variant is what you mean by “seize” and what you mean by “take definite and undeniable control.” The thing that you are seizing in each case is the character’s goal, what they want to accomplish through their use of force. In fact, the move could be called “accomplish a thing by force” and the result option could be “definitely and undeniably accomplish the thing.” But that would be shitty writing, and the Bakers don’t go in for shitty writing. The example is straightforward: Marie the brainer is stranded in the rag-waste and gets set upon by one of its not-quite-human habitants. She has no choice but to fight her way free. She misses the roll with a 4. She still gets to choose 1, and chooses to win free and get away. In the exchange of harm, she inflicts 3-harm for her scalpel (3-harm intimate hi-tech) minus 1 for her assailant’s hide armor, for a total of 2-harm. She suffers 2-harm for her assailant’s crude cutting blade (2-harm hand messy) minus 0 because she’s wearing no armor, for a total of 2-harm. “You cut into him and flee,” I say. “You’re bleeding, but you get away. You can hear him gasping somewhere behind you, but you don’t know whether he’s chasing you or letting you go.” Here we see that even on a miss, you can accomplish your goal, Marie winning free and getting away. Again, I have to admire the skill of the MC as they sew ambiguity into the fiction. Marie escapes, but she doesn’t know if she is being chased or not. If so, might the creature appear again? If the creature is letting her go, is there some reason for that? This construction leaves a lot of room for narrative tension now and creative decisions later. Seize by force has specific rules for a miss, namely, “choose 1.” Compare that with the rules for a miss with reading a stich and reading a person: “On a miss, ask 1 anyway, but be prepared for the worst.” The directions for seize by force could easily have been written, “On a miss, choose 1 anyway, but be prepared for the worst,” but they weren’t. The only logical conclusion is that the MC does not have the invitation to make as hard a move as they’d like in the case of the miss. This example most certainly suggests that the MC doesn’t make a hard move in addition to Marie getting away. Huh. I didn’t realize that until just now. Keeler decides that enough’s enough and goes to take Birdie’s magnum away from her. (Who gave Birdie a magnum in the first place? Jesus.) Keeler doesn’t want to kill Birdie, so she’s not using a weapon, just her bare hands. She seizes the gun by force and hits the roll with a 9. She chooses to take definite control of it and to impress, dismay, or frighten Birdie.
In the exchange of harm, Keeler hits Birdie for 0-harm for grappling and restraining, minus 0 because Birdie’s wearing no armor, for a total of 0-harm. Birdie hits Keeler for 3-harm for her magnum (3-harm close reload loud), minus 2 for Keeler’s body armor, for a total of 1-harm. “As soon as Birdie realizes that she’s shot you,” I say, “and she sees the look on your face, she panics. She throws the gun down and runs.” “She better,” Keeler says (168). This example has it all: a clear dramatic situation with both humor and danger that shows the how the move works, what its limitations are, and how its results can be worked cleverly back into the fiction. By this point in the text, we know that Birdie isn’t right. We’ve seen Bran put her into his isolation chamber, and we’ve seen Marie try to read her to find out what she should be on the lookout for. The examples are not in chronological order, but they are clearly from the same storyline. What begins for us as a set of names become recurring characters, and the example act as highlight reels from a TV series that we’ll never get to see. The familiarity is a clever way to have the examples point to the larger storylines that the game can create. So the first sentence of this example bring together Keeler (whom we know from previous examples is a snarky badass) and Birdie, who occupies the difficult land between friendly and threatening, and who is now armed, much to Keeler’s displeasure. The character’s goals are simple: get the gun away from Birdie without killing her, so the player’s choices will be guided by those goals. The move is triggered by the simple declaration that Keeler “goes to take Birdie’s magnum” by using just her bare hands. The move forces the characters to exchange harm, so Keeler’s player’s choice to use only her bare hands reduces the risk of hurting Birdie. Birdie is equally bound by the move to fight back, which in this case means using the gun. If Birdie didn’t want or wasn’t prepared to fight back, grabbing the gun would be Keeler going aggro on Birdie. With a hit on a 9, Keeler’s player chooses two options. She gets the gun (her goal) and impresses, dismays, or frightens Birdie. By choosing to impress, dismay, or frighten Birdie, Keeler’s player is trying to end the conflict without further injuries to anyone. The math happens outside of the fiction, and then the MC works the results into the fiction. The MC can narrate the results anyway they like as long as Keeler ends up definitively with the gun and Birdie changes her behavior. I like the MC’s choice to have Birdie throw down the gun after shooting Keeler and seeing the expression on Keeler’s face. It gives Birdie agency in the shooting rather than having the gun go off during the struggle. I also love the phrase “sees the look on your face” because it leaves some ambiguity in the scene. Is Keeler pissed, or emotionally hurt, or offended? What did Birdie see on Keeler’s face, and did she flee because she was scared of what Keeler would do or because she was ashamed of what she herself had done? We don’t know, and there’s nothing in the example to suggest that the players know or choose to clarify. Finally, choosing to have Birdie flee the scene drives the drama forward. Where will she go? Will Keeler pursue? How awkward will their next meeting be? We want to know and the players will want to know, and only through play will we learn the answer. |
Jason D'AngeloRPG enthusiast interested in theory and indie publications. Archives
July 2020
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