Recurring silly comment about Apocalypse World and similar RPGs

[pemerton]

Inevitably there's a judgement which must be made. If a fighter says " I smash the empty cardboard box" nobody thinks invoking BBLG makes sense, right? So there's certainly a line somewhere beyond which a move is justified or demanded. I don't think @loverdrive is wrong, but there's always a grey area. This comes up a lot with questions about Defy Danger in DW.

As I said above though, there must always be a question as to whether things rise to the level of move invocation. There can be no completely hard and fast rules, as the interpretation of fiction is involved.

No dissent from me! (See my post not far upthread.)

 

[pemerton]

But, it does have the word "dungeon" in its title! Therefore ergo facto(tum) it must be focused around dungeons exclusively.

This is why I get confused every time someone talks about a D&D game where the PCs met some monster that wasn't a dragon.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

so if a character searches for a secret door and the roll succeeds, there then is one and the GM has to decide what is behind it?

yes, within the confines of the GMs prep and the fiction that has come before

 

[pemerton]

But I've been specifically told right here that you can't use prep to determine the success of anything the player wants to do.

I am fairly confident that you have participated in past threads that discuss the use of prep as a coordinating tool, and a source of things to say, rather than a constraint on action resolution.

The prep that @Faolyn describes seems perfectly suited to those function: eg the Elven Bard has enemies from a rival steading; and the Orcs probably worship the Earth Gods, which creates plenty of scope for seeding conflict or prompting hard choices. Etc.

 

[pemerton]

so if a character searches for a secret door and the roll succeeds, there then is one and the GM has to decide what is behind it?

Are we talking about Dungeon World? In which case, what roll are you referring to?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

so if a character searches for a secret door and the roll succeeds, there then is one and the GM has to decide what is behind it?

There's no move by this name in DW, at least in the playbooks I have used. So the GM cannot be so compelled. You can Discern Realities and hope the GM describes one.

 

[Kannik]

I had to admit, I was disappointed that Dungeon World was not literally about a World of Dungeons, and it led me to making a setting I haven't used yet, the "Demiplane of Dungeon" (the notes live mostly in my head rather than in any written form, sadly). A living, slowly-shifting dungeon home to numerous sentient beings who are just doing their best to get by in a world that doesn't have a lot of natural food resources, while at the same time not falling to the "full of evil raiders"/"every man for himself" motifs you get in a lot of similar (often post-apocalypse) resource-poor settings.

The Delver's Guide to Beast World posits something somewhat adjacent: the world itself (through reasons unknown -- maybe ancient magic? rip in the cosmos? mad mage experiment gone wrong?) causes fully stocked dungeons with all of its denizens to come into and out of existence. The adventurers/players are essentially nomad miners, seeking out these dungeons to loot them as part of the world's economy. It's an interesting and neat premise (that also manages to sidestep a number of murderhobo issues) and would be a great setting for a PbtA/DW type game (along with the dungeon-crawly* D&D campaign it is natively crafted for).

* Note it also covers the caravans, overland travel, and the world outside of these dungeons as well including various nations and more, so it isn't just about the dungeons, but the way dungeons are this kind of hazardous but replenishing resource is a neat concept. (And these out-of-world bits could also be well handled by a PbtA/DW type game.)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The Delver's Guide to Beast World posits something somewhat adjacent: the world itself (through reasons unknown -- maybe ancient magic? rip in the cosmos? mad mage experiment gone wrong?) causes fully stocked dungeons with all of its denizens to come into and out of existence. The adventurers/players are essentially nomad miners, seeking out these dungeons to loot them as part of the world's economy. It's an interesting and neat premise (that also manages to sidestep a number of murderhobo issues) and would be a great setting for a PbtA/DW type game (along with the dungeon-crawly* D&D campaign it is natively crafted for).

* Note it also covers the caravans, overland travel, and the world outside of these dungeons as well including various nations and more, so it isn't just about the dungeons, but the way dungeons are this kind of hazardous but replenishing resource is a neat concept. (And these out-of-world bits could also be well handled by a PbtA/DW type game.)

13th Age uses very similar ideas. Honestly I think the general idea goes way back, probably to the '70s, though I don't have any specific reference for that.

 

[mamba]

Are we talking about Dungeon World? In which case, what roll are you referring to?

I was just going off the post I replied to, that was not specified. Let's assume it is Dungeon World, seems reasonable, and the move may be Discern Realities (What here is not what it appears to be?), seems to fit.

 

[mamba]

There's no move by this name in DW, at least in the playbooks I have used. So the GM cannot be so compelled. You can Discern Realities and hope the GM describes one.

great, so if I cannot be compelled, how is that different from me saying 'there isn't one' based on my prep?

Because something has been discerned, just not a secret door? When how is that different from me using my prep to determine what has been observed / discovered?