Rascal Reading Club: Apocalypse World

It's hard to say anything original about Apocalypse World but I tried. For our series about GMing advice called The Most Impossible Fun Thing, I read the MC sections of Apocalypse World 2nd Edition.

Here are some excerpts:

Not Advice But Rules

Here we go! Apocalypse World saying very specifically, these are rules. Now, what does that mean? What does it mean to say these are rules? Is it saying, hey, if you don't play it this way, you're doing it wrong? Maybe, but if I don't use inspiration in D&D, I'm doing it wrong as well in some sense. But that's fine! Of course it's fine... What does it mean to say "this is not advice, these are rules"? One very fundamental thing is saying is like, this is important.

In a way that advice is framed like, oh, this is advice, do whatever you want with it, don't listen, I don't care, I'm just a little guy... And the answer is no, no, no, this is important. It's not super critical but newsflash, actually, none of your rules are super critical either, right? The idea that "GM advice is like rules" is not coming from a glorification of rules as being something inviolate, something that you must obey, like a law, right? ... It's saying, hey, all of these things are equally important actually.

Play To Find Out

Does it just mean "don't railroad"? I don't think so And I'm going to try to explain that by comparing it to the phrase: "don't prep plots"... If you go to the Alexandrian's website, Jason Alexander, he has an article called Don't Prep Plots. And that's very useful thing to compare... He talks about, don't decide how the characters will do things, don't decide that they will do X and they will do Y, how they will do it.

But how Jason Alexander fleshes out [what you should do] is: structure clues like this, here's how to build scenarios so that the players get to where they need to be, but in a way that you don't have to shepherd them there, right? You have constructed the mystery. Now let them play within it so that they get to solve the mystery and get to the climax at the end.

And I would say like this is only a part of what "play to find out" is. In the sense, I think "play to find out is this" is "don't prep plots, don't railroad", but it is also something else. I think that playing to find out what the characters will do is more or less now fundamental, a given across play styles in tabletop role playing games. ... But that is just level one. There are levels above that I think play to find out includes and gestures at and for me, for the lack of a better phrase, I'm going to call this radical possibility.

GM Moves

Most of the time you'll be either making a move that ramps up the tension — setting yourself up for a harder move, a more final action, you're building up towards something... Or you'll be throwing the ball back to the player characters. You'll be making a move that then immediately they have to respond to. You'll be doing one of those two things most of the time.

And then, eventually you will be making a move that is final-ish. But that's a very rare instance, the goal of the GM is to just like a DJ at a party, the drop will happen, but it's really all about the buildup to it. It's about keeping it spinning, keeping it going.

As usual, we ended the episode with a series of discussion questions directed at listeners:

Discussion Questions

1. What do you think of Apocalypse World? What do you think of the MC section?
2. What do you think about the game's statement: "follow these as rules"? Do you think that sentence makes its MC section different from other games?
3. What does "play to find out" mean to you? Do you think its a universal aspect of games?
4. What is your favorite or least favorite principle and why?
5. What was your first reaction to the idea of GM moves? What do you think about it now?

If you'd like to participate in the discussion, please respond by March 10th, either by posting in the official discord or writing to thomas@rascal.news. Participation is open to everyone, including non-subscribers!

If you're a member of Rascal’s Party Member tier, you can nominate a book and decide what we discuss next in the series.