Hey sage, just wanted to pop in here for a minute and say thanks for taking time to respond to some of these items. I actually played in a session of DW, and unfortunately, it wasn't our thing. We found the lack of initiative problematic, and some of the design choices and assumptions (choosing a name off a predefined list, only having one of each class in a group) seemed a bit off to us. So I don't think it's my thing, but thanks for explaining a bit about where you're at w/ design and such.

Quote from: RPGPundit;674347But that does make a huge difference. In D&D, for example, a PC archer can (maybe) choose to fire more than one shot but at a penalty, or get a bonus if they put themselves in a more visible position or advance, but they have to choose that BEFORE rolling. And that means that they have to decide to take a risk that sometimes would be an unnecessary risk; maybe staying behind cover firing just one arrow would have worked, but they don't get to play "takeback" and do it over that way.  Likewise, if they play it safe and miss, they don't get to play "takeback" and choose the riskier move.

Heyo. This is just a lowly player checking in. As far as my experience with the games at hand, I've run DW as a GM & player, played ApocalypseWorld a few times, and helped a buddy playtest an ApocalypseWorld hack of his own. I'm fairly young (27) and didn't pay much attention to how the indie game sausages gets made until the Forge was already in Archive-only mode. I've got a Story-Game.com account, but I think the only posts I used it for were for GameChef, if even that.

For other games, I've played D&D 3.5, 4e, & Rules Cyclopedia; d20 Modern; Star Wars d20; Star Wars: Edge of the Empire; Shadowrun 4th; Burning Wheel, Mouse Guard & Torchbearer; Fiasco; Microscope; Iron Kingdoms RPG; Dresden Files RPG; Call of Cthulhu; Mutants & Masterminds; Deadlands: Reloaded, & 50 Fathoms via Savage Worlds; etc., etc. Suffice to say, I like all games! I think I'm partial to indie games, even though I get to play them the least, so maybe that makes me one of these frightening swine you're all talking about. Which would be great, because I love bacon.

I can say from running DW as recently as last week, rewinding never happened, even with volley. Actually, I lied: we did rewind a couple times when we forgot about a hireling a few times, even though we made a giant index card standee for him proclaiming "ZIN'CHA IS A GUY" and put it in the center of the playmat. But not for volley.

Here's how volley actually goes, in use by me & my players, interpreting the rules from the book only without any gamedev knowledge, boiled down to bare basics. Ish. (For our purposes, let's say the players are fighting some giants and some Yuan-ti in an ancient subterranean temple--a structure dwarfed by the titanic cave system it sits in, the cave roof far above that of the temple. Lots of pillars, most still standing but tilting at crazy angles, and plenty of busted stonework around from the giants & players making a mess.)

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Player: I wanna shoot the guy from where I am.

GM: (decides if shooting guy is even an option) Yeah, go ahead and try to shoot the guy.

Player: (rolls a 5) Damn.

GM: Your shot is totally shitty and you miss completely. Your aim is so bad you actually catch your dwarven buddy in the back by accident (decides an appropriate damage die to roll, picks a d8). Roll of 6 damage to you, buddy.

Buddy Yow! Thanks a lot, pal. Good thing my armor reduces it a little.

GM: It gets worse. The momentary distraction from the impact let the giant your buddy was fighting get the advantage he needed to grab his dwarven prey! Let's shift focus to the dwarf, now: a giant is crushing you in his hand! It hurts like hell, and you can't breathe. What do you do?

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Player: I wanna shoot the guy from where I am.

GM: (decides if shooting guy is even an option) Yeah, go ahead and try to shoot the guy.

Player: (rolls a Mmm.

GM: The shot you line up from where you are isn't great, but you figure you might be able to salvage it if you just shoot a shit-ton of arrows or move position. Since it's a split-second decision, you won't be able to be on the lookout while you move, so you know you'll probably run into trouble.

Player: Hmm, I don't like trouble, so I shoot the shit-ton of arrows and don't move.

GM: Wise man. Roll your damage, and note the decrease in your ammo.

ALTERNATE

Player: Hmm, I hate scrounging around for arrows, so I say to hell with it and move up.

GM: Alright. You find a better spot to let your arrow fly; roll your damage. As you step forward and release it, though, you feel the tell-tale ethereal *snap* of entering a magic circle. You see red sigils flash to life in the circular seal that was previously covered almost completely by dust, but you recognize what the symbols are doing just as a roiling plume of sulfur hits your nose... and a demon appears in the circle. You're so boned.

ALTERNATE

Player: Hmm. My quiver is getting light, so I stay put and let fly. Plus, I don't want to take a risk right now; I got a bad feeling.

GM: There's only ever bad feelings in this place. So, since you're take what you can get: roll your damage, but minus 1d6 from the result.

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Player: I wanna shoot the guy from where I am.

GM: (decides if shooting guy is even an option) Yeah, go ahead and try to shoot the guy.

Player: (rolls an 11) Nice.

GM: You manage to find just the right moment to let your shot fly, landing a solid hit. Roll your damage!

Player: I get a 9.

GM: Damn, that kills the Yuan-ti outright. Where did your shot land that it managed to kill him in one blow?

Player: You said this Yuan-ti had some of those alchemist's-fire flasks, right? The arrow punches right into one, and the explosion from it at point-blank range just turns him into a greenish-red mist.

GM Haha, awesome. It doesn't actually obliterate him though; the fireball just tears out a big enough chunk of viscera to kill him. Which is handy, because now you can still snag his fancy helm later.

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Player: I wanna shoot the guy from where I am.

GM: (decides if shooting guy is even an option) The sight lines are totally blocked by the pillars and the destruction you guys have caused so far. You can't shoot the guy from where you are.

Player: Alright, I stash my bow, whip out my longsword, and dash over to try hitting that giant my buddy is keeping busy.

GM: Sure thing. As you start to move toward the giant over the floor that's now covered with busted ceiling tiles, you're making a god-awful racket. You'll need to do something to avoid pulling it's attention from your buddy as you get closer...

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Hah, less bare bones than I intended, but it's hard to not write like I'd actually run it at the table.

The piece where I turn it back to the player for how the Yuan-ti died: that's me just outsourcing some adjectives that will lead to a more-or-less-fixed end state, a lootable corpse. When my players manage to one-shot the baddies, I've always tended to let them describe their own kills as an added bonus. Even just running D&D, before I ever encountered DW, or any indie game really. It feels extra appropriate in DW, where there isn't really a critical hit; no standard move (that I know of) gives you a free max damage, or free double damage, etc. If it's just a killing blow, last of many only by luck of math, I keep death narrating for myself and often will try to have the death be a little grim & gruesome, just to remind everyone that hacking your enemies to bits isn't just a gay old time.

Now, as regards taking a risk that's an unnecessary risk: I see this all the time. More with Hack & Slash, since players just love that extra d6 of damage on a 10+, which lets me hurt them. And they do it a lot when the monster is one stiff breeze away from dying! But they don't know that, or think to try and get an idea of how hard they need to hit the guy they're hitting.

I see it with volley too, in a different way: a player moving up and giving me a free move, when even a damage result of 1 or 2 after the penalty, fired from cover, will off the guy. But they don't know, or don't think to find out.

I think a big part of the difference, between your volley examples and those in DW, is two-fold:

1. There is no "you whiff; next player up please" option for an attack roll. Ammo is mostly abstracted, so you don't have that steady trickle loss of arrows as a thing. Ammo mostly goes down when you fire extra shots, or when I take it away via a GM move (crushed by ogres, etc.) So, "hang back, shoot a bunch of shots, they all miss, nuts-to-you; who's next in initiative" isn't something DW is going to produce.

2. Situational bonuses and penalties, math-wise and not, pop up slightly differently than in typical D&D. Now, your situation (high ground, low ground, cover, etc.) will of course restrict your options in the fiction, but it's not going to give a +2 or -2 or whatever. That's not how the math works in DW. Here's how it does work:
--You have a situational advantage to attack that makes sense. No need to roll an attack; you have enough advantage to hit, so roll your damage.
--You have a disadvantage that gets in your way. The attack you want do is not going to land, unless you manage to change things. What do you do?

Those are just a few of many possibilities, of course.

The times I do see mathematical penalties come up, it's in the form of a -1 a wizard or cleric has ongoing from an upkept spell, or messing up reality/annoying their god; a debility like Sick, Weak, Confused, etc. (one flavored for each ability score; if you got it, it's -1 on any roll with that stat); or a low ability score or 8 of something making your mod -1 to begin with.

Most of the math bonuses are generated from hold, like in the Defend move; acting on answers from something like Discern Realities; or using a special move/item that grants a bonus as part of its effect.

That's a lot of words! Apologies if I've got mistakes in there; it's like 4 AM here.

Quote from: _nthdegree;6743681. There is no "you whiff; next player up please" option for an attack roll. Ammo is mostly abstracted, so you don't have that steady trickle loss of arrows as a thing. Ammo mostly goes down when you fire extra shots, or when I take it away via a GM move (crushed by ogres, etc.) So, "hang back, shoot a bunch of shots, they all miss, nuts-to-you; who's next in initiative" isn't something DW is going to produce.

Any tabletop RPG (except for a few designed to emulate certain types of action-adventure movies) that does not allow a character to simply miss in combat (without any other effect like hitting the wrong target) is not going to be a game I would play without house ruling the basic miss back in. The same for ammo, having a weapon that never runs out of ammo (unless it a magic or super-high tech power that lets it create its own ammo with no effort on the user's part) only belongs in the above mentioned action-adventures movies. House rules would be needed here as well.

Quote from: RandallS;674374Any tabletop RPG (except for a few designed to emulate certain types of action-adventure movies) that does not allow a character to simply miss in combat (without any other effect like hitting the wrong target) is not going to be a game I would play without house ruling the basic miss back in. The same for ammo, having a weapon that never runs out of ammo (unless it a magic or super-high tech power that lets it create its own ammo with no effort on the user's part) only belongs in the above mentioned action-adventures movies. House rules would be needed here as well.

Dungeon World does feel a bit to me like an D&D action-adventure movie game in spirit, at least at my table. But I can see how the issues could chafe if the desire is higher verisimilitude; ammo especially.

It's all about where you calibrate your level of interestingness. If the simple miss with no other downside is interesting to you, bring it in. If tracking the arrows bolt-by-bolt is interesting, it can be there.

The workaround for a "pure miss" would need to address that the "pure miss" option effectively gives the GM less "turns", though, if this were a more traditional game. The players' misses are a fusion of their turn and mine as GM: they whiff, I exploit said whiffage. The 7-9 "soft success" band is much the same: you succeed, but at the cost of me having a turn to use against you. It's not a perfect analogy, but it's kinda close. Depending on how successful the players are or aren't, I get more or less "turns" to complicate their lives. Which feels right, in my experience.

And believe me, DW bows are far from never running out of ammo, or feeling like magic. As GM I could burn through one whole bundle of arrows with every move I get, smashing this, burning that, oops you dropped some on that Defy Danger, and probably toast a player's entire stash in three passes. And that's before factoring in when players elect to spend that ammo on a 7-9 to avoid a damage penalty. For me, the DW ammo system actually makes tracking ammo feel tense & exciting, as opposed to balancing a ledger. But to each their own!

Quote from: CRKrueger;674286If the GM asked him what are you going to do, the player says "Shoot the orc" and the GM then asks what if you can't get a clear shot, what are you going to do, then the player rolls, it at least is in the proper chronology between player and character.  You don't put roll before choice and then get to claim roll actually comes after choice and then get to say there's no time-warping, or you're IC, because if the player's chronology is different then the character's chronology then you're by definition OOC either using some kind of literary device like a flashback, or engaging the mechanics and making choices from a player's point of view, and then deciding what that means for the character after the fact, ie bog standard Conflict Resolution - determine winner of Conflict by player, narrate result for character.

You've got a really good point here: the trigger for Volley does not line up with it's effects. That's the biggest mistake I've found in the book yet. Thanks!

Looking at how to fix it, I have a simple idea and a complex idea. I liked the complex idea, but when I talked it over with some other people last night (who agreed this is something that isn't quite right as-is) it wasn't really a hit. The simple version is to change the trigger to "when you try to find a clear shot." That's a very small change but it has some huge implications to how the game plays. Thus far I think those changes are all good, actually, but they're not trivial. I may try printing a few modified move sheets at GenCon and see how they play.

Then again, this may not be that big of a change, because we're effectively already playing this way. As my example above shows, we've been really only triggering off the first part of the current trigger (the aim bit).

Quote from: Zachary The First;674360Hey sage, just wanted to pop in here for a minute and say thanks for taking time to respond to some of these items. I actually played in a session of DW, and unfortunately, it wasn't our thing. We found the lack of initiative problematic, and some of the design choices and assumptions (choosing a name off a predefined list, only having one of each class in a group) seemed a bit off to us. So I don't think it's my thing, but thanks for explaining a bit about where you're at w/ design and such.

Thanks for giving it a fair shot! It's not a game for everyone. It does a thing we like well, but we also like a lot of other things it doesn't do well. For some people, the thing we like in DW won't be what they like, and that's not only fine, it's awesome. If every game looked like DW gaming would be boring. I love DW to death, but even I don't want to play it all the time. Some people will want to play it none of the time, and that's cool.

Quote from: _nthdegree;674368Heyo. This is just a lowly player checking in. As far as my experience with the games at hand, I've run DW as a GM & player, played ApocalypseWorld a few times, and helped a buddy playtest an ApocalypseWorld hack of his own. I'm fairly young (27) and didn't pay much attention to how the indie game sausages gets made until the Forge was already in Archive-only mode.

I'm the same age, and became "Swine" about the same time. I kind of wonder if most gamers these days just don't give a damn about this? I mean, we're a sample size of two, but...

Quote from: Skywalker;674349It is worth noting that the Volley 7-9 result is unusual, even in DW. This is why CRKrueger focuses on it as his example, as it's the most obvious example of a rule arguably requiring a player perspective. However, it would be contrived to use this specific rule to make statement about DW's approach more broadly IMO

Actually, it was used for two reasons.  
First it's one of two fundamental moves for combat, melee and ranged.  
Second, as it is not as well designed as say Hack and Slash is, the "storytelling about the character as opposed to doing things as the character" aspect of the game is not as transparent as in other Moves.

Ideally in DW you could play it with or without the narrative layer and the game would be as open as say TSR D&D is with regards to playstyles.  However, if you really want me to go elsewhere besides Volley, we can talk about Bonds, Experience, Leveling Up, etc... if you'd like different OOC options to speak of.

Quote from: CRKrueger;674286No, that's not what's happening.  The player rolls first, then is presented with a choice of strategy, his intent is to hit and do damage, if he rolls 10+, he succeeds with this strategy, if he does not succeed, then he is presented with a choice of additional strategies.

You're correct. Kim screwed this up.

QuoteIf the GM asked him what are you going to do, the player says "Shoot the orc" and the GM then asks what if you can't get a clear shot, what are you going to do, then the player rolls, it at least is in the proper chronology between player and character.

This is incorrect. Let's look at all three possible resolution sequences for Volley in DW and compare the player and character chronologies.

SCENARIO A - ROLLING 10+

Player's perspective:
(1) Player decides to take aim and shoot at an enemy.
(2) They roll 10+, indicating they have a clear shot.
(3) They take and make the shot.

This is identical to the resolution in a traditional RPG, so we shouldn't be surprised to discover that the character's perspective is directly associated:
(1) Character decides to take aim and shoot at an enemy
(2) They discover they have a clear shot
(3) They take and make the shot

SCENARIO B - ROLLING 7-9

Player's perspective:
(1) Player decides to take aim and shoot at an enemy.
(2) They roll 7-9 and discover they don't have a clear shot.
(3) They decide whether to move, take an obstructed shot (which might end up missing due to damage reduction), or take several shots to compensate (which will mean they run out ammunition sooner).
(4) They execute whatever strategy they chose.

Character's decision:
(1) Character decides to take aim and shoot at an enemy.
(2) Fuck! He just moved behind that giant mushroom!
(3) They decide how to respond to the giant mushroom (moving, taking the obstructed shot, or firing multiple times).
(4) They execute whichever strategy they chose.

You'll notice that, once again, we're seeing a perfect association between player decisions and character decisions.

SCENARIO C - ROLLING 6 or LOWER

Player's decision:

Player's perspective:
(1) Player decides to take aim and shoot at an enemy.
(2) They roll 6 or lower and they miss.

Character's perspective:
(1) Character decides to take aim and shoot at an enemy.
(2) They miss.

You keep insisting there's some sort of time warp going on here, but there's not. It's no different than a player saying they want to walk to the other side of the room and then the GM rolling to see if they trigger the trap in the middle of the room. If the trap triggers, that doesn't mean that there's a "time warp" where the character teleports backwards from the far side of the room and suddenly has to deal with a trap that wasn't there before: It means that the character wants to cross the room and then the dice told you you that they ran into a complication before they could complete that action.

Quote from: CRKrueger;674482Ideally in DW you could play it with or without the narrative layer and the game would be as open as say TSR D&D is with regards to playstyles.

What do you mean by "narrative layer" here? The game's "fiction first" mentality, i.e., you describe your proposed method of action & goal and you either do it, or use a defined move, and then narrate how the result manifests?

Quote from: CRKrueger;674482However, if you really want me to go elsewhere besides Volley, we can talk about Bonds, Experience, Leveling Up, etc... if you'd like different OOC options to speak of.

Wouldn't methods of Experience and Leveling Up be out of character in pretty much all versions of D&D?

What about Bonds makes it seem OOC to you? The assigning of them at the start of a one-shot/campaign? Because this too seems like one of the standard "player can determine their pre-campaign background freely/with GM approval" character creation assumptions for a D&D-esque experience.

These aren't hostile questions, BTW, just always curious to understand the different perspectives of others.

Quote from: _nthdegree;674548Wouldn't methods of Experience and Leveling Up be out of character in pretty much all versions of D&D?

That would be my comment as well.

Quote from: RandallS;674374Any tabletop RPG (except for a few designed to emulate certain types of action-adventure movies) that does not allow a character to simply miss in combat (without any other effect like hitting the wrong target) is not going to be a game I would play without house ruling the basic miss back in. The same for ammo, having a weapon that never runs out of ammo (unless it a magic or super-high tech power that lets it create its own ammo with no effort on the user's part) only belongs in the above mentioned action-adventures movies. House rules would be needed here as well.

You can just miss in DW if the GM chooses that. DW does encourage the GM to think about what's next to provide a dynamic flow in combat, but a "just miss" is a possibility.

Equally, ammo is lost, though it is true that each individual arrow is not accounted for.

Quote from: sage;674456I'm the same age, and became "Swine" about the same time. I kind of wonder if most gamers these days just don't give a damn about this? I mean, we're a sample size of two, but...

Well, to keep the anecdotal train rolling, of my two other game-design-inclined friends, one is:

A 29 year old dude, former user of the Forge in its winding-down phase, though almost entirely to solicit playtesters, feedback etc. for a couple games. Avid consumer of podcasts that traffic in theory, Ron Edwards' essays, actual plays & the like. Played a little bit of Star Wars d6, but really got into the hobby when the release of D&D 4e brought a pretty reliable group of folk together that have kept on gaming through dozens of systems in the last 4 or 5 years. Loves gamist games the most, like maybe of anyone ever. The power-gamer/trouble-maker part of him runs deep.

The other:

30, life-long RPG devotee, lots of classic D&D editions beloved in his childhood, crazy well-read with the library to prove it, a lot of traditional RPG play experience. Had a grudge against Ron Edwards & GNS for a while, deeming the conflict mostly pointless & being centered on which way was "best", but came around to seeing the labels as at least valuable for description & discussion. Talks a lot about designing games, seems to enjoy crafting intricate house-rules & sub-games for established games best. Doesn't fit neatly into a GNS type, as his first draw seems always to be the setting & fiction of an RPG (to the point where we had to figure out how to ask "but what is the game about?" in like 9 ways before it made sense what we meant). Probably the biggest into simulationist games of us all.

And for myself, I really love all sorts of games, but narrativist is where lots of my favorites lie; FATE, Polaris, etc.

There you go! A classic id/ego/superego, Kirk/Spock/McCoy-esque three-way split.

Quote from: sage;674456I'm the same age, and became "Swine" about the same time. I kind of wonder if most gamers these days just don't give a damn about this? I mean, we're a sample size of two, but…

This is the best place to learn about the Forge these days, as it insists on keeping the corpse alive so as to have someone to fight and scare the children with

Quote(1) Character decides to take aim and shoot at an enemy.
(2) They miss.

You're missing one key aspect to this.  On a 6-, the character misses, and the GM gets to use one of his moves.  Some examples:

QuoteUse a monster, danger, or location move (the rotten wood floor gives way beneath your feet)
Reveal an unwelcome truth (a goblin has sneaked behind you and is about to attack)
Show signs of an approaching threat (a storm is gathering near your ship)
Deal damage (the troll lumbers toward you and attacks)
Use up their resources (you lose one ammunition)
Turn their move back on them (as you shoot, the wizard causes your arrow to burst into flame)
Separate them (too late you've realized you've moved way off to the side and isolated yourself)
Give an opportunity that fits a class' abilities (Ranger, your arrow misses, but you catch your opponent off-guard and your wolf moves in to bite him)
Show a downside to their class, race, or equipment (as a halfling, you're too small to get a clear shot with all these tall soldiers fighting)
Offer an opportunity, with or without cost (the troll turns his back to you; you could get a clear shot at his head if you got into position past those orcs)
Put someone in a spot (the giant lunges at you and grips you in one fist)
Tell them the requirements or consequences and ask (the arrow sails past your target and hits a bystander, who lies on the floor bleeding; what do you do?)

Bold are examples of my own making.