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hector wrote:That's fair - though I've always found pretty much any die roll with anything but a success/fail binary to have that problem.

I don't mind it when it's on the GM-end. The GM is free to consult the oracular powers of the dice all they please. I just don't like that kind of thing to be a player-facing mechanic. When I'm role-playing my character, I don't want to keep stepping from role-playing mode to player-dealing-with-an-interface mode any more than I absolutely have to.

My problem with AW and DW isn't so much about breaking character or talking in or out of character. The problem is that it is literally impossible to solve any kind of problem without divining knowledge that only the Game Master could possibly know.

Lets look at the tools characters (or players, rather) have to solve problems in these games. In AW there is:

READ A SITCH
When you read a charged situation, roll+sharp. On a hit, you can ask the MC
questions. Whenever you act on one of the MC’s answers, take +1. On a 10+, ask 3.
On a 7–9, ask 1:
• Where’s my best escape route / way in / way past?
• Which enemy is most vulnerable to me?
• Which enemy is the biggest threat?
• What should I be on the lookout for?
• What’s my enemy’s true position?
• Who’s in control here?
On a miss, ask 1 anyway, but be prepared for the worst.

READ A PERSON
When you read a person in a charged interaction, roll+sharp. On a 10+, hold 3.
On a 7–9, hold 1. While you’re interacting with them, spend your hold to ask their
player questions, 1 for 1:
• Is your character telling the truth?
• What’s your character really feeling?
• What does your character intend to do?
• What does your character wish I’d do?
• How could I get your character to —?
On a miss, ask 1 anyway, but be prepared for the worst.

and from DW we have:

Spout Lore
When you consult your accumulated knowledge about something, roll+Int. ✴On a 10+, the GM will tell you something interesting and useful about the subject relevant to your situation. ✴On a 7–9, the GM will only tell you something interesting—it’s on you to make it useful. The GM might ask you “How do you know this?” Tell them the truth, now.

Just in case it isn’t clear: the answers are always true, even if the GM had to make them up on the spot. Always say what honesty demands.

Discern Realities
When you closely study a situation or person, roll+Wis. ✴On a 10+, ask the GM 3 questions from the list below. ✴On a 7–9, ask 1.

Either way, take +1 forward when acting on the answers.

What happened here recently?
What is about to happen?
What should I be on the lookout for?
What here is useful or valuable to me?
Who’s really in control here?
What here is not what it appears to be?

Just like spout lore, the answers you get are always honest ones. Even if the GM has to figure it out on the spot. Once they answer, it’s set in stone. You’ll want to discern realities to find the truth behind illusions—magical or otherwise.

Unless a move says otherwise players can only ask questions from the list. If a player asks a question not on the list the GM can tell them to try again or answer a question from the list that seems equivalent.

So, the flow of the game goes like this:

• The character encounters a problem
• The player rolls a skill and asks the GM how to solve the problem
• The GM truthfully tells the player how to solve the problem
• The character does what needs to be done to solve the problem

Further,

• The player is ALWAYS able to ask any of those question
• The player is restricted from asking any different questions
• The GM must always tell the truth.
• There is no consideration as to how the character could possibly have come by that knowledge
• The character must utilize this meta knowledge because it is the only tool the player has to solve problems

What results is that it becomes literally impossible to play by the rules and not have the characters use meta-game knowledge to make decisions or solve problems.

To illustrate the absurdity, here is a (intentionally silly) example:
Player: I tie the guard's hands behind his back and say to him "If you know what's good for you, you will forget you ever saw us!" then I watch his face to see how he reacts.
GM: That sound like your "Making a read". Roll it!
Player: Yes, success! I'm going to ask "How could I get your character to stay silent about ever seeing us?"
GM: Hmm... well, if you threatened to hurt his wife Julia he would agree to keep his mouth shut.
Player: I hold my knife up to the guards throat and say threateningly "Or else you will never get to see Julia again!"
GM: The guard hangs his head and says "Okay, I swear I won't tell anyone!"

So, obviously this particular situation could have been handled better (eg the GM could have instead said "You see a wedding ring on the man's finger.") but it's just meant to illustrate the problem these games have in relying on information flowing from the GM to the character.

That's actually a fairly good point. It does tend to create a very hand-holding feedback loop.

Well, if you want a game about figuring out clever solutions to problems, then AWE is not for you. AWE is more about whether or not doing a thing is worth the price. Putting roadblocks in front of the flow of information prevents players from making an informed decision about the price.

thirtythr33 wrote:
What results is that it becomes literally impossible to play by the rules and not have the characters use meta-game knowledge to make decisions or solve problems.

To illustrate the absurdity, here is a (intentionally silly) example:
Player: I tie the guard's hands behind his back and say to him "If you know what's good for you, you will forget you ever saw us!" then I watch his face to see how he reacts.
GM: That sound like your "Making a read". Roll it!
Player: Yes, success! I'm going to ask "How could I get your character to stay silent about ever seeing us?"
GM: Hmm... well, if you threatened to hurt his wife Julia he would agree to keep his mouth shut.
Player: I hold my knife up to the guards throat and say threateningly "Or else you will never get to see Julia again!"
GM: The guard hangs his head and says "Okay, I swear I won't tell anyone!"

So, obviously this particular situation could have been handled better (eg the GM could have instead said "You see a wedding ring on the man's finger.") but it's just meant to illustrate the problem these games have in relying on information flowing from the GM to the character.

Apocalypse World explicitly gives the GM the following set of priorities

Make Apocalypse World seem real.
Make the players’ characters’ lives not boring.
Play to Find out what happens

The very first one is "make the world seem real". If there's no realistic way for a character to discern something, then they can't discern it. It is explicitly stated in the write up for that move that "you can't" is a valid answer to "how could I get you to do X".

so my friend managed to talk me into playing The Dark Eye again, and...

it's just as awful, terrible, not good, very bad as i remember it.

if you remember, skill checks work like this:

roll below three attributes in a d20. your skill ranks can be used for "compensating" when you roll over. if you got 0 or more skill ranks left at the end, you succeed.
the degree of success (skill ranks left) tend to be ignored completely.
usually you need at least rank 7 in a skill to even have a reasonable (not less than 25%) chance to succeed a check. and the game is very stingy about giving you 7s in skills at the start of the game.
in other words, legitimately the least straightforward way to doing checks, with probability massively attached against you at the start of the game. and my friend who was running the game asked for an inflationary number of skill checks.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
i realized that in principle, the combat system has everything TRoS&Co have: parries, maneuvers such as knock down, disarm, etc... but!
attacks are rolled against your own attack value, which means you miss without doing ANYTHING often. likewise, opponents don't parry your attack per say, they just ... parry. i really hate roll under games for this garbage, because they never seem fix this problem.
you have to buy maneuvers individually (not so bad) AND you take MASSIVE penalties when trying to do them (awful!). it really fits well with the rest of the game both system and setting, doing everything to curb creativity and actual problem solving.
what this results in is sung the same thing every turn again and again. just attack. just attack. in another fit yesterday i tried to knock a fucking old lady on the run from a crime scene down. that's a 20% penalty on the attack roll. so i tried that again and again every combat round till i rolled low enough. BORING!
and why do they do heavily penalize sing cool stuff? because of concerns about powergaming. because it's "more balanced". it's like NOTHING you as the player can do is allowed to matter, to actually pack a punch.

it takes a lot of time, it's boring, is annoying. i just don't understand how the thousands or tens of thousands of people playing it here in Germany put up with this crap. it's like the game plants a meme in their head that makes v then think it can't be any other way, resulting in them tending towards "Swinery", which is the rejection of SYSTEM as part of "good roleplaying(tm)", see this post:
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.ph ... post110885


so my friend got the game master handbook. i opened it randomly. what heading do i see? "do you need to know all the rules to be GM?" their answer: lol cause there's too many rules.
... WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?
often the authors and the fans justify this by saying "yeah but the complicated rules are optional"
1. no they are not, most of the system makes even less sense without them than it does with them.
2. the CORE MECHANIC is more complicated than most other games! (see skill checks above)

i don't think there's a game being played today that professes less of an understanding for game design (or the d20 stuff they tried to replicate back when it first came up) and also less of a respect for human decency, while at the same time still being incredibly popular with the masses of, frankly, idiots.