>The rules specifically state that the GM should rely on improv and not prepare a world or a story before the game starts
>"Yeah I've thought out an entire world, I hope my players are serious because I've put a lot of work in it."
Why do people do this? He's a first time GM, you'd think he'd want to follow the instructions of the manual?
>>The rules specifically state that the GM should rely on improv and not prepare a world or a story before the game starts
[citation needed]
>first time gm
>misunderstood the manual
sounds right to me senpai
How is citation needed? You can't think of any game where those rules are in effect?
"Everything you say, you should do it to accomplish these three, and no other. It’s not, for instance, your agenda to make the players lose, or to deny them what they want, or to punish them, or to control them, or to get them through your pre-planned storyline (DO NOT pre-plan a storyline, and I’m not fucking around). It’s not your job to put their characters in double-binds or dead ends, or to yank the rug out from under their feet. Go chasing after any of those, you’ll wind up with a boring game that makes Apocalypse World seem contrived, and you’ll be pre-deciding what happens by yourself, not playing to find out."
>makes up something that blatantly isn't true and assumes it is
>insists citation isn't needed
Since when did that comic get an english translation?
>Detailed worldbuilding is the same as a railroaded campaign
Ah, now I see your problem user. You're having badwrongfun playing the incorrect system.
Also, speaking rationally, if any roleplaying system can't handle a proposed plotline in a collaborative storytelling environment and instead relies on a course of random action and reaction it probably isn't worthwhile. Balancing Improv and Storytelling is an art and forcing the GM to rely entirely on one or the other defeats the point of even having one.
Next, the Players imposing unfair limitations on the GM is just as much of a problem as the opposite happening. Player freedom and GM Freedom need both be respected in order to ensure that everyone is having fun.
Finally, since everyone is simply going to ignore what logic states, I'm just going to tell everyone to NOT equate GM/Player freedom to Gay Marriage or Slavery. Do NOT bring your political opinions into this thread. Do NOT derail the thread by fueling the /pol/ meme, and especially do NOT compare this thread to Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech.
No, seriously, don't. There's basically no correlation.
This is a shitty bait thread but at least it's not about some faggot fetish.
Improv is a bad word for what GMs should do. Adapting is a better one, because there should be a flexible logic to the world, but still logic. One of the reasons I have fun GMing is because I hash together logical worlds and fully expect players to treat it stupidly and wreck it.
As a guy who is great at writing introductions and world building but can never come up with a complete plot worth caring about, I need players to make dumb decisions and explore it for me. If they screw up the world will punish them, not me.
Except the entire mechanics of apocalypse world insists that you should have done NO worldbuilding before you start the campaign. There are specific chapters on what to do during the first session: create characters in group, ask questions, build a world from scratch around the characters. And then there is another chapter detailing how you can go into worldbuilding after the first session, based on the input you were given during the first session.
>You're having badwrongfun playing the incorrect system.
I agree that he has chosen the incorrect system, I've tried explaining to him how PBTA is different in approach from D&D.
What set's the game apart is that it specifically doesn't engage a proposed plotline. The mantra of the game is 'play to find out what happens'. The GM is not forced into chosing between improv and storytelling but there is specific way the two should be played out against eachother for the game to make sense.
How is this bait?
Congratulations, you've discovered ApocWorld Engine is a game for babies and newbies.
You should've said in your first post that you were talking about a game no one plays or cares about.
>Most common criticism is that casuls should stop playing dnd
>Talk about dungeon world or savage world or ryuutama or whatever instead
>"How about you talk about a game people actually play?"
I know tg isn't a hivemind, but I hope people realise what a fucking asinine statement this is.
>Veeky Forums has a hateboner for AW
>doesn't even realize one of it's core tenets is discussed until it's directly quoted
makes you think
>Talk with extreme authority on a subject
>Don't actually say what you're referring to until after people are already disagreeing with you
Gee I wonder where it all went wrong. Clear communication is an essential gming skill, you should work on it a little more.
OP here. Let me reiterate:
>The rules specifically state that the GM should rely on improv and not prepare a world or a story before the game starts
Whether I was talking about AW or not, all you needed to know was right fucking there. I was trying to keep the discussion open to those who do not share the same authority on AW.
Common occurrence. Veeky Forums is stupid. This is known. The fact that we even use the word Objective to describe what are most accurately labeled as opinions should be sign enough.
The key point is that we revel in our stupidity and actually have fun with it instead of just lashing out because we're dumb and angry.
Fellows, let's embrace the fun side of the stupid! The side that's too focused on having fun to care about what others think. Let's not keep our narrow and small and angry views.
Yeah, Apocalypse World is subpar. The system itself is so railroady that the main reason the GM is told not to create a setting is so that the system can run itself with itself. It's the GM that's derailing the game by coming up with a specific storyline, breaking out of the limited improv that is supposed to be done by the Players.
BUT... it really doesn't matter. It's a system. It exists. Some people play it. Some even like it. You have this knowledge now. It affects your life none.
I know I talk about baiting a lot, criticizing stupid bait threads... though I really should be criticizing posters that reply. It's them that get themselves angry, that involve themselves in matters. Trouble finds those that look for it. Leave the hornets nest alone and you'll be happier.
Anyway, here's to saging in hopes that people actually listen and ignore.
Then you severely misunderstand this board. You choose a weapon, either sperging or ignorance, or both, and then use it to browbeat the other guy into submission. This is called intelligent discourse, because it's deviates from the course of intelligence. Occasionally you'll find actually wisdom and an epiphany or two, but that's usually an accident and we apologize profusely, and assure you it's the exception rather than the rule.
Except that literally is only a thing in AW. The only other systems that do that are god games or other games specifically where world building is the point and not applicable.
That's like opening a thread on /an/ and asking why mammals lay eggs while posting some completely unrelated stoner comic reaction. Then everyone calls you an idiot. Then you later say oh I was specifically talking about platypuses you retards.
You failed to communicate your intentions, and got called out on it.
Alright, you are right, I did leave out information. Although it was in order to have a meaningful discussion, rather than to bait and call people retards. Because you see, whenever you even dare to mention PBTA you get shit like this and the thread quickly devolves into one side shitting on the system and one side hopelessly defending it.
I tried a different strategy, apparently I failed.
>use a setting from a game that I'm very familiar with but my players aren't
>have multiple plot hooks they can follow or can just improvise shit due to familiarity with setting
>set up situations where even I don't know for certain what will happen next
>everyone has fun because I'm not giving them excruciating lore dumps or forcing them on railroad tracks and I'm not having to randomly fill in blank areas on maps
And that's how it is done. Congrats to you man.
I don't know what game you're playing, but you should be glad your GM isn't following that terrible fucking advice. I've met like two GMs in my entire life you could run a half decent campaign based on improvisation. And they were still pretty crappy compared to the GMs I knew who prepared things in advance.
His DM is running AW.
It has guidelines for the improvisation parts that help anyone halfway decent be able to pull it off.
Read the manual
Improvisation sometimes works, but AW is just a terribly difficult system to GM, period. If you have the absolute *perfect* players, then you can just go with the flow, but as soon as they even slightly resemble the people all of us actually play with, the system goes into the corner and sulks, whining about how we're not doing it right.
As much as I admire some things about AW, it's designers are absolute morons.
The rules of WHICH SYSTEM, you fucking dumbass?
Oh, right, you just came here for a nice, little circlejerk about how bad you have it that the GM isn't catering to your desires, and your desires alone.
Here's how it works: To improvise you must have existing knowledge. So you build a world, and then you improvise from the knowledge you have provided yourself. For instance, you build a panthron, and come up with personalities and cults for the gods. Now, when the players say something to a priest of such a god, you can come up with a thematically appropriate response that fits into the world as a whole, creating the illusion that there's a bigger world beyond what the players are seeing.
If you DON'T prepare, you know what happens? The GM stammering and "uh"-ing while he makes up some forgettable garbage cobbled together from whatever is on his mind at the time, which he will immediately forget, making for a disjointed and fleeting gaming experience.
> AW is just a terribly difficult system to GM
Very true, though it is not impossible at all either. I've had quite a few outstanding sessions. In my experience, the game works best with players who either have a very little experience with RPG's or even video games, or players who have had a lot of experience and have dm'ed themselves. In between you get people confused because it doesn't resemble their MMORPG's enough.
Of course, the real art is not finding the right players, but being such a great GM that you can direct your players to being good.
Stop being so mad and read the thread.
First up ignore 90% of the thread.
Second, there's nothing wrong with making setting stuff for AW. There's an issue with making too much setting and treasuring your setting too much, but those are different issues. So long as he isn't trying to tell a specific story he's not violating the principles.
>when your not not creative enough to create an interesting world so you insist everyone who does is breaking the rules
>gif unrelated
the rules are implying that you shouldn't precreate the STORY not the setting.
I know this is bait I have met people who actually belive this
You know, if you weren't samefagging so goddamn hard I'd actually try and engage with you, but it's clear you're trying to fake a consensus in favor of your distinctly majority position.
It's not convincing, and it doesn't indicate good things about you personally. Have fun with your fellow trolls.
...
> which he will immediately forget, making for a disjointed and fleeting gaming experience.
>what is a notepad
>plough through an entire thread because OP is a lazy, whiny bitch
No, how about OP stops being a lazy, whiny bitch?
>being unprepared is OK, because you can spend half the session going "wait a minute guys" while you jot down your disjointed garbage
There's no excuse for going into a game unprepared.
I think the problem might just be that you're a shit GM. Most people can improvise something without immediately barfing spaghetti.
Jeremy was being a whiney little bitch first, that means I'm not, he is.
Failure disgusts and excites me
>Improv is a bad word for what GMs should do. Adapting is a better one, because there should be a flexible logic to the world, but still logic.
Improv should also be logical.It's a scene that plays out as each person does what their character would do in that situation. If it's a bunch of lolrandumb and breaking character, it's not good improv. Compare Whose Line to high school drama class.
>prepare to run an RPG with a new group
>spy on them and ask their friends to confirm that none of them has played Jak & Daxter
>rip off Jak and Daxter
>no one notices
success
>thread with obvious premise
>collapses into spergs almost immediately because they can't understand games that don't involve hours of pre-planning before the campaign starts
Incidentally, for the mouthbreathers who are shitting on AW without having actually read it, it's only the first session you're supposed to go in blind (chargen is fast, so you're supposed to go from not having characters at all to into the game in 20 minutes). Afterwards you dig into the MC session and start working out the relationships and movers & shakers of the game, depending on what happened in Session 1. You still play to find out what happens afterwards, but you already know what happens if the players don't get involved in something.
Down at the end of the PDF are the rules/note sheets for taking care of Session 1.
>You can't think of any game where those rules are in effect?
I mean there are plenty of games with pre-built campaigns/adventures, so uh
Take it to /d/.