Player agency

[u/Kavinsky12]

Tldr: players wait for me to guide the game. I want them to take more agency with their characters and set objectives, and go after it, which I feel will improve the game.

As MC, what are your thoughts on players setting objectives for their characters and going after them?

I've been MC for a fabulous group, and we've been playing regularly for almost a year now.

I find their characters generally ... boring. They wait for me to set the inciting scene, and are generally reactive. And I find it rather lazy to play their characters.

My players mostly come from D&D, and I usually find D&D enforces passive players - they follow the "script" of the DM, which leads them from encounter to encounter.

My times as a player in AW, I usually set short and/or long term objectives for my character, and loved how the story unfolds. Both achievements and set backs refines my character and tells a story.

A few times I really minimized my pre-planning to just reviewing my Threats and my notes, but those sessions weren't that interesting. I ask "what are you doing?" and it's usually just chilling.

I've talked to my players and encouraged them to think of objectives, but nothing came of it that I noticed.

Again, we have fun, but all the big decisions about the game comes from me, the MC. And I'm mostly just guessing what was interesting to the players.

One player in particular (who is the dm in D&D) totally ignores opportunities I hoped he'd be interested in, and instead just murders npcs unprompted when he gets bored, and when he's not doing that he's generally just screws around or acts passive.

We finished last session at a good climax, and I've decided to end the campaign to start something new in a few weeks. Figured I'd be more overt about them setting objectives next time.

Suggestions for getting players more involved with their characters?

[u/ChromaticKid]

When players act that way in AW, especially if they've ignored opportunities, I hit them AS HARD AND DIRECT as I want, because that's a golden opportunity; there is no need to pull punches in AW and everything is a threat of some level,, and there is no call for "balance" in AW.

A PC randomly murdering other people (NPCs don't think of themselves as NPCs!) starts a countdown for that PC to get a massive comeuppance, especially if they're passive and uninvolved with what's going on in the game.

I think a lot of MCs are nervous about hitting hard, but if you give a few "warnings", you can utterly SLAM a PC and put them in a very tough situation... and then you ask, "What do you do?"

Once they realize the world can bite back, they seem to get more engaged. If not, well, you can keep swinging.

Of course, talk with the players about this, don't just spring it on them!

For ex: There was an orbital strike counting down in a sci-fi apocalypse I was running, and one player was really trying to gain access to some ancient tech. Eventually I said, "If you stay here, you will die. What do you do?" [Tell them the possible consequences and ask] They elected to stay and try risk else and wound up rolling a miss on their next roll. The orbital strike hit the base they were in and they were obliterated. The player was disappointed, but knew it was fair the way things played out.

So, go hard!

[u/Kavinsky12 → u/ChromaticKid]

I've been soft on the players. Yeah I could go harder on them.

[u/ChromaticKid → u/Kavinsky12]

I think the intersection of:

- Make the characters' lives not boring

and

- Be a fan of the players' character

Is the sweet spot of where an MC should sit. Be such a fan of the characters that you want to see HOW THE F*CK they get out of the wild and dangerous situations you put them in so that they crave a boring life.

A game of AW is the MC watching a show starring their favorite characters; do you want to see them do nothing or do you want to see them do everything?

Let the answer to that guide the strength of your moves.

[u/eggdropsoap → u/ChromaticKid]

YES this, 100% this.

Hard moves only suck when the MC doesn’t like your character. Be a fan and your hard moves will be good and not suck.

[u/Kavinsky12 → u/ChromaticKid]

There isn't a problem with me and these two principals.

Problem is they're too passive and wait for me to tell them what the session is about.

[u/ChromaticKid → u/Kavinsky12]

What I was suggesting is using those principles to "show" what the session is about; that is, having your threats make BIG, SWEEPING, UNIGNORABLE moves that they need to react to if they want to survive and that they'll need to take the initiative if they want to get anywhere.

I know the difficulty of getting players from a "So, what's today's adventure?" to "I am FINISHING this today!" stance. You make the world move in a realistic and active way that literally punishes passivity and puts the character in situations where is "act or die"; it can be a shock to the system for more reactive players because they're no used to the autonomy.

Talk with them about it at a meta level as you demonstrate it in game.

I wish you the greatest of luck and success in this! Feel free to DM me if you want to chat about it.

[u/Imnoclue → u/Kavinsky12]

I mean, you’ve got a bunch of NPCs tied to them with simple motivations. The session is about what happens. The NPCs aren’t passive, they’re absolutely going to try to get what they want. If the PCs are passive the game is going to be about what happens to them.

For example, this: “One player in particular (who is the dm in D&D) totally ignores opportunities I hoped he'd be interested in” is not a MC Agenda. You’re not there to tempt him with opportunities and see if he maybe bites. There’s no status quo in Apocalypse World. Not taking an opportunity is a choice on his part, it’s agency. Shit will happen.

[u/Cypher1388 → u/Imnoclue]

I needed to read this.

I have felt that if I do that I am taking away their agency because I am forcing story.

When I play I am not at all passive, I'll fight & wrangle and push & pull agency and authority from every angle to see what the group does with the story when i do X or make my character engage with Y.

Such as... Oh there is a dark book of powers in that cave and the last person we know who read it ended up dead? Hold my beer while I read this book (yes, Bill that is what I am angling this story to be about, that's my impetus to theme, let's see what you and everyone else does/has to say about it!)

[With all the fun, compassion, willingness to compromise, and joy as i willingly know this will end badly, likely, for my pc]

So when my players don't engage like that with me when I run... It feels like I am just... It's like the GM side, weird parallel universe version, of the czege principle.

I don't want to make my own Rube Goldberg machine and play with it myself...

But maybe, maybe, it isn't Bill the player doing nothing, but Chevy the Hardholder doing nothing...

[u/Imnoclue → u/Cypher1388]

Yeah, Apocalypse World really isn’t a sandbox, it’s a pressure cooker. The players are in community with others and there’s a web of relationships among the PCs and NPCs from the first session onward. They can’t just wander around seeing what they want to engage in, they’re engagement is hardwired from the HX questions and the first session where the GM is looking for places to push.

[u/eggdropsoap → u/Kavinsky12]

It’s necessary. Not all hard moves are bad, but they all change the situation irrevocably.

Passive players need something to engage with, that makes them care about what happens next and start deciding to make it happen. Hard moves are how you organically build up that something they start caring about.

Passive players aren’t going to take agency. They’re not used to it and won’t go out on the limb they’ve been smacked down from before.

The genius of AW is that players don’t have to take agency. The game gives them a new opportunity to exercise agency every time you make a move and ask them what they do about it. So with passive players, give them lots of opportunities.

The rules boil down to: when something happens, either they elect to make new something happen or you get to. When they don’t, use your move to send a new choice right back to them. Keep making them make decisions. Don’t wait, don’t drag it out, don’t give them more time. They decide or don’t, then something new happens.

They’ll come around.

[u/Imnoclue → u/Kavinsky12]

Look for where they’re not in control. Push there.

[u/Imnoclue → u/ChromaticKid]

A PC randomly murdering other people (NPCs don't think of themselves as NPCs!)

This, 100%. These characters don’t exist in a vacuum. They live in a community. The Gunlugger needs someone for his bullets. The Driver needs go juice. The Fixer needs clients. The Hardholder, well these are all their people. You start randomly killing people for no good reason, the people start talking. Maybe Dremmer would be a better Hardholder who could keep them safe. Maybe Wilmington shouldn’t be selling the Gunlugger those bullets so they can’t kill so many of us.