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 We have an Apocalypse World IRC: #gonzo on synirc So what's Apocalypse World and why should I give a poo poo? That's a drat fine question. Let's talk about why. In the beginning, there was the Apocalypse  Apocalypse World is a post-apocalyptic RPG designed by Vince Baker. It's based around a very simple concept: The Conversation. quote:THE CONVERSATION At first glance, AW looks like most RPGs. There are classes (called "playbooks") that define each character. When you want to do things that are covered by the mechanics, you roll 2d6 and add a stat. There are weapons and health mechanics and such. What differentiates Apocalypse World from most other games are the Moves. "Moves" are all the things that characters do that require mechanical backing, such as combat or trying to maniupulate an NPC. Some are available to everyone, and others are class-specific. When you want to do something that's covered by a move, you roll 2d6 and add a specific stat (which are rated from -1 to +3). Unlike most other games, there isn't a flat pass/fail spread. Instead, there's a tiered success mechanic. If your total is a 10 or better, then you're good. If you roll a 6 or less, then you fail. But if you get a 7-9, then that's a partial success, and the player gets to pick how that partial success is going to play out; sometimes you have to pick options off a list, other times you may not get as many options as you'd like. Only got a partial success when trying to grab something out of your opponent's hands? Then what happens? Do you get hurt? Lose your grip? Get tangled up with him? Whatever happens, it's up to the player how things turn out, not the GM. Then the GM (called the Master of Ceremonies here) plays off that; he has his own set of moves that are never rolled, but are just ways for him to respond to the player's moves. And when the MC makes his move, it's up to the players to determine how they react. Everything in AW is about the back-and-forth. The players do something, then the MC responds, then the players make a move back, and back and forth in what is probably the smoothest gameplay you're going to find. What's most impressive about the AW system is that it gets out of the way. It only shows up when needed, and even then is only there for a moment or two until the move is resolved at which point it slides out of the way until you call for it again. It's like the best English butler you've ever had. Of course, there's a lot more to it than that. There are stats that measure your relationships with the other characters, that actually have mechanical weight. There are social mechanics. Every playbook has something unique about it; from the Battlebabe's custom weapons to the Hardholder's control of his territory, everyone is awesome in their own way and that awesome is backed by the mechanics. I could go on and on, but instead I'll point you towards my pretty in-depth review, which also contains a few "limited edition" playbooks sprinkled throughout. So wait, is it an indie game or a story game? Yes. AW takes elements of both; while the classes and core mechanic are "traditional", the way they're interprited is more story-gamey. Another advantage of Apocalypse World is that the mechanics are very transparent. Not only is it very clear how the mechanics work, the book spends a good amount of time telling you how to take the moves apart and build them into new moves specific to your own game and characters. In fact, the ease of modification has lead to a community of people hacking the game into new shapes. These games are "Powered by the Apocalypse", and so far three of them have reached publication. DUNGEON WORLD  Dungeon World is the dungeon-crawling fantasy game using the AW engine. Taking its cues from early D&D, Dungeon World takes the base AW mechanics and mixes them with the standard D&D tropes and concepts, like classes, hit points, and Vancian casting. What you get is an incredibly playable game that uses indie-style mechanics to generate a pretty old-school experience.  Dungeon World has not been fully released yet, but it recently finished an incredibly successful Kickstarter and is currently in it's last beta rules & proofreading phase before it goes to print. Basically, if you don't give a poo poo about D&D Next and don't want the crunch of 13th Age, then this is the game to go with. MONSTERHEARTS  Monsterhearts is the game of supernatural romance and teen drama bullshit. The players are all monsters who go to the same school, and focuses on the teen drama and forbidden loves that erupt when you place a bunch of horny teenage monsters in the same homeroom. Playbooks include the Vampire, Werewolf, and Ghost. Each has their own baggage, and each is sexy in their own way. The mechanics in Monsterhearts focus more on the relationships than normal RPG action. It's about sex as a lever over other people, and the kinds of relationships you get when your hormones are raging up and your entire world consists of maybe a dozen people your own age. Oh, and you have to drink blood to live. You got forced to watch Twilight and you know you can do better? Now's your chance to prove it. MONSTER OF THE WEEK  Monster of the Week works off a very simple premise: there are monsters out there, and it's yout job to hunt it down and kill it. Take the role of the Chosen, the Professional, the Wronged, or the Mundane, jump in your van, and solve mysteries to defend the innocent from those things that go bump in the night. The Cool New Mechanic here is "Luck"; everyone starts with a pool of Luck, which can be spent to turn a roll into a 12+ or to neutralize an incoming attack. But just be careful: Luck is a limited resource, and when you're out of Luck, well...if you wanted a long life, you wouldn't be fightin' monsters, would you? This sounds awesome! How do I get a piece of this action? Apocalypse World is available from the The Indie Games Unstore in print & PDF. Dungeon World will be available from Dungeon-World.com once it's complete. Until then, the text of the game is up on a public GitHub. Monsterhearts is available from Buried Without Ceremony, and is also available in print or PDF. Monster of the Week is available from Generic Games, where you can order it direct or from Lulu. If youre interested in other hacks, make sure you hit the official AW hack forums (which also contain the official Dungeon World, Monsterhears, and Monster of the Week forums), or just hang out in this thread. Okay, I got the books. What else you got? Useful resources and files: The Monster of the Week LE playbooks courtesy of Danoss. When you post in this loving kickass thread, roll +Weird. On a 10+, you get or give an awesome idea, or start writing a hack. On a 7-9, you ask questions and get enlightened. On a 6-, you accidentally post in the D&D Next thread. Thanks to Rasamune for the thread title Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 01:19 on May 29, 2015 |
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Aug 14, 2012 02:16
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Links and poo poo Barf forth apocalyptica: The official AW forums, also contains forums for the various hacks. anyway.: Vince Baker's blog. Lots of design theory here. SyntaxError: Sage LaToya's blog. He's one of the designers of Dungeon World. Within the Devil's Reach: Three introductory adventures for Dungeon World. Chris Goodwin's list of AW hacks: A list of all known AW hacks and versions; thanks to Story-Games.com. Useful Files The official Apocalyple World playbooks The limited edition AW playbooks Dungeon World GM cheat sheets Evil Mastermind's AW playbook collection: Everything I've got except The Grotesque. How to get The Grotesque in exchange for a Good Deed. Is he going aggro, seizing by force, or just trading harm?: A useful flowchart for telling which move you should be using. Required Reading, or at least useful to help understand the AW games. Guide to Hard Moves: a good introduction to the idea of "hard" and "soft" moves. Seize By Force is a Peripheral Move: On the difference between "seize by force" and "going aggro". Simple World: Joe Mcdaldno's guide to creating simple AW hacks. Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Mar 25, 2014 |
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Aug 14, 2012 02:16
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InfiniteJesters posted:Star Wars hack for Apoc World. Y/N? Y. If you wanted to make new playbooks, you could just use the classes from the old d20 Star Wars games as your guidelines. You could rework the "psychic maelstrom" moves from AW into a "when you use the Force" move.
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Aug 14, 2012 03:07
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I love this ettin move from Number Appearing:quote:Ettin of any class: When your two heads loudly and lengthily debate you can get a second opinion and take +1 to Spout Lore. Now I want to play an intellectual ettin who gets into academic debates with himself.
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Aug 14, 2012 03:30
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Hiro Protagonist posted:How long could an Apocalypse World campaign practically continue? There is technically an "upper limit" to advancement in AW, since you can only take each advancement once. Still, there are 16 of them, and one of them is "retire your character to safety". So from a mechanical standpoint, sooner or later you're going to run out of things to boost. But AW isn't a game that's about advancing levels; it's about what happens to the characters. AW can keep going until you get sick of the characters (or they get wiped out). It's really meant and designed for long-term play.
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Aug 14, 2012 04:04
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waqii posted:The first thing is: Remember, moves are linked to certain types of actions; that's the whole idea behind moves. Trying to hurt someone is different from trying to line up a shot in the middle of a firefight. In that situation, you'd have the player act under fire first, then make a move in responce, then have them seize by force. quote:Secondly: Why is the Hoarder acting under fire, by the way? I don't see anything about that in his playbook, unless I'm looking right past it.
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Aug 14, 2012 14:21
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Flavivirus posted:I've not got that much experience running AW, but I disagree that hurting someone is always Seizing By Force. Acting Under Fire always seemed a better fit for me for the situations where you're just trying to get into a good situation (a sniper, for example), and once you've done it I'd just allow you to do your harm. Not to mention that Going Aggro is a very obvious way to hurt someone too. In fact, the way I'd run it there's a trifecta of ways to hurt someone: Not to get into a "but the RAW  " argument, but "deal Harm as established" is an MC move, and MC moves work differently than player moves. If the MC does something, he doesn't need to roll, but if the PCs do something then they need to use one of their moves.That being said, if you've got someone dead to rights, gun to their head and they can't get away, then yeah you don't need to roll the move. But if there's any doubt to the outcome, then they should be rolling.
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Aug 14, 2012 14:43
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Added a few links to the second post for Dungeon World stuff.Flavivirus posted:What I'm saying is that if the player does [a move], and puts themselves in a position where they can deal damage, the MC is allowed to respond with "deal Harm as established". The move doesn't say you can only use it against PCs, after all. The PC has rolled one of their moves, and in response the MC uses one of their moves. Simple. Yeah, but it seems to me that would up the deadlyness of combat and reduce things to "okay, we've established we're in a firefight, so we just deal damage without having to roll". I prefer the idea of putting that uncertainty into combat, because that's what makes the PCs have to choose things off the list for seize by force. I honestly would like to see how this would affect combat, though.
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Aug 14, 2012 15:53
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Flavivirus posted:Ah, I can kinda see where you're coming from. Personally, I'm kinda of the opinion that so long as you've done a move with the intent of getting a particular outcome (i.e. Acting Under Fire to get into a perfect sniping/backstabbing spot) there's not really any reason to then make them Seize by Force too. quote:All that I'm saying here is theory, though; in play, the appropriate move tends to rise from the context, and I can't say what'll be most appropriate until it happens. Saying you must Seize by Force to hurt someone is all I'm arguing against.
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Aug 14, 2012 16:33
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For those of you who want to read up on Dungeon World, someone made a web-readable book pulled right from the GitHub. So now you can see what all the fuss is about.
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Aug 14, 2012 16:40
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I've been running Dungeon World over IRC, and the biggest trick is riding herd on everyone. I don't mean that in a bad way; but since AW games don't use initiative mechanics, it's easy to get into a situation where everyone's trying to do a move at once, but doesn't realize that everyone else is typing too. I found that having people do some sort of "I'm typing" symbol like ~~ is useful, because it's a quick way to say "everyone hold up, I'm doing something". I haven't tried over G+ or Roll20 yet, though. I should give that a shot.
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Aug 14, 2012 21:34
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Scrape posted:EDIT: to be completely fair, though, there are a few things that *World does NOT excel at: realistic combat, and "leveling up." Characters start powerful and learn new tricks, but they don't get tougher or ever reach god-like status, if that's your thing. *World is simply amazing for storytelling, inter-party conflicts that remain fun intead of frustrating, and moving a story along in unpredictable ways. If you want tactical, realistic combat, do NOT reach for ApocWorld. To be fair, it's not trying to be "realistic". It's unapologetically cinematic.
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Aug 14, 2012 23:51
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Scrape posted:This is a really, really important point. *World games excel with interpersonal relationships where characters have influence and control over the world, but consistent interpersonal conflicts. Having contrasting agendas is practically what the game is written for. It's also a game of tough choices (which is why it works for epic fantasy so well). I wouldn't say so much that it's about choices as the consequences of your actions for good or bad. Yeah, I wouldn't try to make a superhero hack, but something sci-fi-ish would probably work.
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Aug 15, 2012 03:45
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The Dungeon World guys just linked this nice little 1st-level adventure on their G+ stream. The Indigo Galleon
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Aug 15, 2012 18:29
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For moves, yes it's pretty straightforward. Playbooks would be a little trickier, though, because while you could stick to "Brick/Speedster/Gadgeteer" and so on, you want to have enough customization for people to play the type of Brick they want.
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Aug 18, 2012 21:05
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HitTheTargets posted:How so? Do you mean, like, the way any given Gunlugger could be a sniper or a machinegunner or a grenade launcherer? That seems doable with superheroes. Like, instead of Gear everyone gets minor powers that grant extra tags for when they do whatever they do. Hmm, good point. I wonder what kind of customization options you'd need, though.
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Aug 19, 2012 18:42
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You know, we've talked about Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, even Monsterhearts, but we haven't talked about Monster of the Week yet. MotW is paced a little differently from the other *World games. See, while the other games are designed to "keep going", MotW is more episodic. Instead of Fronts that are designed to keep threatening the PCs over long periods of time, WotW uses Mysteries as its framework. Mysteries are basically the monster that the PCs are rolling into town to kill, so they're not designed to be long-term threats. Yeah, they have countdown clocks and such, but they're intended to be paced faster. Mysteries are the monsters, but are also the "boss" monster's minions, the red herrings, and the Weakness. A big bad's Weakness is the condition that has to be met before it can be killed once and for all. It might be something physical (silver bullets for a werewolf), or more conceptual (a ritual must be performed to make the demon manifest). Of course, the quickened pace means that fights can be pretty deadly, and for that we have the Luck mechanic. Each character starts with 6 Luck boxes. You can mark off a box at any point to do one of two things: Decrease a wound you just suffered to 0-harm. After you roll, retroactively change the result to a 12. Pretty cool, huh? Especially since WotW has the "upgrade basic moves" advances. Problem is, if you use up all your Luck, the Keeper is allowed to make hard moves at you as much as he wants. In addition, some playbooks have things trigger when your Luck runs out (like Here's the thing, though. Luck doesn't refresh. At all. Let's face it. Hunting monsters for a living is not a job with long-term prospects. Even if you're The Professional and have the backing of a full-blown government agency, odds are you're not going to be wasting time worrying about your 401K. Sooner or later, the job's gonna catch up with you. You know how Fronts are the countdown clocks for the campaign; it's the mechanic the MC uses to drive the action in the game. Luck, however, is the countdown clock for the characters, driven by the characters. Everybody's story ends. It's just a matter of when. How long do you think you can hold out?
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Aug 20, 2012 16:40
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RyuujinBlueZ posted:So, I finally finished reading Dungeon World and am starting my way through trying to convert it into a Persona game. I want to get a bit more done before I start posting it, and I might end up dropping the *World system in the long run anyway. Personally, I'm completely okay with people posting hackwork in here.
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Aug 21, 2012 17:45
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Doc Hawkins posted:Exactly this, except I doubt I'd accept a threat of violence to be a tool of Manipulate: it's supposed to be something they want which you can promise them. You could maybe just be holding a gun on someone and also be calmly promising them something, in which case Manipulate away. For manipulating, you'd have to offer them something, but I could see that "something" being along the lines of "we have to get out of here now before more guards show up". In that case, what's being offered is a way out.
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Aug 21, 2012 17:58
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Doc Hawkins posted:Right, I was imagining a situation where the guns werent really central to the interaction. Like, when the Bride in Kill Bill pt. 2 convinces the assassin to leave her alone because she's pregnant. She's offering a chance to not murder an innocent baby. e: Hmmm... When you go aggro or manipulate someone know knows where your Target is, you get +1. This is between you and me - When you confront someone who wronged you or his lieutenants, roll +Hard. On a 10+ pick two, 7-9 pick one.
Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Aug 22, 2012 |
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Aug 22, 2012 00:47
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Tasoth posted:I'd do this with +Cool. It's not your character flipping poo poo and bellowing angrily at someone that it's personal, it's them stepping forward, weapon held down and ready and calling them out to their face. That's about as Cool as it gets. I'll admit, I couldn't decide between Hard or Cool for that. I looked at it as you're utterly focused on taking this rear end in a top hat down, and not giving two shits about anything else. Sounds pretty Hard to me. I also came up with another idea: when you create your character, you pick your Target. The Target is the guy ultimately responsible for what happened to you, and is the focus of your revenge. Tell the MC what happened between you and your Target; he'll write the guy up as a Front. Your Target works like a normal Front, with two exceptions: 1) The Target will have a few Lieutenants. There are guys who enforce the Target's agendas and do some of his dirty work. They'll all be tricky to get to, and have a gang or two you'll have to kill your way through. Lieutenants might be small Fronts on their own, too. 2) The Target doesn't have a countdown clock. Instead, he has a Lead on you. Lead starts at 6. Every time you defeat a Lieutenant or learn an important bit of information about the Target, you reduce the Lead by one. When the Lead reaches zero, you can finally confront the Target once and for all. If you confront your Target before you close the Lead, then he'll get away somehow. Trapdoor, body dragged away to a secret medical facility, whatever.
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Aug 22, 2012 03:00
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That's a good point. I was thinking more of modeling the genre and combining it with the countdown clock mechanic, but yeah that feels forced. I still like the idea of having to work your way "up the ladder", though. How about "when you confront your Target, you take -Lead ongoing until one of you is defeated or withdraws"?
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Aug 22, 2012 03:36
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Tasoth posted:Could just leave the target undefined until you hit zero lead. Reflecting that you have a general idea of the person who did it, but nothing concrete. Good reference for this would be Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Dark City and Hot Fuzz. In all those movies, the protagonists start with or pick up on a target early on, but don't work it out until the end. And then everything goes to hell. Doc Hawkins posted:Yeah, but sometimes it's exactly the opposite, and The Fucker ("Target" is way too dry) is obvious, but your history with them isn't, and there's something besides a roster of goons that keeps you from killing them right away. Look at Once Upon a Time in the West and The Quick and the Dead. I do think the -Lead ongoing idea can do something super-hot with that idea. quote:It's possible that this kind of thing just isn't possible in an RPG without somehow stealing from Mountain Witch. Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Aug 22, 2012 |
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Aug 22, 2012 14:54
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Scrape posted:"If you confront The Fucker and get away alive..." is loving genius! It implies that the confrontation is well, well beyond your means until you have 0-Lead and reinforces it mechanically. That would totally make me, as a player, get the point that this guy is Not To Be hosed With and that the cause is in the fiction. I like that.  On a related note, I was thinking about the whole "defeat The Fucker once and for all" side of things, and what would happen to the character since his moves all revolve around hunting this guy down, and wouldn't be useful once he's dead. Then I realized; it's already built into the AW system. Just take the swap to a new playbook or retire to safety advances and you're covered. Not a huge deal, but a happy coincidence. Danoss posted:Monster of the Week LE Playbooks for all!
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Aug 22, 2012 16:33
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I'm actually assembling the notes I've written so far into a rough file.
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Aug 22, 2012 16:41
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THE VENGANT LOOK Man, woman, ambiguous Tattered wear, bloody wear, symbolic wear Dead eyes, rage-filled eyes, tired eyes, focused eyes Slim body, ravaged body, muscular body STATS (very much not done) Choose one set: Cool+1 Hard+2 Hot=0 Sharp+1 Weird=0 Cool=0 Hard+2 Hot+1 Sharp=0 Weird-1 Cool+2 Hard+2 Hot=0 Sharp-1 Weird=0 Cool-1 Hard+2 Hot-1 Sharp+2 Weird+1 When you create your character, determine what terrible thing (The Incident) you survived and how you survived it. Did they raze your town and leave you for dead? Did their goons ride in, destroy and/or violate your family and leave everything in flames? Did they kill a loved one while you were away and now you're back? The MC will then create a special Front for the guy responsible, hereafter known as "The Fucker". This Front is just like a normal Front, but with two exceptions. 1) The Fucker will have a few Lieutenants. There are guys who enforce the Target's agendas and do some of his dirty work. They'll all be tricky to get to, and probably have a gang or something you'll have to kill your way through. Lieutenants might be small Fronts on their own, too, but generally they'll be the threats of the Front. 2) The Fucker doesn't have a countdown clock. Instead, he has a Lead on you. Lead starts at 6. Every time you defeat a Lieutenant or learn an important bit of information about The Fucker, you reduce the Lead by one. When you confront The Fucker (violently or not), you take -Lead ongoing until one of you is defeated or withdraws from the scene in some fashion. MOVES You start with this one: One step closer: When you onfront The Fucker in some fashion (violent or not) and you get away alive, mark experience. Pick X more: This is between you and me: When you confront The Fucker or one of his lieutenants, roll +Hard. On a 10+ pick two, 7-9 pick one. You take +1 ongoing until they're defeated or run away. Nobody else will interfere on either side. They give away an important clue about The Fucker. You do 1-harm more damage against your opponent's gang. I need your help: When you manipulate someone to help you get closer to The Fucker, roll +Hard instead of +Hot. I remember you!: When you confront someone who was involved in The Incident, Best Served Cold: Something about spending Lead, or using Lead to modify something else. Increase Lead by 1 to _________. Put out feelers: When you arrive at a settlement you haven't been to in a while and ask around for leads on The Fucker, roll +Sharp. On a 10+, you get some info about The Fucker or one of his Lieutenants. On a 7-9, you get the info but word gets back to The Fucker or the local Lieutenant. On a miss, you get zilch and The Fucker's forces come looking for you. HX On your turn, choose 1, 2, or all 3 One of them found you (or what was left of you) after The Fucker's attack. Tell that player Hx+2. You think one of them might be working for The Fucker. Tell that player Hx-1. One of them helped you track down a lead to The Fucker. Tell that player Hx+1. Tell everyone else Hx+1. What happened to you isn't exactly a secret, and everyone knows you're out for revenge. On the others' turns, whatever number they tell you, give it -1 write it next to your character's name. You have a little trouble getting close to people ever since The Fucker ruined your life.
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Aug 22, 2012 18:44
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Doc Hawkins posted:
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Aug 22, 2012 20:08
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MiltonSlavemasta posted:I've been waiting for this: When acting under pressure due to the Fucker or his Lieutenants, or Helping Out someone currently being harmed by them, roll +Hard instead of +Cool
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Aug 22, 2012 20:13
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jonthegm posted:Suggestions for "The Bride": As for the "feelers" move; I do want a different name, but I don't know if I like the idea of the fight being directly triggered by a roll.
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Aug 22, 2012 20:31
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Kestral posted:Awesome. But you left something out here: No, that was me having an incomplete thought. I think I want a move there, but I don't know what it would be yet.
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Aug 22, 2012 21:36
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I'm honestly glad people are so into this playbook since it motivates me to actually finish the drat thing. And I'm kind of leaning towards "The Revenant" as a name now that I see it.Winson_Paine posted:But what I am sayin' is what moves would you NEED to be driven by revenge? I am looking over the playbook and these work as well for Buffy the Vampire Slayer as they do The Bride. It is just a matter of attitude and spin. Unless I am missing something, which is probable. And yes, the playbook can be applied to multiple characters. You could be Liam Neeson in "Taken", The Bride, or Lady from "Quick and the Dead". AW playbooks are actually pretty general; they're designed to be a framework to hang your character off. It's also possible to take moves from other playbooks to further customize things. ThreeStep posted:Or have the (full?) bonus come into effect only in the presence of the Fucker or a Lieutenant. Shrug off the mooks, go straight for the leader. Mr. Maltose posted:The problem is the Wronged is still not quite specific enough. Like, the Wronged wants to kill all draculas because draculas killed their loved ones. The Bride/Revenger/Vengant/Fuckee wants to hunt down and kill Dracula, singular. Probably by slicing up Dracula's dracula minions, but they don't give a poo poo if they kill all the minions or not. They just want to Kill Dracula.
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Aug 23, 2012 15:24
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THE REVENANT v0.2 Apocalypse World is a dangerous place; we all know that. Violence is a way of life. Towns get attacked by gangs, warlords make examples, people take payment out of your hide and the hides of your loved ones. Monsters walk the ravaged earth, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. You were supposed to be one of those bodies. Maybe you weren't home when the attack happened. Maybe you weren't as dead as they thought. Maybe they just didn't give a poo poo about you and left you there standing in the ruins of your life. It doesn't matter anymore. Your old life was burned to the ground, the ashes scattered to the wind. Only one thing matters now. Revenge. You're going to find the fucker responsible, and you're gonna put him down once and for all. There is no one more dangerous than someone with nothing left to lose. LOOK Man, woman, ambiguous Tattered wear, bloody wear, symbolic wear Dead eyes, rage-filled eyes, tired eyes, focused eyes Slim body, ravaged body, muscular body STATS (still very much not done) Choose one set: Cool+1 Hard+2 Hot-1 Sharp+1 Weird=0 Cool-1 Hard+2 Hot+1 Sharp+1 Weird-1 Cool+2 Hard+2 Hot=0 Sharp-1 Weird=0 Cool-1 Hard+2 Hot-1 Sharp+2 Weird+1 THE FUCKER When you create your character, determine what terrible thing (The Incident) you survived and how you survived it. Did they raze your town and leave you for dead? Did their goons ride in, destroy and/or violate your family and leave everything in flames? Did they kill a loved one while you were away and now you're back? The MC will then create a special Front for the guy responsible, hereafter known as "The Fucker". This Front is just like a normal Front, but with two exceptions. 1) The Fucker will have a few Lieutenants. There are guys who enforce the Target's agendas and do some of his dirty work. They'll all be tricky to get to, and probably have a gang or something you'll have to kill your way through. Lieutenants might be small Fronts on their own, too, but generally they'll be the threats of the Front. 2) The Fucker doesn't have a countdown clock. Instead, he has a Lead on you. Lead starts at 6. Every time you defeat a Lieutenant or learn an important bit of information about The Fucker, you reduce the Lead by one. When you confront The Fucker (violently or not), you take -Lead ongoing until one of you is defeated or withdraws from the scene in some fashion. GEAR You get: a memento of your old life a clue to the identity of The Fucker; part of his outfit, a blurry memory, whatever. 1 businesslike weapon fashion suitable to your look (you pick) oddments worth 1-barter. Businesslike weapons (choose 1): sawed-off (3-harm close reload messy) 9mm (2-harm close loud) big knife (2-harm hand) MOVES You start with this one: One step closer: When you confront The Fucker in some fashion (violent or not) and you get away alive, mark experience. Pick 2 more: This is between you and me: When you confront The Fucker or one of his lieutenants, roll +Hard. On a 10+ pick two, 7-9 pick one. You take +1 ongoing until they're defeated or run away. Nobody else will interfere on either side. They give away an important clue about The Fucker. You do 1-harm more damage against your opponent's gang. I need your help: When you manipulate someone to help you get closer to The Fucker, roll +Hard instead of +Hot. Best Served Cold: Something about spending Lead, or using Lead to modify something else. Increase Lead by 1 to _________. Eyes on the Prize: When you arrive at a settlement you haven't been to in a while (or have never been to before) and ask around for leads on The Fucker, roll +Sharp. On a 10+, you get some info about The Fucker or one of his Lieutenants. On a 7-9, you get the info but word gets back to The Fucker or the local Lieutenant. On a miss, you get zilch and The Fucker's forces come looking for you. No One Else!: When acting under fire due to the Fucker or his Lieutenants, or Helping Out someone currently being harmed by them, roll +Hard instead of +Cool. If you let The Fucker or the Lieutenant get away, increase Lead by 1 but both you and the person you're helping get +1Hx with each other. Hx On your turn, choose 1, 2, or all 3 One of them found you (or what was left of you) after The Fucker's attack. Tell that player Hx+2. You think one of them might be working for The Fucker. Tell that player Hx-1. One of them helped you track down a lead to The Fucker. Tell that player Hx+1. Tell everyone else Hx+1. What happened to you isn't exactly a secret, and everyone knows you're out for revenge. On the others' turns, whatever number they tell you, give it -1 write it next to your character's name. You have a little trouble getting close to people ever since The Fucker ruined your life. ADVANCES get +1hard (max hard+3) get +1hard (max weird+2) get +1cool (max cool+2) get +1sharp (max sharp+2) get +1weird (max weird+2) get a small gang get a move from another playbook get a move from another playbook decrease the Lead by 1 ----------------------- get +1 to any stat (max stat+3) retire your character (to safety) create a second character to play change your character to a new type choose 3 basic moves and advance them. advance the other 4 basic moves. Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Aug 23, 2012 |
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Aug 23, 2012 16:22
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Winson_Paine posted:I think part of my issue is I am mostly familiar with the core playbooks and my instinct from OTHER GAMES is to smoosh my characters into those molds rather than making brand new molds that don't need smooshing, I guess. And even then, there's a lot of leeway in the interpretation of the playbook. Yeah, a Gunlugger can just be a guy who likes shooting guns, but he could be a sniper, or a pistollero, or a quiet guy who explodes into violence. That's what I'm going for with this playbook. The Revenant isn't just some guy whose family was killed, and he's not just a guy out for revenge. There are probably tons of guys like that in Apocalypse World. But the Revenant is the guy whose whole life was destroyed by someone, and is now laser-focused on taking that person down. It's become his identity, and he takes revenge to a level other people just can't (or won't) reach. And again, there's still leeway in that concept. He could have been left for dead when his town was razed to the ground, but he could also be looking for the person who kidnapped his wife and kids and sold them as slaves. Or he could he could have been someone whose parents were killed in front of him when he was a kid, and has been training his whole life to get revenge. quote:I know there are a lot of limited edition or kickstarter only or otherwise restricted PBs (which is sort of weird to me) but is there a repository of any of the... open source ones? This is not a Anyway, I thought this was in the OP but here is every LE and fan-made playbook I have except The Grotesque.
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Aug 23, 2012 16:46
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request but I (and I am guessing others) could use a depth of field here.
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Winson_Paine posted:I am slowly coming around to this concept, I think. So instead of being the martial arts rear end kicker who has been specialized into Revenge Man, you are the Revenge Man who has been specialized into being The Crow or whatever. Lemon Curdistan posted:What does -Lead do? What does lowering your Lead actually do? What happens when you reach 0-Lead? Lowering your lead represents the process of working your way "up the ladder". Taking out The Fucker's support structure, his hands in the world, things like that. When you reach 0-Lead, that's the point where you've everything you needed to do to confront The Fucker for the final showdown. You have the clarity of vision. Of course, you can still try to confront him with, say, Lead-2. Of course, that means that you haven't done anything about one of his Lieutenants, or haven't studied him closely enough, so that could bite you in the rear end during the fight. But if you've got Lead-2, you still might be able to take him out. Of course, you might need the help of some friends to watch your back. For all your work and preparation, are you still capable of reaching out to others for support?
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Aug 23, 2012 17:41
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Rasamune posted:"Take -x ongoing until y" means take a -x penalty to all of your rolls until condition y is met. So, him having Lead on you makes you worse at everything you do while he's around, and lowering your Lead lessens, and eventually eliminates, this penalty. The first time they confront the target, they're emotional. Angry. The wound is still fresh. So he fights poorly, screams and hollers, and the target just laughs and walks away. Because the guy wasn't ready yet. So the guy trains. He prepares. He studies the target, his patterns, his operation. Tracks down and eliminates the people who support the target in one way or another. And slowly, piece by piece, step by step, he gets closer to the target. Reduces the Lead the target has on him. Until eventually, he's done what needs to be done. He's learned the target's patterns. Eliminated his helpers. Destroyed his infrastructure. There's nothing left but the face to face. He's "caught up" to the target, eliminated the Lead he had. The guy? The one hunting the target? He's ready.
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Aug 23, 2012 17:52
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Cyphoderus posted:I'm loving the Revenant, but I'm thinking it contradicts two of the GM's principles: everyone is in crosshairs all the time and don't take away the character's poo poo. The first because you can't ever kill the Fucker or the character is forced to become someone else; second because the character has the Fucker in much the same way the Driver has his car, but the Revenant is built around destroying her own poo poo and goddamn if she won't accomplish it. As for the "like the Driver has his car", yes there is a different base assumption to the playbook (a baked-in goal that he will eventually reach). But for something like this, it's as much about the journey as the destination. Besides, something might change between "I'm going to kill The Fucker" and "I have killed The Fucker". Maybe the character gets killed. Maybe they get sidetracked by something and find a new life that puts vengeance behind them. Play to find out what happens, remember? HitTheTargets posted:Pushing into weird experimental art-game territory here, but what if you made two versions of the playbook? One for going after revenge and one you automatically switch to when vengeance is yours. e:dammit Rasamune, let me finish! 
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Aug 23, 2012 19:17
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Scrape posted:I know you're still looking for Best Served Cold, what did you think about my idea of sacrificing Lead to help an ally? The gist of it was, "you blow an opportunity to move against the Fucker in order to help an ally. Mark xp but gain Lead." Maybe even a +1forward if the xp is not incentive enough? quote:No One Else!: When acting under fire due to the Fucker or his Lieutenants, or Helping Out someone currently being harmed by them, roll +Hard instead of +Cool. If you let The Fucker or the Lieutenant get away, increase Lead by 1 but both you and the person you're helping get +1Hx with each other. quote:I really like the idea of the Revenant regaining a little humanity (represented by xp/growth) by focusing on a new life instead of the old one (helping a friend when you could be hunting the Fucker). HitTheTargets posted:Yeah but... everyone can do that. And what if you don't want to switch? If the Gunlugger puts away his guns and picks up an Angel kit, that's his choice. But he can also choose to keep his guns (Obama!), where the Revenant can't choose to keep his Target. What, are you gonna get the fucker dead to rights and let him go? Besides, who says that taking out The Fucker means an end to his influence? His right-hand man takes over, the warbands that were under his control are flapping free...mechanically, maybe The Fucker (in a moves-target sense) can become the remains of his organization.
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Aug 23, 2012 19:48
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Lemon Curdistan posted:Probably a good idea to write this into the playbook itself as part of the bit explaining the Incident/Fucker, in the form of "when you kill or otherwise defeat the Fucker and have enough time to contemplate your victory, you immediately gain one advance that must be spent on taking one of either the change your character to a new type or retire your character (to safety) advances" or something, and one which clarifies that it lets you remake your dude and gain some kind of benefit in your new playbook.
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Aug 23, 2012 19:59
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Here's v3 of The Revenant. I added the stuff about advancing after you defeat The Fucker and made a few small tweaks. Thanks for all the ideas and feedback!quote:THE REVENANT v0.3
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Aug 24, 2012 18:02
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Echophonic posted:I really like Monster of the Week. I was waffling on it, but the discussion got me over the top. I can see making some awesome games out of this. I can definitely see the Fringe inspiration, even without the Olivia shoutout in the Professional. I'm trying to figure out what archetype Peter fits in as. In season 4, he's probably an Exile, but it definitely feels like Flake could fit. Now to figure out a way to get the Exile playbook. You get the Exile book by running a MotW game, posting about it publicly, and letting Michael Sands know.
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Aug 24, 2012 18:07
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