How do you decide what playbook to play? Do you pick what you want every time? If you do, do you find that you end up playing the same books over and over again? Or do your characters feel similar If not how do you like to institute unpredictability into your character choices?
How do you decide what playbook to play?
How do you decide what playbook to play?
Always something new!
Marshall Miller , do you ever run out?
It depends on my whim at the moment of character creation usually, but on occasion I get an awesome idea for an AW character and if I get a chance to play I try to work them in.
Most recently, I’ve been struck with the idea of a Hardholder who is in essence a viking warlord. He’s got his shitty encampment that his raiders strike from, he’s got his savage gang of folks, and he’s got his prisoners who are essentially slaves making the whole thing run. He’s not at all cultured or trying to hold shit together, he just knows that if you want to get the most out of the stuff you take you need a place to put it.
Tim, that’s very different then my recent idea for a hardholder. I’ll save it for after we do the world and character creation though
My idea was explicitly inspired by the optimistic Hardholder post and the thread linked to. I’m not really drawn to that type of character, so I’ve always sort of been so-so on playing a Hardholder (and haven’t done it). But in thinking about it, the total antithesis jumped out at me.
It may also have to do with the fact that I’m currently reading a Feast for Crows, which features viking analogs.
Personally I liked ‘A storm of Swords’ better. I do sometimes do the idealists (probably not as a hard holder). My hardholder concept would be more comedic in a meta humor sort of way
I also preferred ‘A Storm of Swords’, on the other hand vikings kick ass. I’ll be honest, I’d probably steal the faith as well for said Hardholder if it made sense in the context of the apocalypse.
In terms of idealists, I’m split between playing idealists, those who become idealists, and those out just to survive. I want to play in a game with the Solace to really ramp up the destructive potential of a character by being an out and out agent of maelstrom and the apocalypse. Though funny enough I don’t think I’d answer that the above Hardholder is such.
I’m a little unsure about what a game with a solace and a known wolf of the maelstrom would be like. Wouldn’t that force the too characters to be too advasarial? Would it be that the maelstrom has a more subtle goal for the solace? I dunno, I just see a lot of ways that it might go wrong (not that that’s a reason not to try). I guess it really would break down to how the MC and players are able to intereact
I pick what I want in the moment, but I do find myself gravitating to a few books. Gunluggers and Hardholders figure highly, but I also love playing Skinners who people don’t expect. I see soooo many AP reports with variations on “Skinner, the stripper/prostitute”. It gets a little flat. My favorite Skinner was Frost, who was a tattoo artist of really remarkable quality, and sometimes his tattoos would move, due to the maelstrom. Currently I really want to play the Marmot.
I do really like the non-stripper/dancer/prostitute/ect skinner. The only time I played one he was a gardener. Nothing showy or anything, he just made his home nicer by planting a bunch of stuff. He also had a tendency of abusing lost which got him shot, but hey, that’s kinda normal. So do you find that when you play Gunluggers or Hardholders that sometimes they feel similar to previous ones or do they just end up being unique?
I just had a Solace with a known wolf. And hell, no, she didn’t face off with him. She just tucked that information away.
My favorite skinner of mine was an old, old man with the last violin in the world. Not a single fucking warlord looked at him sideways.
Hmm. Well, I aim for a different facet each time, so that they may resemble each other slightly, but be different. Like Keeler was all about doing her job as a Gunlugger and the Hardholder’s 2nd in command, but she wasn’t too emotionally involved. Francis was a guy who just really wanted to shoot things, very trigger-happy and reactionary. Cable was just trying to protect everyone he cared about and even though he didn’t love it, violence was the most effective option.
I also like playing anti-gunlugger. My best was Navaro, a sixty year old woman whose father taught her to hunt and track. She got married and put all the guns and such in the attic. When raiders killed her husband, she took a trip to the attic…
So nice and sweet to most people.
i choose mostly at random from what’s left over, then i let the character creation process (in particular the Hx moves) make me a person.
Hardholders will be unique because there are so many kinds of hardholds. I would be very interested in seeing a hocus hardholder combo with the holder being one of the followers.
I would tend to pick playbooks that can define a lot about the world or setting. Hardholders, savies, hocus, touchstone or especially maestro’d etc.
i can’t see myself playing a faceless.
I tend to make my characters really fucked up and apocalyptic I also like the options that make your life really hard. Give me Problems yoo.
I tend to choose playbooks that suit the play styles I enjoy. I like playing cocky, wise asses who are good at protecting what’s important to them. Which, usually means I can pull off any of the AW playbooks pretty well. 😀
But yeah, I usually prefer to pick last so that a “niche” doesn’t get missed. I know AW isn’t D&D, but some old habits die hard.
What niches are you thinking about?
I suppose ‘roles’ might be a better word. Things like the person who can kill things, the one who can fix things (be they people or objects), the one who can get things done quick and quiet, and the weird mo-fo. Sounds kinda like a D&D party, but like I said, bad habits die hard.
Apocalypse Without a weird MoFo is clearly lacking something
I agree! 🙂 I tend to take a ‘mundane’ playbook and go down a weird path with them. Like my Battlebabe who went to +3weird and had all sorts of fun weird moves. That was a blast.
Oh yeah. Valkyre is my favourite way to play a Battlebabe
I don’t know, having a AW group that is creepily normal could be pretty fun. You know, the bombs are going off but you set up a nice table for tea time
I generally pick a character as different to my last character a possible
I rarely play, usually run, but when I get the chance, I go with whatever gives me evocative concrete imagery at the time. A coat blowing in the wind, or the long machete of a gunlugger trailing the dirt.
Go from there.
Drew Medeiros , i have found that, even if a group starts out without a weird character, they’ll get a weird character soon enough.
it’s so easy to increase weird in comparison to the other stats, and there’s so many moves that want +weird rolls. someone will do it.
You make a good point Adam McConnaughey. Plus lets face it, Weird is what makes Apocalypse so frickin’ creepy and intense, Weird is the icing on my mutated sand-blasted cake. 😀