How the hell did I never notice this before?

How the hell did I never notice this before?

How the hell did I never notice this before?

Mal = Hardholder or Operator, depending on how you look at it

Zoe = Gunlugger

Wash = Driver

Jayne = Battlebabe

River = Brainer

Simon = Angel

Kaylee = Savvyhead

Inara = Skinner

Book = Hocus

I’m pretty sure they all use characters moves throughout the series, too.

43 thoughts on “How the hell did I never notice this before?”

  2. Apparently the word from Vincent Baker is that Jayne’s a Battlebabe.

    Which I agree with; Zoe was very focused in what she did whereas Jayne was all over the place.

  3. In at least one context he specifically called out Zoey as the Battlebabe, on an episode of the podcast “Actual People, Actual Play”. He said it was cool that in their game, the Driver and Battlebabe hooked up, just like in Firefly. 

  5. Hm. My review of APAP archives shows that it was not in that show where Vx said Zoey was the Battlebabe. Maybe “Walking Eye”? Anyway, he definitely said it, and it definitely true. Just look at the moves. Jayne never Rolls + Cool to go aggro. Zoey does.

  6. Patrick Henry Downs My wife would very much disagree with you about Jayne being the dangerous and sexy type… though I will agree with you on the Zoey not being the type to say “Fuck this shit” but thats where there is room for archetypes to be different people

  8. Ben Wray I’d rather make my assessment based on their sex moves rather than their starting equipment. Zoe is totally a Battlebabe because she prevents Wash’es sex move from compelling him to leave the ship.

  11. Also, I had a “Oh yeah, duh” moment when I realized that the device the guys with blue gloves had was totally what a pain-wave projector in operation looked like.

  12. Ben Wray , I completely disagree.  River was never a cool based character.  Until the movie she was only ever in one combat situation.  Heck you could argue that she was effective in that combat through direct brainwave projection (‘make yourself easy to shoot’).  Th weakest connection by far was Book.  He didn’t really have followers (until the movie, but even then that was more of a hardhold), he wasn’t weird, but he was very good in combat.  Supposedly the Touchstone was supposed to make a book character but I don’t think that works either.  If I were to chose a playbook for book it would be Quarantine.  It sounds weird at first but think about it.  He doesn’t shoot to kill, he survived the war and remembers what things were like before it very well, and he’s out to rediscover the world.  In other words, his monastery was actually replacing the concept of a stasis pod.

  13. You could just as easily argue that, until the movie, River never did anything indisputably “psychic”, too. Plus, she doesn’t have ANY brainer gear.

  15. No no, I’ve got it. She’s a monsterhearts character. Otherwise-out-of-genre abilities, and her very presence causes strife and drama in the otherwise tight-knit crew? Plain as day.

  17. McDaldno just pointed out to me that she works really as a Hollow with the Infernal’s Soul Debt move (with “the Academy” as a patron) and I actually like this interpretation way more than brainer OR battlebabe, now.

  20. Honestly they both kind of strike me more as gunluggers than battlebabes. Could it be… that there ISN’T a perfect correlation between Firefly and AW characters?

  21. It’s not meant to be perfect, it just fits thematically. Like you said, River doesn’t start with any Brainer gear so that’s not perfect, but then I pointed out it could have been taken away during a Love Letter which is thematically appropriate to the game. “Roll+cool. On a hit you’re a secret agent for the government, 10+ get some extra gear + barter. On a 7-9 you’ve got a mission to recon something called Reavers. On a miss, all of your gear is gone and you’re a fugitive from the law.” – and shit, I just came up with that by typing a quick response. 😛

  22. Well, sure, if you want to hack the game by writing new moves to support your hypothesis, then your hypothesis starts to look halfway decent. 😛 right back at you.

  24. Yeah. It’s in the chapter that’s all about how to hack the game to make it your own. I support this! It’s a cool and awesome thing to do! There’s a reason my name is that chapter more often than anybody else’s!

    And if you’re really set on River being a Brainer, that’s cool as well. I disagree, for reasons stated (she really doesn’t do anything that fits a brainer move IMHO rather than just brain-opening in general, and she doesn’t fit the brainer’s theme of “creepy and disturbing fucker” at all) but I think at this point we should probably just agree to disagree on the matter?

  25. I’d perfer to think that ‘of course river doesn’t have brainer gear…that you know of.’  Honestly in AW brainer gear doesn’t have to work for any scientific reason.  They could just as easily pick up a dirty mitten out of the mud and call it their ‘violation glove’.

  26. Who says a Brainer has to be creepy and disturbing? Kaylee would disagree with you on that score.

    But I can point out how you’re wrong about the moves.

    Casual brain receptivity: she does this ALL of the time!

    Direct–brain whisper projection: she uses it on Jayne at the end of “Trash”

    and the player obviously took Preternatural at–will brain attunement: because they got sick of missing so many rolls in the first few sessions.

    My name may not be in the rulebook, but I’ve clearly got a better leg to stand on here then your dismissive half-joking semi-trollish insistence that I’m wrong.

  27. Bahaha Ben Wray are you suggesting we stop arguing about our own personal interpretations of popular fiction and games, and not suggest that our subjective options ought to be elevated to the place of universal truths? Ridiculous 😉

  30. I’ve been considering this conversation and I’ve figured out what’s always wrong about it. It’s that it’s mistaken which comes first.

    River = Brainer is true.

    It’s not that River is Firefly’s brainer, though. It’s that the brainer is Apocalypse World’s River. River is the rules that the brainer follows, the brainer isn’t the rules that River follows.

  32. It would be freaky if river was based off the brainer considering the character was created well before the game. While I do like choppers I cannot think of a firefly parallel.

  34. There are definitely plenty of characters in the Firefly world that found River “creepy and disturbing” including most, if not all, of the rest of the crew, at one time or another.

  36. Elias Mulhall , there might not be hardholders or hocuses on the crew but they were on the show. The preacher who kidnapped Simon and river totally worked as a hocus and the russian who tortured Mal (blanking on his name) along with Mercy from the pilot were both hardholders. I can’t think of somebody who the chopper could have been molded around though.

  41. oh sure!  they shouldn’t START the game with PC-Niska having PC-Mal hanging up and his ear cut off… but if it gets there through play, I’d have no problem with it.

  42. Why not start a session like that?  Just so you know, I will respond to any reasons of party balance, cohesion, or tension I’ll respond with ‘so?’.  If players want to start antagonistic go ahead, just make it clear that it will be likely that it could easily result in early character death or retirement.

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