I wrote this thing for Juan Dibuja in answer to his questions about writing playbooks for Apocalypse World.
I wrote this thing for Juan Dibuja in answer to his questions about writing playbooks for Apocalypse World.
I wrote this thing for Juan Dibuja in answer to his questions about writing playbooks for Apocalypse World.
Just a small thing, a second +2 is counted as a +3. Then the math works again
Or the line adds up to +2. The math works that way too and it’s simpler than thinking of a +2 as a +3.
What about special gear options like battlebabe and gunlugger have? Is this a “thing”?
Otherwise a really good guide. I would maybe add to check what is out there before you start and see if other playbooks would apply
I don’t think gear really counts as a thing since one of the MC’s moves is “take away their stuff.” After all, I called that step “Balance isn’t everything” so I’m pretty confident balance is something that can be guided through play and isn’t inherent in the mechanics of each playbook, as long as they start with 3 things and their stat blocks are consistent.
Thanks, that was a good read! I’d already figured out most of it, but the guidelines about three “starting things” was very helpful.
just thinking about it a little more, what is the third thing a skinner get’s?
Tim Franzke No idea. Their moves aren’t particularly powerful, so Luxe gear maybe? For the record, I fucking hate Skinners.
why that?
Because they’re impossible to explain to new players, and whoever’s playing one ALWAYS without fail takes an arresting skinner and uses it willy-nilly. Personal experience notwithstanding I feel the Skinner is the weakest playbook conceptually though mechanically it has cool stuff to play with.
i always pitch them as artists, the only people capable of making something of pure beauty in the apocalypse. I totally like them.
I totally hate them. We are enemies now. Or maybe frenemies since I will still make gaming stuff with you. GRR ARGH! Etcetera.
Swords at Dawn?
Laser-swords at dawn!
cue “Duels of the Fates”
On Skinners: I think they’re OK, and Artist is the best way to describe them I’ve found. I think the Solace and Maestro ‘D capture what it is to be Hot in a Hard, Weird world better–though the seeds of the idea are in the Skinner.
On the advice: I think it is good to formalize these things just to avoid the ambling from concept to loose implementation of it. I would definitely include general move writing advice in it, in that custom moves really help define the majority of playbooks.
Though on that last point, I’ve noticed that most non-official playbooks avoid the design space of Hardholder / Chopper, which is move light. In fact even the LE playbooks avoid it, whereas both the Quarantine and Hoarder seem like they could easily have had a solid non-move thing and moves to interface with that thing, with improvements around buffing that thing.
Tim Groth the Beast Master started out in that way. Doc convinced me to change that.
Was that on a public discussion or not (I vaguely recall that, but you may have mentioned it in your posts on it).
One thing I’ve thought of about that is that the Hardholder and Chopper both have NPC groups / setting features that are deeply entrenched and to a degree shared (in that the impact is diffuse). A personal thing like a pet or whatnot is quite different than that.
I think there may still be room for that scale of things, it is just hard to think of one that doesn’t step on it. One that is explicitly about traveling may work (a convoy or whatnot, which sounds mostly like it would be a Hardholder or Chopper extension). Another might be a playbook focused on cultivating / restoring the world. A garden (may not be a literal garden) could easily be a thing to take options for and interface with on two moves, and improvement is about tending it and making it better.
/sub
The skinner gets 2 picks from some really powerful moves and then some crappy gear as a third thing.
Tim Groth I didn’t include advice on designing moves because 1) there are plenty of example moves between the core 11 playbooks and the 30+ unofficial playbooks that exist, and 2) the Advanced Fuckery chapter has a whole slew of example moves plus a breakdown of how moves work
Yeah, there is good guidance on core move creation. What I’m thinking of mostly here is integration of that into moves for Playbooks. What should a Playbook move cover? How is it different than a general created move? What do moves mean for playbooks.
Even plus stat moves are distinguishing things about the character.
You know, I could probably add a whole gang of advice to that post if you want to start a thread on Story Games or something, Patrick.
One thing I wan’t sure about was, many Playbooks have a +1stat Move (max. +3) you can buy, while other Playbooks don’t list this on their Move list, but have functionally the same thing in their list of Advancement options. What’s up with that?
You can take a move that gives you +1 during chargen, and you can take the same move by taking a move from another playbook. But you can only take an advancement from your particular playbook and only when you get 5xp.
Craig Judd what Johnstone Metzger said. This is essentially why that Battlebabe’s Cool+3 is a “thing” because one of their starting moves is obviously +1 to Cool.
Johnstone Metzger I just don’t go onto the SG forums that much so I don’t think of posting things there. :-/
Out of all the many internet mediums, the SG forum is probably the one I’m most comfortable with. For public conversations, anyway.
Oh, Craig Judd he reminded me just there, it’s also a way to make certain stats harder to raise. Anybody can raise their weird, it is easy. Raising cool or sharp is hard, you have to use the improvements your playbook gives you and those are limited.
Johnstone Metzger http://story-games.com/forums/discussion/18311/apocalypse-world-writing-playbooks
Cool, I’ll write up some stuff for it.
Excellent article!