After reading Vincent Baker’s response about niche protection in Apocalypse World was largely (entirely?) accidental in Jared Hunt’s thread about niche protection in AW-based games, I got to thinking. At first I was really surprised because I thought “What’s Vincent talking about? AW has lots of niches! Look at all the different and distinct playbooks. How can that be an accident?”
But then I realised that I had been confusing “niche” and “archetype”. My impression is that the characters in AW are unique not because of what they do (niche), but because of who they are (archetype).
I’ve tried (and so far failed) to write my own AW-hacks, but always got stuck on playbooks. It seems like the ideas I have (or am inspired by) never lend themselves to distinct playbooks. The types of characters players can be seem far too similar to each other to justify what I feel is an interesting number of playbooks.
For example, I had an idea to do a Watership Down based game where the characters were all rabbits (this was before I discovered Marshall Miller did something similar). However, as the rabbits all had pretty much the same capabilities, I struggled to come up with distinct playbooks.
I haven’t played Fate Accelerated Edition yet, but I understand that system focuses not on what characters do, but on how they do things (sneaky, flashy, careful, etc.). Or in the Cortex powered Leverage game, characters are all criminals, but have different roles based on how they commit crimes (for good, of course).
So that got me thinking about doing playbooks that aren’t what someone is, or what they do, but how they do it. (I’m tinkering with another AW-hack inspired by TRON and, again, the character types and abilities are all nearly identical.) Has anyone done anything similar? Base playbooks around something other than archetype or ability? I’m curious to see what other people have come up with.
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Why not just make a hack with 1 playbook or no playbooks? There are a bunch of those now, including some by Vincent like Murderous Ghosts and Sundered Land.
What about playbook by starting equipment or plot of land (land rush?).
My Ars Magica hack bases playbooks on the houses of Hermes, but the reason I started the other thread was because when everyone is a wizard it’s easy for it to feel like the playbooks are essentially the same.
I started writing a Traveller hack and ran into the same problem. I decided to turn playbook moves into the skills from Classic Traveller, and in keeping with the CT tradition of randomly rolling characters I let career choice lead to acquiring different choices of skills. I only ever wrote a rough draft that contained all of my ideas and right now it’s largely abandoned (because I’m focusing on different projects). Here’s a link
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9cu0IVYfHtiTVlobkxwTHRHMTQ/edit
A hack with a single (or even no) playbook would be interesting, J. Walton. But I think the setting would really have to support that mechanical choice. If the characters were all clones (which again, I think Marshall Miller has done) for example. Or all identical models of robots. I don’t know if there are going to be Program characters and User characters in the hack I’m working on yet, but that would be a way to make the playbooks about what the characters are; you’re either a User or a Program. Two playbooks only.
“Everyone being a wizard” is essentially the same issue I’m running into too, Jared Hunt. When everyone can do the same thing, how they do that thing becomes a lot more important.
Christopher Stone-Bush World of Dungeons and Sundered Land and Ghost Lines have varied character creation using the same playbook. You’re all characters of X type, but then you choose different moves or other options off a short list. There’s lots of way to do basic differentiation without having separate playbooks.
What about combo based playbooks. It’s not about the playbook you choose but about the combination of playbooks chosen. Your playbook is about how you modify other character’s moves.
I’ve had a bit of thought on how your playbook reflects your character’s Nature, to steal a page from Mouse Guard. The more that you live up to your playbook, the more you are embracing your Nature.
I have John Harper’s Ghost Lines, but didn’t even realize there’s only a single playbook. Duh. Sadly I missed World of Dungeons as I (stupidly) didn’t join the KS for Dungeon World. Good move, past me. Ya moron.
Having a single playbook is seeming more and more appealing. Though that means it’d have to be jam packed full of options, as I’d like characters to be mechanically distinct. Fiction goes a long way in AW-based games, but identical things just wrapped in a different skin seems rather boring (again, unless that’s the point). That is a bit of a tangent, though.
Different playbooks for different equipment configurations is cool. That feels very “military” to me, where everyone has the same training and skillsets and is distinguished by what they carry.
Ever since I got Vincent Baker’s Space Marine Mammal playbook, I’ve wanted to do a Whale Pod Walker game. Everywhale’s the same, but has different walking suit configurations.
Marshall Miller check out Squaring the Circle: http://www.archimedes-closet.com/artemisia/gamesgalore/SquaringCircle.pdf
Christopher Stone-Bush you realize that the Space Marine Mammal is a pun, right? It’s not just a Mammal that is a Space Marine, but it’s a Marine Mammal from Space.
Squaring the Circle looks totally math!
What about playbooks as stages of a disease or treatment? [dang, that’s giving me crazy ideas]
Marshall Miller: In a way, every playbook is its own character arc. I bet you could trace a story arc through the advanced moves of a playbook, and I think that’s the intent–to let every player write a story using the moves in their playbook.
I meant like uninfected, contagious, changing, changed. Each person represents a different stage of the same process. Similar for unmodified, augmented, cyborg, android.
I like the idea of playbooks with effects that modify the other playbooks chosen, Marshall Miller . Though I can’t think of what they would represent. The first think that popped into my head was a a big “combiner robot” like Voltron. Then I thought of some sort of hive mind organism, like the Carnivorous Pink Lichen from Interstellar Pig (which is a freaking awesome book). Now I’m thinking of an insect colony, where each playbook is a different version of the insect (queen, drone, scout, warrior, etc.) or a weird nano swarm. Of course I have no idea what the game would be about if that was the premise…
I totally got the joke, Patrick Henry Downs. Space Marine + Mammal, and Space + Marine Mammal. That’s why it’s so awesome. I was big into Warhammer 40k for a while, so the idea of a whale/dolphin in power armor screaming “For the Emperor!” is hilarious.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I remember the SMM first being mentioned around the time last year (?) when Games Workshop tried to claim that “space marine” was their IP and no one else could use it. I remember thinking the SMM was a bit of a middle finger in GW’s direction. 🙂
World of Dungeons is available to everyone here: http://www.dungeon-world.com/the-kickstarter-treasure-trove/
(that page is very well hidden on the website… not sure how anyone is supposed to find it)
Thanks John Harper. I figured that World of Dungeons had to be available somewhere.
How’s those Asian mythic inspired skins going for Monsterhearts? How about using them for a AW themed japacolypse ? I haven’t seen much mention of that direction yet ? Lots of anime would be inspirational…
I’m resurrecting old discussions as I get ready for Fallout New Vegas apocalypse hack…for Jackercon.