I have decided to adapt Patrick Stuart ‘s Sonic Pigs into a custom threat for my Apocalypse World game. (http://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2013/01/egg-dead-and-sonic-pigs.html)
In the City by the Sea slaves are forced to tend the sonic pig pits, feeding them and corralling them until they have grown fat from sucking on semi-nutrient mud. They are more than just a food source though, when the slavers want to demoralize a populace they will release the runts and mutated babies of their litters around the perimeter of a town they want to subjugate, herding the pigs toward the populace with sticks and whips while protecting themselves with earplugs or scavenged headphones. The sonic pigs will search for food amongst a town’s refuse but react with terror when confronted by crowds or loud noises.
When you scare a sonic pig, roll+sharp. On a 10+, pick two. On a 7-9, pick three. If you are deafened or have a way to cancel sound, then pick one less:
– you shit yourself (you are +messy and prone to +disease if you don’t clean yourself)
– you are dizzy (take -1ongoing until you get +far away)
– you are disorientated ( act under fire or else stay where you are clutching your head)
– you are filled with despair (the MC holds 1, they can spend this hold to prevent you from gaining experience)
On a miss, all four are true, even if you are deafened – the vibrations from the sound rattle your bones and make your intestines hum.
Awesome artwork by Logan Knight
https://33.media.tumblr.com/3359e431d6dd92bab70649c79d96df9a/tumblr_n9a7u5biEB1qj9jfoo1_500.jpg
That is so fucking awesome.
All the love in the *World for moves that give the GM Hold. Hold for players is a plot coupon, Hold for GMs is a “don’t you say a word about how hard this move is” coupon.
Michael Llaneza I disagree. As a player, I love moves that give me hold because it gives me more control over the move, which makes sense because it’s my move.
But a threat is different!
Forcing players to make choices is always looking through crosshairs, but forcing players to choose between shitting themselves or giving the MC hold to prevent experience is putting someone on the spot big time.
Exactly. GM hold is just a way to avoid whinging when you do a /really/ hard move.
It is putting them on the spot, but no more than any other serious decision you might throw at them in similar circumstances. But it’s not a Hold for a Hard Move, it’s just a Hold for a single instance of getting no XP on a PC move. Not a huge deal. But can be dramatic. And if the MC understands the game, there’s a “forward” in that “fail forward” anyway, so it’s not a total loss for the PC.
As long as the players get foreshadowing, a description or a second-hand glimpse of that despair – the possible risk – prior to actually alarming a sonic pig themselves, then I’d say no foul. They have been warned, they knew the risks.
Subsystems are cool when they’re “different”, as long as the model and the fiction support each other. Sometimes this is handled by rules, sometimes by OOC decisions, and sometimes the GM has to figure it out. So this is the effect of sonic pig despair. If you gave me foreshadowing prior to when I caused the alarm, and if I gave you the Hold, I hope you would use it on me in a totally fitting and dramatic way, specific to my character’s story and psychology. I’m totally fine with that. Call of Cthulhu, anyone?
As If That’s it, exactly! The idea is the next highlighted stat to be rolled is not going to earn XP because of the unsettling nature of the sonic pigs. But it is also MC hold, which means an MC might forget they have it, which is also fine too because the consequences of that choice should hang over the player’s head… unless they miss the roll, then they’re just boned.