Last Wednesday we ended our A Portcalypse campaign. It ended with the Chopper and his second in command the Gunlugger (Ex-Angel) returning to their home hardhold, killing the hardholder and taking stuff – leading to a bloody uprising between the people living there and leaving the newly christened hardhold of Haven in blood and fire. The cannibal-leading Hocus and the Savyhead returned in the aftermath of that and decided to give up on it, took their stuff and went away as well.
This game was a game about how creating something in the Postapocalypse is doomed to fail. Violence rules and the strong can just take from the hopeful. It is a world where everyone should be out for themselves and caring for others will just get you down.
This was satisfying in the sense of that the fiction had something to say but also really sad because of what it said, if that makes sense.
I still want to talk about some of the things we found in the 2e rules during playtesting but its kind of difficult for me.
A few things though: We never really used the subterfuge moves. I always felt like the fiction created from the possible outcomes wouldn’t have worked. I hope that examples and explanations in the book will help there.
The lifestyle and barter rules weren’t really working as I would have wanted them to. Yes everyone did spend barter in the session but the rules for working stuff off-screen or so didn’t work out well. Especially because they are not clear on the character sheets. We were working from the Fallen Empires rules but even then it didn’t create the thing that I personally wanted from them. That the characters are seen working and doing mundane shit to stay alive and maybe get into trouble based from that. Also the conversation in that is weird because you go: “I don’t want to pay my lifestyle – Does anyone want to pay for me? No? Then I would want to work X to pay after all” when what you would want to say is: “Hey, I would like to have worked in the meantime. I build some stuff for Harkror – can we do that off-screen and I pay through that?” or something like that. The procedure of the
conversation to have was just off somehow.
Battle Moves were fine otherwise I think. There was just one moment that I remember that really didn’t work out well.
The Chopper basically wanted to have one half of his gang to Stand Overwatch while the other goes with him to beat some people up.
So while he is going and using his gang as a weapon to go aggro on them I thought that his character also couldn’t stand overwatch. He tells his gang to do this and they act based on their impulses etc.
He fails his Go Aggro and a Sniper is revealed on a rooftop and shots down one of his gang. He says that this sucks because if his people would have stood overwatch he could make them shoot back. But even if they stand overwatch they were out of range so it wouldn’t have worked. That was weird.
So its clear that when you stand overwatch with a Shotgun and the person you are protecting gets shot from far away that you can’t really shoot back – but the move doesn’t specify that. That is weird as well.
Thanks, Tim!
Yeah, it told a pretty bleak story there in the end. It is easier to destroy than to build and easier to be apathetic than to care. So everyone became a raider and/or submitted to a authoritarian and destructive leader.
The barter mechanics played into it I think. It is hard to be compassionate when you are starving. The Maestro’D could afford to be generous, because she just got Barter as a gift.
When my Chopper first tried to “work a gig” aka rob a wealthy population half the named NPCs in my gang got killed. So it seemed super annoying and dangerous.
Till one player pointed it out the jobs did not provide enough Barter also.
Which lead to my Chopper just extorting the Hardhold we were hanging out in all the time and being a parasite. Till he saw that there were more promising hunting grounds. So no longer needing to milk the cow he slaughtered it.
The placement of gigs under the beginning of session move contributed to how we used it I think. We read it as one thing, even if the gigs should have been something to do seperate. So it felf punishing to just be reminded of them at the beginning of session, while there was sometimes little room in the fiction to work gigs.
It intuitively felt like it should go
Do you want to pay Barter? Y/N
If N -> is there another was to pay? Get a loan? Work a gig? Y/N?
If N -> MC rolls out the questions.
The wording “if you need jingle during a session” of course say something different. But this is how I parsed it at first from the playbook and the flow of the session.
And when you needed jingle always was during the beginning of session move. So it was either planning ahead with ressource managment or going to the gig move right then.
The gang overwatch situation was partly due to my emotions as a player. I assumed that my narration had triggered a different move than you assume or indeed both moves. Because in PbtA it does not seem like I am always limited to one move per turn. Still using the gangs impulses made complete sense from your point of view. I was just a bit annoyed because of what might have been a miscommunication and a concept seldom used in PbtA. Which is the range of weapons. Of course dealing damage to me was a valid hard move looking back.
Telling me you wanted to see my Chopper plan and strategize when you highlighted cool and sharp and then not triggering the move played a role too I think.
So I reacted more annoyed than I should have in hindsight.
The limits of overwatch and which battlemoves apply if multiples could trigger as well as how splitting gangs work (especially once they reach medium size) are all valid points that might be worth adressing in the rulebook.
Where we also struggled with the rules was when to use subterfuge moves. I saw them as an option more often than other players it seemed.
One situation I remember was the Hocus trying to get an NPC to come with him to a cult meetup, where she was supposed to be eaten. Which I saw as baiting a trap I think but manipulate and NPC was also an option.
We had a similar thing when the Chopper was searching an old church for the NPC hardholder of an enclave we were pillaging. I thought I was hunting prey or turning the tables but you disagreed. Read a situation worked too of course.
But I guess with a longer text about the intention of this set of moves it would be clearer when to use them.
I can answer a couple of these questions.
You can have half of your gang do one thing and the other half do another, of course. You roll both moves.
By the numbers, you can probably divide a small gang into several non-gang groups of 1 or 2, or else just split off 1 or 2 gang members and leave a small gang behind. You can divide a medium gang into 2 or 3 small gangs. You’d work this out with the MC case by case.
Only use the subterfuge moves in battle. If you never had a battle that called for them, it’s absolutely appropriate that you never used them.
I see what you mean about the disconnect between needing barter at the beginning of the session and getting barter later during the session. I’ll think about that.
If you allow Arresting Skinner to be magical it is pretty powerful. Can be weaponized too. Which delt like it was not giving the victim much agency in play as it was worded. Something like a move to hinder or act under fire would have been nice as a way to limit it.
In the end it fit the campaign well though, beauty being the only thing that really was scary to the murderous raiders and could have stopped them.
Sadly the Maestro’D was cannibalised shortly after using Arresting Skinner to subdue a gang.