I don’t know if this happens to everyone, or is just particular to my play group, but the Hardholder character is playing out the Warlord – Dictator moveset almost word for word. New player to Apocalypse World too.
I don’t know if this happens to everyone, or is just particular to my play group, but the Hardholder character is…
I don’t know if this happens to everyone, or is just particular to my play group, but the Hardholder character is…
I think trying to control things is natural for a player, and the moves narratively follow the impulses easily. When I played a hardholder I simply tried to create a safe space for my population, and once I realized that was never going to happen then I started trying to control the holding and eliminating anybody I deemed a threat.
The Guy With a Gun and a Vision syndrome strikes again! From V. Baker :
(W)henever a random internet person says that they find Apocalypse World too depressing, I kind of go, hm. That’s interesting. The hardholder is a trap for those people, I think: the dude with the gun, the pure vision and the iron fist cannot possibly make it work, but has to rely on – defer to! – people with stranger vision and more subtle, more flexible social arrangements.
…or “fail” spectacularly.
I saw it happens. Our hardholder started as the Gentle Dictator, trying to empower people but on his own term. When that didn’t work, he dropped the pretense and slowly became a real douche of a warlord reigning with an iron fist.
(And when that didn’t work, because, well, the maelstrom exists and with weird-2 he couldn’t deal with it — in fact, he didn’t even want to acknowledge it, he decided that maybe, the solution is blowing it up.)
I created democracy in my holding, but the first election got rigged, so I retired the character as a threat.
Oh no, he is a terrible despot, and destroying everything around him. I don’t have to do anything. He is the Dark Future for his hardhold. And the player is just pushing his agenda along, trying to keep it together and putting guns to everyone’s heads.
I love it when PCs supply their own dark futures. My Hocus and soon-to-be-Brainer are both helping with that. What is your Hardholder’s Agenda?
Sounds excellent. 🙂
I always think (after reading the Vincent Baker quote above) that the role of the Hardholder is to be that guy who fails to make his vision work – and the story is in them trying to assert that agenda. But of course the other way to play a Hardholder is to just make power the agenda. 🙂
I wonder what happens when he comes across someone more ruthless/amoral than him? What happens when faced with the consequences of killing so many people? (…in his hardhold or outside, but especially in it!)
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Despite having GMd it and knowing the problems of the Hardholder, I still want to play one and try to fix the apocalypse with a Vision and a gun. Is it just me?
William Nichols not at all – I’m playing one. And it caused me to almost kill another character ‘for the greater good’ in the first 15 mins of play. 😀
William Nichols same here. It’s either that or a touchstone. Either way it won’t end well.
Grégory Pogorzelski Precisely. We have a Quarantine, and she may become a Touchstone. If she throws down her dogtags. She’s learning – slowly – that the weird-based characters are Not Her Friend.
Yeah, and in this case arbitrary power corrupts arbitrarily.
It will never be the way it was, but it can always be better than the way it is.
Social cooperatives are hard to maintain; but, humans are adapted to be social creatures.
Fear and scarcity are strong motivations for cultivating ignorance and brash discernment… however, this mindset is not the path that allows for consistent productivity in long term goals.
Hold hard softly, and remain supple with the strength of an indomitable reed.