I’m reading the original Apocalypse World and, holy shit, it’s well-written.
In lots of game books, there’s a tendency to overwrite, to overexplain, to pack the book with fiction. I find lots of them hard to read.
Apocalypse World avoids all that. I don’t know how and yet I kind of do: it puts you straight into the game. Right from the beginning, everything is useful. You never skip ahead, you never feel your eye wandering over the introductory stuff, waiting until you get to the game. It’s all there.
It sets the bar so high. If I can make Cthulhu Dark half as good as Apocalypse World, I’ll be doing well.
🙂
I have chewed a bit on the “how” and I suspect speaks to Vincent’s vision (as I interpret it, probably wrongly). Any time the text would normally explain how to do anything which required the reader use their judgement, he made it a rule instead. That’s gotta be super slimming.
I agree with you 100%, Graham W! And that is a fascinating observation, Rob Donoghue–now I have to go back and read it with that idea in mind.
Have you seen AW2 yet?
Steve Ellis I haven’t! I actually feel a bit bad saying how good AW1 is, when AW2 is imminent.
I love it. I’ve heard people say that it’s poorly structured or poorly written, and for the life of me, I can’t understand that. I do have trouble using it as a reference while playing, but it does a truly brilliant job at conveying the thinking and logic behind the game. And yeah, it’s all on point, and no filler.
Yeah, the writing totally sold me. I mean, the playbooks were the hook, they were enough, but the writing sold me.
Also, totally psyched for Cthulhu Dark! If you’re looking for readers, I have fresh eyes and would be happy to give it a markup pass!
The first time I red AW 1st ed. It was a slap in the face. It was telling me why all those sessions I had played failed to be interesting and why those one off session I sometime had were so good. It almost felt like a religious revelation… And I kinda feel ashame to admit that.
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Vincent Quigley a lot of people got that feeling. And I certainly did. All the things that good GM does transposed into rules.
My thinking was “why oh why couldn’t I start my rpg adventure with game like this. I lost so many years!”
And for me AW was kind of reborn in terms of my role playing activities.
Wait… There is a new Chtulhu Dark in the making???
ramonthe3rd Yes, I’ll Kickstart a rulebook later in the year.