How would you skin or tweak Apocalypse World so that instead of being a Sci-Fi/Mad Max/Borderlands themed Apocalypse, your world could be set in the ruins of a High Fantasy World after the valiant heroes failed to prevent the forces of darkness from destroying the world?
There are a number of published settings I can think of for a Fantasy Apocalypse. Earthdawn, Scarred Lands, and Midnight are all pretty good examples.
I have Dungeon World, but the community and need aspecst of Apocalypse World are more along the lines of what I’d like to evoke.
A number of the playbooks are easy. Either don’t pick guns, or pick bows, crossbows, or Arcane blasting bods in their place. A GunLugger could be a battled scarred mercenary, or a fae fire elementalist depending on how you flavor it. An Angel’s stock could be herbal or alchemical remedies rather than Morphine and Antibiotics. Seems like the Solace or the Touchstone would be pretty fitting and easy.
What third party playbooks would be really fitting? What other sorts of changes would people make to evoke more of that fantasy themed feel? It seems like a lot could be accomplished just with Barf Forth Fantastica, but I’m interested to see what other folks think.
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs29/f/2008/047/5/0/Apocalyptical_by_lychi.jpg
I have nothing to contribute at the moment, but I like the idea and it is something I have not considered previously.
I can’t either. Don’t know AW well enough, but I love the image and idea! I’m working in a similar vein with the new Forgotten Realms for D&D, which I consider to be post apocalyptic.
Forgotten Realms can certainly be post apocalyptic. Especially if you don’t do the while, ‘It’s been a 100 years since the last big Apocalypse.’ Both the Time of Troubles and the Spellplague could lead to cool Maelstroms.
The latest iteration is better, as they killed/removed most of the signature PCs, and if there’s one thing Apocalypse World characters can be, it’s awesome movers and shakers. I don’t feel you can do D&D style magic with core Apocalypse World, and you shouldn’t. The destruction of the Vancian Style Magic with Plug and Pray Divine intervention is part of what makes it an Apocalypse.
A Wizard or Cleric could be reflavored versions of several different core playbooks. Cult Leader or Parish Priest Hocus. Mind Bending Brainers. Paladins can be Battlebabes. Sages could be Savvyheads, desperately researching how to fix the broken weave of magic. The trick, IMO, is making sure the players buy in at the front end and don’t be afraid to change the names and tags of things.
Dungeon World works quite well for this. Just got to set certain expectations when building the world, and ask leading questions about what the world was like before the apocalypse, either from the characters’ experienced or from the tales that have been passed down.
But Dungeon World doesn’t have the community aspect. Dungeon World characters are adventurers, basically oddballs who don’t fit into society. Apocalypse World play books, for the most part, are members of a community. Civic leaders who are defined as much by the people in their lives as their individual abilities. I want Seizing by Force and Going Agro, because they mean something different than Hack and Slash. I want Hardholder, Hocus, and Maestro-d.
I like Dungeon World, but it’s designed to do something very different than Apocalypse World, and I think it’s easier to change a skin than a core focus.
Take a look at the Hyborian Saga hack = https://docs.google.com/file/d/0By4fR8hnM-BPNWRkNTNlMTktNjIxOS00YjY1LTg1NDktMGQ4NTg1NGE4ZWY4/edit
It’s basically AW with the serial numbers filed off and then painted over in Conan fantasy.
There is also the World of Conan hack = http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1164498/World%20of%20Conan.pdf
Which adds a few custom touches to make it feel a little more unique.
Tony Dowler also created an interesting Apocalypse D&D hack = http://planet-thirteen.com/apocd&d/ApocalypseD&D3.0.pdf
or World of Algol. (I agree with you wrt the lack of community in DW.)
I seem to recall TORG was post-apocalyptic.
There’s a game called “Desolation” that does this already; can’t speak to its quality. TORG is ostensibly “post-apoc”, but it’s RIFTS-ey background is a wee bit hard to tease out of the game itself. Not impossible, but not trivial — the more generic version of the game, “Masterbook” would be easier to deploy on that count, but it also makes some changes to the underlying TORG mechanics that might not be what you want in the end. Why not just use AW and carefully prune out some of the playbooks? I’d say AW could fly all on its own, really, if you prune out one or two of the playbooks from the mix…
My plan is to do just that really. Other post-apoc fantasy settings and games are good to prune for ideas and imagery, but it the Apocalypse World game I’m interested in running it with. Just about any of the playbooks are fine if you change up the flavor, although would require much more in the way of mental gymnastics. The Quantine is a bad fit. Not totally unworkable, but you’d have to reskin it from the floor up.
And thanks Patrick and Rob. I will definitely check out those hacks.
Quarantine is just an Elf … or Eladrin if Elves are common. Or a Diva if Eladrin are common. (;
After coffee, I remembered the fantasy apocalypse game I meant to mention: The Shadow of Yesterday.
The Shadow of Yesterday is a great game. I really like Keys and how they drive play.