We played the season final of our “London Calling” Apocalypse World campaign this week.

11 thoughts on “We played the season final of our “London Calling” Apocalypse World campaign this week.”

1. I tend to disagree with your “Apocalypse World only makes you roll dice when something’s at stake, and when something could go badly wrong.” notion.

   You roll when you trigger a move. That is not the same thing.  

2. Craig Judd I played a savvy in my last AW game. I found I had similar challenges initially, as “making stuff” isn’t really part of the game.  I had a garage setup with machine shop, so I figured that was how I was valuable to the community and started acting like it. 

   Need jobs for barter, go out and find them.  Buddies doing crazy stuff – adapt, join them, oppose them, or find something else to do.  Stats highlighted – find a way to use them even if they are not your strengths.  Massive gun battle – make something and use it, or just start shooting/reading/opening. 

   I went with the “WEIRD mechanic”, as you mention, and ended up with a +3 Weird, and plenty of moves that used Weird for interesting effect or used Weird in place of another stat.

3. In making stuff is still cool. You don’t get to roll for it but the MC should give you stuff to do beforehand. Needing the help of someone, needing to build something different before. Needing bunch of jingle… 

   You can build stuff that is totally crazy you know. Bugs and security cameras, violation gloves, LASERS! Bears with LASERS on their heads… 

   Savyhead is by far one of the coolest Playbooks in the game in my opinion. 

4. I like the direction you’re going with the Scavvy.

5. Interesting read.

   I once thought of the Savvyhead as a support character, and I never knew what to throw at her.

   Then I realized a character who can build a dam, an irrigation system, solar panels, wind turbines… Completely upset a Hold’s political power or social set-up through innovation? In no way a support character.

6. Thanks for the encouraging words, Vincent Baker ! Like I said, I haven’t really read and absorved all of the stuff in even the basic playbooks yet, so I’m sure I’m repeating some things that have already been done. I’ll add to it as I research, steal ideas, or come up with something cool!

7. Tim Franzke … well, when you trigger SOME moves you roll dice, and there’s always the chance you’ll get a 6- and the MC will have something bad happen. I get the impression that Apocalypse World tries to avoid rolling dice when failure would not logically and fictionally be all that interesting.

   I probably should have focussed more on the “doing stuff so you can build stuff” aspects, but again, I don’t really think that’s what the player wanted to focus on either, although I could be wrong.

8. I dunno about that, Craig Judd. It’s the MCs job to make things interesting on a miss, not to only roll when things are already interesting. I mean, there’s even a passage in the book about thinking really hard to find a hard move to make, and only if you really can’t think of one do you not bring the hurt.

   Skipping out on rolls cause nothing is immediately at stake sucks the snowballing drama engine right out of the game’s heart. Roll when the moves are triggered, even if it’s a quiet day at home — cause the shitstorm is never more than a stone’s throw away.

9. Yes. When you roll something interesting will happen, not the other way around. 

10. Sorry, I wasn’t talking about MC’ing techniques, I was talking about game design. I know that when you roll dice something interesting happens, so what’s the intent behind Moves that don’t roll dice?

    Savvyheads building stuff and non-Angel medical assistance were the things that came up in my game. I was theorising about the reasons you don’t roll dice when you perform those Moves.

11. Savvyhead player’s had some time to reflect and think about things, and will be sticking with the Savvyhead. He’s just figured out he was looking at it from the wrong angle.

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