Ed Gibbs – Powered by the Apocalypse G+ Archives

My friends do a weekly comedy/pop-culture podcast.

My friends do a weekly comedy/pop-culture podcast. In the latest episode, I ran a game of WWWRPG on-air with them. Check it out!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/gaming-gibbs-wide-world-wrestling/id965048428?i=355401213&mt=2

Hey, I made this big, elaborate cheat sheet for Shadowrun.

Hey, I made this big, elaborate cheat sheet for Shadowrun. Because you know, Shadowrun is probably the most mechanically-complex game in the hobby right now that isn’t an actual miniatures game.

It took all of five minutes before I got a response: have you checked out the Apocalypse World hack of it?!?!?

Here is what I said to him (and, good sir, if you’re the one who asked me that, no offense. I posted a really long, meandering answer that is so weird I should share it with the general public.

I’ve looked at it, it is indeed very impressive! My problem, though…the same as my problem with the Fare Core hack, and the Cortex hack, and even the d20 hack….is that I sincrerly, truly believe that the mechanics are a part of the world that is Shadowrun. Especially if you’ve played it since the start. Those piles of six-sided dice on the table. The constant pouring over source material, hoping you’ll find a heretofore unknown +1 dice pool modifier, a single die that could make the difference between dropping that sniper at 200 meters before he does it to your mage!

Now, I again, I frickin’ love PbtA games. The first hack I ever wrote was a zombie apocalypse hack of Dungeon World. I get that game. And you know what I get about it? I get that gear does not friggin’ matter at all!!!! It’s all about story, man! Well, Shadowrun is different. Part of what makes Shadowrun different and unique, and that world so fucking COOL…is that all that gear? It does mean something! It’s that there’s a table of guns all of them can be pistols, all of them could have subtle variations in a wide array of statistics…accuracy, armor penetration, damage, effective range, clip size, firing modes…and that players, totally in theri roleplaying place, can say “I like THIS gun becuse it does MAWR damage!” While the assassin sidles up and goes “I’ll take the accuracy gun. Who needs a bullet to do damage?”

SEE?!?! That’s just a microscopic example of why the mechanics…all the fuckin’ crunch, all those goddam numbers…is such an important part of Shadowrun’s setting. You hack all this into Apocalypse World, or Fate Core? You’ll get a great cyberpunk-themed game….but it ain’t Shadowrun. The only way you get to play Shadowrun is to play Shadowrun.

So what I’m taking from Apocalypse World are not its mechanics. I’m taking its radical approach to rules writing, where the reader is directly addresses, and directly told what to do, when to do it, and how it’s done. Because Shadowrun does that too. But it doesn’t have the voice to make it as intuitive as it should be. So here is my meager, humble attempt at colliding two awesome worlds!

This might be me doing the newb thing where I don’t understand a rule so I create a rule that’s actually more…

This might be me doing the newb thing where I don’t understand a rule so I create a rule that’s actually more complicated, but I don’t know. Anyway, here’s the story:

Last week I played a first session episode with four players. All four of them were totally new to pro wrestling. I haven’t watched since the WWE Attitude Era, but I have a lot of friends “in the know” so I kinda-sorta know my stuff. However, I did not know my stuff well enough to shephard four newbies through a quality sports entertainment event. We had a lot of fun, but there was some awkward moments.

To address those moments, next session I’d like to make stronger use of NPWs to help give a sense of what a wrestling promotion is like. That means more matches with NPWs, and storylines involving the NPWs. But since NPWs aren’t rolling dice, I feel like the matches might be a little one-sided or boring. So I thought of this custom move to help matches with NPWs be a little more dynamic:

Taking a Bump

When your opponent hits you with a move and you want to sell the hell out of it, roll +Real.

-On a hit, it’s a sick bump and the crowd pops. Choose +1 Heat with your opponent, or gain +1 Momentum and take control of the match.

-On a partial, you sell the move but it ain’t highlight material. Choose: +1 Momentum, or take control of the match.

My question is, would this move work in its purpose of creating more dynamic matches when players are facing off against NPW’s? Or do I just need some technical help in how to run good matches?

Also, if this move does seem cool, I’m thinking of a couple of extra custom moves that can play off of it, like a Jobber move that gives him +1 ongoing on this move, or a Veteran move that lets him use +Look instead of +Real.

What do ya’ll think?

Two-part question for those of you who are good at teh maths:

If I wanted to use the Miss/Partial Hit/Hit move mechanics on 3D6 instead of 2D6, what would the ranges be?

And:

Using that 3D6, what would a good attribute range be? For example, right now, the range is roughly -3/+3 (but realistically it’s more like -2/+2, as those 3’s make success almost guaranteed/impossible). What would the range be on a 3D6 scale?

Anyone in the Washington, D.C. area want to throw down on some WWW action this Sunday? Check the link below and RSVP!

http://www.meetup.com/AARGGH/events/220602721/

Wherein I tackle the issue of survival in my zombie apocalypse RPG…

Here is the entire working document(s) so far on my zombie apocalypse AW/DW hack, World Gone Mad.

Here is the entire working document(s) so far on my zombie apocalypse AW/DW hack, World Gone Mad. I’ve posted this before but I’m reposting due to heavy changes made over the past several months. If you’re bored some night and give it a go with some people, let me know how it turns out!

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BxOLKvL9ehx2Z0dQam1ZYzU5QTg&usp=sharing

Author: Ed Gibbs