Nachiket Patkar – Powered by the Apocalypse G+ Archives

A player of mine picked the Scion playbook, and I noticed something about the Respect part – it says that losing…

A player of mine picked the Scion playbook, and I noticed something about the Respect part – it says that losing Influence means you lose 1 Respect. But in the rules I don’t see any way of taking away the Influence that PCs have over someone. It’s not a MC move, it’s not a move for the Scion playbook, and they can’t spend Respect like most characters can spend Influence.

So for losing Respect would it be something that the NPC wouldn’t like the Scion doing? It seems like it would be easier to lose Respect then gain it, is that the intended effect?

I’m looking into running the Spiderweb playset sometime soon, and I’m curious if you tell the players what the…

I’m looking into running the Spiderweb playset sometime soon, and I’m curious if you tell the players what the Virtue/Vice is or just how it manifests?

For instance, if I was using the Canyon example would I say “The people here have Solidarity as their Virtue – they can be divided but they come together to honor their shared heritage. But they have Apathy as their Vice – they know not to get involved in anything going against the Spiderweb since it’s here to stay.”

Or would I just give the descriptions without saying what the exact Virtue/Vice is?

How have you handled groups with the Rich tag? It says:

“Rich (cue): outside of battle, the gang always has a little scratch, a little jingle.”

The gunlugger in my game picked up a small gang with rich, and I’ll open up the next session describing who joined and what her gang is up to (they’re people who have survived various attacks, one by the gunlugger herself, and are banding together under her. The player said the PC isn’t actively getting them, they’re coming to her and she’s rolling with it)

Should she be able to get Barter from them, maybe with Pack Alpha if they feel she’s taking too much? Pay for her lifestyle? Be able to pay for gigs by the other PCs? Have various arms and armors around (they’re 2-Harm 2 armor) to hand out if needed? Or just more in fiction things (I can’t have a situation where the members are starving or running out of Barter to pay for essentials because they’re rich, the PC doesn’t have to worry about taking care of things small amounts of Barter could take care of, or the gang is treated as being rich by the other NPCs?)

I have a question for those who run Apocalypse World by Play by Post (PbP).

I have a question for those who run Apocalypse World by Play by Post (PbP). Mostly I’m wondering about working on your Threat Map. The book says to work on it after the first session, since you’ll want time to consider what kind of Threats each person or group is, and space to think about their backstory and motivations. But with the way I’m doing it for the game I’m running, we had characters made and then I got a thread going during my own time. (We didn’t start right away)

They had given me large numbers of NPCs that could be easily and quickly listed in their threat category, and sometimes I have ideas for moves or countdowns. What I’m wondering is if it would be acceptable to use the free time between writing posts to dwell on the Threats even if the session is still technically ongoing. In face to face tabletop playing, you’d have a few hours and then meet next week. Here, I write what’s happening and over the course of the new few days the players will say what they’re doing and I say what happens as a result, etc. etc. But there’s far more time to think and plan then if we were doing this live.

The basic question: Would it be acceptable to have written out some Threats, maybe even a clock or two, during the constant downtime I have to unleash in the first session? Or should I just stick to the book rules and avoid having any of that until the second session? Do the first sessions where everyone is playing live tend to be shorter due to character creation? If so I might end it a bit sooner then planned.

Thanks for any advice you have.

So the Nova’s deal is that their abilities can go horribly wrong, but it’s incredible powerful and versatile, right?

So the Nova’s deal is that their abilities can go horribly wrong, but it’s incredible powerful and versatile, right? It even says in the Masks section that one of the benefits of being a Nova is that you can do just about anything with your powers, while other playbooks are more limited in what they can do. In exchange, you are far more dangerous to yourself and others.

But…some playbooks get access to their abilities and presumably none of the downsides.

For example, the Protege can pick elemental control or telekinesis/telepathy as a power either they have or both they and their mentor have. Earlier on, the powers were split into sections and those were “mentor only,” but it got switched to being part of a set of powers the Protoge picks from. The Outsider and the Transformed have an advance that lets them take any two abilities from other playbooks – fine for most, but what happens if the Transformed picks up Biokenesis or the Outsider comes from a fantasy land and has been learning sorcery?

If a Nova is in the group, it would feel like stepping on their toes. Here’s a character that can do what you can do, but they’re better and don’t have to worry about causing massive damage on a miss. If there isn’t a Nova it’s a bit better but then you have the issue of those abilities being really open ended and suddenly that character can probably do what the other PCs can, without needing to worry about it exploding in their faces if things go wrong. Should the GM take some of the GM moves for the Nova to be part of the character now? The outsider with Sorcery can use the powers they had before just fine, but channeling Sorcerery means the GM can take “Make their powers flare out of control” from the Nova’s moves, or start using GM moves like “Put Innocents in Danger” in ways you wouldn’t with normal misses? If you don’t, and there nothing in the rules to indicate you should do this, it gives the great power but at no worse cost then the powers the other playbooks deal in.

Am I missing something? Are Flares supposed to be super good to make up for this? Because they’re neat, but what I like about the Nova is how it lets you do whatever you want. You can effectivley have any superpower, but you have to pay a real big price for that privilitdge. The Flares are just a bonus. Am I looking at it the wrong way?