Oliver Granger (watergoesred) – Powered by the Apocalypse G+ Archives

When the apocalypse hits the antipodes, it hits hard…

When the apocalypse hits the antipodes, it hits hard…

Has anyone tried to combine the Leverage RPG with Apocalypse World Engine?

I’m thinking specifically of AW-style playbooks and moves mixed with Leverage’s job generator and heist flashbacks.

So you Read a situation or Read a person and you burn, burn!

So you Read a situation or Read a person and you burn, burn! to ask a question… but you’re stuck with the short list. Then joy! you advance these moves and suddenly can ask whatever you like. And just as suddenly you lose all inspiration and can’t think of anything past those infernal original lists?

Well, here’s some inspired questions gleaned from various moves in Apocalypse World, Dungeon World and Dungeon Planet.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sv0nrzzfkibupy3/READ%20A%20SITUATION%20%26%20READ%20A%20PERSON.pdf

So Moonlighting gigs depend on establishing:

So Moonlighting gigs depend on establishing:

1) a paying customer

2) you or one of your crew who can do the work

3) the opportunity and the handshake to actually do the work.

The games I’ve played have made 2) and 3) the primary issue. As long as I can recruit and keep the skill needed to work the gig, and I’ve got time to arrange the gig, then the Operator can keep the gig.

What hasn’t been pushed much is 1). Customers seem to come and go from gig to gig, less essential to keeping the gig. (That may be an artefact of scale of the game setting, with larger populations, prolific advanced technology and the presence of Cities.)

I’m getting a feeling others have a different focus. Like holding 1) more centrally to concept of a gig so that a gig means an ongoing thing with a particular person or group. So that if that person or group leaves, dies or runs out of barter, then the Operator loses the gig. Do people do that?

And do you roll the Moonlighting at the start of every session? In my games, the start session roll depends on 3) the Operator being unoccupied and in a position to actually arrange the gigs. But I wonder if that’s an artefact of thinking of gigs as one-off jobs rather than ongoing arrangements.

When you find yourself caught in a difficult conversation, pick 2. You work out how to:

When you find yourself caught in a difficult conversation, pick 2. You work out how to:

– get what you want

– maintain the relationship

– keep your self-respect.

I liked this thread because I’ve been avoiding changing playbook for my Operator in my Apocalypse in Space game…

I liked this thread because I’ve been avoiding changing playbook for my Operator in my Apocalypse in Space game because she still has so much she wants to do. She’s hard fought her name to maintain her rep and now she’s finally got there.

In particular I liked Vincent thoughts on the options when characters run out of improvements; I’ll now consider angling for a custom path. “If you’re playing absolutely strictly, that 5th experience [when all other advancement options are filled up] means that they have to retire or change. There’s no reason to play that strictly if you don’t want to. The MC can create custom advances, or else the character can just stop tracking experience and advancement, or whatever the player and MC work out.”

And I also liked Vincent’s point about AW’s focus on pursuing or disrupting stable situations: “Mechanical game balance is useful in some types of games – games where your character’s effectiveness in combat is the same thing as your ability to participate as a player, for instance, like D&D4 -but Apocalypse World balances across non-mechanical lines. In Apocalypse World, your ability to participate as a player is your character’s ability to disrupt and/or pursue stable situations, not your character’s mechanical effectiveness.”

http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=6218.0

When you are working to finish a project, pick 2. You work out how to make the thing:

When you are working to finish a project, pick 2. You work out how to make the thing:

– good

– in time

– without great cost.

The MC will tell you what your choice means.

So I used the Dungeon as Monsters method from the Planarch Codex DW supplement to create a warehouse in my …

So I used the Dungeon as Monsters method from the Planarch Codex DW supplement to create a warehouse in my #TechnoirWorld game. I came up with three dangers, semi-randomly, and it all worked really well.

Madness: dominate choices XXXX

Sewers: befoul and disgorge XXX

Cliff: endanger OOXXX

One of the PCs has a flying surveillance drone “Bessy” that got badly hit by heavy-calibre rounds fired from a holy avenger’s high powered sniper rifle. So Bessy ended up crash landing in a warehouse leaking radioactive fuel.

I started tonight’s session with a couple of PCs scoping out the warehouse that stank of shit. Grey parkoured his arse to a second storey window (Cliff +1, Sewer +1).

Grey found himself on a walkaway above a huge pit dug out the length of the warehouse, 4 or 5 metres below street level, with broken pipes and filled with effluent and seething with worms. He also spotted Block-Rockers working down there with sledgehammers, in the shit (Madness +1, Sewer +1, Cliff +1).

Climbing a rope to the third floor, Grey crossed a room full of drugged, sick or exhausted people and has interesting conversation with a Mind-Blower, who was smoking a peace pipe, about his mission to find the alien space craft (Madness +2). O yeah, he got a bucket of live worms in case he got the munchies.

Then Grey climbed the stairs into a room full of tall vats of sugar. He found Bessy wedged in the rafters and a bunch of kids dead beneath, blue faced on her leaking radioactive fuel (Madness +1, Cliff +1).

Then Grey rolls snake eyes trying to get Bessy down and out of the building, the fire being she’d roll free and land in the pit, deep in shit.

The sugar came in handy for dropping bags at height on Bessy’s owner when he came in, gunning down Block-Rockers and bossing people round. The proceeding battle got dangerous enough that both PCs backed off and regrouped.

Overall, Monsters as Dangers worked, the Dangers and rolling inspired me and the “dungeon” hung together well.

Here’s a thing I came up with whilst fiddling with some rules ideas for Factions, Corporations and Enclaves in my …

Here’s a thing I came up with whilst fiddling with some rules ideas for Factions, Corporations and Enclaves in my #TechnoirWorld game. No use of my purposes though. A real #hackwitoutahome

This hack makes Apocalypse World stat pairs that contradict. This contradiction says something profound about the world. Think Praxis in Shock or the Number in Trollbabe (Magic/Fighting/Social). In A Wicked Age also has inspiring pairs (directly/covertly, with violence/with love, for myself/for others) though they don’t contradict mechanically in IAWA.

Praxis-style stats: Take two stats ranging from +3 to -3, and make their ranges overlap; so when you take +1 with one stat, you’re getting -1 with the other. For example, Violence vs. Love:

– If you pick Violence+3 then you get Love-3.

– Take Love+2, get Violence-2.

– And take 0 and set both at =0.

I intrigued with the idea of porting Stars Without Numbers Factions rules or tweaking Dungeon World’s Steading rules…

I intrigued with the idea of porting Stars Without Numbers Factions rules or tweaking Dungeon World’s Steading rules to fit my #Technoirworld game, which is standard Apocalypse World with plenty of colour changed, a few custom moves and a couple of new playbooks.

Has anyone done that for AW?

I’m still not convinced Factions rules would be worthwhile, but I’m very curious and I can’t be sure they won’t be awesome since I’ve never played with them in any system.

In particular I’m thinking about cyberpunk corporations. So far, when the PCS have clashed with corporations, is been more at the ground level, with the shock troops, and not really at the larger scale. I’ve played corporations as Fronts with large-scale background threats (warlords, landscapes) that breed badness (brutes, afflictions) that shapes the world of the PCs. And it works cool.

But what about:

Steadings inspired by DW

Corporations stats would be Prosperity, Reputation (replacing population) and Defenses. The colour of the stats and the steading type would be adapted to fit the colour of cyberpunk corporations. Between sessions, I’d follow the steading update list to check how the interactions of corporations adds or removes conditions.

Factions inspired by SWN

Factions are ranked from +3 (super powerful) to -2 (destitute). Each faction gets one front move per session, which can be made either before or during play; typically this is against another faction, but sometimes it’s just to do a thing. When a faction makes its move, roll+rank, with other factions being able to spend their front move to aid or interfere (in which case, they don’t get to make a move this session). Players can enable one or more factions to make an additional move this session (or sometimes, an extra move next session), and can also make a move on their own if they have the time and resources (i.e. workspace, basically). Factions gain or loose ranks by meeting specific fictional requirements. PC crews probably start at rank -1, but could be higher if they’ve done a bunch of stuff already.

P.S. Note that factions are as much PC-generated as GM-generated. If a player says: “I find an orphanage and donate all my loot to it,” sooner or later that orphanage is going to turn into a significant faction, since it now has the resources to make extra moves and grow into something larger, even if it starts out at rank -2. So the GM invents some factions based on their interests, but the PCs have the power to pick something in the fiction and focus their attention on it, which effectively turns it into an institution with mechanical significance.

From Jonathan Walton on the Planarch Codex

http://www.story-games.com/forums/discussion/comment/358380#Comment_358380