Author: Patrick Henry Downs

I ran my first one-shot of Apocalypse World this weekend for a group that normally plays D&D 3rd edition (almost religiously). I sent them the playbooks I was willing to use and asked them to decide what they wanted to be before I got there, and then wrote generic love letters for each chosen playbook.

When I first sat down to make characters with them, the biggest thing was that they didn’t understand Hx. In trying to explain it one player in particular kept trying to push for ways of maximizing her Hx, and she seemed really confused that she could choose to give somebody’s Hx a -1. Going around the table for Hx was also a sticky point because everybody thought it worked differently. I eventually walked them through it step by step and it clicked for them.

Another player was confused as to why he could choose to have armor or not.

“Why wouldn’t I wear armor?”

“Because you wouldn’t like it, maybe? Or it gets in the way? It’s not your style?”

“That seems stupid to not wear armor.”

*shrug “That’s cool.”

They all asked about the countdown clocks, and after I explained how they work they all seemed a bit upset that they only had 6 hit points effectively. I told them “It’s really hard to die. In the game I’m playing we had a building fall on a character at the end of a gunfight and he’s still alive.” This seemed to mollify them for the moment.

We ended up with:

a Skinner named Dusk who specialized in being a con artist and tricking people out of their money and food, everybody else thinks she’s a stripper though nobody can ever remember her stripping

an Angel named Doc (not his real name) who really liked to drink booze and received his Angel Kit from his mother

a Maestro’d named Francois who ran a restaurant and brothel, the Mouton Noir, out of an old dilapidated bookstore

a Grotesque named Blakesly who ran around town with a musician, performing dances with her drones alongside the music

and a Savvyhead named Oliver, who had been set up in the hold of Lynnback for five years now and was an often relied upon member of the community

I went around the table and found out who these people were. Oliver was hit on by an enforcer named Foster but she turned him down cold. Foster found Doc examining a break-in and was about to arrest him, but Doc’s lack of tools slowed him up. Blakesly shared some of her food with an old crone and some kid started a fight with her about it. Dusk defused the situation, and she and Francois spent some time distracting enforcers who were insistent on searching the Mouton Noir. Almost everybody fell in love or lust with Dusk.

Then took a little break, treating it like the end of a session. The Skinner was the most active wih everybody else and she had set up two of her Hx at +3, which means when everybody said she knew them better she got two experience. When I came back from my 5-minute break, handed out the love letters and instructed them to re-highlight stats as if this were a new session.

It turns out Francois the Maestro’d had the highest Hx with everybody and he got a little overwhelmed. Most everybody highlighted the best stat they had, so I tried to push for Doc and Dusk to fight a little with Hard, and everybody else I either marked Sharp or Cool.

Doc had been invited to have dinner with the leader of their hold. I went around the table asking the players “What’s his name?” “What does he look like?” “Does he have a family?” “Why does he keep so man enforcers around his mansion?” and got some great answers. Rosebottom is a slovenly and overweight guy with a bald head and a scarred face, he doesn’t have a family because everybody thinks they got killed when he set this place up, or maybe he killed them, but he’s paranoid and protective of his house, he keeps the guards running around 24-7 because he doesn’t like unexpected visitors.

Dusk was invited to this dinner as the entertainment and she fumbled around trying to keep the focus off of her because she didn’t want to have to dance for Rosebottom or any of his enforcers. Doc kept looking for Foster since they had bad blood but he wasn’t around. Odd that. At the end of the festivities Rosebottom told Doc there was a patient he needed seeing to and they took Doc downstairs into the basement, where the entrance to an underground mine was hidden. In the mine, Rosebottom had slaves digging up some sort of coal that electrified the air around it. One of the slaves had these weird white lines along his skin, almost like they were scars but growing out from the inside of his body. Doc sat down to work on the patient.

Dusk, meanwhile (this was the game-y player who kept trying to maximize numbers remember? she also kept trying to combine the benefits of two moves into a single move) has rousing Francois because she thought Doc was being held prisoner. While Dusk was trying to convince Francois that they needed to go up and save Doc, a fight was brewing at the entrance to the Mouton Noir. When I asked Francois “What do you do?” he said “Nothing. This is why I hired Rum to be the doorman, he can handle it.”

“Cool. You hear a gunshot and when you look up Rum is flat out on the floor, looks like his face is gone.”

Blakesly’s musician friend, Krin, was fighting with Rum about their unborn baby and didn’t shine to his dismissive attitude towards her, and Rum had split her face open. She was now losing blood and it looked like her lips and nose were permanently fucked. Dusk and Francois disarmed Krin and Blakesly insisted on taking her to Doc, at this point also learning that Dusk thought he was bring held prisoner. They took Krin to Oliver, because they knew she had an infirmary in her shop, and after patching up a now-unconsious Krin they headed back to Rosebottom’s mansion.

Dusk had hypnotized one of the guards earlier and was now calling favors. They were let into the mansion and found most of the guards sleeping off the party from earlier. In the basement, they found Doc being guarded by an enforcer who was also in love with Dusk (she had been busy). They managed to get him out of the building just as a rival gang was rolling into town and shooting the place up. I ended with the Savvyhead acting under fire and trying to escape, she rolled an 8. Because nobody got hurt throughout the whole game, I asked “You can either take a bullet in the back as you’re fleeing, or you’ll have to kill one of Rosebottom’s guards with your crowbar in order to sneak away.” She chose to kill the enforcer.

All in all, everybody had a great time.

I’m running a one-shot of Dungeon Crawl Classics soon and before you’re done reading this sentence you’re probably thinking “This dumb shit is posting to the wrong community!” but you would be wrong. I’m planning on using the diceless MCing techniques of Apocalypse World to run this one-shot. I’ve been looking at the relative probabilities of rolling 2d6 and trying to match them to rolling a d20 and the biggest challenge is trying to convert the success-partial-failure method to a binary pass-fail system. I’ve come up with this:

When players roll the d20, an 18+ is a success; 10-17 is a partial success where I can make soft moves; and a 9 or less is a failure where I can make hard moves or double up soft moves.

Soft Moves

Put Someone in a Spot

Trade Damage-for-Damage

Offer a Hard Bargain

Give Options

Announce Future Badness

Tell Consequences and Ask

Hard Moves

Inflict Damage

K.O. a Character

Capture Someone

Turn Action Back on Them

Take Away Their Stuff

Use a Threat Move

So, I was inspired by the new Solace playbook to write up a Wolf playbook. Here it is:

the Wolf

The world is a dangerous place filled with smoke and mirrors, it’s a steaming pile of crap where others bicker and fight over meaningless twaddle. They circle each other like dogs, waiting to bite the closest friend with a leg up. You’re in this world too, but you see through the smoke, you’re above the crap, and you have the leash. You just have to teach them all who’s really in charge.

NAME

Clyde, Defoe, Dwayne, Flyboy, Joker, Jonah, Maniac, Pinky, Pooch, Zist

Ariel, Beatrix, Bobbie, Cleo, Cora, Hildy, Jo, Maddy, Paramour, Xenia

STATS

Cool +2, Hard +1, Hot -1, Sharp +0, Weird +1

Cool +2, Hard -1, Hot -1, Sharp +2, Weird +0

Cool +2, Hard -1, Hot +0, Sharp +1, Weird +1

Cool +2, Hard +2, Hot -1, Sharp -1, Weird +0

MOVES

You get all the basic moves. You get 2 Wolf moves.

LOOK

Man, woman, ambiguous, transgressing, or concealed.

Casual wear, fashionable wear, fetish wear, or environmental wear appropriate to the local environment.

Broken face, calm face, lovely face, ugly face, scarred face, or wild face.

Calm eyes, laughing eyes, clear eyes, piercing eyes, or wild eyes.

Curvy body, slim body, fat body, skinny body, or small body.

HX

On your turn, tell everyone Hx-1. You’re closed off.

On the others’ turns, for each, ask yourself: can I twist them to my purpose? Can I use them to foment chaos and discord?

• If either answer is yes: whatever number that player tells you, give it +1 and write it next to their character’s name. They’re part of your pack, whether they know it or not.

• If both answers are no: whatever number that player tells you, write it next to their character’s name.

GEAR

You get:

• 1 handy weapon

• oddments worth 1-barter

• fashion suitable to your look, including at your option a piece worth 1-armor (you detail)

• a suitcase full of secrets

Handy weapons (choose 1):

• 9mm (2-harm close loud)

• big knife (2-harm hand)

• hunting rifle (2-harm far loud)

• machete (3-harm hand messy)

• magnum (3-harm close reload loud)

• sawed-off (3-harm close reload messy)

MOVES

Bluesight: When you open your brain to the psychic maelstrom, roll +Cool instead of +Weird.

Expert eye: When you read a person, roll +Cool instead of +Sharp.

He’s got a gun!: When you’re in a tense situation, you can say something crazy or sudden and roll+cool. On a hit, other people present react with violence before doing anything else. Choose options. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7-9, choose 1:

• you are not targeted in the initial exchange

• somebody takes a blow meant for you

• you get away from the fight

• name one of the characters present, if they strike first they mark experience, it it’s an NPC they definitely strike first

• name one of the player’s characters that is not present, they show up and start the fight, if they don’t want to they’re acting under fire

On a miss, nobody needs to start fighting if they don’t want to and you are no longer exempt from getting hit first if they do.

Howling in the wind: At the end of the session, when you would normally choose a character who knows you better, instead, consider each of the other players’ characters and decide whether or not they helped to destroy something of stability and goodness. All that did, tell them to add +1 to their Hx with you on their sheet. You can tell none of them, any of them, or all of them, as you see fit.

Closing in: At the beginning of the session, before highlighting stats, announce a stat and that one cannot be highlighted this session by either players or the MC. You may never select Weird with this move.

Survival instinct: At the beginning of the session, roll+weird. On a 10+, hold 2. On a 7-9, hold 1. At any time, you can spend your hold to avoid 1 segment of damage inflicted upon you. On a miss, the MC will tell you about somebody new who wants you dead.

Taking care of business: At the beginning of the session, name another player’s character. If they inflict harm on anyone other than you during the session, then at the end of the session, you both mark experience.

SPECIAL

When you and another character have sex, you can let their sex move activate, or you can stop it and then use it yourself.

SUITCASE OF SECRETS

You carry something connected to the apocalypse and it drives you purposefully forward. What is it? (choose 1):

• a book filled with names

• a small device that glows

• a gun that shoots something other than bullets

• thousands of slips of green paper

• a mask made of human skin and a knife carved from bone

• a gigantic insect

• black and white photographs

• dozens of objects (you detail; could be coffee cups, lighters, cassette tapes, cell phones, etc.)

What is it? ________________________________________________

By default, your suitcase holds 1-secret. At the beginning of the session, roll+weird. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7-9, choose 2:

• Your suitcase holds 2-secrets. Choose this again for 3-secrets.

• Your suitcase can obscure you from scrutiny. Anyone who reads you is acting under fire.

• Your suitcase is always in hand and deflects others attack. +1armor.

• Your suitcase is a conduit to the psychic maelstrom. You can spend 1-secret to automatically roll 10+ when opening your brain.

• Your suitcase is a curious object. Anybody who sees it today must open their brain or suffer -1ongoing for the rest of the session.

On a miss, the default stands.

Whenever any player’s character attempts to go aggro, seize by force, or read a person against you, subtract your suitcase’s secrets from the roll.

When you consult the suitcase, roll+secret. On a 10+, hold 2. On 7-9, hold 1. You can be spend hold 1-for-1 from the following list:

•  Your suitcase vomits forth goods worth 1-barter for you.

•  Your suitcase has food inside. Enough to feed one person for one week.

•  Your suitcase has a weapon inside (tell the MC it’s either a distinctive weapon or a weapon that gives pause, your call, and the MC will give you something suitable).

•  Your suitcase impresses, awes, or frightens everyone present. They will now treat you with admiration, fear, or revulsion, as appropriate.

IMPROVEMENT

+1 Cool (max. +3)

+1 Hard (max. +3)

+1 Sharp (max. +3)

+1 Weird (max. +3)

get a new Wolf move

get a new Wolf move

get followers (detail) and Fortunes

get a gang (detail) and Leadership

get a move from another playbook

get a move from another playbook

Let’s say you’ve got a Hardholder who rolls their Wealth move and gets a 10+ and then proceeds to completely avoid getting involved in any conflict for the session. Or maybe a Savvyhead who hides away into their workshop, not building anything but not doing anything either. Or any character really, who might have secured a place to sleep and just stays in their shelter for their session. Are you obligated to force conflict onto them? Would letting them waste the session do nothing (and focus on other PCs) be preferable? How would you handle it?

Another move I wrote:

Duck Hunt: at the beginning of the session, roll+weird. On a 10+, hold 2. On a 7-9, hold 1. At any time, you can spend your hold to avoid 1 segment of damage inflicted upon you. On a miss, the MC will tell you about somebody new who wants you dead.

I think the miss result needs to change. Or maybe it’s perfect the way it is, reaching out to the maelstrom for protection and it implants hostility and aggression towards you into somebody instead. Thoughts?

There are a small group of people who think trading is “superior” to just giving them away, and I’ve debated with them because they don’t want me intruding on their “fun.” I think this screencap perfectly encapsulates why I think trading playbooks (versus sharing) is elitist and stupid.

It would be nice if Vincent were not so deliberately ambivalent and tight-lipped about trading versus sharing, because often these people seem to think Vincent sanctioned trading over sharing, when he didn’t. But they use that idea as a way of telling me to shut up or go away, and I won’t do either.

If you don’t want to debate about this, then stop bringing it up and don’t follow up your commentary by locking the thread or deleting it. That’s just cowardly.

Apart from calling the act of trading stupid, I’ve never resorted to calling people names or telling them flat out they’re doing it wrong. There is no right or wrong, I just favor sharing over trading because I think it’s more inviting and I think trading is insular. But what is wrong is the way people handle this debate and how they address it.

I wrote a move for a playbook, but I’m thinking maybe it’s not balanced. Tell me what you think?

He’s Got A Gun!: when you’re in a tense situation, you can say something crazy or sudden and roll+cool. On a hit, you will get to see or hear violence occur. No one present may parley until violence has been done. On a 10+, if any of your fellow players’ characters start a fight on your behalf, they mark experience. Furthermore, nobody may initially target you. On a 7-9, if a PC won’t start a fight then an NPC will. You still won’t get hit first, unless a PC starts the fight. On a miss, nobody needs to start fighting if they don’t want to, but you are no longer exempt from getting hit first if they do.

I tried posting this to the Barf Forth Apocalyptica forums but it doesn’t appear to be showing up, so I made a mirror post on my blog.

http://nerdwerds.blogspot.com/2012/12/all-of-playbooks.html

One thing the Apocalypse World rules are lacking is some way of determining languages that are understood. There are two options: character can just get languages throughout play, or start with additional languages based on their Sharp (+1 = 1 extra language, +2 = 2 extra). Or I was thinking I could make it a roll: every time a character is confronted by a language in-game they could roll+sharp and on a miss they don’t understand anything, on a 7-9 they know a few words but conversation is stilted and slow, and on a 10+ they know enough to converse. 13+ they are fluent. You can only roll for each language once, unless you advance the move. Thoughts? Criticism? Better ideas?