Author: Robert Bohl

Playbook graphic design: how do you make it go?

I’m alright with doing layout on big blocks of text, but I have no idea how to begin to do playbooks right. It’s so graphical, involving so much stuff I don’t know. How do you make playbooks for playtests?

I suppose I could try to open the AW playbooks in Illustrator and fuck with what’s there, but so many people seem to be able to toss off beautiful (or even just competent) versions.

Are there, like, tutorials? What do you do?

In your experience, does the “concrete assurance, corroboration, or evidence” language in the 7-9 result of Seduce or Manipulate (in Apocalypse World 2E) produce bad play outcomes? The idea that a 7-9 then becomes a failure unless something else is produced? I’ve never noticed this as a problem myself, but I have someone asserting that it’s something he’s seen a lot of.

What do you think?

A more-active version of the Oftener Right move

So the oftener right move reads:

Oftener right: when a character comes to you for advice, tell them what you honestly think the best course is. If they do it, they take +1 to any rolls they make in the doing, and you mark an experience circle.

The downside to this is you have to passively wait for people to come to you for advice. I’d love it if it were possible to make this more active. Simply saying “when you offer advice” wouldn’t work, because it could easily become an annoying XP exploit that could break the game.

What do you think? Has anyone achieved this?

Do you “win” on a 10+ for go aggro?

The go aggro move says if you get a 10+, they have to choose to either give you what you want, or force you to hurt them.

I’m writing a similar rule, and one of my readers said, “Isn’t this a failure?”

My take is that this move is meant to indicate that trying to force someone through violence is never a reliable method to get what you want.

What do you think?

How explicit are your sex moves?

When you engage an Apocalypse World sex move, or any other game’s “intimacy” move where it means sexual contact, how explicit do you get about what’s happening?

For my own part, I haven’t played out too many of these. I don’t have enough instances to say how I generally handle it. But the way I feel like I’ve done it the most, and the way I’m probably most comfortable with, is typified by a scene between my Fae and Jeffrey Dieterle’s Mortal in Shane Liebling’s Monsterhearts game we played a while back.

Josef (if I remember his name right) the Mortal was an immigrant from Poland and a Christian, with a very close, very traditional family. He was innocent. My Fae (can’t remember her name) was the spirit of the free-love / get-high / drop-out 60s hippies (who occasionally went dormant and lost her memories when things got repressive in the culture). Oh, and Josef was a virgin. For character reasons, it was important to me to know in broad terms, what intimacy between them looked like.

We talked it through without roleplaying it out, to roughly characterize the sex. If I remember correctly, we decided my character led, and gently pushed him as far as he was comfortable with, which was great in the moment but freaked him out later. (Correct me if I’m wrong, Jeff.)

—

So my answer to my own question is, I assess whether there’s anything I need to learn about the characters from hearing details, and get just to those level of details. In some cases it may as little as be seeing the morning after. I can’t imagine I’d need to know about explicit acts, unless they had become plot relevant, or if it would really matter to a certain character to do a certain sex act.

Of course, this was a private game in a mostly-private place with good friends. I expect for many people, what they’re comfortable with would depend on context. I still think this would be my approach in most contexts. But if I were engaging in a streaming game, or maybe if I were feeling really uncomfortable with a certain table (though that almost never happens to me, which my being cis/straight/heterosexual/white probably helps with), I could see going for less detail, or maybe avoiding these topics at all.

Alternatives to clocks

Hey folks, I’m designing a fantasy PbtA game* and it uses clocks right now. But clocks feel too advanced for the “ancient and storied” feel I want for the game. Has anyone hit on better metaphors? A simple track, like the XP track, could work. I was thinking maybe a sword or a flagon that you’d fill in vertically?

Anyone done something like this or had ideas along this line?

* Demihumans

1) What’s your favorite MC (or whatever the role is called) move in any PbtA game?

2) What do you love about it?

Edited: Question answered; feel free to move on

*AW seduce or manipulate question*

Hey folks, I’m confused by something. This is language from the move:

For PCs: on a 10+, both. On a 7–9, choose 1:

• If they go along with you, they mark experience.

• If they refuse, erase one of their stat highlights for the remainder of the session.

How can it be both if they’re mutually exclusive?

Has anyone tried the trick with the stats I’m talking about below? The traddiness of it wigs me out a bit.

Originally shared by Robert Bohl

Rethinking the Half-Breed

Right now, the Half-Breed playbook is a social monster. The moves are:

* I have lots of friends

* I’m a human noble

* I run a resistance

* I’ve been everywhere

Is there a reason that a half-troll or half-orc should be such a social dominator? You could make the argument that people who live (or between) in two cultures are going to hone their social skills, but that seems essentialist and in many cases wrong.

Right now I’m leaning toward two changes:

Stats

Instead of add one to:

Serene-1 Brutish=0 Resplendent+2 Canny+1 Effulgent=0

I’m thinking add 7 to:

Serene-1 Brutish-1 Resplendent-1 Canny-1 Effulgent-1

Moves

Rework the moves entirely and give one good one for each of the (non-Effulgent) stats.

What do you think?