Author: Russell Borogove

In your experience, if you’ve MC’d Apocalypse World more than once, does the game work better with lots of small…

In your experience, if you’ve MC’d Apocalypse World more than once, does the game work better with lots of small…

In your experience, if you’ve MC’d Apocalypse World more than once, does the game work better with lots of small threats to the players, or a small number of bigger ones? Discuss.

Yuuuup.

Yuuuup.

Yuuuup.

Originally shared by Brandon Blackmoor

What the whole “sexism/harassment in gaming/conventions/comic shops” looks like to me…

Someone, we’ll call them Chris, says, “We need to do something about these precipices with no railings. People keep falling — or getting pushed — over the edge, and other folks are just standing around while it happens. If you see someone on the edge of a precipice, don’t just stand there: give them a hand. And maybe put some railings around these things.”

Then a handful of people show up wearing “RailingHate” t-shirts, shouting, “This is anti-precipice liberal hate speech! Precipices are not a problem!” And they start pushing people into the chasm.

Chris is horrified, and a little confused. “Seriously? You just pushed someone over that precipice!”

But RailingHate crowd shouts, “That’s a lie! They dated a guy whose cousin worked across the street from a company that makes signs for a railing company! It’s a huge conspiracy!” And they push a couple more people over the precipice.

Chris says, “What are you doing?? Are you insane? Why are you doing that? Stop! Please stop!”

Meanwhile, the RailingHate crowd is grabbing people and tossing them into the precipice, while shouting, “There is no need for railings! No one is falling into these precipices — they just want attention! It’s all about ethics in building design!”

It’s the most weird, demented, surreal thing I have ever seen in real life.

Running first session of a new #ApocalypseWorld campaign today, I introduced an NPC named Glider, a dealer of drugs…

Running first session of a new #ApocalypseWorld campaign today, I introduced an NPC named Glider, a dealer of drugs…

Running first session of a new #ApocalypseWorld campaign today, I introduced an NPC named Glider, a dealer of drugs and herbs, spices, perfumes, and such.The PC Hocus chose a “how could I get (new NPC) to join the cult” result from Read A Person. I couldn’t think of what would motivate this character, so I called a quick break and reread the Leap forward with named, human NPCs section in the book.

“Choose a body part — their stomach, gut, dick or clit, their nose, time-ticking womb, their fearful cowardly heart — and have them just follow it around wherever it goes.” I read that and thought, nose? How would someone follow their nose? And then I realized I already had the answer and it was the perfect motivator for this character. He sells perfumes. He lives in a hold and works in a marketplace where he’s surrounded by people with lousy hygiene. He wants to live in an environment where people care about how things smell. And secondarily other aesthetic concerns, how his environment looks, and sounds, sure, but first and foremost Glider cares about smells. So I described how Glider’s booth is set up, with a lot more attention to environment than the other market stalls, and how Glider actually cares about this stuff, and maybe if you wanted him to help make your cult members stink prettier…

That passage gave me exactly the hint I needed to make Glider real.

“In one of the private booths in the back of Wolf’s, there’s a bed built on top of a low cage, where Ula sometimes…

“In one of the private booths in the back of Wolf’s, there’s a bed built on top of a low cage, where Ula sometimes…

“In one of the private booths in the back of Wolf’s, there’s a bed built on top of a low cage, where Ula sometimes keeps Bad Puppies. Camo’s been a very Bad Puppy.” #ApocalypseWorld

Should have put this here to start, I guess? I don’t get G+.

Should have put this here to start, I guess? I don’t get G+.

Should have put this here to start, I guess? I don’t get G+.

Originally shared by Russell Borogove

I’m thinking of house-ruling Help/Interfere in AW2E, such that announcing your help or interference BEFORE the other player’s die roll is worth a full category shift on a hit (so 7 becomes 10+ on help, or 9 becomes 6- on interfere, for example), while announcing AFTER the other player’s die roll is only worth +/- 1, in order to encourage taking risks with those moves.

Talk me out of it? Meguey Baker Vincent Baker