Another apocalypse World recap.
Another apocalypse World recap. The PC’s explore the Faceless’s old home, the Dent. Traps, gruesome murders and an incoming threat are what they discover. Someone dies, a new threat emerges, and one PC plots against another.
http://www.noordinaryobsession.com/space-world-10-the-fate-of-the-dent-part-2/
ENnies voting is now open!
ENnies voting is now open!
Fear of a Black Dragon has been nominated for Best Podcast, and we would be honored and thrilled if you voted for it. Ranking it #1 would be even sweeter. Our show is billed as an OSR podcast, but there is a huge amount of Powered by the Apocalypse discussion (no surprise, as it’s a production of The Gauntlet).
http://ennie-awards.com/vote/2018/
Fear of a Black Dragon is a strange, cool beast. Every episode, we cover a new OSR module or setting book. During the section called The Basic Crawl, we run through the features of the module, discuss what we liked about it, pose and answer questions we had about it, and then do a “chain lightning round” of cool tidbits in the text. The next section, called The Expert Delve, is where we discuss an issue connected to the module, usually through the lens of story game or narrativist techniques. Finally, in Companion Adventures, we discuss films, books, and other media that would serve as great inspiration for the module.
What I like best about Fear of a Black Dragon is that, in addition to being very entertaining, it does a lot to create space for gamers from different ttrpg “tribes” to interact with each other’s stuff. Story gamers and indie gamers get to hear about the wildly inventive stuff going on in the OSR scene, and OSR gamers are shown how story game techniques can be helpful in running their games. It is truly a podcast for everyone, and I like to think it is doing a lot to improve how we have conversations about ttrpgs.
If you are interested in sampling an episode, here are a few of my favorites (with a note about The Expert Delve topic for each):
Ravenloft (Kicking-off the adventure)
http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/fear-of-a-black-dragon/ravenloft
The Secret of Castronegro (Working with theme and motif)
http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/fear-of-a-black-dragon/the-secret-of-castronegro
Operation Unfathomable (Good characterizations)
http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/fear-of-a-black-dragon/operation-unfathomable
Thanks for reading, and please re-share!
Great playtest session yesterday, thanks so much to my players for your time and interest!
Originally shared by Mike Espinoza (Azlath)
Great playtest session yesterday, thanks so much to my players for your time and interest! And thanks to the Gauntlet community for making it possible! https://youtu.be/FAXG4gIF5RE
And here are the draft Rune Hack reference sheets.
And here are the draft Rune Hack reference sheets.
I think I probably need a ‘Go Aggro’ move?
I’m not entirely sure missile fire is quite right.
Basic Magic is inspired by Monster of the Week, and is intended to take the place of spirit/battle magic and some vanilla rune magic or sorcery. Fancy magic with more complex effects is reserved for playbook moves.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/15lbrskoatnhidi/RuneHack%20-%20Reference%20Sheets.pdf?dl=0
I’ve been working on this for quite a while, but the recent release of the new edition of Runequest has really fired…
I’ve been working on this for quite a while, but the recent release of the new edition of Runequest has really fired me up about Glorantha, so I’ve finally put in a big effort to get this done.
It’s a set of playbooks and moves for powering Gloranthan games with the Apocalypse Engine. It’s heavily inspired by AW and Monster of the Week, with a dose of Hyborean Saga thrown in. For now it’s just all crunchy bits, but I do intend to write up how to play it as a game at some point, so a proper if minimal set of rules. I think it could also easily mutate into more of it’s own thing but for now it’s very much Gloranthan based.
I’m way too close to this to see missing pieces, inconsistencies, broken bits and such. I could also do with some help and suggestions with things like Background and History options for the playbooks. Ideas on how to add more options and ‘knobbly bits’ to the playbooks to make them more interesting and alive. Pointers to other PBTA games with ideas that might help.
I’ll post a link to the reference pages separately.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/69lyezmmmzgheh3/RuneHack%20-%20Playbooks.pdf?dl=0
I’m sorry if this question has been asked before.
I’m sorry if this question has been asked before.
I’m a fairly comfortable PbtA-GM, I’ve been GMing different PbtA-games for the better part of a year and a few other games before that, and I’ve realized that there is something that I’m always struggling with… The length of quests, missions and mysteries.
I sometimes let the players do a quick heist, maybe a two-roll kind of setup where they steal something valuable and other times I drag them through a lengthy dungeon/murder mystery without really rewarding them with information/flavor/loot/XP in any significant way.
In the games we are about to play the fiction is more based around “missions” rather than a flow of story and I’m a bit worried that I’ll either make the missions too granular in actions or too loose and easy.
How do you go about to balance risk/reward for the players? What do they have to accomplish to get that “Surplus: Medicine”/Sword of May Eyes/Established Matrix Overwatch/Apocalyptic MotoKhans head on a pike?
What is a resonable amount of effort?
Hey folks, is anybody here interested in GMing a game of Apocalypse World on Thursday evenings EST?
Hey folks, is anybody here interested in GMing a game of Apocalypse World on Thursday evenings EST? We’ve already got 4 players, but we’re all more interested in being (engaged, creative) PCs than GMing. Comment if you’re interested!
I think I’ve done enough Colonial
I think I’ve done enough Colonial
marines now😆
Troopers, sergeant, officer and Android. There’s even a drop ship pilot (far right)
The Apocalypse has been cancelled…
The Apocalypse has been cancelled…
Hey, I’m kidding! Where’s the fun in that?
Just to let you guys know our regular AW game was paused last week to play a one shot of Tales from the Loop.
Normal play will resume in a couple of weeks, and I’ll report in then as usual (just in case anyone missed my regular update).
Take care boys and girls. Keep your ammo close, and watch your 6 😀.
Fiction’s requirements as a constraint in Apocalypse World
Fiction’s requirements as a constraint in Apocalypse World
[W]hen you write a question as a stake, you’re committing to not answering it yourself. You’re committing to letting the game’s fiction’s own internal logic and causality, driven by the players’ characters, answer it.
— AW 2E, p. 116
It feels like this is meant to be a moderating influence against MC self-dealing on behalf of beloved NPCs, or preferences for story direction. I can see it serving a small effect towards that end. Asking someone to be conscious and attempt mental discipline has to be helpful in getting them to do it.
However, when you evaluate the story’s internal logic and causality, isn’t it your brain doing it? It seems like it’s not really going to keep you honest, like it’s meant to. As MC, I’m a flawed, limited person. I’m not certain of what the story’s logic requires all the time.
You see similar things around “disclaiming decision making to the fiction” and language like that in other parts of the text. The game tells you to commit to things psychologically that are meant to keep you from being self-interested or railroady. It doesn’t seem to me that this can have a very strong effect, though. Am I off-base?
“Play to see what happens” seems akin to this, but that doesn’t give me pause. It makes sense as a straightforward rule that would be really easy to follow and effect monumental change on the game if obeyed. So why is this “disclaim decision making to the fiction” stuff not working for me?
This is one of the parts of AW that I logically struggle with the most.