Sent the AW core NPC name list through Sean Puckett’s word mint.

Sent the AW core NPC name list through Sean Puckett’s word mint.

Sent the AW core NPC name list through Sean Puckett’s word mint. 

PELLION            PUTRIM             WHIN               PARK               

WINCY              HARK               FIANELL            WISSED             

JAKABACK           PUTRIN             THRIN              PRID               

MERROME            PELLS              PARROW             FLEEN              

PRING              BARID              GROW               KRING              

MISE               THRID              SHACKA             CHAZZA             

CLARRA             PARKER             MISAGE             ROTHSCHER          

EXITE              GNAETT             PARRE              THRIDGE            

DUSTWICE           CLARK              JENARK             MILDA              

FOSTWICE           PEPPERRE           RICARROW           CHITTUM           

ABONS              DOGHET             PIERCHER           BILLION            

DOGHER             DUSTER             DREEN              PRIDAN             

CRIDAN             DUSE               GNARK              MERROW             

MERCHIN            CORVELL            FUSTER             HARROME            

CHACE              BRACKA             CRIN               CHILLY             

KETTE              FUSTWICE           KRIDGE             RICARRE            

NORBETT            PRINKLE            PRINE              BRACK              

RICARK             ABONK              WISAGE             MILLET             

PELL               ROARCHER           PARTRIN            BARK               

PRIDGE             PRIN               FLET               GNARCHER           

DREECE             SHAN               SHACE              MATILD             

PIERID             CHACKA             ENOUGO             MONDO              

PUTRING            CHILL              MICARK             BILDA              

BILLY              MILLY              MILLEEN            PEPPERRA           

MERID              PELLY              MILLS              FUSTWICH   

 I’ve played enough games of AW that it takes too long to process each session what names are associate with what NPCs.  But didn’t want to abandon the name list entirely. 

Help me with an overly-optimistic Hardholder!

Help me with an overly-optimistic Hardholder!

Help me with an overly-optimistic Hardholder!

Vincent Baker made an interesting post not too long ago about what kind of player chooses to be a hardholder (http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=5823“>link).

Well, sure enough, I now have one of those types. A serious and tough, but civilized and optimistic hardholder. He collects books about governance and laws, reads John Locke, and has taught himself how to play chess, but also isn’t afraid to shoot someone in the head if they try to do something he considers a problem in his society.

He looks with great interest at the “erase an option from your holding” improvement. He wants to improve the life of his people. His plan is to organize an outing to explore nearby lands and find other holds to trade with. Sure enough, he chose for his gang to be “well-disciplined”.

Enough said, right? You get it. He wants power so he can make everything better for everyone, build an efficient society under his rule.

Of course, I throw some bad news at him: he can’t have everything under control, there’s bad stuff going on. Of course, this frustrates him as a character (who wants to have everything under control). But it also frustrates him a bit as a player: looking at how the dice and the system works, he asks me, “How can this ever get better? It seems like we’ll just be spinning our wheels round and round.” 

He learns in this session that there are rumours going around the holding that “he will be replaced soon by a new hardholder”. He wants to know if this is “kosher”, asking me if, as MC, I’m allowed to put something like that into play even though he didn’t roll a miss on his Wealth roll. “Is my rule contested now? It sounds like it’s going to be. Can you do that without me missing this roll?”

I can tell he wants to settle things “at home” so he can set out to conquer new lands, explore new territory, and trade with other holdings.

[A partially-related question: how do you use the Wealth move when the hardholder is traveling outside the holding? Roll it each session, anyway? Never roll it? Roll it in secret, and tell the hardholder the outcome when he comes home? Roll it each time the hardholder comes back home?]

Now, just to make it clear:

This is not an “asking for help in desperation” kind of post. I’m having fun, the hardholder is having fun. If we stop having fun, that’s something to deal with at the social level.

But I’d love to hear if you have any clever thoughts on how I might handle this hardholder (and this player) as the MC of the game. I don’t particularly feel that I can stick to the principles (especially “make apocalypse world seem real”, and the fronts I have written up, never mind the Wealth move) and, at the same time, ignore or sweep the problems in the hardhold under the rug. But I also want to be a fan of the player character, and give him a chance to spread his wings and do some exploring, if that’s what he was hoping for with this game.

Suggest tips, tricks, moves, and/or fronts! I look forward to your thoughts.

How would you handle this, for maximum fun? How would you take advantage of this dynamic?

Anyone looking for a player for a G+ Hangout game of either Apocalypse World or Monsterhearts?

Anyone looking for a player for a G+ Hangout game of either Apocalypse World or Monsterhearts?

Anyone looking for a player for a G+ Hangout game of either Apocalypse World or Monsterhearts? My local crew have been really busy and I haven’t gotten the chance to do much gaming lately.

I’m in the eastern time zone.

Special Moves:  Sometimes the characters have sex with an NPC, but their special move only seems to give any effect…

Special Moves:  Sometimes the characters have sex with an NPC, but their special move only seems to give any effect…

Special Moves:  Sometimes the characters have sex with an NPC, but their special move only seems to give any effect if the other participant is a PC…

Does anyone (other than me) sometimes wish the special moves kicked in when a PC has sex with an NPC also?  Has anyone made any modifications to the special moves to facilitate this?  What would be the effect?

I am so putting this in my AW game:

I am so putting this in my AW game:

I am so putting this in my AW game:

“Across much of the west,” C.F. Eckhardt explains, “…there was already a network of wire covering most of the country, in the form of barbed-wire fences. Some unknown genius discovered that if you hooked two Sears or Monkey Ward telephone sets to the top wire on a barbed-wire fence, you could talk between the telephones as easily as between two ‘town’ telephones connected by slick wire through an operator’s switchboard. A rural telephone system that had no operators, no bills—and no long-distance charges—was born.”

The system relied upon the creative use of everyday materials as insulators; in fact, according to Delbert Trew, “the most clever, most innovative cowboys used every conceivable type of device as insulators to suspend the wire. I have found leather straps folded around wire and nailed to the posts, whiskey bottle necks installed over big nails, snuff bottles, corn cobs, pieces of inner-tube wrapped around the wire and short straps of tire holding telephone wires to the post.” 

http://bldgblog.blogspot.dk/2013/01/fence-phone.html

http://bldgblog.blogspot.dk/2013/01/fence-phone.html

Response was pretty good to my first MH skin, the Fury, so here’s another one.

Response was pretty good to my first MH skin, the Fury, so here’s another one.

Response was pretty good to my first MH skin, the Fury, so here’s another one. If this seems completely opaque, go google “Slender Man.” I’m still working on the “how to play this skin” bit, which should help folks who aren’t familiar with the source material.

Originally shared by Topher Gerkey

#monsterhearts   #skinning  

Completed first draft! An actual playbook version would have some additional formatting tricks and graphical weirdness, but as far as pure text (and of course mechanics) goes, what do you think, sirs and madames?

The Proxy

i can See it sometimes, the staLker or whatever the fuck it is, out there at the Edge of the woods, watching me. always watching with No eyes. stanDing there in that black suit, like a funEral director, but so tall, too tall. what does it want fRom m69742077617320737570706f73656420746f206c65617665206d6520616c6f6e6520616674657220692067617665206974206d79206c6974746c652062726f7468657220616e64206e6f7720697473206261636b20627574206d6179626520697473207374696c6c2068756e67727920692068617665206c6f7473206f6620667269656e6473oMeone please help me, please mAke all this eNd!

NAME

Choose a name:

Aimee, Alex, Emi, Evan, Jessie, Kevin, Noreen, Tim, Tyler, Xakk

A familiar name, a modern name, a kid’s name, a unique name

LOOK

Circle one from each list:

Baby face, carrying a camera, clinging briars, gangly, sickly, shifty 

Angry eyes, dead eyes, paranoid eyes, sorrowful eyes, veiled eyes

An animal-head mask, a burlap bag with eyeholes, a cheap plastic mask, a comedy or tragedy mask, a Guy Fawkes mask, a plague doctor’s mask, a porcelain mask, stretched pantyhose, a Venetian mask, a wooden tribal mask

ORIGIN

Circle one:

Stalked since childhood, delved too far, created a hoax that became true, student filmmaker, cult member

STATS

Add 1 to one of these:

Hot -1, Cold -1, Volatile 1, Dark 1

YOUR BACKSTORY

You have been recording video footage of everyone without their knowledge. Take one string on everyone.

You have extra footage on your subject. Take two extra strings on that person.

You’ve also been obsessively recording yourself, and someone has discovered and watched some of your footage. That person takes three strings on you.

It starts with five strings on you.

PRⓍXY MOVES

You get this one, and choose two more:

X  The Sickness – Choose one character to be your subject. You may change which character is your subject at any time, but you must have no strings on your old subject and at least three strings on your new subject. After the fifth time your subject accepts experience from you when you spend a string, he must use his next advancement to take a Proxy move. This effect can be repeated. 

O  Am I Interrupting? – You can spend two strings on someone to gain complete access to their home and identity. You have full access to all their social media accounts (e-mail, Twitter, YouTube, G+, etc) and may make irreversible changes to those accounts. You may edit your target’s uploaded videos, inserting scenes, frames, audio, or text, either obviously or subliminally. You may enter their home with sufficient stealth as to record video of them sleeping, without triggering security, being discovered, or leaving accidental traces of your presence.

O  The Collective – When you gaze into the abyss, if you roll 10 up, gain a string on your subject and do 1 harm to them. If you roll 7-9, choose one:

~ gain a string on your subject, but It gains a string on you

~ gain a string on your subject, but take 1 harm

~ do 1 harm to your subject, but take 1 harm

~ do 1 harm to your subject, but It gains a string on you.

If you roll 6 or less, It gains a string on you and you take 1 harm.

O  Cryptic Bullshit – You can shut someone down with Dark, but only indirectly, through sending them a cryptic written or video message. This can consist of mysterious but meaningful images, phrases written in ciphers, or unknown repeated symbols. Typically if you choose to inflict a condition as a result of shutting someone down via this method, you will choose to give them the condition obsessed to reflect their desperate desire to decode your communications.

O  Distortion – Whenever you will it, you cause audiovisual distortion in any photographic, video, or audio recording equipment that is being used on you. Audio distortion may range from slight reverb that leaves your voice recognizable but creepy to severe interference that makes you sound unintelligible or inhuman. Video distortion ranges from mild color changes or wavering to bursts of static that conceal the entire image. Anyone viewing or listening to the distorted images or recordings of you must roll to hold steady; results of 6 or less give the viewer the condition horrified.

O  Masky – When you are wearing your mask, others must hold steady before they can attempt to affect you with turn someone on, shut someone down, or lash out physically. If they roll 10 up while rolling hold steady, they may make the second roll as usual. If they roll 7-9, they may make the second roll at -1. If they roll 6 or less, give them the condition hazy memories and they may not attempt the second roll.

O  Path of Black Leaves – Unless you allow it, you cannot be run away from. You will always be around the next corner or hiding behind a nearby tree, or alternatively, your victim will find himself repeatedly passing through the same hallways and doors without actually getting anywhere. You may release your victim at any time, but usually not until after some sort of physical or verbal confrontation.

SEX MⓍVE

When you have sex with someone, make them your new subject (even if they don’t meet the criteria), and both of you mark experience. Your new subject‘s experience counts toward triggering The Sickness. Carry 1 forward toward inflicting Harm on your old subject.

DARKEST SELF

You’ve become desperate now – It is closing in, and your mask isn’t working to hide you like it should. You’ll do anything to save yourself, and you know what It wants. Find someone close to your subject and offer them up – either kill them yourself in Its name, or offer them up to It directly (which may leave them dead, alive, memory-wiped, or another Proxy like yourself). 

You may only escape your Darkest Self when you have successfully sacrificed someone else in your place, or when your subject catches you on video and prevents you from harming someone.