Category: Powered by the Apocalypse: ApWorld Settings

Remnant Post

So I’ve hit a brick wall on the design of Remnant’s systems. And it might be due to not knowing how a game is suppose to come to a natural conclusion. In Apocalypse World the game naturally concludes as players 12+ their various problems out of existence. The game’s be curve starts at relative stability, introduces a significant amount of instability, and comes to a rest when those instabilities are solved or accounted for. I don’t know what that is for Remnant. How do you guys end your games? What tends to bring them to a close?

For Remnant as it currently stands the only options are:

1. Have your last little hold out of humanity collapse into the Ruin

2. Escape from whatever causes the Ruin (leave this plane of existence, get beyond the edge of the Ruin, however you like).

3. Forge something that will endure the Ruin’s fire and rot while you yourself die off.

The problem I have with this is that the setting is so unrelentingly survival oriented that there is no breathing room for a player to forge art for art’s sake, and that’s a big element of Remnant’s identity. So I’m dialing back the clock a bit. The Authority is still nominally in charge, the city is still populated with refugees, and there is still a culture intact. Rail gangs still scream around the freeways, bars are still filled with aggressive glitch-rock bands, menders still try and revitalize ash into living matter, and block bosses still nominally policeoversee local criminal enterprise. The color everyone needs to live still gets rationed out, but it’s never enough for everyone, and people end up drinking salve more often than pure.

It’s a setting that has time to breath while still having the pressure of scarcity alive and insistent.

Remnant post

And once again I find myself at the rubicon that’s put this hack back into cold storage multiple times in the past: how do I handle forgeries. A forgery in Remnant means a lot of different things, they’re a physical reminder that no one is capable of true creation any more, a temporary expression of humanity in a world guttering out, an expenditure of the only resource that really matters anymore, and a source of a kind of warmth that has nothing to do with heat.

What attracts me to this concept of limited and uncertain memories invested in, built up and set in motion, is the thought of a community of forged artifacts, lamps in the dark, where some buildings are real and some are half remembered, where some people are flesh and blood and some bleed radient gasoline. What does a community of color addicts do when the salve runs dry and nothing precious can be scrounged. How long does such a place retain it’s humanity when half it’s residents are made of heroin. When do whole structures and collective identies go missing. How fast does the Ruin take it.

I honestly don’t know and I’m having a damned hard time expressing it elegantly. I initially considered tagging objects, but the number of potential descriptors ballooned rediculously quickly. I feel like there’s a tight to three questions to that could cover the necessary definitions, but they aren’t coming to me.

Every playbook can forge trinkets, little objects of minor value that can be invested in, giving them that natural glow to hold the Ruin at bay, both within and without. I imagine them being traded, given as gifts, and kept privately as succor against one’s own worst impulses. Some playbook can make much more, with the savvyhead constructing complex machines, the maestro’d forging structures, the brainer forging memories, and the hocus forging whole people. Further some books can invest in their creations better than others, where the Hardholder having a strong ability to invest, while the Battlebabe has almost none.

The answer to that question, as well as how the game ends is in that morass of setting fluff I’m sure.

Well just so I to prevent this post from being devoid of forward progress, here’s the first step to forging: plagerizing.

When you plagiarize describe what you intend to forge and roll:

10+ pick 3

7-9 pick 1

6> MC decides

-what you need is close at hand

-what you need isn’t claimed by anyone

-what you need isn’t complicated

-what you need isn’t in the Ruin

-what you need requires little Color

Remnant Post

Been hammering on these ideas the last few days. Switching from my own stats back to mostly using the AW set has allowed me to pare down the complexity of Color and its bonuses and negatives. I’m not at elegance yet, but I’m in its area code I think.

Stats

Hard, Cool, Sharp, Hot, Color, Forge & Ships

Color is the state that measures how much of the resource the player is holding in their heart. The stuff smells like spilled gasoline, glows like moonlight on Chernobyl, and tastes like life itself. A body needs Color to keep the stain of the Ruin from rotting through it, but Color was meant for breath, not the heart. Hold it too long and the heat of it will burn away the flesh it illuminates, and everything it touches.

You gain Color by destroying things that hold memories. The most common of these are the barter in Remnant, Mementos, which are random objects scrounged from the decay of the Ruin and the increasingly deserted blocks of the Pale City. Color can also be gained by destroying a forgery, or a body that’s currently holding some shine in it. A body can hold up to two points of Color (Flush / Wan / Empty)

Scrounge – When you turn over a space looking for something roll +Sharp:

10▴ – You find what you were looking for, pick (3)

7-9 – You find what you were looking for and pick (1), otherwise you don’t find what you were after and pick (3)

6▾- You fail to find what you were looking for and pick (1)

-It doesn’t take long.

-No one spots you.

-You don’t leave a mess.

-You find something unexpected.

Tip Back and Drink – When you have the time and space take a nice Long Pull of that sweet, sweet shine, and feel like a human being again (Become Flush), otherwise take Quick Sip to keep level (Become Wan, otherwise Become Flush).

MC Moves – The MC has a few Soft and Hard moves associated with Color which are available depending on whether or not they’re currently holding.

Holding Color:

Soft – Running Low – The player’s Color is finite, and they’re starting to feel it.

Hard – Drain Them – If the player makes no effort to top off feel free to make their next Color based action cost as much of it as you like.

Soft – Smoke – If the player fails to keep Cool under Fire, or if they make an aggressive or violent move, the warmth of their Color has reached a fever heat, and pushed much further it will light a fire within them.

Hard – Fire – If the player makes no effort to quench that fire by dousing it with a Quick Sip or more of fresh Color, or by expelling the Color in some manner feel free to Burn them with harm as established. Each time this move is used without the player quenching increase the range of what is burned from self, to touch, to personal space, to small room.

Empty of Color:

Soft – Dulled – The player’s lack of Color can be seen and felt by others.

Hard – Repulsing – If the player makes no effort to take in fresh color feel free to make a current social interaction go badly.

Soft – Empty Ache- If the player fails to keep Cool under Fire, make an aggressive or violent move, or are treated as Repulsing by someone, remind the player how long it’s been since they’ve had a pull of shine and how they feel the filth of their stain spreading.

Hard – The Ruin Howls- If the player makes no effort to take in some fresh Color feel free to Stain them or the space around them as established. Each time this move is used without the player quenching increase the degree to which things are Stained, temporarily, on-going, or permanently.

Forge is a measure of a character’s talent with Color, how powerfully it resonates within them, and how deft they are at making a forgery.

Plagiarize – When the player plagiarizes their memories ask the MC what it would take to make something and roll.

10▴ – You have the items needed to make the desired Forgery

7-9 – Your’re missing some items needed.

6▾- You’re missing the items, you need help, or someone is standing in your way.

Make a Forgery

This is still in progress but as is stands right now

Savvy Head – Forge complex objects or machinery, Forge Structures.

Hocus – Forge individual characters and small groups.

Brainer – Forge memories, steal Color

Chopper/Hard Holder – +1 to intimidating others if Wan or Empty

Battlebabe/Skinner +1 to Hot when Flush

All characters will be able to Forge incidental objects that have no mechanical benefit but are nice story trinkets.

Remnant Post

Feeling a bit zonked on typing out mechanics tonight. It’s hard to keep the machine of a game mentally in place as the entries begin to span multiple pages.

Instead I photobashed another picture of the Pale City for relaxation tonight.

I heard a song on the radio who’s lyrics were effectively a description of Remnant’s core themes, and even some very specific terms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvZhnksc_Fw

so I’m thinking about Remnant again. It embarrasses me to say how long a few of these ideas have taken to root in me.

When the player decides they want something explain it to the MC and ask. The MC must tell them what you need to accomplish the goal, the raw materials, cost in Color and what you might need to destroy, and then ask “how bad do you want this?” If the player still wants it, mark a Pang.

MC Move

Soft – Remind the player know that their course of action will consume Color, make their Tint smolder uncomfortably, or cause the Ruin within to Yawn, then ask them, “How bad do you want this?”

Hard – Consume some or all of the player’s Color, Ignite their accumulated Tint, burning them or something nearby, or let the Ruin swallow hope or stain something of value to them.