Category: Powered by the Apocalypse: ApWorld Settings

Here’s the alpha of Love Over Gold that I wrote last week, inspired by some “movies” of the Uncharted video game series that Christian Griffen posted links to. It’s a game of modern treasure hunting inspired by Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Three Kings, Indiana Jones, National Treasure, Into the Blue, etc.

We playtested it this weekend and it needs some tweaks, but there are few interesting things about it that I wanted to share with other AW-based designers.

1. Fixed characters, ala Lady Blackbird, but with open-ended Hx/Bonds things that create triangles.

2. Core moves are halfway between AW and WoDu. There’s one core move for rolling, but then it’s adapted for different purposes by the “stipulations” you make, which are very much like picking things off lists in AW or games with multiple core moves.

3. Question moves and action moves are unified. Two sides of the same coin. The exact questions and stipulations need some tweaking, but the concept works, I think.

4. A “module/adventure” is just a bunch of random documents that the players have to sort through and interpret to determine what to do next. Players pick where and what the next scene is about, then the GM describes it.

5. Mysteries are thus sandboxes, not pre-determined things you uncover, and the surprising stuff you find along the way is generated by drawing scraps of paper with interesting imagery written on them, ala Sign in Stranger and Roguish. Need to tighten this up a bit, but I mostly love it.

6. Harm is an interesting but pretty loose thing right now. The ideas will probably stick around, but the principles need tightening a bit.

In any event, hope it’s thought-provoking at least. Not sure when I’ll have a chance to revise and update it following the initial playtest but hopefully soon.

http://corvidsun.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/loveovergold_draft-062913.pdf