Thoughts in the Shower, A One Act Play
Thoughts in the Shower, A One Act Play
By Chris Mitchell.
“Color first? But … the color ….. so specific …. so many specifics…. take out the color? Choose your own color? Maybe? No … the color stuff is way evocative… need that…. how to do specific evocative color for many, many, many situa –
Gahhhhhh.”
Death.
Fin.
.
I think it’s okay to show now
I think it’s okay to show now
Playbook Beta – The Cavalier
(was once the Handler)
It’s a guy with a big apocalyptic monster he has “tamed” and now uses for the “good” of the hardhold.
Playbook Build of the Day #2
Playbook Build of the Day #2
The Operator Rumormonger
He knows. Don’t ask how, he just does. What you did last Day, with whom you eaten Rats and shot afterwards. Who your secret love is. He also knows stuff that just isn’t true but everyone will believe him. Like how you killed Marsha yesterday? You are innocent you say? He knows better
For this Build i consider that the “When you reset your Hx with someone, learn a secret about them” Move is in play.
Operator
Cool+2 Hard=0 Hot+1 Sharp+1 Weird=0
Signature wear
honest face
Calculating ees
rangy body
Gigs paying
Surveillance (being arround the Hardhold gives you Info on what is going on)
Infiltration (to get info for people and use your knowledge of your enemy against them)
Companionship (people let thinks slip while drunk or in bed)
Obligation Gig
Getting answers (of course)
The Crew is probably a “Skinner” for Companionship and Infiltration. A quick kid for Surveilance and Infiltration and a Sniper guy for Surveilance.
Moves
Reputation
You know stuff about people and they know stuff about you. This move helps to establish what they know.
Moves from other Playbooks
Everybody eats, even that guy (Maestro’D) this is how your info network helps you getting to the bottom of shit. You know more about people then anyone else and this move gives it to you.
When there already is a Player with this move in the game consider taking
Spyfly (Juggernaut) if it is allowed at your table. The questions aren’t as diverse but you get juicy info. The move might still be better as you can
can increase your Sharp as an Operator but you can’t increase your Hot.
Reading Persons and Sitches is also something you should be good at so my actual recommendation goes to the Juggernaut Move.
If there is an Angel or Driver (or Chopper) in your Game, sleep with them as often as you can to increase Hx and learn secrets about them.
If there is not than consider taking Prepared for the inevitable. Healing people increses your Hx with them -> Secrets and you should have quite a bit of jingle lying around.
Get as many opportunities as you can to be arround other PCs so that they increase your Hx. There is not really a move for that but it helps you know.
One way to spend time with other PCs (if you don’t want to get into healing) would be Oftener Right (Savyhead) a wonderful move that gives you 3 things
1. People come and talk to you
2. They do what you tell them to
3. Experience
it’s also wonderfully fitting for a Rumormonger type character.
The problem is, that you have to be truthful to them so try to twist the truth as much as you can.
So go and get extra Sharp and pick up Easy to trust to manipulate people even more.
So here is how i would do this build
+1 sharp
Oftener Right
Spyfly (if the Juggernaut is in)
Easy to trust
+1 cool / change your Gang (if someone died or so…)
There is also Eager to know
This idea has place for an expanded Playbook i think.
Rumormonger
When you plant a rumor, tell us what it is and roll +cool
On a 10+ choose 2 on a 7-9 choose 2
– It can’t be traced back to you
– It doesn’t change to something different
– It spreads to everyone
would be the central move i guess. Then maybe something like
The more you know…
When you read an NPC you can forgo one of your questions to increase your Hx with them by +1.
Skeletons in the closet
A read type move that would allow you to know about stupid/criminal stuff they did in the past
and i don’t know, maybe 1 or 2 moves more.
Ideas, Suggestions?
I just setup a Google Doc for Apocalypse World Fronts so you can fill it out and then just print as you go.
I just setup a Google Doc for Apocalypse World Fronts so you can fill it out and then just print as you go. It’s nothing really fancy, but it is functional. Any feedback is welcome.
Hey, took my first attempt at writing a playbook.
Hey, took my first attempt at writing a playbook. It’s not formatted in tr-fold, but let me know what you guys think cause this is a first draft. If people think it has merit, I’ll make edits, maybe even see about prettying it up and re release it.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B511-yaR3CdxeUtPbnhGNUpsZjQ/edit
I ran my first one-shot of Apocalypse World this weekend for a group that normally plays D&D 3rd edition (almost…
I ran my first one-shot of Apocalypse World this weekend for a group that normally plays D&D 3rd edition (almost religiously). I sent them the playbooks I was willing to use and asked them to decide what they wanted to be before I got there, and then wrote generic love letters for each chosen playbook.
When I first sat down to make characters with them, the biggest thing was that they didn’t understand Hx. In trying to explain it one player in particular kept trying to push for ways of maximizing her Hx, and she seemed really confused that she could choose to give somebody’s Hx a -1. Going around the table for Hx was also a sticky point because everybody thought it worked differently. I eventually walked them through it step by step and it clicked for them.
Another player was confused as to why he could choose to have armor or not.
“Why wouldn’t I wear armor?”
“Because you wouldn’t like it, maybe? Or it gets in the way? It’s not your style?”
“That seems stupid to not wear armor.”
*shrug “That’s cool.”
They all asked about the countdown clocks, and after I explained how they work they all seemed a bit upset that they only had 6 hit points effectively. I told them “It’s really hard to die. In the game I’m playing we had a building fall on a character at the end of a gunfight and he’s still alive.” This seemed to mollify them for the moment.
We ended up with:
a Skinner named Dusk who specialized in being a con artist and tricking people out of their money and food, everybody else thinks she’s a stripper though nobody can ever remember her stripping
an Angel named Doc (not his real name) who really liked to drink booze and received his Angel Kit from his mother
a Maestro’d named Francois who ran a restaurant and brothel, the Mouton Noir, out of an old dilapidated bookstore
a Grotesque named Blakesly who ran around town with a musician, performing dances with her drones alongside the music
and a Savvyhead named Oliver, who had been set up in the hold of Lynnback for five years now and was an often relied upon member of the community
I went around the table and found out who these people were. Oliver was hit on by an enforcer named Foster but she turned him down cold. Foster found Doc examining a break-in and was about to arrest him, but Doc’s lack of tools slowed him up. Blakesly shared some of her food with an old crone and some kid started a fight with her about it. Dusk defused the situation, and she and Francois spent some time distracting enforcers who were insistent on searching the Mouton Noir. Almost everybody fell in love or lust with Dusk.
Then took a little break, treating it like the end of a session. The Skinner was the most active wih everybody else and she had set up two of her Hx at +3, which means when everybody said she knew them better she got two experience. When I came back from my 5-minute break, handed out the love letters and instructed them to re-highlight stats as if this were a new session.
It turns out Francois the Maestro’d had the highest Hx with everybody and he got a little overwhelmed. Most everybody highlighted the best stat they had, so I tried to push for Doc and Dusk to fight a little with Hard, and everybody else I either marked Sharp or Cool.
Doc had been invited to have dinner with the leader of their hold. I went around the table asking the players “What’s his name?” “What does he look like?” “Does he have a family?” “Why does he keep so man enforcers around his mansion?” and got some great answers. Rosebottom is a slovenly and overweight guy with a bald head and a scarred face, he doesn’t have a family because everybody thinks they got killed when he set this place up, or maybe he killed them, but he’s paranoid and protective of his house, he keeps the guards running around 24-7 because he doesn’t like unexpected visitors.
Dusk was invited to this dinner as the entertainment and she fumbled around trying to keep the focus off of her because she didn’t want to have to dance for Rosebottom or any of his enforcers. Doc kept looking for Foster since they had bad blood but he wasn’t around. Odd that. At the end of the festivities Rosebottom told Doc there was a patient he needed seeing to and they took Doc downstairs into the basement, where the entrance to an underground mine was hidden. In the mine, Rosebottom had slaves digging up some sort of coal that electrified the air around it. One of the slaves had these weird white lines along his skin, almost like they were scars but growing out from the inside of his body. Doc sat down to work on the patient.
Dusk, meanwhile (this was the game-y player who kept trying to maximize numbers remember? she also kept trying to combine the benefits of two moves into a single move) has rousing Francois because she thought Doc was being held prisoner. While Dusk was trying to convince Francois that they needed to go up and save Doc, a fight was brewing at the entrance to the Mouton Noir. When I asked Francois “What do you do?” he said “Nothing. This is why I hired Rum to be the doorman, he can handle it.”
“Cool. You hear a gunshot and when you look up Rum is flat out on the floor, looks like his face is gone.”
Blakesly’s musician friend, Krin, was fighting with Rum about their unborn baby and didn’t shine to his dismissive attitude towards her, and Rum had split her face open. She was now losing blood and it looked like her lips and nose were permanently fucked. Dusk and Francois disarmed Krin and Blakesly insisted on taking her to Doc, at this point also learning that Dusk thought he was bring held prisoner. They took Krin to Oliver, because they knew she had an infirmary in her shop, and after patching up a now-unconsious Krin they headed back to Rosebottom’s mansion.
Dusk had hypnotized one of the guards earlier and was now calling favors. They were let into the mansion and found most of the guards sleeping off the party from earlier. In the basement, they found Doc being guarded by an enforcer who was also in love with Dusk (she had been busy). They managed to get him out of the building just as a rival gang was rolling into town and shooting the place up. I ended with the Savvyhead acting under fire and trying to escape, she rolled an 8. Because nobody got hurt throughout the whole game, I asked “You can either take a bullet in the back as you’re fleeing, or you’ll have to kill one of Rosebottom’s guards with your crowbar in order to sneak away.” She chose to kill the enforcer.
All in all, everybody had a great time.
Playbook Build of the Day #1
Playbook Build of the Day #1
The Angel
Hey cool people. I want to post a playbook “build”, a Playbook with the original move and look etc. choices and the 5 advancements before the unsure future. Most of the them will resolve arround cool combinations of moves you can take to enforce a particular style.
These are not meant to be taken and played like this, it’s just a thought experiment how you can take moves and make an interesting character from them.
So Day 1, well meaning combat Medic
The idea here is to make an Angel that is really good in combat situations without really using violence himself. People will be happy to have him around but he is not much use without those situations.
You start with
Cool +1 Hard +1 Hot=0 Sharp+2 Weird -1
woman
Utility wear
strong face
hard eyes
sturdy body
Start with a Stun Gun and these moves
Battlefield Grace
Infirmary
your Angel Kit is for combat use, your Infirmary is for really healing people back to health. Try to spend your stock not often, but use 3 of it when you have to. The good thing about your Infirmary is, that Shigusa & Mox might be able to heal you back up when you took a bullet.
To get you more stock you should spend Advances on
+1 cool and
Moonlighting (Surveillance and Bodyguarding maybe?)
The cool will also help if you get under fire from a patient.
To help you survive in battles you should maybe pick up another gun and some armor, if you find your 1 armor is not enough.
To minimize Harm done to your patients pick up the Quarantines
Disciplined Engagement from the wording of it it should stop harm they take from a miss on a Angel Kit move. So when you have this move you might not need to spend 3 stock all the time.
If you have buddy that goes with you into danger think about taking Inspiring from the same playbook to ensure you get a lot of help. If you are more in the mood to help other people then pick up Professional Compassion
To get more done outside of those situations maybe consider Easy to trust to get better at manipulating the people in your area. If your game sees a lot of battle and you always get whacked then think about *Daredevil* to get 3-4 amor in the end.
So this are the 5 Advancemts i would take
+1 cool
Moonlighting
Professional Compassion
Inspiring
Daredevil (if there is enough violence by itself) / Easy to trust (to maybe start some fighting yourself by proxy)
Not sure if i want to do the Valkyrie Battlebabe or the Sniper Battlebabe next…
Who do you like your Angels?
Can i help/interfere on a beginning of session move?
Can i help/interfere on a beginning of session move?
When i spend last session helping the hardholder setting up his rule and helping out the merchants, can i then help him on his Wealth move this session?
Fantastic game of #apocalypseworld last night. MC is Drew Harpunea
Fantastic game of #apocalypseworld last night. MC is Drew Harpunea
Quick cast:
Quarantine (Specialist Rogers, Steve P.) – has no Weird. Is the only person in the Apocalypse with green eyes (blue eyed people were the only ones who gained Weird and survived). Currently suffering from radiation sickness and had been bitten/infected by a tunnel dog. His Stasis Facility is in a secure sub basement of a tower block that has the first few floors submerged in icy water.
Clarity (Touchstone) – believes one day Spring will come to the frozen wasteland of the Apocalypse. An older lady, horticulturalist, known to kill indiscriminately yet is currently caring for a hyper-weird child called Pellet. Has a house near the Blood Cult.
Frankie (driver) – has the only icebreaker boat in the area, well respected, but totally amoral. Recently fucked up her sex move with a Blood Cult waster named Mercer.
The Miranda – beached aircraft carrier and holding on Uncle Lomax (hardholder, player not present due to man flu). Has a bustling market of decadent & perverse items.
Twice – Uncel Lomax’s chief enforcer, budding gardener and the voice of reason in Uncle L’s gang of fucking hyenas
The Blood Cult – survive the Apocalypse by blood sharing. Live in a crater on the main land with many old tunnels (service tunnels, train lines etc) around the edge of the crater. Surprisingly helpful to the community and not actually a bunch of fucking vampires.
Kindness – leader of the Blood Cult. Quarantine has a thing for her, despite her keeping on telling him he has no soul.
Pettle – weird (like +3 with the enhanced opening her brain move) kid. Wanted by Blood Cult. Her mum is mortally wounded and in one of Quarantine’s stasis pods.
Specialist Tammy and the Slime Monsters (good name for a band!) – turns out the non blue eyed people of this Apocalypse turned into slimy tentacled sea monsters of Lovecraftian design. Specialist Tammy is partly changed, with gills in her neck and tinged green skin.
Recent happening:
Monk, a slaver of ill repute had finally been defeated in ButtFuck Bay whereupon a great party ensued…
Here’s last nights report:
The MC gave us a love letter each! (look forward to seeing what’s in store for Uncle L)
A week has past since the party at ButtFuck Bay…
Quarantine has been slowly getting worse, with vomiting and diarrhea due to his rad sickness. He’s been working with Frankie and Clarity on fixing up the medlab in his stasis facility and started experiencing weird dreams where he’s howling and running with a pack of dogs. This culminated in waking up early in the morning, naked & shivering in the tunnels in the midst of the Blood Cult with no memory of how he got there and with a distant howl of the tunnel dogs calling for him. Grabbing a blanket he staggered to Kindness’s door asking for her help. She took him in just as a bunch of tunnel dogs bore down upon them. They tried to slide the door closed but a dog got through, ignored Quarantine and dove onto Kindness, biting her neck. Quarantine grabbed at the dog and shouted in a half yell half growl “get the fuck off my bitch and piss off back to the pack”, asserting his alpha male-ness on the beast – which worked!
Frankie discovered her boat had taken some stray hits during the battle with Monk and had just enough integrity to get back alongside the Miranda. It needed some spare parts which she figured she could get from
Hearing a clunk on her boat Frankie found a small row boat and a rope & grapple by her icebreaker, the hatch to below open… Dropping down to investigate she gets whacked in the face with a baseball bat wielded by Harrow. Instead of just shooting him Frankie (uncharacteristically!) grabs the bat and talks. Harrow wants to take her as a prisoner back to the blood cult as Mercer is missing and they think she knows where he is. CPF creeps behind Harrow and sticks him a couple of times with his knife, despite Frankie covertly shaking her head to get him not to do that…
Clarity cleared the air with Twice and spent time tending her garden and moving the garden on the Miranda to the top of the car park, muttering something about the radiation levels on the Miranda being too high for things to grow properly. She also figured out that stuff grows worse when the Northern Lights are brightest. Clarity wakes one morning with Pellet staring at her, mumbling away with the fairies again. Clarity calmly asks Pellet who she’s speaking for…
P – “The sky. It is coming”
C – “Will it hurt you?”
P – “No.”
C – “Will it hurt the rest of us?”
P – “No. It will save us. We will all be changed”
C – “That’s nice dear. Shall we have breakfast now?”
They have slap up oaty binge then there’s a knock at the door. It’s Specialist Tammy, assault rifle cocked and aimed…
ST – “Give me the girl!”
C – “No!”
Tammy kicks in the door, Clarity grabs her assault rifle and they trade shots, Clarity nimbly avoiding most of the shots due to her being in her undies and all. Tammy retreats under fire into the street. Clarity hears slithery sloppy sounds out back, grabs Pellet and runs out the front door heading for the blood cult. Tammy opens fire, the shots miss Clarity but thump into Pellet (Tiggy’s choice!) and Clarity legs it to the blood cult, practically dragging a limp bloody Pellet behind her.
Clarity takes cover and opens her mind to the Psychic Maelstrom. She’s surrounded by stars and in the distance the Aurora Borealis twinkles. She turns and sees the ghostly form of Pellet screaming with no sound as parts of her start diffusing into the Aurora. Clarity is still holding ghostly Pellets hand as her perception drops back to reality and she feels as though part of Pellet has dropped back into her too…
Harrow is too big for Frankie & CPF to shift so she tells CPF to clean himself up and fuck off back onto the Miranda and NOT to tell anyone about this. She then heads to the top of the car park where Twice is sorting out the garden. Frankie tries to talk Twice into helping her dispose of Harrow’s corpse and he mentions that everyone thinks Frankie killed Mercer & disposed of his body, as “you know, isn’t that what you do?”… Then gunfire is heard in the direction of Clarities house & the blood cult. Twice grabs who he can and heads over there while Frankie jumps into her car to join them.
Quarantine and Kindness head into the centre of the Cult grounds when a yell goes up “we’re being attacked by slime monsters!”. Clarity 7 the corpse of Pellet just make it through the gate as a viscous liquid is tipped into the moat and lit.
There’s shouting and cries for help everywhere. Gun shots are all around and the howling in the tunnels is getting louder.
Ideas/Obsessions for this week.
Ideas/Obsessions for this week. Could I make a *world hack for Dresden Files or The Wheel of Time? The answer is probably, but would it fit the style of game that the apocalypse powers?