Hot Damn, I think I just created a Paladin class for kids in Troublemakers!

Hot Damn, I think I just created a Paladin class for kids in Troublemakers!

Hot Damn, I think I just created a Paladin class for kids in Troublemakers!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1iTjRUomaBXRmhxY3VnWUFyNEk/view?usp=sharing

Evil Check

Evil Check

Evil Check

So today I’m mostly editing and expanding Troublemakers (yeah, I know, I’ve got books to finish, but I have to follow my muse) and I’ve got to the bit about creating your character.

Now, it’s an #ApocalypseWorld   hack but as those of you who’ve seen my comments on #TheHood   will know, I absolutely suck at making those little lists of names that reflect the character type for each playbook, so I was just going to throw in a line like “choose the name you like” and move on.

Then the little devil on my left shoulder chimed in: “You know, kids don’t choose their names, their parents do: when everyone is sitting around creating characters, why not get the other players to choose the given name for each PC?” Meanwhile, the little devil on my right shoulder was off knocking back tequila shooters in a bar in Soho, so I thought I’d calibrate my moral compass with the rest of you.

How would you feel if your character’s given name was picked by the other players in your game? You would still get to choose their nickname or common name, but their given name would be whatever their ‘parents’ had decided.

Get Down in the The ‘Hood

Get Down in the The ‘Hood

Originally shared by James Mullen

Get Down in the The ‘Hood

People who’ve played #TheHood  did you use any special moves for locations on the streetplan or outside the ‘hood? I’d love to see what people came up with and even any suggestions or ideas that you haven’t gotten to use yet.

Phil & Chris talk about their on-going game of #TheHood (starting just after the 30 minute mark) and make me glad…

Phil & Chris talk about their on-going game of #TheHood (starting just after the 30 minute mark) and make me glad…

Phil & Chris talk about their on-going game of #TheHood (starting just after the 30 minute mark) and make me glad that I wrote it.

http://misdirectedmark.com/mmp-120-the-improv-tool-kit-and-creative-constraint/

The Score

The Score

The Score

I’m creating a quickstart playset for #TheHood  with pregenerated characters, a scenario and a reduced ruleset, with the intent for people to use it for one-off sessions at meet-ups and conventions.

I want the players to get a real taste of the game, so I want Heat and Experience to really count, therefore I’m thinking of reducing the amount of Heat it takes to get burned and the amount of experience it takes to earn an advance. 

Question 1: Should I reduce the amount from 5 to 4? Or to 3? How quickly should characters advance in a taster session like this? How many advances would you expect/like to get?

Question 2: Should I reduce Heat & Experience requirements by the same amount? Or does it put too much pressure on the players to lose Heat if they get burned when they’ve only got 3 Heat (or even 4 Heat)?

Fortunately, the guidance in #TheHood for pulling off heists can be extrapolated to other kinds of  job; still,…

Fortunately, the guidance in #TheHood for pulling off heists can be extrapolated to other kinds of  job; still,…

Fortunately, the guidance in #TheHood for pulling off heists can be extrapolated to other kinds of  job; still, bugger.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/04/where-did-bank-robbers-go

Just Heroes: Redoubled

Just Heroes: Redoubled

Just Heroes: Redoubled

In case you’re coming in late to this story, here’s a quick recap: Just Heroes is my superheroic hack for Apocalypse World and it’s been through a number of iterations since its inception. 

The last time we saw it (Just Heroes: Redrawn) I’d collapsed the double-playbook format, which covered the origin of your hero and the powers they had, into a standard single playbook  format. Well, as you might guess from the subtitle of the current draft, the double-playbook format is back, but now the origins have a little more content to them, rather than just being a check-list of cliches about your chosen origin.

The really interesting  thing I wanted to mention in this post is what happened to the superpower moves for the game: they got simple. Which is good. And… weird. Previously, the moves given for superpower styles were very mechanistic, with lots of bonuses to rolls or protection/exploitation of game resources like harm and Hx. It had tended towards that because of an explicit assumption I’d made in the hack: that if you were playing a certain type of super, it was a given that you had these basic powers that made them recognisable as a type. So, if you were a Speedster, then it was assumed that you were fast, whereas if you were a Tank, it was assumed that you were strong and so on.

For the Redoubled draft, I’ve deleted that assumption, so now you have to choose certain moves from your style-book in order to have those superpowers. This has lead me to be writing things like this tonight:

Grow: You can increase yourself to the size of a building.

That’s it: no bonuses, no in-game effects, just a narrative statement: you can increase yourself to the size of a building. What does it do in the game? Well, that depends on how you use it: I can think of a bunch of ways to use that move that allow you to do stuff that would get laughed out of the game if you said you were going to try them at human size.

So… some of the moves look odd, because they don’t specifically do a thing that means something within the mechanics of the game… but they do enable some special fictional positioning, which lets you narrate cool stuff you couldn’t do otherwise. It’s a shift away from my normal style for writing moves and its itching a little between my shoulder blades, but it could be the making of this superhero game.

‘hood: First Face-to-Face playtest

‘hood: First Face-to-Face playtest

‘hood: First Face-to-Face playtest

I finally got a chance to try out my urban inner city hack at Indiecon, though we only had 4 hours, so some processes were a bit rushed.

The four players looked through the playbooks available and all found a character type they wanted to play:

Ratboy, the Thief: typical scrawny teenage tearaway and nephew to…

Buzzkill Bill, the Fallen: a seriously bent copper taking a cut from whatever took place, he was also a casual customer of…

Nursey, the Feelgood: a small-time dealer with a penchant for parties, she also helped out…

Echo, the Blur: a face in the crowd who tended to fade into the background when not being directly observed.

Starting with a midnight arson attack at the local community centre, the stakes got raised when a reward was offered for information leading to an arrest; with the cops on every street asking questions, Ratboy and Echo tried hard to use their contacts and legwork to find the culprit and restore peace, but Bill knew he had to make sure it wasn’t a resident who got arrested, in case he lost the trust of the ‘hood. Meanwhile, Nursey realised she had blown her stash on a party, so had to go cap in hand to her own supplier, forgetting that she still owed him 2 Dough for the last batch (in other words, a couple of failed rolls in a row meant that she had her livelihood threatened and was taking heat).

It was a good satisfying session, with a slow burn that built up to the point where Bill was trying to get rid of the badly injured arsonist without leading his own force back to him, while Ratboy and Nursey had to cut and run on attempt to frame her supplier for the arson, leaving Nursey in the sight’s of a much bigger criminal…

There will be a few changes to the hack soon, most notably to the rules for heat and experience: I want to kick those up a notch and make them flow faster, to encourage players to take bigger risks for greater rewards.

Monster Force Terra

Monster Force Terra

Monster Force Terra

An idea I’ve been playing around with for a few years, playing giant monsters who battle it out in human cities around the world but might just be saving it in the process, took a big leap forward today. I’ve begun a very basic AW hack with some stripped down rules: there’s still a lot more to be done, but see what you think.

Just Heroes: Redrawn

Just Heroes: Redrawn

Just Heroes: Redrawn

I’ve come up with a much revised version of my superhero hack, taking on board feedback from playtesters and my own reservations about the game as it stood. I’m still not sure if this is the way forward or whether the separate Origin  and  _Style_ playsheets are the way to go, but I’m leaning towards the one-sheet version as it allows for faster character creation.