Barf Forth Apocalyptica
barf forth apocalyptica => Apocalypse World => Topic started by: djmalloc on February 08, 2012, 04:19:43 AM
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How do you all handle 2-armor? We have a faceless who also has the +1 armor from Rasputin. If they are wearing their 2-armor most of the time they are essentially unstoppable. I was leaning towards making the 2-armor something you would not casually walk around in. As in, you'd need to specifically say "already I am putting that armor on to go cause some trouble". How have you handled it?
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Short form, roll with it. Yeah, its a SWAT suit or whatever but its part of what makes the character (especially someone with Rasputin or Daredevil) cool so taking it is like denying a Gunlugger his guns. Just remember the When You Take Harm rolls, the gang vs individual damage changes and that a guy who solves all his problems by being immune to harm is probably also solving them by mass slaughter, which does not make friends. Making AW Seem Real will take care of the rest in terms of how people deal with him.
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I think that is part of what had me concerned about a character that was always wearing full on invulnerable armor, it lacked realism. The shit is hot and uncomfortable. Who spends their entire day in full body armor on the off chance someone might decide to start a fight? To me, wearing full body armor at all times feels "gamey".
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How do you all handle 2-armor?
When you make your MC moves, take away his/her stuff - like when the character is asleep, or perhaps when vulnerable etc..., or activate its downside - "its super hot...if you keep all that armor on you're acting under fire (or suffer harm)", or things like "You wont fit in there with all the armor...what do you do"? etc... I think the easiest and cheesiest is - AP harm
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If you want, you could make something like the Driver's vehicle harm rule - there's a countdown clock, and the thing gradually deteroriates as it suffers damage. If the armour (or weapons, whatever) that a fighter-type uses deteriorate, he needs at least a couple of people on his good side to keep him stocked up.
You could also make threats less directly confrontational. I wouldn't go so far as to try and eliminate large-scale battles out of the game altogether (picking a fighter-type is saying "I want to do a lot of fighty stuff!", after all, and the game is all that much better when it's about something the players want to do), but you could add an extra step before the threat gets murdalized - a sniper nest that can't be shot at before you know where it is, raiders that employ hit and run tactics that you need to catch up to, psychic monstrosities that only partially exist in killable meatspace.
That doesn't solve your problem directly, but it does stop things from being boring for everyone, which is your actual worry, right?
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I had a character i 2-armour sieze a gangs leader by force by simply walking up to him.
Me: "Okay, they're pounding you with bullets, 3-harm"
Player: "That's okay, I suffer little harm for 0-harm total."
In hindsight, it felt really weird. What should I have done different?
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In that situation, nothing. A small 2-harm gang is easy pickings for a combat-oriented PC. The player took the options that he did so he could do exactly what he did - grin and tell you that he takes 0-harm. Celebrate that! Say things "Not like that would stop you, of course! You punch the gang leader's face in and the rest of the fuckers scatter to the winds!"
Aside from I'm sure you've developed a way to throw more interesting challenges at that player...
One possibly counter-intuitive idea is to not use the gang rules for encounters the players are invested in (which may include the MC) - fighting a small gang with 2-harm weapons is cakewalk - it's one roll and you're done. Fighting Shithead with a sawed-off behind the door, III with a knife waiting to pounce from a shadow, the Twins providing cover fire for their mates from a nearby building and Zuto with his half a dozen wolf-hounds means a bunch of acting under fire, go aggro, seize by force, and read a sitch rolls, any of which can fail or hit complications, which can provide you with results far more interesting than 3-harm.
As MC, you don't control outcomes fully, but (most of the time) you do control the pace. It can be a useful tool!
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In that situation, nothing. A small 2-harm gang is easy pickings for a combat-oriented PC. The player took the options that he did so he could do exactly what he did - grin and tell you that he takes 0-harm. Celebrate that! Say things "Not like that would stop you, of course! You punch the gang leader's face in and the rest of the fuckers scatter to the winds!"
Aside from I'm sure you've developed a way to throw more interesting challenges at that player...
One possibly counter-intuitive idea is to not use the gang rules for encounters the players are invested in (which may include the MC) - fighting a small gang with 2-harm weapons is cakewalk - it's one roll and you're done. Fighting Shithead with a sawed-off behind the door, III with a knife waiting to pounce from a shadow, the Twins providing cover fire for their mates from a nearby building and Zuto with his half a dozen wolf-hounds means a bunch of acting under fire, go aggro, seize by force, and read a sitch rolls, any of which can fail or hit complications, which can provide you with results far more interesting than 3-harm.
As MC, you don't control outcomes fully, but (most of the time) you do control the pace. It can be a useful tool!
Absolutely, that player has bought her 2-armor fair and square, be a fan of the players' characters!
This is a complex issue to me. To me, being a fan of the players' characters also means not pampering them, and if anything, I think that's my most common fault as an MC. Bring it. (First session principle)
Imagine all those people, shooting rifles at someone who is not at all trying to protect themselves, just walking cooly up to their leader. Even with 2-armor, that should leave a dent, I feel. In that scene, Apocalypse World did not seem real to me.
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Everyone has already mentioned Large-sized gangs...
There is always (ap) ammo, the great equalizer. It could be an Announce Future Badness move ("You're heard rumors of a shipment of (ap) ammo coming into town. You don't know, or maybe you do know, who or why there is a shipment all of a sudden...")
2-armor also can't protect NPCs that the player character cares about.
And other player characters can be an effective threat even if they aren't Hard-based.
Don't forget that with 0-harm there can be times it can call for a Harm move.
And 2-armor can be narratively ineffectual against Weird-based moves/things/people. ("So you've contracted a strange disease..."
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I'm pretty much with Lin on this one but how about a specific example semi-lifted from a game I'm in?
OK, so you're in the market with Daughter and Lem and the rest of their family. . .except Mother of course. She burned to death when Paul accidentally blew up their truck trying to clear scrub with fire. Dick didn't seem concerned in the least. You've managed to find them a ride back to their farm, then Paul walks in.
Now Paul is one of the hardholder's gang and there's maybe a half dozen of them around the market. More importantly, there's a ton of snipers that you can't really make out on the catwalks above. They have orders to shoot anyone who draws a weapon. Just then you notice that Lem's going for his knife.
Notice how, without pushing the world specifically to fuck with the character:
1) The snipers probably have at least a couple of 3-harm weapons, can't be readily retaliated against and there are enough of them do cause some real hurt. If you really want they could be their own gang and they likely are armored since they can just sit around all day.
2) Lem, who the hypothetical character cares at least a little about isn't armored.
3) Sure, you can flatten Paul, but so can any Hard character. Of course then you're likely to get jumped by the holder's gang. You might be able to beat them back, too but by that point you'll never be welcome in the market again.
Whatever the player does, it'll be cool and armor won't inherently make the problem go away. It'll make certain solutions easier but they're not what most players would consider optimal.
PS - thanks to Kevin for providing this example, even if it was for my 1-armor Touchstone
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Yeah, my list of Do Bad Things To Your Faceless should never be taken as an MC trying to "get" the Faceless (or similar Hard badass), but as an illustration that there are a whole set of cogs in AW.
Remember to Make Apocalypse World Seem Real, and Play to Find Out What Happens. You will probably find out that 2-armor + Rasputin might not actually be such a big deal.
In one of my games, the Gunlugger was awesome in a fight (she even saved her own gang from an ambush, and the gang was backing her up) but when she was tired of beating heads in, she tried to manipulate (and then go aggro 'cause her Hot was -2).
Meanwhile the Hardholder was doing his level best to point the Gunlugger away from his holding 'cause he didn't want her to wreck his town.
Lastly, the same Gunlugger rolled snake-eyes Seizing By Force with a grenade(ap). All of a sudden, the Gunlugger really really was glad she made friends.
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Hey, just because someone didn't suffer "actual" harm doesn't mean nothing's changed in the fiction.
Some bullets fly, some weapons are swung... what happens if no harm is dealt?
* The armor could be damaged, or the character beat up/scratched bruised. Just because no lasting damage (harm) happened, doesn't mean the attacks had no effect at all.
* The attacks could also stun/knock over/etc the character. Getting hit with a baseball bat while wearing armor may do no lasting damage but could still knock you off your feet or knock something out of your hands.
The harm move is useful here: you can still roll, even if the effective harm was "0". On a "hit", there are lots of good fictional consequences.
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As other have said, they bought the armor, it's theirs, they are a near unstoppable fighting machine. Now, you can stop them if the situation warrants, but why? You're on the characters side after all.
But really, the more interesting parts of the game don't really have anything to do with fighting all the time. How does this faceless deal with the death of a friend? With hope? With the pressure of people coming to him all the time, or always fearing him? How does being what he is affect his mind, his soul. So he can dominate and control a fight, sure, cool... but there's so much more than that. let him be what he is, and look for where he's not in control, outside of the battlefield.
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If only Apocalypse World had armor piercing ammo...
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So he is hard to kill. That is his thing.
Seduce him, trick him, inspire him. Kill his friends and family.
Just like they screw with an action hero in a movie.
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And then every so often, shoot him, too. Sure, Bruce Willis wins every action scene but that's a big part of why Die Hard gets watched again and again.
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I think that is part of what had me concerned about a character that was always wearing full on invulnerable armor, it lacked realism. The shit is hot and uncomfortable. Who spends their entire day in full body armor on the off chance someone might decide to start a fight? To me, wearing full body armor at all times feels "gamey".
But he isn´t walking all day in full body armor. Remember, 1-armor might be just motorcycle jackets, that isn´t so hard to wear all day. The extra +1 armor comes from a character move, and you can´t take that away from him. So I´d just look for other ways to put him into danger.
Imagine all those people, shooting rifles at someone who is not at all trying to protect themselves, just walking cooly up to their leader. Even with 2-armor, that should leave a dent, I feel. In that scene, Apocalypse World did not seem real to me.
Did de player say his character was walking cooly up to their leader? If he said so, I wouldn´t have him roll "ok, so they have plenty of time to aim for your head, that´s 2 harm AP until you reach the leader. Are you sure you just want to walk up to him?"
But he rolled "seize by force" and chose the "receive 1 less harm", so I´d assume he was running from cover to cover, trying to avoid bullets as he closed. Doesn´t it make sense?
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I think that is part of what had me concerned about a character that was always wearing full on invulnerable armor, it lacked realism. The shit is hot and uncomfortable. Who spends their entire day in full body armor on the off chance someone might decide to start a fight? To me, wearing full body armor at all times feels "gamey".
But he isn´t walking all day in full body armor. Remember, 1-armor might be just motorcycle jackets, that isn´t so hard to wear all day. The extra +1 armor comes from a character move, and you can´t take that away from him. So I´d just look for other ways to put him into danger.
The specific case I was raising was someone with 2-armor and 1-armor from Rasputin for a total of 3-armor. The question I should have put forth was "do you all let people walk around in 2-armor all the time or do you put some restrictions on it?"
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Imagine all those people, shooting rifles at someone who is not at all trying to protect themselves, just walking cooly up to their leader. Even with 2-armor, that should leave a dent, I feel. In that scene, Apocalypse World did not seem real to me.
Did de player say his character was walking cooly up to their leader? If he said so, I wouldn´t have him roll "ok, so they have plenty of time to aim for your head, that´s 2 harm AP until you reach the leader. Are you sure you just want to walk up to him?"
But he rolled "seize by force" and chose the "receive 1 less harm", so I´d assume he was running from cover to cover, trying to avoid bullets as he closed. Doesn´t it make sense?
Actually, he did. The player said something like "Sieze by force: I walk up to Sun and grab him"
The conclusion I've come to is that I should have clarified expectations. "That sounds like what you're really doing is first just walking up to him, getting shot, and then siezing by force." or "How do you suffer little harm, if you're not protecting yourself?"
If the player answered "Oh, I can totally use force by simply walking up to someone", "Getting shot doesn't really bother me anymore" or "They're too scared of me to shoot straight" that would be no problem. My objective is to provide a consistent world, not get at the players.
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The specific case I was raising was someone with 2-armor and 1-armor from Rasputin for a total of 3-armor. The question I should have put forth was "do you all let people walk around in 2-armor all the time or do you put some restrictions on it?"
Well, in that case I´d look for moments when he´s not wearing it: they attack while he´s sleeping, having sex, drinking at the club, etc.
If the character insists on using armor all the time, make a hard move or rather have NPCs react to that. A girl could mock on a PC for trying to dance in the bar while wearing full armor. Hard moves might include -1forward, acting under fire, etc.
Also, a PC failing a move against a gang might see himself overwhelmed while many hands remove his helmet. A hit on a 0harm move roll might have one piece of his armor drop, break or ruin, leaving himself exposed for easy AP harm. After the battle, repplacing that part would be easy task, not even 1 barter. But in the moment, is serious trouble.
Anyway, don´t do this all the time. After all, you´re still a fan of the characters and having their badass armors shine is part of that.
If the player answered "Oh, I can totally use force by simply walking up to someone", "Getting shot doesn't really bother me anymore" or "They're too scared of me to shoot straight" that would be no problem. My objective is to provide a consistent world, not get at the players.
Don´t overlook that you have to make AW seem real. If the player chooses to suffer little harm while seizing by force, something has to happen in the fiction to make that possible. It could be running and dodging, it could be the PC being faster than his enemies, shooting them before they can aim, it could be what you said, all of them becoming too affraid to shoot at the moment. Whatever it is, less bullets hit the PC. but it just can´t be the character walking idly and eating up all the lead. Because then what happens is what you felt then, that AW is not that real (I´d feel that too).
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Don´t overlook that you have to make AW seem real. If the player chooses to suffer little harm while seizing by force, something has to happen in the fiction to make that possible. It could be running and dodging, it could be the PC being faster than his enemies, shooting them before they can aim, it could be what you said, all of them becoming too affraid to shoot at the moment. Whatever it is, less bullets hit the PC. but it just can´t be the character walking idly and eating up all the lead. Because then what happens is what you felt then, that AW is not that real (I´d feel that too).
The movie "Tombstone" has an excellent example of this in a gunfight, with a "PC", Wyatt Earp, striding straight towards the enemy, their guns blazing at him, and them just missing... and it's based on a real happening!