Barf Forth Apocalyptica
barf forth apocalyptica => Apocalypse World => Topic started by: Khimus on June 15, 2011, 01:34:01 AM
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This thread is to gather the experiences of most of us, to see which playbooks are picked the most/least by rookies (to the game), which ones by veterans (of this game only, again), or see another useful pattern. In particular, I recognise some playbooks nobody tends to pick, and would like to see if that tendence is common, to think about some new ways to "sell" those playbooks and make them interesting.
My experience:
Battlebabes & Brainers are the ones mostly picked.
Other playbooks that rely on their own are favoured: gunlugger, skinner, driver, etc.
Playbooks like the angel or operator aren´t picked by newcomers, they´re often seen as boring or uninteresting (in my experience, obviously).
Playbooks that rely on other people (this depends on the player´s profile, I think) in general aren´t picked a lot.
In general, players pick a playbook that at least has a special orientation or good tools to apply in combat situations.
Your experiences? Do you see any tendence among the groups you MC to? Do you think the profile of a RPer, the games he´s played or run, his overall experience with the hobby have sth to do with the playbooks he chooses (maybe even his life experiences or his knowledge of the postapoc. genre)?
Is there any playbook you think people don´t often come to appreciate? Which, and why do you think that? How would you make it more crowd-pleaser (just talking about the way you offer it to people, not about tweaking the playbook)?
In my case, I´d like to adequately show the awesomeness of the operator, and I often don´t know how. Since my players don´t speak english in general, I have to explain playbooks to them, so selling a playbook is my responsibility. They often don´t see the advantages of a mainly social character that tends to have a lot of money (I´d say he´s the richest character).
Other curious cases. It takes time for a player to see why having an Angel would be useful or awesome, compared to a brainer. Only after they´ve played AW they recognise healing means an awful lot of power over people, as much as a skill greatly demanded.
Maybe players that come from traditional RPGs think that a character whose power relies on people is less powerful than one whose power comes from his own. Not always: I have a case of a player coming from a 3.5/vampire experience, picking a chopper without hesitating much.
Also, in an environment as violent as AW, some players think that a skinner might be too bland.
Battlebabes enjoy so much popularity due to their versatility, and also to how easily their concept is understood (sexy assasin!). They are cool, dangerous if not in a real fight, and also are quite manipulative and hot. Winwinwin.
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As an MC I'm always secretly relieved when nobody chooses The Driver. And I've only once seen someone choose The Driver.
I should probably get over that at some point.
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Other curious cases. It takes time for a player to see why having an Angel would be useful or awesome, compared to a brainer. Only after they´ve played AW they recognise healing means an awful lot of power over people, as much as a skill greatly demanded.
Maybe players that come from traditional RPGs think that a character whose power relies on people is less powerful than one whose power comes from his own.
Running for a DnD-oriented group has always always always resulted in someone playing an Angel. In fact, it's usually the first off the table.
"Who's playing the Healer?"
In general, someone almost always plays a Hardholder, but I've never seen anyone enjoy it. The Hardholder gets blamed for everything.
In my games, almost no one ever plays a Battlebabe, besides me. The playbook's seemingly female nature means that some men dismiss it out of hand. This happens to the Skinner as well, as the short hand that seems to stick is "Oh, this is the whore".
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My group started out with Brainer, Battlebabe, Skinner, Gunlugger, Driver, and Operator. The Operator dropped out in the middle of the first session because he decided the stakes weren't high enough for him. The Driver's having issues with the MC, so he's gone too. The Skinner's player added a Savvyhead; the Gunlugger is thinking of switching to Hardholder; we've recently picked up a Quarantine.
Everyone who sees the Quarantine, by the way, thinks it's awesome, and a couple of people have liked the Touchstone too. No one in my group seems compelled by the Faceless or Hoarder.
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After two games:
Battlebabe and Hardholder seems to be the core playbooks in our group. Brainer is hot too. If I were to pick out three iconic playbooks for AW, it would be Battlebabe, Hardholder and Brainer.
Gunlugger, everyone keeps talking about, but it hasn't shown up yet.
I think Hocus is the only playbook no-one has played, or talked about how awesome it seems. Yeah, and Touchstone, but only I have read that one.
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I just ran a first session with first timers (and I mean like 2 of them had NEVER played a role playing game before, and the other three had limited experience of old school D&D, Traveller and CoC. No AW experience at all.
The only one with any indie experience (BW), chose the Savvyhead, the newbies chose the Chopper and the Battlebabe. The remaining two loved both the hocus and after a squabble, one chose the Touchstone instead. Made for a pretty awesome game!
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When I introduced the playbook, plus faceless and sans skinner, to my PG-13 group (teens aged 13-15, most with some experience in D&D, with occasional single-session games of Paranoia and Godlike), the first reaction was "don't choose the ones with the followers, the GM will use them to screw you up".
So initial cast was Gunlugger (guns are cool!), Driver (cars are cool!), Savvyhead (you mean I get to make an anti-matter cannon?), Battlebabe (guns and giant blades are cool!). The Brainer and the Hardholder were taken more reluctantly, and there was lots of group pressure for someone to play the Angel.
In my regular group, which has a varied background, and most recently played Shadowrun, WoD and Exalted, we decided beforehand that the PCs will be rovers, living outside the bounds of what remained from society. The driver was chosen in a heartbeat, followed by the Gunlugger and the Chopper.
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If I were to pick out three iconic playbooks for AW, it would be Battlebabe, Hardholder and Brainer.
Yup. If I had to write a script to an AW movie tomorrow, they'd be all present and accounted for.
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Since I got the playbook, every game somebody has chosen the Maistro'D.
Which always really surprises me, even though it's a great playbook and is always really involved.
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Someone always plays: Skinner, Brainer, Hardholder
Least Played: Driver, Hocus
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I have never seen anyone play a Skinner. Aside from that I think I've seen all the "core" playbooks once or twice, with none of them getting way more play than others. Savvyheads might be slightly more popular than the others, now that I think about it.
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I've run 2 games and played in a third.
Chicago gangster post-apocalypse: Gunlugger, Brainer, Angel, Driver (all new to the game).
Urban post-superheroic apocalypse: Chopper, Brainer, Hocus, Savvyhead, Battlebabe (male, FWIW), all of these folks were new to the game.
Appalachian Windmills Game: Chopper (me), Brainer, Skinner, and Hardholder. 3 of us were new to the game, the Hardholder has literally been playing it longer than anyone else.
So, yeah, something about the Brainer seems to really compel. Beyond that, I do find that the specifics of the setting the group comes up with does have some influence over the playbooks that get used. I wasn't thinking about a Chopper until the MC presented us with the setting in the Windmills game, and the Chicago gangster setting made a tommygun-lugger, a getaway driver and a back-alley sawbones all really flavorful choices, while a world where there's a bunch of superhero tech lying around makes the idea of a Savvyhead way more appealing.
-JC
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I have never seen anyone play a Skinner. Aside from that I think I've seen all the "core" playbooks once or twice, with none of them getting way more play than others. Savvyheads might be slightly more popular than the others, now that I think about it.
Weird! For me none of the playbooks turn me on except the Skinner and slightly the Hocus. I think I tried to play a savvyhead once and actually bored myself.
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Yeah, Shreyas, that was odd :)
I like Jim's break-down so here goes with that:
Alison's Alley - Hardholder, Angel, Brainer, Battlebabe, Skinner
Luxor - Hardholder, Gunlugger, Maestro'D, Operator, with brief appearances by a Savvyhead and a Hocus. Oh, and one PC death which lead to a new Savvyhead showing up.
Silo 29 - Skinner, Quarantine, Angel
Windmills - Hardholder turned Touchstone, Chopper turned Hardholder, Brainer turned Angel, Skinner turned Maestro'D.
I think if folks discount Skinners as "oh, that's the whore", they are missing a whole bunch of cool stuff. Frost was my second favorite PC to date - he was a tattoo artist who had a high weird. Some of his tattoos moved. Some spoke to him. He was awesome.
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Windmills - Hardholder turned Touchstone, Chopper turned Hardholder, Brainer turned Angel, Skinner turned Maestro'D.
The Chopper is actually still a Chopper, he just has a Holding. : )
-JC
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Playtest rules campaign: Angel and Brainer for the full run; plus a Battlebabe for the first half and a Chopper for the second half.
Published rules campaign: Battlebabe, Savvyhead, and Maestro D', plus a Chopper showed up temporarily, and a Brainer and Operator through advances to get a second character.
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North American Bug Tour: driver turned battlebabe, savvyhead, chopper, gunlugger, brainer introduced half-way in and hocus introduced quite late in the campaign.
Burning Sunlight: hardholder, savvyhead, operator, hoarder, battlebabe
The Chateau: hardholder, savvyhead, brainer, driver, gunlugger, skinner (new player half way through) and angel and quarantine were introduced as second characters later.
The Menagerie: faceless, brainer, gunlugger, hocus, battlebabe, operator, skinner
The Hulk: brainer, savvyhead, hardholder, angel, quarantine
The Island: touchstone, chopper, hocus, brainer, angel, battlebabe
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This has SO much to do with the cover photos.
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From my experience, Operator is the least used.
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From my experience, Operator is the least used.
Yup.
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Which sucks, 'cause obligation gigs are like my favourite AW game tech!
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From my experience, Operator is the least used.
That's why I've restricted the playbooks usable at my Origins game next week to the following...
The Hardholder
The Operator
The Savvyhead
The Angel
The Gunlugger
The Skinner
The Faceless
... so I only have to write 7 love letters. It's the closest thing to pre-generated characters that I'll ever want to generate with AW.
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No Operators? Weird! The Operator is the playbook I've seen taken the most often. I think I've only played one game without an Operator. (I find this slightly odd as personally I'd choose Hardholder over Operator any day.)
After that Brainer is the other predictable choice that someone always wants to play. (No argument here from me, I'm waiting for my chance to give this one a go.)
The playbooks I haven't seen in play are Angel (a pity), Driver (really dull) and Touchstone (I don't even have).
My personal favourite is the Hocus. There should be more Hocii.
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My players were all newbies and picked: Gunlugger, Angel, Driver and Savvyhead.
Notice how none of them picked anything that establishes a lot of setting or comes with a lot of hooks attached. Our background is mostly Call of Cthulhu/DnD so that might have something to do with it.
I think most showed some interest in the Driver. The class has a nice cool shine to it, but as an MC I kind of thinks it sucks in play. (Mobility makes NPC triangles harder and when a front goes bad driving away is more often resorted to.)
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Games I've been a part of:
Chat, with a couple of online friends: Hocus and Touchstone, in the ruins of New York. Those two went 'zing!' together - it was glorious.
PbP, set on a partially terraformed Mars, where I was a player: Quarantine, Chopper, Gunlugger, and Hardholder. Died a sad death due to GM busyness, but until then, everybody was riffing off each other and it was a thing of beauty.
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Most games I've been in there is always a direct character like a Faceless or a Gunlugger. Brainers and Hocus playbooks are snatched up often. The least used I've seen are Drivers and Angels. Skinners, Savvyheads, and Operators are infrequent.
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My first experience with the game was a one-shot at last year's GenCon GoD. I grabbed the Angel because I'm a sucker for clerics. The other PCs were a Driver, Operator and Skinner.
The game I ran last year included a Hocus, Gunlugger and Chopper. There was also a Skinner, but the player was in only one session. The guy who played the Hocus likes spooky/crazy characters.
I'm playing a Skinner in my current game, and the other players are a Savvyhead and Maestro'D. I was tempted to play an Operator, since I like having "anchor" characters to whom it's easy to connect the other PCs as followers, gang members, etc., but the Maestro'D took care of that. If we had gotten our hands on the Hoarder earlier, the Savvyhead player would probably have grabbed that. This is the same guy who played the Hocus. Weird is his thing. The Maestro'D's recently turned into an Operator, since his establishment has slipped through his fingers.
My Skinner's will probably have enough advances to consider a playbook change soon. Not many other playbooks focus on Hot (I think just the Maestro'D?). The character could go a few different ways based on the current fiction: Hardholder, Maestro'D (there's an opening now!), Battlebabe. Kind of depends on what kind of trouble he gets into for killing the NPC holder at the end of yesterday's session. Storm really needs to work on impulse control.
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My first experience with the game was a one-shot at last year's GenCon GoD. I grabbed the Angel because I'm a sucker for clerics. The other PCs were a Driver, Operator and Skinner.
No hard, no weird, how did that play out? Strikes me as a group of Apocalypse World's nice guys, but hey - They could be total assholes for all I know. :)
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No hard, no weird, how did that play out? Strikes me as a group of Apocalypse World's nice guys, but hey - They could be total assholes for all I know. :)
IIRC, we didn't do anything with the Maelstrom. There were various NPCs that fit the Hard and Weird archetypes who provided the adversity as we tried to collectively survive our first day. Lots of uncomfortable conversations with pushy powerful people, and a climactic car chase/gun battle. There's an alternate universe where a group of players chose Brainer, Hardholder, Chopper and Gunlugger, and fell afoul of the Sharp, Cool and Hot machinations of the local whore and medic, and the travelling pimp and his chaffeur.
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Game One: Driver, Hocus, Hocus, and Saavyhead
Game Two: Driver, Hocus, Battlebabe, Faceless, Angel, Tombestone, Hardholder
Operator, Skinner, Brainer, and Chopper seem less taken among my friends
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Double Hocus? There are rules against that... Also, is the Tombstone actually the Touchstone or something new and fresh?
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First game: Quarantine, Hardholder, Savvyhead, Hocus
Second game: Brainer & Chopper
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Started as Hocus, Chopper, Battlebabe, Angel, Brainer. The Battlebabe became a Skinner, then the Brainer player picked up a Savvyhead, then the Chopper became a Gunlugger.
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Played for the first time evar at Go Play NW and it was great. We had the following:
Hoarder
Savvyhead
Quarantine
Maestro D'
Touchstone
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I avoided the Hocus/Chopper/Hardholder and instead played a Driver in the one game I've played thus far, mostly because I was afraid I'd get swamped by NPCs. I came to regret that, however, because you want to be in the middle of the action right from the get go. (It turned out OK though because it was a wet setting and having a boat put me in most of the action.) I think that has to be a common with people not wanting to take on too much their first time with the system.
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I haven't MC'd or played a single game without someone picking the Brainer. If there is something I associate AW with it's Brainers in scuba gear who use their spearguns to pin people to walls before mindfucking them.
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My AW-group hasn't played yet but people pretty much immediately jumped in and grabbed the Savvyhead, the Angel and the Battlebabe.
As far as I can tell it was some kind of "This is so me and my kind of characters"-thing.
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Same game as my earlier post in this thread, thought I'd update:
Mei: Angel => Brainer
Burroughs: Brainer => Operator
Ash: Hocus => Touchstone => Retired
Kite: Battlebabe => Skinner => Retired
Domino: Chopper => Gunlugger => Battlebabe
Whitmont: Savvyhead
Niche: Driver
Luca: Hardholder
Ash's player just retired him, and is going to introduce his Skinner next session. I think the name was Shade.
We've gone through all our playbooks; we've interpreted the "only one Angel" rule as meaning "only one at any given time" as opposed to "only one ever".
Skinner and Brainer definitely seem like the favorite playbooks in our group; I think it's because they have the coolest specials.