Barf Forth Apocalyptica
barf forth apocalyptica => Apocalypse World => Topic started by: Allison on July 25, 2011, 05:09:29 AM
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So, I committed the cardinal sin of starting with a concept rather than starting from the game rules as written, and ended up with a conflict. I'm playing a character for whom I chose "gunlugger" on the basis that she's supposed to be, yes, an exceedingly hard-ass human being who excels at getting herself embroiled in battles with the odds stacked against her and then fighting her way out. Also slipping and accidentally punching ten dudes to death, but that was an accident, I swear.
The conflict is, the concept never included really included guns (she has NOT TO BE FUCKED WITH, meaning she can inflict 3-harm, before the bonus from Bloodcrazed, regardless of her armament or lack thereof). They aren't at odds with it, but when her class is named gunlugger, and one of its starting boons is access to munitions that other characters have to bend over backwards in-play for, the toys start feeling less like extra bits and pieces that don't define her and begin to feel more like tumours that have attached themselves uninvited. (Yes, I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth. No, I never claimed to be sane.) It doesn't help that the character concept is supposed to be poor, yet she gets a small fortune in toys. I did bully the MC into giving my character debt problems--I was pretty pissed that she gave them to another character, but never once thought to offer them to mine--but that's still a whole lot of junk for someone who's supposed to have trouble scraping by. Particularly from the start, and particularly when access to some of those items is restricted and not available to other characters short of them making a mission out of it (the fuck-off big guns and the armour-piercing ammo, particularly).
So I'm honestly a little lost here as to what to do about my gunlugger who isn't a gunlugger. Just suck it up, submit to sanity, and staple on a rationalization as to why she has the crazy-expensive-and-hard-to-obtain-toys and is called a gunlugger (the skinner she's in a relationship with offered that they might have been a gift from him when he was doing better financially, but this is a machine gun and AP ammo we're talking about), or ditch them/let other characters have them? In particular, I'll admit just having her called a gunlugger is getting to be a burn at this point, and I would strangle a small army just for a different class name that does not bring the idea right back around to toys. I'm even considering dropping the custom 2-armour I came up with for her in favour of Impossible Reflexes at her next improvement, though that may be my emotions and not my good sense talking.
My apologies for so much rambling about something so insignificant.
NINJA EDIT: Yes, I took the guillotine chokehold as my "backup weapon." Now if only I could take an "embedded move" like that for my FOBG, too.
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What is stopping you from just saying you don't have the guns?
I don't really see the problem here.
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Um, do you enjoy playing this character? How many sessions are you in? Because you could always 'retire' her and follow the playbook as written without having a 'concept'. Or perhaps go with a Battlebabe? Don't forget that AW is all about fundamental scarcity. That's the point. There is no status quo in AW. Wants, needs and moves to go about getting or threatening them.
So you have a BFOG and plenty of ammo. So what? That sounds like a great yarn in the making to me. The MC will surely find a way of depleting your ammo, and you'll just have to go find / steal / haggle / extort some more. Maybe make a front wondering about the answer to that very question...
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What is stopping you from just saying you don't have the guns?
I don't really see the problem here.
Nothing; now I'm just trying to figure out how to discharge them. Say I never had'em and let another player have them; say I never had'em and let the MC put them on the near-future treasure table to discharge an OOC problem (why do I have these) into an IC problem (who gets these); ask the MC if I can trade the FOBG and AP ammo for Impossible Reflexes or just adding Impossible Reflexes to the list of moves I can get in-class (which again bumps into the cool custom armour issue); or some combination of the above. Another possibility being discharging the OOC problem into an IC problem by going with the "skinner got them for her as a gift" thing, and having her blow up at him and generally resent them as an accusation of weakness, though that would be more fun on-camera than in the background.
So, yeah, I'm basically having a great big fight with myself. This is a pretty daily thing with me.
Um, do you enjoy playing this character? How many sessions are you in? Because you could always 'retire' her and follow the playbook as written without having a 'concept'. Or perhaps go with a Battlebabe? Don't forget that AW is all about fundamental scarcity. That's the point. There is no status quo in AW. Wants, needs and moves to go about getting or threatening them.
So you have a BFOG and plenty of ammo. So what? That sounds like a great yarn in the making to me. The MC will surely find a way of depleting your ammo, and you'll just have to go find / steal / haggle / extort some more. Maybe make a front wondering about the answer to that very question...
Greatly, two or three, hell no, hell no, yeah I know.
Incidentally we've kicked around various alternative names for the class, but none have really "stuck." (Another player likes "Heavy," but that just conjures up images of the heavy-weapons-user in TF2.) Seriously, the abilities have nothing to do with guns, and the description doesn't even have anything to do with guns, and yet somehow it ended up called the gunlugger.
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Here this is easy. Change all the range tags on the weaponry to 'hand' and refluff them as like, junkyard shit. "Car door 3-harm hand loud" "Tire iron 2-harm hand ap"
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Sounds like a good excuse to make a custom playbook. :)
Is there a character in film, TV or literature that you can accurately compare her too? Maybe we could come up with one.
I had a similar problem with a new player who went concept first and wanted to have someone like John McClane from Die hard. But you didn't see him running around all the time in body armor toting a machine gun.
I suggested he could try being an operator, but he didn't like the gigs idea, so he's going to just have to drop some of his preconceptions and find his own voice instead.
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Shreyas, that's a pretty damn fine solution. I was going to say it sounds like she should be playing a faceless, but I think I I like your idea better.
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Sounds like a good excuse to make a custom playbook. :)
Nah. I mean, you're basically sayingthis:
Allison: "I want to play a brainer but I don't want to dress like a dominatrix."
Phil: "You should make a custom playbook that's exactly like a brainer but you wear a sun dress and flip-flops."
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With regards to the name, just throwing in the idea that in the Deadwood hack mentioned elsewhere, the Gunlugger is rebranded the 'Muscle', which, to my reading, would be more suited, since it isn't gun-focused, while still keeping front-and-centre exactly what the class is about.
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Here this is easy. Change all the range tags on the weaponry to 'hand' and refluff them as like, junkyard shit. "Car door 3-harm hand loud" "Tire iron 2-harm hand ap"
Shreyas, that's a pretty damn fine solution. I was going to say it sounds like she should be playing a faceless, but I think I I like your idea better.
I did have the thought of picking some alternate, less "fancy" equipment--like, say, a sledgehammer (perhaps 3-harm hand ap messy, since hammers were historically used to ruin the day of people in armour), though your suggestion, and mine, run the risk of making powerful items too cheap, because really, how much barter is that junkyard stuff worth? (I had to shake the details out of my MC, but she ponied up that she'd expect a player to be able to pony up 3 or 4 barter to get an FOBG or AP ammo, and that's with special arrangements, assuming they didn't have to take the knife discount.)
I did consider perhaps asking for some equipment with the "embedded" tag, akin to the guillotine chokehold (which I did take), but that runs into the problem of exactly how much is the "embedded" tag worth and where do you draw the line between "embedded" equipment and moves (i.e., 2-armour embedded vs. Impossible Reflexes)?
As for the Faceless, I'll admit that I considered it. I ended up deciding that it would make an excellent prestige class for her, if you will--it even lends itself to a Dramatic Turn of Events come the class change to support her suddenly suffering from the "grotesque" penalty when the mask comes off. That, and the sex power is awesome and fits her very well.
Sounds like a good excuse to make a custom playbook. :)
Is there a character in film, TV or literature that you can accurately compare her too? Maybe we could come up with one.
Sounds like a good excuse to make a custom playbook. :)
Nah. I mean, you're basically sayingthis:
Allison: "I want to play a brainer but I don't want to dress like a dominatrix."
Phil: "You should make a custom playbook that's exactly like a brainer but you wear a sun dress and flip-flops."
Yeah, it's kinda like that. I like the gunlugger's abilities. I even like the description blurb introducing it in the trifold. I can even accept getting stuck with Hot-1 (I maintain she's attractive in a rugged kind of way, but apparently she's used to getting her way through strength rather than manipulation). But the name's gotta go, the equipment I'm presently deciding what the hell to do with, and looks I already stole from the battlebabe (you know, boyish face and muscular/scarred body and all that).
Incidentally, another player in the group, who also MCs another campaign, was working on a variant, less... defined-by-equipment "gunlugger," though it hasn't been going well--not for lack of me urging her on in a last-ditch attempt to save what's left of my sanity. One of the big stumbling blocks at the moment is that it's not clear where techniques-as-"embedded"-equipment (think guillotine chokehold) end and moves begin.
Backtracking a bit: I'll admit that when I first looked at the Faceless, I balked at the whole "mask" idea, but when I turned my thought process upside down and asked myself, "And what if you just tried to play the class straight rather than fighting it?" it grew on me. I even ended up with an idea of how it would come to pass as a second class and everything (that her lover's player happens to have a thing for the Phantom of the Opera didn't hurt in making this decision). I tried the same approach to gunlugger as her first class--I mean, at her core, she's really a Tough Guy, if a financially challenged one, and that doesn't necessarily preclude guns--and I honestly don't know why it's been bugging me, though one rationalization that's come to mind is whether anyone packing that kind of heat could really be considered financially challenged, especially considering she could do her job very well even with her bare hands, let alone even mediocre weapons like a hunting rifle (one solution I've been considering is to give up my FOBG to let the Ruin Runner have AP ammo gunlugger-style, and taking a hunting rifle and perhaps an SMG, which are much less financially intense than the FOBG and AP ammo would logically have been).
With regards to the name, just throwing in the idea that in the Deadwood hack mentioned elsewhere, the Gunlugger is rebranded the 'Muscle', which, to my reading, would be more suited, since it isn't gun-focused, while still keeping front-and-centre exactly what the class is about.
...Oh shit, I like it. She's the team's muscle. This is sounding dangerously appropriate.
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run the risk of making powerful items too cheap, because really, how much barter is that junkyard stuff worth?
This is silly. I mean, really, do you think it's an intrinsic property of ripped-off car doors that they're a 3-harm weapon? You really do? Don't read equipment stat lines as inalienable descriptions of objects in the game; the MC chapter goes so far as to say, "Create the illusion that what you say is caused by events in the fiction, but you're actually following the rules and principles instead." I don't see a rule or principle that says equipment stat lines are objective. If a brainer gave your chracter a violation glove, would you know what to do with it? Same thing.
What I'm saying is that you're making a giant horrorshow out of character creation because you're doing it wrong. There are two ways to fix it:
1 - Don't come to character creation with a concept. Flip through the playbooks, choose one, and make the choices it asks you to make, the way the book tells you to do.
2 - If you come with a concept, be comfortable with tweaking the color of things without getting your kidneys in a bunch. There is no fictional causality in Apocalypse World, and PCs are exceptional rather than ordinary, so your PC is explicitly saying nothing about what else exists or happens in the world. Cling to that, it's your lifeline in the storm of your self-doubt.
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Some thoughts in no particular order.
Q. A gunlugger has guns but those aren't cheap! That makes no sense, does it?
A. "Six men came to kill me one time. And the best of 'em carried this. It's a Callahan full-bore auto-lock. Customized trigger, double cartridge thorough gauge. It is my very favorite gun. I call it Vera." The wasteland is much more a cage match than an economy, ain't it?
Q. My stuff doesn't match my character concept, what do I do?
A. So don't have the stuff. Negotiate with the MC for something in exchange for the stuff. I once had a car as my operator's "signature weapon", sacrificed barter at chargen to get extra brainer gear, all kinds of things.
Q. The name of the playbook doesn't really fit my concept.
A. It doesn't have to. A playbook is not necessarily the name that everyone calls you in-fiction. You could just be called "the tough guy". The group does probably naturally gravitate towards calling her "your gunlugger", so if you want that to change, express your wishes clearly.
Oh, and are you sure you wouldn't rather be playing a Battlebabe? There seems to be a vibe!
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I did have the thought of picking some alternate, less "fancy" equipment--like, say, a sledgehammer (perhaps 3-harm hand ap messy, since hammers were historically used to ruin the day of people in armour), though your suggestion, and mine, run the risk of making powerful items too cheap, because really, how much barter is that junkyard stuff worth? (I had to shake the details out of my MC, but she ponied up that she'd expect a player to be able to pony up 3 or 4 barter to get an FOBG or AP ammo, and that's with special arrangements, assuming they didn't have to take the knife discount.)
I did consider perhaps asking for some equipment with the "embedded" tag, akin to the guillotine chokehold (which I did take), but that runs into the problem of exactly how much is the "embedded" tag worth and where do you draw the line between "embedded" equipment and moves (i.e., 2-armour embedded vs. Impossible Reflexes)?
I have to say, I feel like this is a little overcomplicated. If you want melee weapons instead of guns, take them instead -- just substitute the faceless equipment list, which has lots of nice weapons. Or substitute the battlebabe's custom melee weapons for some of your guns. (I have to say, I have no idea what makes your character a gunlugger, if she doesn't have any guns, has fancy melee weapons, and doesn't run around in extremely heavy armor. That's a battlebabe to me!)
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run the risk of making powerful items too cheap, because really, how much barter is that junkyard stuff worth?
This is silly. I mean, really, do you think it's an intrinsic property of ripped-off car doors that they're a 3-harm weapon? You really do? Don't read equipment stat lines as inalienable descriptions of objects in the game; the MC chapter goes so far as to say, "Create the illusion that what you say is caused by events in the fiction, but you're actually following the rules and principles instead." I don't see a rule or principle that says equipment stat lines are objective. If a brainer gave your chracter a violation glove, would you know what to do with it? Same thing.
What I'm saying is that you're making a giant horrorshow out of character creation because you're doing it wrong. There are two ways to fix it:
1 - Don't come to character creation with a concept. Flip through the playbooks, choose one, and make the choices it asks you to make, the way the book tells you to do.
2 - If you come with a concept, be comfortable with tweaking the color of things without getting your kidneys in a bunch. There is no fictional causality in Apocalypse World, and PCs are exceptional rather than ordinary, so your PC is explicitly saying nothing about what else exists or happens in the world. Cling to that, it's your lifeline in the storm of your self-doubt.
Well said on the equipment; that's a good way to look at it. (Though the violation glove comparison might be a bit off--what keeps her from using it isn't lack of knowledge per se so much as lack of psychic powers. You could tell her what it is and how it's used and everything; she just doesn't have anything to use it for.) Also, I can't do #1 to save my life, so it's #2 or bust--now I'm working on the meat and potatoes of what to change.
Some thoughts in no particular order.
Q. A gunlugger has guns but those aren't cheap! That makes no sense, does it?
A. "Six men came to kill me one time. And the best of 'em carried this. It's a Callahan full-bore auto-lock. Customized trigger, double cartridge thorough gauge. It is my very favorite gun. I call it Vera." The wasteland is much more a cage match than an economy, ain't it?
Q. My stuff doesn't match my character concept, what do I do?
A. So don't have the stuff. Negotiate with the MC for something in exchange for the stuff. I once had a car as my operator's "signature weapon", sacrificed barter at chargen to get extra brainer gear, all kinds of things.
Q. The name of the playbook doesn't really fit my concept.
A. It doesn't have to. A playbook is not necessarily the name that everyone calls you in-fiction. You could just be called "the tough guy". The group does probably naturally gravitate towards calling her "your gunlugger", so if you want that to change, express your wishes clearly.
That exact comparison has been made to me several times (and yes, by that standard, it's hard to justify Daryl being poor; I'm not entirely sure why I'm trying to keep it, though again, I did bully the MC into giving her debt trouble); I agree, I'm just working on exactly what to keep, what to charitably give to other players, what to toss onto the near-future treasure table, and what to sacrifice for something else (and what that something else would be); and yes, I'm most definitely trying to communicate "stop calling me gunlugger and stop thinking of me as a gunlugger" to them because "well, you're a gunlugger, so that's why you have guns, right?" has been said more than once and it never gets less upsetting. I'm trying to avoid being defined by guns here.
Oh, and are you sure you wouldn't rather be playing a Battlebabe? There seems to be a vibe!
I have to say, I feel like this is a little overcomplicated. If you want melee weapons instead of guns, take them instead -- just substitute the faceless equipment list, which has lots of nice weapons. Or substitute the battlebabe's custom melee weapons for some of your guns. (I have to say, I have no idea what makes your character a gunlugger, if she doesn't have any guns, has fancy melee weapons, and doesn't run around in extremely heavy armor. That's a battlebabe to me!)
For the former: what vibe, and for the latter, intrinsic qualities, obviously. She's not a Battlebabe because Battlebabes are horrifically misnamed. Battlebabes aren't hardcore fighters. They are rogues. Daryl is not a rogue. Daryl is a hardcore fighter. Daryl doesn't lose her edge when the fight goes from going aggro to seizing by force; no, that's when it's just gettin' good. Daryl is Hard as fuck and can still act under fire like a pro in no small part because she has no Cool to lose in the first place. Daryl burns as hot as a southwestern wildfire instead of freezing like the coldest winter chill. Daryl would tear someone's heart out and eat it if they ever insinuated to her face that she is a Battlebabe.
You'll notice none of the things I listed have anything to do with what toys she gets, but absolutely affect which of the two classes' stat arrays and powers would fit her. I actually tried to shoehorn her into Battlebabe for a while before I gave up and accepted that the intrinsic qualities of the Gunlugger simply fit her better, even if its skin and extrinsic qualities were, well, a questionable fit.
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For the former: what vibe, and for the latter, intrinsic qualities, obviously. She's not a Battlebabe because Battlebabes are horrifically misnamed. Battlebabes aren't hardcore fighters. They are rogues.
You're bringing this to the piece. I'm playing a battlebabe right now, and Smith is not a rogue.
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Yeah, uhm, Battlebabes I have known are as combat geared or moreso than gunluggers. NOT TO BE FUCKED WITH only works in full-on battles and not whenever the fuck you want to count as a gang. That is to say only when you're fighting other gangs and not just when you're wailing on some poor sap (or saps, even, it's has to be a battle.) For my jingle, a battlebabe with a few advances is way more potent as a straight up murder and badassery machine than a gunlugger. Only seize by force is the exclusive speciality of the gunlugger. As John Harper and Vx have discussed elsewhere, that move is not as straight-forward as often thought.
And please listen to Shreyas.
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All right. Sorry for bugging you folks about this whole matter, but I talked it over with other players, my MC, and some Game Therapists to help me untangle the hivemind of neuroses who collectively became my consciousness.
We came up with a two-part fix: One, we changed the class name (in this case, to Muscle; many thanks to SoylentWhite for pointing it out to me). Two, I gave up my FOBG and one of my serious guns (and the option for AP ammo) in exchange for getting Impossible Reflexes added to Daryl's class list: she doesn't get it for free and has to pony up an improvement to keep the character-development economy intact, but she can get it as an in-class move rather than cross-class. And if I take it, she'll probably still wear her spiffy custom armour as a fashion choice and modicum of modesty, but holds in her hand of cards the power to do without if necessary. I also volunteered that if any Excellent Munitions were found in-game in the near future, I'd bear that payment in mind and give other PCs first crack. (For the remaining serious gun, I went with a hunting rifle, which is a nice non-defining 1-barter tool that would let her take gigs with the hunting crew.)
So, uh, thanks for letting me bounce this off y'all, and your input, and again the suggestion to rename her class The Muscle. It was pretty tense for a while there, but my heart rate is beginning to normalize.
For the former: what vibe, and for the latter, intrinsic qualities, obviously. She's not a Battlebabe because Battlebabes are horrifically misnamed. Battlebabes aren't hardcore fighters. They are rogues.
You're bringing this to the piece. I'm playing a battlebabe right now, and Smith is not a rogue.
Fair enough: I can accept that you don't play your character that way, though the description of the class has kind of stuck in my group ever since I mentioned it. For the record, we use going aggro when making the initial threat of force or attacking someone not immediately prepared to counterattack, and seize by force once the fight is down to brass tacks and the targets are fighting back--we're in the "you don't necessarily need to be seizing a specific thing/we use it when a fight is down to trading blows" camp.
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I think "the muscle" is super awesome, by the way(:
We have a violent accountant in our AW game that we call 'the heavy'.
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I think "the muscle" is super awesome, by the way(:
We have a violent accountant in our AW game that we call 'the heavy'.
"The Heavy" is good, and I'll admit that I would have taken it if not for the fact that it kind of reminds me of a certain Russian, well, heavy-guns-lugger. "The Muscle" really was a good suggestion, and it's growing on me. It communicates her role crystal-clearly without the need to use toys as a reference point: with or without them, she's the person you call for blood on the ceiling, shirtless fistfights, bone-crunching power blows, pitched and bloody battles against ten-to-one odds, breaking the thumbs of miscreants, striking fear into the heart of the local Threat--I could go on.
...Wait, did you say violent accountant?
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"you don't necessarily need to be seizing a specific thing"
Uh, really? You need to be making a move to get a hold of something.
Seize is for when you care about getting a hold of something; aggro is for when you care about what they do.
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Here this is easy. Change all the range tags on the weaponry to 'hand' and refluff them as like, junkyard shit. "Car door 3-harm hand loud" "Tire iron 2-harm hand ap"
Shreyas is right about this.
Also, it sounds like you worked it out, so cool.
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Allison, can you explain why the playbook name matters? I'm not getting that. Also, you've called it a class. It might help you to remember that that's 100% dead wrong. You're the only one. You didn't go to Gunlugger Academy.
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Allison, can you explain why the playbook name matters? I'm not getting that. Also, you've called it a class. It might help you to remember that that's 100% dead wrong. You're the only one. You didn't go to Gunlugger Academy.
Belatedly...
Because the character concept does not really revolve around guns, and I didn't really like the idea of her being defined as a gunlugger--it is not, logically, what people would refer to her as. Is she willing to use them? Sure, why not. But the thing I really wanted her to be defined by was that with or without toys, she's willing and able to take you to the mat, whether you're alone or you have your whole army behind you--her ability to fight, period, defines her, not her toys. The fact that she'd be the only gunlugger doesn't make this better; if anything, it makes it worse.
Hence, she's not a gunlugger, or the gunlugger for that matter. People don't speak of her as someone who carries a lot of firepower (frequently, she carries none at all). What people talk about is the fact that one night, in a fight outside the local watering hole, she slipped and accidentally punched ten armed dudes to death (no, really, that happened in the game; I didn't think to voluntarily reduce my harm to avoid carnagefest, whoops). When people talk about her, they call her the muscle.
Also I am one of those people who gets really touchy about concept and didn't want the other players or the MC even thinking of her as "the person with the guns." I actually went ahead and got rid of the FOBG and AP ammo in part to keep them from doing that, because it was driving me bugfuck insane. So you could call renaming her class (yes I know your issues with the term, but they are de facto classes even if not officially classes, even if they only apply to PCs and not NPCs) a means of controlling how she is seen.
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As long as I'm revisiting the thread, I suppose I have a further question: where does one draw the line between a technique as "embedded" equipment (like the guillotine chokehold) and a move? "Embedded" armour, for instance, is already in as moves--1-armour for the hocus and 1-armour or 2-armour for the battlebabe--but what about, say, increased damage when not wielding a weapon? Like 2-harm hand embedded or 3-harm hand embedded, as opposed to the default 1-harm?
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Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, why not take Merciless from the Battlebabe as an advancement?
Also, I wouldn't call anyone's armour 'embedded'. It's an integral choice, but there's no reason it can't be taken off, damaged beyond repair, or lost. Just because you get if for free from day one doesn't mean you should get attached to it. As an MC I love to take people's (non-embedded) shit away from them.
As a contrast, take a look at the Faceless' mask. It may or may not count as armour, but having or not having your mask is an integral part of that character. The Gunlugger (or The Muscle) having or not having armour at any given moment means nothing, in terms of who the character is.
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Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, why not take Merciless from the Battlebabe as an advancement?
would I be a horrible person if I said it's easy for reinventing the wheel to become a hobby when one is bored and/or desires to procrastinate
Also, are you sure you mean Merciless, or do you mean Impossible Reflexes? Because one of the things I got out of giving up my FOBG, AP ammo option, and one serious gun was getting Impossible Reflexes added to my in-class list, though I still have to spend an improvement on it. As for Merciless, even I have some concept of "stop before you break this thing entirely." I'm honestly predicting that my MC would be sane enough to tell me that Merciless and Bloodcrazed (I already have Bloodcrazed) don't stack. (I'd expect her to do the same with Rasputin and Daredevil too, for that matter: I could definitely see her letting me take both to increase the situations in which I can get that +1armour, without letting them stack for +2armour, and honestly I'm not going to try to get her to give it to me--I find that my +2 to Diplomacy and Intimidate works better on MCs when they know I don't demand unreasonable things.)
Also, I wouldn't call anyone's armour 'embedded'. It's an integral choice, but there's no reason it can't be taken off, damaged beyond repair, or lost. Just because you get if for free from day one doesn't mean you should get attached to it. As an MC I love to take people's (non-embedded) shit away from them.
I think you misread what I was saying. It was about, when does a technique statted as an "embedded" item, like the guillotine chokehold (s-harm hand embedded), cross the line into move territory? I used the example of a "technique item" that happens to be embedded armour as an example of something that's treading upon move territory, which gives me an idea of where that line is (at the very least don't duplicate an existing move), but doesn't tell me exactly where. I'm just trying to whittle it down further.
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Yes I had forgotten about Bloodcrazed, and it does what I meant. You were asking about the guillotine doing more harm by default which, with this move, it does.
I don't have the guillotine rules in front of me, but are you talking about implanted items? Either way, this is wrong:
but doesn't tell me exactly where.
In my opinion, there's no 'exactly' anything in Apocalypse World.
Now, and I could be wrong with this, but I feel like you're operating from a place that's common to some (many) other games. Instead of asking very specific questions like this and trying to shoehorn our answers into your preconceived idea of what games (are, should be, have been), I think a shift in perspective might benefit you more. I really don't mean for this to sound antagonistic, by the way. It's just my perception, and it's meant as constructive criticism.
You really hit on what I'm getting at by altering the Gunlugger to the Muscle. Do away with what you don't want and trade it for stuff you do. Maybe the Gunlugger doesn't exist in your AW. That's cool. Maybe the Muscle doesn't exist in my AW. That's cool too. Maybe in your AW you're so fucking tough you can strangle a man with your bare hands. Hot. In my AW moves are moves and crap is crap. One I can take away and one I can't. Maybe in your AW that's not true. I wonder what a Hardholder without Leadership would look like? Does a Hocus who loses faith in himself and God lose Divine Protection?
All I'm saying is that asking questions is good, but your answers are already right, whatever they happen to be. This system is designed to be hacked. Rip it apart and rebuild that shit. Everything is already broken anyway, it's not like you can make it worse.
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Hi,
I'm playing a Gunlugger right now. I picked Not to be Fucked with, Bloodcrazed, and with an advance, Merciless from the Battlebabe. At this point, even without guns, I'm fucking scary. It's actually hard for me to NOT kill people when I get violent.
First session, I held someone hostage with a rock. Last session I wanted to take on a biker on his bike, while I was on foot, with a machete.
So yeah. You want a Gunlugger without guns? Go for it. Trade out your guns for stuff like sledge hammers or concrete mixers or whatever you want to slam into someone's gut. Get a busted off iron clamp and use it like brass knuckles.
If you've got a Savvyhead? Trade them the guns to build you new, awesome stuff. ("Well, it's like a gauntlet except when you punch someone and press this, it fires a bullet into them at point blank range. It's kinda fucked up.", "Guess what happens when I get 3 blender engines on the end of a staff? Yeah, good times for me, messy times for you!")
You don't want the title Gunlugger? Pick something more fitting. "Psycho", "Curbstomper", "Medievalist".
Chris
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I'm late to the party, but if I were playing a Gunlugger who wasn't about guns... I'd just treat those bazookas and shit as extra barter.
Like, you're a character with big debt problems, and you happen to stumble upon a weapons cache that's worth a small fortune. Now all you need are some serious buyers, and you can make that debt go away. Of course, those rocket grenade things are starting to look more and more appealing by the hour...
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I'm honestly predicting that my MC would be sane enough to tell me that Merciless and Bloodcrazed (I already have Bloodcrazed) don't stack. (I'd expect her to do the same with Rasputin and Daredevil too, for that matter: I could definitely see her letting me take both to increase the situations in which I can get that +1armour, without letting them stack for +2armour, and honestly I'm not going to try to get her to give it to me--I find that my +2 to Diplomacy and Intimidate works better on MCs when they know I don't demand unreasonable things.)
This came up with Chris's gunlugger (who as he mentioned has Merciless and Bloodcrazed). I'm just not sure it matters much -- sure, he can kill people by punching them. In fact, he can't NOT kill people by punching them, in general. But if he wanted to kill somebody, he could probably just shoot them with his grenade launcher.
There are two big reasons why you might not want to take both Merciless and Bloodcrazed. The first is that NPCs just don't take that much harm to kill, even in groups, and trying to kill PCs with your bare hands is always going to be difficult no matter how much harm you do. The second is that they're not optional moves. Given these two, I don't really think there's a balance problem, or Vincent presumably wouldn't have written them both! (Since nearly every character in the game can have them both if they really wanted to.)
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Regarding Merciless and Bloodcrazed stacking: I totally would allow this. Why?
Somewhere else here (not sure where off the top of my head) there was a thread that explained that moves aren't just moves, they're *integral parts of the character*. This is likely not news to most/all of you, but in my early days of browsing the forum, it hadn't clicked before then.
If you are merciless, you *cannot show mercy* or you lose the move (as you're no longer merciless). If you're bloodcrazed, you can't talk down a tense situation, or choose a less violent option, or you're no longer bloodcrazed.
(This was likely a suggestion rather than a Vx ruling, but it really clicked for me).
Someone with both is an omnicidal maniac, who *will* be killed sooner or later out of revenge/pre-emptive self defence.
So, if I was MC and one of my players wanted to do this, I'd say "Go ahead. Make my day."
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Regarding Merciless and Bloodcrazed stacking: I totally would allow this. Why?
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If you are merciless, you *cannot show mercy* or you lose the move (as you're no longer merciless). If you're bloodcrazed, you can't talk down a tense situation, or choose a less violent option, or you're no longer bloodcrazed.
(This was likely a suggestion rather than a Vx ruling, but it really clicked for me).
I'll admit, we don't really enforce that at either of my MCs' tables, and I don't think they would choose to do so. If only because they've been having a ball with all the drama we've had where Daryl has reacted like a human being with a shred of sanity left rather than just being a buzzkill and offing the drama-generator. Hell, my group awarded Daryl the campaign's first Crowning Moment of Awesome for solving a problem in the (non-violent) way she did when she could have just gone offing people, particularly the local crazy dictator (not because she was feeling charitable, or because she was scared, but because a) she didn't feel like throwing the entire hold into chaos, b) she didn't care to let the asshole who'd probably end up taking the current dictator's place get the chance, and c) she sure as fuck doesn't want to run the place herself, because seriously, fuck that kind of responsibility--she has enough of it just looking after Frost, which, incidentally, was the nature of the problem she was solving).
It's not that Daryl has no taste for blood; she's eagerly thrown herself into the centre of a melee to crack some skulls the fun way more than once. It's more that there are kinds of violence which are stimulating and exciting, like ten-to-one odds against raiders and savages out for blood, and then there are kinds that she just finds kind of tasteless and unrewarding, like poor scrubs who can hardly fight back or throwing her home hold into political chaos. That's just shit she doesn't care to be bothered with.
The second is that they're not optional moves. Given these two, I don't really think there's a balance problem, or Vincent presumably wouldn't have written them both! (Since nearly every character in the game can have them both if they really wanted to.)
They're not optional moves? I wasn't aware of that. So far the MC of the game Daryl's in has allowed for restraining ourselves and doing less harm than we could when it makes sense that we'd be able to do so (like, just because Daryl could crack some guy's skull doesn't necessarily preclude logically being able to just smack him around enough to cow him instead).
Seriously though. Even as a player who stands to benefit from doing so, I would facepalm at Bloodcrazed and Merciless being allowed to stack (or Daredevil and Rasputin, for that matter--well, maybe, with the limitation of capping at the higher of 3-armour or actual armour equipped plus one, perhaps). It is simply not something I would push for, and I would openly tell the MC "please don't let me pull this shit at your table" (though I could see myself taking both Daredevil and Rasputin to increase the availability of that +1armour, at least).
Yes I had forgotten about Bloodcrazed, and it does what I meant. You were asking about the guillotine doing more harm by default which, with this move, it does.
I don't have the guillotine rules in front of me, but are you talking about implanted items?
OK, probably, yeah. The guillotine chokehold is a technique that was written up as an implanted item--essentially a special attack the character can perform, as opposed to a weapon they wield per se.
Either way, this is wrong:
but doesn't tell me exactly where.
In my opinion, there's no 'exactly' anything in Apocalypse World. (further words)
All right, you got me. Not exactly, then, but good guidelines. "No 'implanted technique' gear that basically duplicates the effects of an existing move" (i.e., "implanted" 2-armour) comes to mind.
That said, I'm not trying to make a guillotine chokehold do more damage (it does s-harm anyway; that's the point). The idea is that I was just using it as an example of a technique written up as "implanted equipment," and my curiosity was about other things that might be appropriate for such treatment.
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Allison, this is great!
I don't think there's a line between what you can do with moves vs what you can do with crap at all, really.
You could create a new tag, technique would suit, for things your character can do that act as weapons or gear. So you might have:
Guillotine chokehold (s-harm hand technique)
Whirlwind of total knives and death (3-harm hand area messy technique), only if you have knives
Throwing a thing so it hits a dude in the eye (s-harm close technique), only if you have a thing to throw
Punching through a dude's armor, no shit (+ap to hand attacks, technique)
Rolling with the punches (1-armor technique)
If I were your MC and you wanted to trade your guns in for things like these, I'd be quite generous!
-Vincent
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I'll admit, we don't really enforce that at either of my MCs' tables, and I don't think they would choose to do so. If only because they've been having a ball with all the drama we've had where Daryl has reacted like a human being with a shred of sanity left rather than just being a buzzkill and offing the drama-generator. Hell, my group awarded Daryl the campaign's first Crowning Moment of Awesome for solving a problem in the (non-violent) way she did when she could have just gone offing people, particularly the local crazy dictator (not because she was feeling charitable, or because she was scared, but because a) she didn't feel like throwing the entire hold into chaos, b) she didn't care to let the asshole who'd probably end up taking the current dictator's place get the chance, and c) she sure as fuck doesn't want to run the place herself, because seriously, fuck that kind of responsibility--she has enough of it just looking after Frost, which, incidentally, was the nature of the problem she was solving).
It's not that Daryl has no taste for blood; she's eagerly thrown herself into the centre of a melee to crack some skulls the fun way more than once. It's more that there are kinds of violence which are stimulating and exciting, like ten-to-one odds against raiders and savages out for blood, and then there are kinds that she just finds kind of tasteless and unrewarding, like poor scrubs who can hardly fight back or throwing her home hold into political chaos. That's just shit she doesn't care to be bothered with.
Quite right, I shouldn't have spoken in such absolutist terms. Character first, and all that.
However, I still believe that AP ammo with an area/autofire weapon (such as MG or assult rifle) is *way* more deadly than Merciless-bloodcrazed (without the above) in a fair number of dangerous circumstances, without any limitations on behaviour (Not without its own problems, admittedly), so I don't view it as a balance issue.
Disclaimer: while my gunlugger has an AP assault rifle, so I can attest to its effectiveness, I haven't actually tried merciless or bloodcrazed in-play.
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If you are merciless, you *cannot show mercy* or you lose the move (as you're no longer merciless). If you're bloodcrazed, you can't talk down a tense situation, or choose a less violent option, or you're no longer bloodcrazed.
I think a better solution, that I am using, is that you can never not have the move. Also they stack. So if you're bloodcrazed you can never just wrestle someone for 0-harm or punch someone in the face a kindly 0-harm way because you always get +1-harm. This doesn't force players to behave a certain way just to not lose their super cool move but it does stop them from fighting in a safe non bloodcrazed non merciless way, when they go aggro at someone by shouting and shaking their fist they really don't fuck around and people are gonna die.
Seriously though. Even as a player who stands to benefit from doing so, I would facepalm at Bloodcrazed and Merciless being allowed to stack (or Daredevil and Rasputin, for that matter--well, maybe, with the limitation of capping at the higher of 3-armour or actual armour equipped plus one, perhaps). It is simply not something I would push for, and I would openly tell the MC "please don't let me pull this shit at your table" (though I could see myself taking both Daredevil and Rasputin to increase the availability of that +1armour, at least).
Why? Without the stacking you can't do the wonderful 3-harm (ap) Brainer who can use direct brain whisper projection on gangs but who is so cruel a sloppy brain scan or passionate fuck will kill their favourite NPC.
Played straight armor piercing goes through Daredevil and Rasputin as well as impossible reflexes and divine protection so when tales of the bullet proof monster warrior starts spreading people start armor themselves with:
flamethrower (3-harm close ap messy autofire) (I can't believe this isn't in the original book)
molotov (1-harm ap area messy)
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The guillotine is interesting. I mean, yes, it does s-harm, but both Bloodcrazed and Merciless read, "When you do harm, inflict +1-harm." or some such. S-harm is harm so, inflict +1-harm. I picture this as someone trying to be all sneaky and take an enemy prisoner but, they're such a fucking psycho that they end up almost killing the guy in the attempt. It's important to note that moves almost never say "You may inflict +1-harm" or any such wiffle-waffle. Krippler, you hit this on the head, they are never 'off'. No. You are a merciless, bloodcrazed (probably psychotic) killing machine.
@Vx: I don't see the distinction you're drawing here. To me, moves are techniques. They're things you're good at or know how to do. Take, as an example parallel to our current discussion, a move I made for The Shifted, which I posted here on the forums.
Fibrillation NB: This move has changed in playtesting from what I originally posted.
Your hands become (1-harm or s-harm hand ap implanted)
It's a move, but it's implanted and it functions almost like crap. No problem. Why call them something else? 'Move' works just fine as it is.
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Oh, just because this way the gunlugger-with-no-guns can have a bunch of gunlike effectiveness without total nutso move bloat.
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So here's a thing I think:
Playbook moves (cf. core moves) don't distinguish between 'things you can do' and 'stuff that you are,' not explicitly. As we played it with V, the text says 'you can' if it's a thing you can do and it doesn't if it's a thing you are.
However, I think you can see a way to deciding when you take a move, is it a thing you are or a thing you do? That decision guides whether a playbook move acts automatically or needs to be triggered by choice. I do think it's necessary, if you do this, that you must decide and record your decision for each move as you take it.
My preference is to close-read the move texts and see what they say, but to each his own.
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If you are merciless, you *cannot show mercy* or you lose the move (as you're no longer merciless). If you're bloodcrazed, you can't talk down a tense situation, or choose a less violent option, or you're no longer bloodcrazed.
Whether it's a rule or not, it's how I'm choosing to play my character - it's not like I do 2 extra harm because I'm super strong, it's 2 extra harm because I aim for floating ribs, knees, soft neck tissue (Merciless) and I keep hitting after they're down (Bloodcrazed).
So I choose not to get violent, most of the time, otherwise I'd be a freaking monster. It also means even trying to do stuff like restrain people (0 harm) becomes nearly life threatening for most NPCs.
Chris
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Wonderful discussion everyone. After digesting most of this my pitch would be to highlight the core concept of the 'moves' as a narrative device for dramatic tension. Vx reminds us that we are having this conversation, everyone is invested and in agreement until a story query is raised. The moves snowball begins.... 'Oh, sounds like you are making a move?', or 'that's goin' aggro then yeah?' or 'Wanna see how merciless I am mother fucker! Just try me!'.
All the stuff you can do and stuff that you are informs these moments of tension, they influence or dictate the way those 2d6 control the flow of the story. The importance I feel here as a player is one of choice (as Shreyas kindly illustrated).
I think that Allison just wants her choices as a player to refelct her vision of the Gunlugger as a perfectly legitimate without-guns-killer. I love that Vx's technique tag solution is elegant and can be particular to Allison's table as advanced fuckery rather than a broad ruling by the author. Her curiosity on how to implement her vision through moves and tags and choices is vital to the conversation that is roleplaying at her table.
Moves stacking and advancement choices are vital in intergrating player vision via the move framework. Close reading of the move texts as is encourages limits, and limits encourage tension driven choices, which in my experience lead to great roleplay and emergent story. Your descriptive and prescriptive interpretations of the mechanical effect on the fiction are your tools for awesome stories and deep characters!
I believe that invested players get the most out of AW (and any story game really). As Chris says, Choose how to play your character (whilst following the principles) don't let the moves and tags choose your player actions for you.
I love Allison's emergent view on how her Gunlugger-without-guns is going to intergrate moves to fiction, its total badass, and fully in the spirit of the playbook (without too much fuckery of the moves).
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Seriously though. Even as a player who stands to benefit from doing so, I would facepalm at Bloodcrazed and Merciless being allowed to stack (or Daredevil and Rasputin, for that matter--well, maybe, with the limitation of capping at the higher of 3-armour or actual armour equipped plus one, perhaps). It is simply not something I would push for, and I would openly tell the MC "please don't let me pull this shit at your table" (though I could see myself taking both Daredevil and Rasputin to increase the availability of that +1armour, at least).
I think you should consider trusting the game more. As lots of people have illustrated, there is nothing particularly idyllic about doing +2 harm whenever you hurt someone. Moreover, this is not a game that relies on the MC "challenging" players, or fights being fair, or anything like that. It does not break if PCs can kill NPCs trivially or without risk to their person. That's just not an issue.
You mentioned some awesome moment where your PC accomplished something by avoiding violence -- sounds great. But it wouldn't be any less awesome if your character was even better at killing people, presumably, which was the context in which the suggestion came up. Obviously, if you don't want your character to do massive harm, you don't need to take more moves that give you +harm, but the suggestion that it is going to break the game or that doing so would somehow be putting one over on the MC, etc. -- that's not really an appropriate assumption for this game, in my experience.
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I think that Allison just wants her choices as a player to refelct her vision of the Gunlugger as a perfectly legitimate without-guns-killer. I love that Vx's technique tag solution is elegant and can be particular to Allison's table as advanced fuckery rather than a broad ruling by the author. Her curiosity on how to implement her vision through moves and tags and choices is vital to the conversation that is roleplaying at her table.
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I love Allison's emergent view on how her Gunlugger-without-guns is going to intergrate moves to fiction, its total badass, and fully in the spirit of the playbook (without too much fuckery of the moves).
I dunno that it's entirely in the spirit of the playbook per se (given it's called, well, the gunlugger), but it was the best mechanical fit for the character, at least of the options available. Hence rejiggering it and renaming it the muscle, to better reflect the spirit of the character.
(Apologies in advance for being about to ramble like a motherfucker.)
I will say, though; regarding the "without guns" bit, she actually did start with a hunting rifle, and she's since picked up an SMG as a spoil of battle. The trick is that I have a real problem with how I do warrior concepts. They aren't always "no weapons 24/7," but the trick is that with the way I design with a character's intrinsic qualities taking prominence--and warrior as one of Daryl's intrinsic qualities--she's gotta be a warrior in and of herself even before toys come into play. She can't stop being a warrior and start being a victim waiting to happen just like everyone else simply because something extrinsic was lost. I do have concepts that fight and for whom unarmed combat isn't such a big thing, but there's generally a reason for it. Examples being the concept of the seven-foot, socially awkward, naturally mild scholar who's more than capable of fighting simply because of her size, but who isn't as emotionally invested in it and so takes the shortcut of being vulnerable when she isn't armed; or the Littlest Badass Who Could, who, while a pretty bad little kid, is still a little kid who needs to rely on something extrinsic to make up for her physical limitations if she plans on going toe-to-toe (and if she loses these extrinsic things, it's time to improvise or think her way out).
As for "So why is starting with weapons an obstacle to this," well, it wasn't, necessarily (and again, hunting rifle). I just didn't feel like starting with a stable of high-quality weapons others would have to bend over backwards for in-game really fit the character for another reason: in addition to being a warrior, Daryl is not really established yet, and doesn't have so much in the way of wealth or valuable stuff as the playbook assumes. As the game progresses, weapons may fall into her hands, and in those situations where the properties they give (like the SMG's area, or the hunting rifle's far range) are needed, she can use them. Just don't think she needs them to break you.
I believe that invested players get the most out of AW (and any story game really). As Chris says, Choose how to play your character (whilst following the principles) don't let the moves and tags choose your player actions for you.
Absolutely. Even if I'm playing Dungeons and Dragons, the quickest way for me to get bored or otherwise dissatisfied is lack of connection to the character. Sure it's just a scene where we raid a dungeon, murder the inhabitants, and take their shit, but I still gotta feel my motivation, y'know?
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Sounds like you have a handle on your character Allison :) And I get your concept of a gunlugger as a 'warrior', but that's your brilliant interpretation of the playbook, are you able to bring to life via the suggestions above? Just beacuse you are an intrinsic warrior, doesn't mean that you are automatically competent with all your toys!
So what do you think about Vincent's 'technique' tag suggestion as tradeoff's to the playbook as written? Or are you happy with the way your interpretation of the gunlugger playbook stands as it is?
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Sounds like you have a handle on your character Allison :) And I get your concept of a gunlugger as a 'warrior', but that's your brilliant interpretation of the playbook, are you able to bring to life via the suggestions above? Just beacuse you are an intrinsic warrior, doesn't mean that you are automatically competent with all your toys!
So what do you think about Vincent's 'technique' tag suggestion as tradeoff's to the playbook as written? Or are you happy with the way your interpretation of the gunlugger playbook stands as it is?
Belatedly... I don't think it's too bad as is, though the technique tag was a brilliant idea on his part and we may need to begin playing with it. I did trade away my FOBG plus one serious gun and the option to take AP ammo away for getting impossible reflexes added to the Muscle's class list, so I can grab that as an in-class move (none of fuck this shit, prepared for the inevitable, or battlefield instincts really cry out to me, even though some are pretty nice, so that means I can go ahead and sink my other in-class move slot into it without worry), and NOT TO BE FUCKED WITH grants me 3-harm before bloodcrazed in battle. The only other thing I'd really be in a huge hurry for is perhaps one particular technique--we could call it "sucker punch" or "bloody knuckles"--with 2-harm hand technique or 3-harm hand technique tags, so she could hit a little harder outside of a "battle." Techniques for stuff like +ap to unarmed attacks would be cool, but aren't necessary to realize the concept (she has things she can use weapons for, but she doesn't stop being a warrior without them, and the MC can still inconvenience her with equipment loss). I'm fine with Daryl getting things like +ap or +area and the like from her equipment; I don't really need something, like, say, Miracle Moon (3-harm hand area messy technique, heals 1-harm for user if it inflicts at least 1-harm as established) here.
On the other hand, Daryl's SO, Frost, the Skinner assassin with devil with a blade, is interested in these "techniques" things. He may have gushed a little at the whirlwind of total knives and death.