Barf Forth Apocalyptica

barf forth apocalyptica => Apocalypse World => Topic started by: Shreyas on August 21, 2010, 10:03:34 PM

Title: sell me on weird
Post by: Shreyas on August 21, 2010, 10:03:34 PM
So, like, think about this:

You bump into a dude on your way home, and drop your bag. It sticks in your mind because he was dressed exactly like you were. Later when you're in your place, you look in the bag and it turns out to be a very precise replica of yours, all the stains and patches in the right places, but there are no holes under the patches, and the stains smell like paint instead of blood and grease. It's full of things that look like your things, but aren't: an empty locket, a notebook well-beaten on the outside but filled with blank pages, a penknife without a sharpened edge.

There's also a small pile of drawings. The fortune's worth of paper notwithstanding, they are shocking: they're beautiful, meticulously observed scenes from your life. You remember that oddly-shaped vegetable you found at the market the other day. You remember your struggle to find pins to hang all your clothes on the line. These are the works of a genius artist. Only, in all the drawings, he's in the picture instead of you.

That's weird!

It's at the root of the Weird stat, too: all the Weird-focused playbooks are about the basic not-okayness of humans. The Brainer is every abusive girlfriend ever—the Hocus is every quack faith healer and BS-spewing TV preacher.

But they've got powers for some reason!

I dunno why that is. It seems to put a lot of unnecessary distance between their weirdness and their emotional importance. Plus, opening your brain is just kinda weird. I dunno. Why does the Weird stat give you crazy powers? Why doesn't it just, say, allow you to overstep your social inhibitions?
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: benhimself on August 22, 2010, 03:39:25 AM
To some people, awesome supernatural powers are a plus, not a minus. I personally look at Brainer and think "Fuck yeah creepy psychics!" not "Fuck yeah dysfunctional relationships!" regardless of how impressively brainers model the latter using the former. (Like how Deep Brain Scan isn't mind reading, it just lets you know how they're vulnerable and weak, and leaves it up to you as to how to use that information, and how Puppet Strings isn't mind control, it's an ultimatum.)

I mean, if you're not a fan, you're not a fan. But I don't think weird was intended to model human brokenness, and just happened to accidentally get attached to a bunch of supernatural powers. I think it's the supernatural-powers ability, and that's just an interpretation of it that you would much rather see, yeah? It'd definitely be an interesting hack I wouldn't mind seeing, though.
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Elizabeth on August 22, 2010, 08:26:21 AM
I feel like Weird is basically using Something Else's Sharp.
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: eggdropsoap on August 22, 2010, 12:11:57 PM
To my mind, using weird is hooking into the same thing(s) that make(s) the psychic maelstrom even possible. How do you feel about the maelstrom, given your misgivings about weird?
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Shreyas on August 22, 2010, 07:54:14 PM
But I don't think weird was intended to model human brokenness, and just happened to accidentally get attached to a bunch of supernatural powers.
I'm not sure it was accidental! I dunno. Vincent? If it's not an accident it seems rather striking that the pattern is so strong—angels are the only weird-heavy splat I can think of that aren't socially dysfunctional by definition, and they're weird-secondary, right?

I do generally find the psychic maelstrom to be the least interesting part of the game. It often seems too easy to me when a character opens his brain rather than doing some challenging legwork.
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Chris on August 22, 2010, 08:22:16 PM
I do generally find the psychic maelstrom to be the least interesting part of the game. It often seems too easy to me when a character opens his brain rather than doing some challenging legwork.

That's why you have to bring it, as a MC, when they miss a open your brain. You've got to make the hardest of moves.

And the questions you have to answer, whether you succeed or not? Make 'em count.

I love the maelstrom not just as flavor. It's the part of the setting that explains things. It:

•  Reveals something to someone.
•  Displays something for all to see.
•  Hides something.
•  Bars the way.
•  Opens the way.
•  Provides another way.
•  Shifts, moves, rearranges.
•  Offers a guide.
•  Presents a guardian.
•  Disgorges something.
•  Takes something away: lost, used up, destroyed.

...at least in my game. It's not the driving force of the game; it's a spotlight on the rest of it. It cuts, mutilates, refashions the characters preconceptions of what's happened, what is happening, or what's going to happen.
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Motipha on August 23, 2010, 11:57:26 AM
Is this a chicken/egg thing?  I mean, I tend to think those characters are at least in part socially dysfunctional because they are so heavily hooked in to the psychic maelstrom.  It's hard to remember which fork is for the salad when you have a three hundred pound toad in a top hat and the face of your first lover sitting in the center of the table telling you in exquisite detail every lustful thought that passes through the minds of any of the guests.

To me, it's part of what makes the world not-this-one.  it's one of the in-built unanswered questions of the setting, and Weird is how much it has to do with you in particular.

I would also point out that social dysfunction is not only a thing for the Weird-heavy characters.  Sure, the Hardholder, Chopper, Operator and Skinner need to at least function societaly, but that doesn't mean they aren't dysfunctional as hell.  And Battle Babes and Drivers don't strike me as "normal."  Rob Bohl played a fantastic dysfunctional battle babe in our Gencon game.

Besides,  the player doesn't get to ask the Maelstrom anything.  it isn't an option for them to go looking for specific information, it's a chance for the MC to root around and find something fun.  They probably are hoping for something in particular when they do open their mind, and I'm likely to give them something to help them, but I might just throw them another direction altogether.

Ah, here's what I didn't say directly:  The higher someones weird is, the more I throw weird stuff at them.  Just because you didn't voluntarily open you mind to the Maelstrom doesn't mean you can't hear it.  Like hearing people in the hallway outside your door.  The higher your score, the better your ears (or the thinner the door).
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: DannyK on August 23, 2010, 04:04:18 PM
I dunno Shreyas, if you took away the psychic powers, the Brainer would just be a creepy guy in inappropriate clothing.

I actually think Vincent is doing the Lacuna thing and giving us ill-fitting jigsaw puzzle pieces to keep us working to fit them together, but here's my take on it:
The angel, the savvyhead and the brainer are all linked to mastery of things that the pre-apocalyptic oldtimers took for granted: medicine, machines, the mind.  Now all those things are tweaked and broken, just like the world and the psychic landscape. And that's what Weird is all about, shards of the broken past.
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Shreyas on August 23, 2010, 08:17:57 PM
I love the maelstrom not just as flavor. It's the part of the setting that explains things. It:

(cut)
What I'm saying is that the maelstrom doesn't enable any of that stuff. As an MC I can still do that stuff without psychic silliness. I am not disabled (in the sense of, I do not lose ability) by the loss of the maelstrom. It's not elegant.

I think it would be better for the Brainer to just be a guy in creepy inappropriate clothing. I mean, that guy is here, now, and he creeps me the fuck out. You see him at Dreamation. You see him at Gencon. You see him at the mall sometimes. There's no need to give him sparkly brain-magic because he's already consumed by obsession and delusion. It just distances the players from the truth of his condition.

ps, I think the big difference between, say, a Skinner and a Brainer is that the Brainer is obliged to be dysfunctional, whereas the Skinner isn't.
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: PeterBB on August 23, 2010, 09:34:22 PM
Yeah, but then you'd have a game which didn't have creepy psychic powers in it.

This strikes me as obviously a matter of preference. You can't argue that the Brainer really is just a creepy guy, and that the powers just distract from that. The Brainer is the Brainer, and removing his powers would make him a fundamentally different character, albeit one that you might enjoy more.

Personally, I like the psychic maelstrom a lot. It adds a really nice weird edge to things, and makes the player characters even more fucking hot.

You, apparently, would prefer a more mundane game. That's fine. In fact, I could really see myself enjoying that game too. It would take substantial work to make AW more grounded, but you could do it and it might be awesome.
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Paul B on August 23, 2010, 09:46:54 PM
First post woot!

So I've only played a couple sessions so far but, in our game with a Brainer, the Brainer is definitely a creepy outcast. Some of that I think is emergent from the sorts of power/influence he has in the game. Puppet strings isn't something a "normal" person would find any use for. It's abusive and awful and, well, creepy. I'm not sure a high-Weird character would otherwise be so creepy without something (read: mechanical) in the game to facilitate/prompt that behavior.
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Mike Sands on August 23, 2010, 10:26:10 PM
Aside:

On the "brainers are always creepy" front, I looked at the possibilities and worked out that you can make one without any really nasty brain powers.

You take the +1 weird move and the "use weird to read a person" move, deep-ear plugs and brain relay for gear. This gives you someone who is very good at reading people and opening their brain, but who could otherwise be perfectly normal (as much as anyone is normal in Apocalypse World, anyhow).
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Orion on August 24, 2010, 03:10:08 AM
Mike,

Considering that anyone can get 2 moves from another playbook, I really don't see the point in rolling up that character as a Brainer.  If you're never taking any further Brainer moves, I imagine you're jumping ship to another career ASAP.  So you take 2 moves form other playbooks, then... what?  Moonlighting and +2 Hard?  Why not just start out in whatever playbook you would be taking moves from and take the necessary brainer moves from there? 

An angel with one advance can have +3 Sharp and Sixth Sense, which duplicates the trick.

A starting driver with Weather Eye has +2 on those rolls, plus all the awesome driving. 

A hocus can start with Wacknut and take Receptivity as his first advance. 

The bottom line is, the intuitive psychic concept is great for AW, but not for the brainer playbook. 
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: eggdropsoap on August 24, 2010, 12:03:40 PM
Because then you're not The Brainer, your The Driver or The Angel or whatever. It's not just about mechanics.

Besides, on the mechanical side, you can't roll+sharp instead of weird for anything except opening your brain with Sixth Sense/Weather Eye, so that subtle Brainer design would still be the master of every other weird circumstance.
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Matt Wilson on August 24, 2010, 01:52:01 PM
Shreyas, I don't understand this thread at all.

This is like going to a Star Wars forum and saying "Sell me on the Force."
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Paul B on August 24, 2010, 02:09:12 PM
I sort of get it.

In the real world there are weird people, and those weird people are outcasts because they have lousy social skills, poor hygiene, personality hangups. Something's fundamentally wired up a little different in them. So it sounds to me like Shreyas is asking "why do these fundamentally miswired people get cool magical powers? Why aren't they just weird?"

I guess I'd come at it a few ways.

For one, it might be a chicken/egg thing. In AW, cool powerz might be what *make* you weird. Not that being weird makes you powerful.

For another, and I prefer this one, there aren't a lot of good ways in an RPG to model what it's like inside the head of a truly weird/miswired person. Personally I think mystical empowerment is a pretty good way to get at that. I mean not to put too fine a point on it or spread gamer shame/hate but look at your (stereo)typical fanboy: He really does believe he's smarter, better informed, more creative, whatever. And he believes this while he repels the "mundanes," can't maintain a conversation, apparently can't/won't maintain basic hygiene, can't look you in the eye. So I guess I'm not sure how to get at that head space without extrapolating that maybe weird people really are better/smarter/more powerful...and then give them really gross, unsuitable power that normal people would have no interest in.
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Chris on August 24, 2010, 02:36:51 PM
Shreyas, I don't understand this thread at all.

This is like going to a Star Wars forum and saying "Sell me on the Force."

Yeah, or why does it need all those space ships in it?

If "weird = analogy for real world dysfunction" is actually a "statement" Vincent's trying to make through the game, and I'm not saying it is or isn't, then saying "Why make weird into fantastic powers?" is just like saying "Why does Lord of the Rings have all that fantasy shit? Why not just write a book about industry and get it over with?"

It seems to be against metaphor and analogy in general.
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Shreyas on August 24, 2010, 11:15:49 PM
Shreyas, I don't understand this thread at all.

This is like going to a Star Wars forum and saying "Sell me on the Force."

Yeah, or why does it need all those space ships in it?
Well, if you don't get the question you don't get the question. Why are you trying to answer the question?

It seems like the answer is, universally, "To make socially dysfunctional people okay," which kinda squicks me out, so...thanks guys. I guess I get Weird and I just...don't like it at all. I appreciate your trying.
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Hans Chung-Otterson on August 24, 2010, 11:31:28 PM
I think Weird is the way it is because Vincent designed the Brainer first, and said that it was good, and we (all, sort of) know that it is good.

But I'd like to hear Vincent's opinion on this matter.
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: benhimself on August 24, 2010, 11:43:14 PM
It seems like the answer is, universally, "To make socially dysfunctional people okay," which kinda squicks me out, so...thanks guys. I guess I get Weird and I just...don't like it at all. I appreciate your trying.

See, that's not what I'm saying at all. I can't speak for everyone, but, y'know, I'm a scifi/fantasy fan. I admit it: I want lasers on my sharks, sometimes, so the inclusion of weird psychic shit in my post-apocalyptic brew hits me just right. Look at Visions of Death on the Battlebabe and Healing Touch on the Angel. It's not about creating "distance" in either of those cases (at least, I don't see it); it's just about adding color to the setting. And the weird splats, like the Brainer, the Hocus, the entire world's psychic maelstrom, it's all about embracing that color full on and giving it a big wet sloppy one.

I think it's not that people are trying to answer the question without understanding it. I think it's about trying to understand the question so they can answer it. I mean, you're asking "Why weird shit?", and most of everyone else is just saying "Why not?" Which, to be fair, isn't really an answer. But what makes a socially dysfunctional person with psychic powers worse than a socially dysfunctional person with some knives and a gun?
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Daniel Wood on August 25, 2010, 03:05:42 AM
It seems like the answer is, universally, "To make socially dysfunctional people okay," which kinda squicks me out, so...

If by 'okay' you mean 'powerful', sure. If by 'okay' you mean 'socially acceptable' or 'capable of genuine human relationships' or any of the other things you might consider important, then I really don't see it.

Their abilities give them a prominent place in Apocalypse World -- a place on par with the other playbooks -- and some ability to make a different as to how that world turns out. The fact that these sort of people have more power in Apocalypse World seems completely in line with the general thematic set up -- that Apocalypse World fucking sucks, especially if you're trying not to be a shitty person. Brainers have an even harder time not being shitty people, because that's where their power comes from. I don't think it really makes them okay, though.
 
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Chris on August 25, 2010, 08:29:55 AM
Shreyas, I don't understand this thread at all.

This is like going to a Star Wars forum and saying "Sell me on the Force."

Yeah, or why does it need all those space ships in it?
Well, if you don't get the question you don't get the question. Why are you trying to answer the question?

It seems like the answer is, universally, "To make socially dysfunctional people okay," which kinda squicks me out, so...thanks guys. I guess I get Weird and I just...don't like it at all. I appreciate your trying.

Nah, I get the question fine. It's just not a fair question. The whole "makes socially dysfunctional people okay" is not anywhere in the thread. Literally no one said that. I don't know where you're getting that.

The answer really is "because".

Why make Superman fly?

Why does Firefly have to happen in space? It's clearly a western.

It's because this is a roleplaying game and the designer of the game likes those elements, so they are in there. Coming along after and trying to make value assertions based off of that decision is just sort of meaningless.

Like people have said before in the thread, most of the other classes that are not weird based also have social dysfunction. So "weird = social dysfunction", which is sort of the basis of this whole thread, is not a particularly apt statement.
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: lumpley on August 25, 2010, 08:59:28 AM
Chris is right. Shreyas is winding you guys up, and you're falling for it. It's his way!
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: eggdropsoap on August 25, 2010, 01:33:55 PM
I actually see the social dysfunction and weird powers as separate things arising from the same source: It's Apocalypse World. There is no status quo. Everything and everyone is broken, from the people to the world.

Social dysfunction doesn't give anyone superpowers, nor do the superpowers make people dysfunctional. The fact that the ground and air is poisoned, the food is dangerous and scarce, the sun is broken in the sky, the minds of the dead are eating the minds of the survivors, water is as likely to hydrate as it is to infect with puppet-string parasites… those are why people are dysfunctional.

Those are also why some of those dysfunctional people happen to be able to do some weird shit.

So the question, given that pile of badness, is: What do you do?
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: DannyK on August 25, 2010, 03:15:55 PM
<-->
This is me sending silent mind control beams encouragement to Shreyas to write a hack of AW which highlights dysfunctional people without weird powers of any kind.  I'd totally like to see that.

I am also looking forward to seeing the Brainer PC in my game blowing people up with his mind, Scanners-style.
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Brand Robins on August 25, 2010, 07:12:15 PM
Because Gandhi was weird.

No, seriously. Dude was fucking wacknuts. Went about sleeping next to half naked 14 year old girls, encouraging people who hung blindly on his every word to get the shit kicked out of them, called the nation that tried to kill him "his greatest lover", starved himself, corresponded with Hitler, and.. wait for it... claimed he had magical powers. The magical powers to see through the pain of the world and find something really true beyond it, and once grasping that real truth, make the world better.

Plus, dhoti+glasses is a weird look.

I'm pretty sure I could do a quite accurate Gandhi as a Hocus.

Lets see here:

Name: Bright
Look: Man, tattered vestments, ascetic face, clear eyes, bony body

Cool +1
Hard +1
Hot -1
Sharp +1
Weird +2

Fortunes (Your students, congregate in their own communities, eager & enthusiastic, dedicated, violence, judgement)
Charismatic
Frenzy (just never use it for violence)

Get an advance and probably take Fucking Wacknut and maybe pick up Oftener Right or Spooky Intense. (You can't take the Hardholder because Nehru snatched it.)
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Margolotte on August 25, 2010, 11:08:34 PM
Brand, I think I love that.
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Brand Robins on August 29, 2010, 07:18:57 PM
Another one occurred to me today, as I was reflecting on how I'm very tired of the "Brainer as abusive ex" stance for Brainers.

Sigmund Freud was weird. Deeply. Dude spent a year dissecting eels trying to find their private parts. He got hooked on cocaine, thought we all wanted to fuck our mothers, had followers who would get deeply involved in (and deeply influence) the occult,  believed that 90% of people were sexually abused by their parents when they were children (and later thought that wasn't true, its just that we wanted to be sexually abused by our parents when we were children) and thought that without the help of special people, people who could see through dreams and deep, painful examination of the recesses of our minds, none of us could be fully happy in life. Which, of course, gave him all sorts of reasons to ask girls with histories of inappropriate sexual behavior questions about what turned them on.

Plus, he invented Penis Envy. No, serious. Dude was weird.

Maybe he also helped some people.

So, Freud the Brainer:

Name: Brace
Look: Man, high formal wear, plump moist face, soft eyes, soft body
Stats: Cool +1, Hard -2, Hot -1, Sharp +2, Weird +2
Moves: Deep Brain Scan ("tell me about your mother"), Preternatural at-will Brain attunement.

Get a couple advances and pick up Casual Brain Receptivity to get all Sherlock Holmes on people's psyche's, and (as with Ghandi) Oftener Right is going to be up your ally. Lots of Angel moves are going to be sweet too.


Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Matt Wilson on August 30, 2010, 08:43:26 AM
Freud would normally just have +1 weird, but he's the only person in the holding -- and maybe in the world we know -- who speaks with that weird accent.

"I sink I know vaht vee kin doo about ze raiders."

"Dude, what? Sink? You're weird."
Title: Re: sell me on weird
Post by: Jim Crocker on September 11, 2010, 09:37:55 PM
After a read-through of the book and several descriptions on people's games, it sure seems like the maelstrom is there so that it's possible to 'complete the game'.

If the world is inevitably dying a prolonged and painful death, there's not a lot of fun in that at the end of the day. If there's a mysterious thing out there, no matter how remote or alien or difficult to access or understand, that if we could understand it, and figure out how it works, we might just, maybe, be able to somehow do something and FIX it, well... you've just taken a depressing dark social tragedy and made it into a darkly humorous superhero
game.

For me: 'Weird' powers and the maelstrom are the ultimate dangling carrot: the possibility that you can save the world. I'm sold.

Shreyas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_2000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_2000)   : )

-Jim C.