Barf Forth Apocalyptica
the swamp provides => Knife & Candle => Topic started by: John Harper on June 16, 2010, 07:19:29 PM
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No rules yet, just sketching out the possibilities.
- You get into bar fights, duel dead men, and fight monsters with Dangerous.
- You surveil tattooists, decode secret writing, and search for missing persons with Watchful.
- You chat with spies, compose poetry, and mock the unworthy with Persuasive.
- You catch talking cats, purloin courier messages, and rob passers-by with Shadowy.
I have a perverse desire to make extremely simple basic moves for this hack. Even along the lines of "When you do something dangerous, roll+dangerous." A little silly maybe, but it's appealing to me at the moment.
Also, given Vincent's ideas around getting new custom moves according to your Minor Qualities, it might be smart to have very simple basic moves as a foundation.
Still pondering...
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Thanks to a chat with the clever (& stylish!) Mr. Matt Wilson, I have a better handle on things now.
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Each quality has a basic move associated with it. Here is the basic move for Persuasive.
When you're persuasive, roll+Persuasive. On a hit, you have the desired effect on them. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7-9, choose 2.:
- The effect is especially long-lasting
- The effect is far-reaching
- They are unaware of your manipulations
- Choose an item from one of your Minor Qualities, as appropriate
As you can see, your Minor Qualities factor in to these basic moves. Each Minor Quality that you earn will unlock various tools with which you can modify your basic move results. Most MQs will give you an extra item to choose when you get a hit. Some will also give you +1 forward under certain circumstances. A few are also moves in their own right, with their own rolls and outcomes (often generating hold of various sorts).
This spider's web of Qualities, Minor Qualities, outcome choices, +1s foward, and hold forms the basis for the Knife & Candle experience, which is sure to be an exciting challenge for even the most devious of players.
As an aid to memory, here is a list of Minor Qualities to be employed during play...
Daring
Heartless
Hedonist
Magnanimous
Ruthless
Subtle
Direct
Melancholy
Steadfast
Connected (various)
Voice of the Masses
Free of Surface Ties
The Darling of the Ambassador's Ball
A Survivor of the Affair of the Box
An Admirer of Art
An Admirer of Beauty
A Veteran of the Battle of Wolfstack Docks
A Scholar of the Correspondence
Master Thief
A Fearsome Duellist
A Bringer of Death
Inspired
Fascinating
Running Battle
Seeker
Investigator
Lurker
Fog-Shadow
Officer of the Troublesome Rose
Officer of the Extinguished Candle
Officer of the Midnight
... the discovery of which shall be no small challenge in itself.
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Oh yeah baby. So my beloved Connected: Bohemians gives me new options for at least my Persuasive move, and maybe for all four of my basic moves? So that my basic moves expand to incorporate my exploits? That's pretty hot.
-Vincent
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Yup.
"When you're persuasive, roll+Persuasive," sounds lame, though.
Can someone write something better sounding for the four basic moves? Okthx.
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I dunno, your examples in the OP are pretty good guidelines, and very evocative, the only trouble is that someone might view that as an exhaustive list.
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The basic moves might need a little setting color in them, is all.
When you resort to behaviour of a quite savage nature, do please roll +dangerous
When you seek the approval of others, kindly roll +persuasive
When you must skulk about, it is necessary to roll +shadowy
When you demonstrate your extraordinary powers of observation, you must certainly roll +watchful
something like that -- I urge you to consult Scott Dierdorf on such matters.
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There are so many minor qualities! And they can be so specific. Here are some of mine, for instance:
having Recurring Dreams: Is Someone There?
having Recurring Dreams: Death by Water
marked by the Eater-of-Chains
investigating the Secrets of St Dunstan's
Vermin-Free
a Finder of Heiresses
an Annoyance to Jack-of-Smiles
exacting the Urchins' Vengeance
an agent of the Cheesemonger
an Occasional Guest at Mr Wines' Revels
I think we'll need good rules for the MC to create these on the fly. Creating a whole from-scratch custom move every time probably isn't workable, but I bet something like gear tags would work, or gigs' profit and catastrophe. A quick and intuitively-named set of small-scale moves, for mixing and matching.
These don't mean anything, but this is the kind of thing I'm imagining:
having recurring dreams: Is Someone There?
dreams 1-menace escalating intermittent
marked by the Eater-of-Chains
flesh-corruption 2-menace slow-burn triggered
So for the MC, creating a new one would mean assembling a selection of tags, like creating a new weapon, not going straight into the custom move deep end.
-Vincent
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Oh wait, I lost the thread of the thread. THIS is what we were talking about:
marked by the Eater-of-Chains
To dangerous 7-9, add:
* You bite your opponent for 1-harm 1-dismay.
investigating the Secrets of St Dunstan's
To watchful's list of questions, add:
* Does this have the feel of St Dunstan's about it?
...Which remains super hot, and better than what I just said before.
-Vincent
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I have no idea what this Knife and Candle business is, but the minor qualities are really hot.
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Yeah, Vincent, that's the stuff.
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I have no idea what this Knife and Candle business is, but the minor qualities are really hot.
Me either, but the bits and pieces sure are tantalizing!
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This is fucking amazing.
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Ooh! I recognize this!
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This is probably not constructive in any way, but I had to share:
I had tea with rats! And it increased both persuasive and dangerous! That is fucking cool.
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This is so intensely packed with awesome that I just got a little lightheaded. I approve.
I think the best thing is that it will clearly appeal to people who haven't ever played the original game. Hell, Shreyas just started playing based on reading about this hack.
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Hey do you have any ideas yet about how you might acquire qualities? Mechanically speaking.
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Hey do you have any ideas yet about how you might acquire qualities? Mechanically speaking.
I was thinking about asking that same question. Perhaps build it in to the moves? so on a 10+ you get the option to increase/add a minor quality associated with that stat?
Any which way this is well hot. I got in to the original game when this was mentioned as well.
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Yeah, ditto on the hack getting me interested in the game. I gotta say, as much fun as the browser game is, I'm more excited about playing the hack.
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yeah, the browser game is pretty simplistic in it's nature. What's really great about it is actually what's really great about the fluff-derived-from-play thing: Going in to the game I knew next to nothing about the world. The more stuff you do, the more you find out about the world. I mean, Hearing about the Starveling Kitty is very different from actually know what it's all about, if'n ye ken.
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I totally agree! Discovering what the world is about is easily the majority of the fun.
Now, that leads me to a question about the hack (might be getting off topic from Basic moves, but heck). In standard AW, you 'barf forth apocalyptica' both as a player and an MC and together you create your own version of the post-apocalyptic world and what that means. I figure most people today have a pretty easy time coming up with the right kinds of color and situation for that. But what about a surreal fantastic under-London? Is that going to require more specific setting material, or just a more involved guide on how to come up with stuff? Cos I for one don't quite feel like I can come up with content as fun and flavorful as what Echo Bazaar is laying out there for me.
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You're selling yourself short - the content for Echo Bazaar is crowd-sourced to some degree.
If you payed Echo Bazaar for a day or so, that would give you enough of a taste to be able to come up with that stuff with four or five like minded friends.
Coming up with good Apocalyptica isn't always easy either, but the looseness of the setting material let's you have horses or land speeders or sand worms. So, I imagine that Knife & Candle could like just like Echo Bazaar, or maybe like A/state, or maybe like some other steam-punk silliness.