Barf Forth Apocalyptica

barf forth apocalyptica => Apocalypse World => Topic started by: Judd on October 17, 2010, 04:07:51 PM

Title: Just Outside the City: Rabid Bikers and a Violent Wedding
Post by: Judd on October 17, 2010, 04:07:51 PM
My favorite scene, Prologue:

Rubbin is growing up so damned fast, 15 year old girls are like that and since she had been adopted by Bullet, she's kinda blossomed.  The Driver, turns out, is a decent dad and since he took over West Point she eats well and is learning from Fitty the art of the gun and learning some driving from Mr. Bullet.

So yeah, when one of the Road Demons cornered her behind the garage at Pole and told her what he planned on doing to her once she fell asleep, she took out her sawed off shotgun and put two in his chest.  The Demons' leader, Monk is a savage monster in charge of 40 other savage monsters.  When Bullet read a person he found that all Monk wanted was for Bullet to suck his dick and give him all of his shit, which was what he basically wanted from every person left on the damned planet.

And Rubbin had just killed one of Monk's boys.  Bullet gave her a look, a look that said, "You done right but doing right has a price and you might have to pay it."  So, she backed away slowly while Monk cradled the boy's head in his lap and got into Bullet's car, the vette with the machine guns mounted on the roof.

Bullet heard the vette's engine fire up.  Rubbin gunned the car outta town, lighting up the machine guns in the midst of the Road Demons bikes, fucking up many of them and cutting their mechanic in half.  Bullet managed to get a hold of the door and crawled through, getting dragged along the road.

They got away up to Kip-town, where Baby could deal with Monk and his pissed off crew.

Next up: Bullet's, Baby's and Dent's intro moves and violence at the wedding.
Title: Re: Just Outside the City: Rabid Bikers and a Violent Wedding
Post by: Judd on October 17, 2010, 10:14:53 PM
Quote
Dear Bullet,

Man, autumn is just flying by.  The clock is ticking and when it hits 12, it'll be winter.  You have time to get a few things done, but not everything done and shit, things might just go wrong.

Roll +sharp on a 10+ choose 3 to have ready to roll before winter.

On a 7-9, choose 1 and you can bust your ass trying to get any of the rest to happen in-game but it is going to be rough...getting Apoc Worlders together is like herding fucking cats.

On a miss, its all in the air, half done and the game is going to start rough, really rough.

You have the barter stowed, the crew gathered and the roads cleared from West Point to the city.  Time for some fucking high horsepower commerce.  Let's roll...

You have bedded a fine lady, a classy older gal who used to be a biker mama but her man got killed on a run into the city two years back or so.  She takes care of ya and Rubbin seems to like her well enough.

West Point is solid,+1 armor should the hold be attacked because its such a solid ole fort.

You managed to put a spy among the Garden-...among the fucking cannibals.  He sends back word via Gams every week or so about their plans, problems and movements.

Sincerely,
The MC

He rolled 10+ and chose:
Title: Re: Just Outside the City: Rabid Bikers and a Violent Wedding
Post by: Judd on October 17, 2010, 10:34:32 PM
Favorite Scene, Epilogue:

Everyone is at the wedding.  Everyone (but not the cannibals because...ya know) and things are going alright.

I ask the host, Bullet, to roll under fire to keep things relatively peaceful.  He rolls the blessed 7-9.

"The Road Demons aren't acting up yet but they are on the prowl.  They are looking for a target and unless they get one, they are going to make one, still sore about the way things went with Rubbin killing a few of their members and icing half of their bikes and then Baby shooting their leader and sending him into the octopus-infested Hudson."

This leads to a discussion about the various biker gangs and who here could hold their own against them.  Nothing works.  Bullet Reads a Sitch.

"Well, they'd be open to some kind of non-lethal combat and their leader, Rose, is not much bigger than Rubbin."

Yeah, Bullet talks to Rubbin, suggests that she goes up to Rose, drop her gun-belt and challenge her to a fight, hand-to-hand.  Rubbin still feels guilty about killing the Road Demon.  It caused a lot of trouble and more than that, it got Chase killed.  She had been sleeping with Chase on and off and felt really shitty about leaving him for the Road Demons after she had shot them up.

Rubbin wants to talk to Baby first and when Bullet says that he'll talk to Baby for her, Rubbin acts like a 15 year old.  "I want to talk to her, dammit, I am the one about to fight!"

"Okay, okay, jeez."

Baby nods, liking the girl's spunk and hands her a crowbar (her gang-member, Crowbar, always seems to have one or two on him).

So, Rubbin walks up to Rose, get's in her face right in front of her bows and drops her gun-belt, wielding the crowbar.  Rose smiles, loving the idea of a crowbar duel with the little fucking privileged bitch who got her old man killed, who shot up her gang's bikes and their mechanic and shotgunned one of their boys to start the whole thing off just because he wanted to have a little fun with her orifices.

Ya see, Baby thought Rubbin would just brain Rose with the crowbar when she wasn't looking and Bullet thought the fair fight would just be hand to hand.  She mixed the two bits of advice from the two people she looked up to most.  It is one of those classic Apocalypse World parenting mistakes that anyone could make and it led to their teenage adopted daughter into a crowbar duel with a bloodthirsty gang leader.

To resolve the duel, I had KK roll a d6.  1-3, would be Rubbin's win, 4-6 would be Rose's win.  I could see the looks in their eyes, the fear.  They were kind of hoping that Rubbin would win and maybe take control of the gang...maybe.

6.

Oops.

Rubbin put all of her strength into one shot and Rose was waiting for just that.  She laid her crowbar across her wrists, then across her head, then a few times into her ribs before anyone could stop her.

Flo, the nurse from Kip-town was there because, ya know, everyone
 was there.  A concussion, both wrists broken and 4 broken ribs.  She'll live but it won't be pretty.

They set up with Rubbin all night and told her how proud they were of her.

This got Dent pretty angry, so he Seized the Gang By Force, killing Rose and the entire top echelon of the gang.  Now they're Dent's (which is a bit weird, because technically they are Baby's hardhold gang but we'll sort that out).

"They're savage?  Good, we'll have a good time in Cannibal Country."

When (ug)Lee and Dent got back to their place after the wedding, she asked to see the face of her husband.  He blockaded the room, throwing furniture against the doors as if zombies might attack.  Then he took off his helmet and took off the rag on his head and after that, he snuffed out the candle in the room.

It was a helluva wedding.
Title: Re: Just Outside the City: Rabid Bikers and a Violent Wedding
Post by: noofy on October 18, 2010, 12:45:01 AM
Damn Judd, I wish I could play just one session with you... mate,  I'd learn some serious MC shit.
Pure Awesomeness. I really, really like the way you tie the letters to the fronts and embroil the players in their characters scenes from the get go. No waiting in the wings in your group, it seems everyone is champing at the bit to have some of the spotlight!

Just a question. Why'd you go with the die of fate for the duel? I know that's what the rules suggest, but could you somehow tie a character's move to the outcome? I mean, I guess I see the inherant tension highlighted with a 50/50 toss, especially since the intent and stakes were fairly well stated, but would there have been a peripheral move of some sort for Baby or Bullett that would influence the result?

The reason for asking is that in my game, it appears we may be one-on-one for a few sessions more and I'm predicting some dustups are inevitable that involve Integral 'Hx' NPCs that I just don't want to have in my crosshairs all the time. I'd like to let dice decide as focused through the lens of the sole protagonist's moves.

Have you had many of these 'witnessed' NPC conflicts? Did you resolve them all via a single die as suggested in the rules?

Brilliant fiction by the way, you and your crew are to be congratulated!
Title: Re: Just Outside the City: Rabid Bikers and a Violent Wedding
Post by: Judd on October 18, 2010, 01:09:46 AM
Thanks for the kind words, Noofy.

I went with the die of fate because they set Rubbin against a hardened biker with crowbars and at that point, they were helpless to do anything but watch.  There was nothing to be done and I kinda wanted that feeling reflected in the dice.  If one of them had taken her aside and given her some martial advice or read a sitch on her behalf or something, I might have allowed a helping roll to effect the die of fate, as you aptly called it but no one did.

Shit went poorly but not that poorly.

Other than that, I haven't had any other NPC vs. NPC fights that I can recall.
Title: Re: Just Outside the City: Rabid Bikers and a Violent Wedding
Post by: Judd on October 23, 2010, 10:47:59 AM
A couple of little things:

Baby having the Kipsie's parent's brains stuck in her brain feels like a big deal.  Her new boyfriend mentioned that the patriarch of the McGillicutty clan was good with this psychic crap but he's in their fortress in the Green Mountains.  She was considering heading up there with the next Green Mountain Boy convoy but was loath to leave the town in other's hands.

When she was trying to struggle to get a hold of them, she effed up a roll and they took control a bit, causing her to come to with a smoking gun in her hands and Dancer dead at her feet.  No one knows why she did it, including her gang and when they asked her, she mumbled something about a death-bed promise she made to the Kipsie's parents.

I haven't made up the fronts up north but had an envoy from Albany stop down anyway.  Mrs. Washington runs things up there but she won't be visiting anytime soon.  She has heard about what happens to hardholders who run into Baby and quite frankly, the chopper gang leader has a rep all over the Hudson River Valley as a cold killer, especially now that she has two more people stuck in her brain.

Bullet is the one people go to when they are worried and need someone to talk to Baby.  He has a rep for being fairly reasonable.  "Sure he killed Toyota but all in all, he's being a decent dad-figure to that orphan, Rubbin."

"Rubbin, the one whose family he killed in a road race?"

"Yeah, that's her."

I reckon we will get in one more game to represent the autumn prep before winter and then get into the cold, scarce winter.

I want to write something about the game bits that are making the game go.  It feels like folks rolling 7-9 and the words savage as a gang descriptor have been the two big bits of MC Move Fuel for me this game.
Title: Re: Just Outside the City: Rabid Bikers and a Violent Wedding
Post by: Jeff Russell on October 23, 2010, 11:39:42 AM
 

I want to write something about the game bits that are making the game go.  It feels like folks rolling 7-9 and the words savage as a gang descriptor have been the two big bits of MC Move Fuel for me this game.

Wow, yeah, was 'savage' ever a story-driver in my game. Players will really go nuts with how savage their guys are, and it's permission to you to have their NPCs do things in a far more horrible way than they expected. On the other hand, not having any 7-9's or worse on initial situation rolls had me stumbling around a bit.