Barf Forth Apocalyptica
barf forth apocalyptica => Apocalypse World => Topic started by: Ardhanari on January 25, 2013, 02:43:47 AM
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Here's my Apocalypse World hack for the Mass Effect universe/setting. The actual crunch stuff is on the "wiki" tab.
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/mass-effect-apocalypse
Game is still "in planning" so feedback here or on the site is appreciated.
Design notes: I wanted to preserve the variety of "combat/tech/biotic" powers from the games without flooding the game with complication. All those powers are moves, but the moves are comparatively narrow, and tend to hang strongly off of the "Optional Battle Moves." Players choose their "Class" moves for combat purposes and their "Personal" moves to give them background and flavor. Most of the Apocalypse World moves have been reskinned and turned into Personal Moves (or species moves, or whatnot).
I went for uniformity in Hx generation and advancement, and made it a more traditional "species/class" generation rather than a stack of discrete playbooks. I tried to keep the number of "killer combos" to a minimum :) But AW is not a game that rewards the min-maxer very well, so I can't say I'm all that concerned about it.
I divorced "special moves" from sex, and grounded them in full-on character motivation (which can, certainly, involve sex).
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Looks really good! Using obsidian portal works wonderfully, it's a beautiful interface. I'd love to hear more as you playtest this.
I especialy like the MC special move you give to each player, that's sick!!
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Also, I would consider moving Consult Training to a Will based move. As it stands Sharp has three basic moves under it and that seems like too many. Will should remain relevant and tempting.
You could consider adding a little bonus for using Consult Training as well, like a +1 forward for hitting the roll. This is what I did in my Star Wars hack and it seems to be a nice motivator for players to choose this move over Read a Sitch. As always, just a thought.
Also, LOVE racial moves, they are clean and evocative. Great idea. I want to play an Asari Adept somethin' fierce! You need to set up a google hangout playtest session sometime. :)
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Hello! Me again. Tee hee. If you'd like some help designing a character sheet, I have been making a few for my hacks. Let me know.
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Hey, thanks for the feedback. :)
I would absolutely love any character-sheet feedback you care to make, as I suck at graphic design and character sheets (as the crappy word docs I have up there can attest) :)
Here's a glimpse into my thought process on Consult Training. The reason I made Consult Training a Sharp-based roll is less to do with tallying the number of moves used for each Stat as the underlying function each stat serves in Apocalypse World.
Hard = Physical altercation and threats
Hot = Social altercation
Cool = All-purpose stress-test
Sharp = Setup-moves and Info gathering
Weird/Will = Specialty stat for setting-specific outcomes
Since Consult Training is basically a "clue-generator" move (kind of like Open your Brain), and is generally rolled only if someone needs a clue that can't be found via Read a Sitch or Read a Person, it seemed more like a "sub-move" of Read a Sitch and therefore putting it under Sharp didn't seem like that big a deal.
Also, since advancement isn't tied to rolling "highlighted stats" it doesn't really matter if Sharp has an extra move to it, especially since, functionally, it's not that different from the other two Sharp moves, just more situational.
I'll take a tangent moment to discuss the "highlighted stats" thing. I've played in and run many games that try to tie character advancement to frequency of die-rolling, or dice rolls tied to certain types of rolls, and they never work. Inevitably, you have characters who happen to advance super fast and others who move at a glacial pace. I find tying experience gain to failed rolls to be a much more elegant solution. When a player fails a roll, they already know that the MC is going to be there with a hard move, at least they get to mark a consolation Experience and "learn from their mistake" :)
Since I have so many narrower combat-focused "Class" moves that hang off the "Optional Battle Moves", I too wonder how this will work in actual play. Heh. We'll have to see. Sadly, my gaming schedule is such that I won't have an open evening / slot to start actually running this for a few more months... which is one reason I figured I'd solicit community feedback to see if I can keep tinkering :)
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I had some time to kill at work so I made up an Engineer character sheet. Let me know what you think. I can easily port the other classes over once you find a layout design you like.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/eimh4ii97dgr499/Mass%20Effect%20Sheet%20Engineer.pdf
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That is so much more awesome than my crappy word docs :) I like the Sci-Fi-style box borders.
It could probably use more space for moves, but that could probably be handled with just a few columns of fancy box-bordered empty space on a second page or something. Hmm... maybe something as simple as moving the Advancement box to the middle column where the starting Class Move is now, and leaving the entire right-hand column for moves so you don't have to break up the Moves box in two pieces?
Also, the stat should be Will and not Weird :)
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Try the link now and let me know if you like this more. :)
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Awesome :)
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Shall I make the other 5 for you? The margins should be tighter when I render them at home. I have limited software here at work.
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I think that would rock, and you would be a rock star if you did that, and I would totally credit you on the links to such sheets when I put them on the Obsidian Portal site.
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Here's a link to the powerpoint files, the pdfs and your word sheets. In case you need to do any edits it's available for you to do. :) Enjoy mate.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4z4ah6nm1zyypxp/KXGb8Bqatw
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Thanks a lot :)
One of these days when I have some more spare time and I think I've achieved a more-or-less stable beta, I think I'll lift all the info from the Obsidian Portal site and put it into a single, more easily-shared document for other folks on this forum to download conveniently and tinker with. I realized that while Obsidian Portal is very convenient for my purposes of constant editing and tinkering, it's not very useful for other folks that might want to use the hack or a variant on it.
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Really dig what I see so far, nice work!
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Would love to see all of your info pulled out and put on paper.
I would to help translate this into a PDF.
Here is what I have so far for 'Hood.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9Hhx1yXlz-OaG1fa0lPMjlsTkU/edit?usp=sharing
(it is not quite complete, should be in the next week or so ... MC section is squished here, but James is expanding that as we speak.)
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Here's a direct link to a word document containing my complete Mass Effect hack for Apocalypse World:
http://home.comcast.net/~of_the_woods/ME/Mass_Effect_Apocalypse.docx
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Just finished this with the document! I did it in the trifold style as I just love that from AW.
That helped a ton!
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9Hhx1yXlz-OajFiUkIwMUJVemc/edit?usp=sharing
I did redorder a few items unfort. I had to if I wanted the tri-folds to be semi-proper with matching fronts backs.
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BTW, If you like, I will clean up Andrew's character sheets (just matching size, logo and font) and add those to the PDF's.
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Ardhanari, I had some feedback tell me that the thumbnails were too small for the species, which is fair enough as it is not friendly, but being that there is no flavor text and info about the species anyways it is not really newb friendly.
I helped create a rather large d20 book for ME, so would you mind if I pulled some text from there to give each species their own page? I may also give a basic game introduction for newbies as well.
Second, I have a for for you? I like the vorcha, can i get some race info for them to add?
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Hello,
Yeah, the Word document I linked to is a stripped down document with only my hack's game mechanics. It's stripped down from the full web-page here:
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/mass-effect-apocalypse
I figured that information about the Mass Effect universe is readily available online, particularly the Mass Effect wikia, and if people wanted to run games in that setting, all they really need from me is game mechanical crunch. They can get all the flavor they need elsewhere.
As for Vorcha:
Vorcha are used to savage combat where they throw themselves at the enemy without concern for their own safety. They get +1 whenever they sieze by force.
Species Move: Vorcha Regeneration: When you hit 9:00 or further on the Harm countdown, roll +Hard. On a 10+, heal 2 harm. On a 7-9, heal 1 harm. On a miss, your system is too traumatized, you may not regenerate for the rest of the battle. You may not regenerate harm inflicted by weapons with the "burn" tag or incendiary ammo.
Design thoughts: Since regen only kicks in when you hit 9:00 or further, it's conceivable that you can use it more than once in a fight if you heal below 9:00 and then get harmed back to 9. But if you're just taking too much damage too fast, or have been hurt particularly bad to where regen doesn't bring you back below 9:00, you only get it the once. That seems in keeping with Vorcha's adaptability.
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I would be interested to see what you would add from that d20 book you mention, as well as your character sheet design. You seem to have a talent for design and layout :)
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I would be interested to see what you would add from that d20 book you mention, as well as your character sheet design. You seem to have a talent for design and layout :)
Thanks, been doing this a long time and only lately out of a need to help writers (AW being such a simple system to design for as converting to BW keeps it semi consistent.)
I have a lot going on this week with it being tax week next monday, so sometimes soon I will finish these. Thank you for not minding!
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I don't mind at all :)
I'm glad there are at least a few other folks who enjoy both the ME universe and Apocalypse World enough to see them both squished together :)
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How is this?
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9Hhx1yXlz-OdXNBWndZRWFWVEk/edit?usp=sharing
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Awesome!
I'm going to link to this document for my players in case they want a lovely hard-copy :)
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Although, heh, I did make one last minute rules addition under "Supplemental Rules."
I added a section called "GM Moves and Experience" which adapts the Tremulus method for permitting the GM to put off making immediate moves when PC's fail a roll, allowing the GM to accumulate Hold. After my first Mass Effect playtest session, there were a number of circumstances where the PC's failed a roll, but the fiction didn't allow for immediate "hard" moves. I like the ability to defer that decision a bit, making dramatic events more fluid.
The new section is on the Obsidian Portal page, and I also updated the Word document at the same link as above. I also slightly edited the "Advancement" header of the Supplemental Rules section.
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I downloaded the above Word doc and did not see it.
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The paragraph is at the bottom of page 4
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Realized I never posted the updated version here:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9Hhx1yXlz-OajlYVENqTXljMkE/edit?usp=sharing
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Looks cool. Seems like you've managed a surprisingly good mapping of abilities from the game to, well, this game. Like you say, the optional battle moves really aren't optional in this hack.
A couple questions spring to mind:
Why do the focused classes get +3 in the primary stat vs the hybrid classes? Presumably a balance issue?
Is No Shit Pilot a tech or personal move?
Layout thought, on the sheets- as the game doesn't use highlighted stats, is there room to put in the attached basic moves if the highlight box is removed?
The advancement section- as its offset, it could read '...left column before choosing from the right column'?
Some 'balance' thoughts- so take these for what they are worth:
Some racial +1 bonuses will come up much more often, and more importantly can be triggered by player description (e.g Asari) vs say the Quarians, who really don't want to have to use their bonus. :)
Adrenal Rush is way more powerful and flexible than Singularity (not a surprise, as it comes from the slightly powergamey Touchstone) - killing someone disables them for more than one tick. And yet, the consequences of failure are worse for Singularity. Maybe consider swapping them? The Soldier also gets better gear.
Anyway, that's all nitpicking, it looks like a solid hack.
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I noticed the link to the Infiltrator character sheet on the Obsidian Portal wiki 404s.
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I am very excited to run this. Thanks for making it!
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Now that I've had a chance to take a closer look at the rules, I wanted to chime in to offer a suggestion that I hope is helpful and not obnoxious. Namely, I feel like there's still room for "weird" (instead of will) in Mass Effect, and I've given some thought to how I could hack your hack to shoehorn that in for myself (and anybody else who's interested).
Maybe Ardhanari can comment on the intent behind "will" (I may just be missing it), but I am getting stuck in two places with this stat. First, it's not clear to me what it accomplishes that hard and cool weren't already doing. And second, it reads more like a classic "what you can do" stat (in the D&D vein of STR, DEX, CON, etc.) than a "what you are like" stat (in the vein of Apocalypse World, where the stats are otherwise all adjectives describing personality characteristics). And, as a side effect of that second point, this means that we lose an entire dimension of "what you are like" that is kind of important for describing certain kinds of characters in this universe.
"Weird" in Mass Effect is not exactly the same as "weird" in Apocalypse World. In AW, it's most obviously associated with uncanny powers and the psychic maelstrom. In ME, on the other hand, all the "psychic" stuff is actually fairly mundane (explained through sciences related to biotics, asari physiology, etc.). Nevertheless, weirdness is still really central to the tone of a lot of the ME games.
A character who's really good at biotics should probably still have high cool or hard scores rather than a high weird score. A character who's got a really high weird score, however, might be...
- a colonist with psychic after-effects following mind control by a hyperintelligent plant;
- a scientist who has started to go mad after studying the artifacts of a race of spaceship elder gods;
- or even a salarian who thinks and speaks so quickly that other species (and some of his own species) simply can't follow him.
If it helps you to think about it, the "weird" stat in ME could probably just as easily be called "alien." It's basically that which is so strange and foreign that the mind reels trying to grasp it.
Weird still deserves a basic move, but "open your mind" doesn't really apply in this setting. I'd be curious what you think would be appropriate, Ardhanari (and what others think here), but I'm thinking I might start with something like, "When you confront something you never could have imagined...."
All of that said, thanks again for producing this hack, and great job translating so many Mass Effect terms and concepts. (I was really pleased to see Paragon, Renegade, and Fitness still find their way in there.) My fiancee has never even played Mass Effect, but she was super excited by your rule book. She's seen me play so much that I think she sees this as a chance to finally get her hands on it without developing shooter skills. I support this!
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Eh, I take it back. People on Story Games have convinced me (http://www.story-games.com/forums/discussion/comment/415425) that Mass Effect doesn't need "weird" as a stat. (I'm still not sold on "will," either, but if someone who's played this hack can describe how it went, I'd be curious to hear about that.)
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I'm a couple months into running two Mass Effect games using this system. I've tweaked the rules a bit, namely on the use of Shields with gangs, and the addition / tweaking of some of the moves. Here's the link:
http://home.comcast.net/~of_the_woods/ME/Mass_Effect_Apocalypse.docx
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A couple questions spring to mind:
Why do the focused classes get +3 in the primary stat vs the hybrid classes? Presumably a balance issue?
Yep. The focused classes get +3 in the primary stat to offset their lack of selection when it comes to Class moves. Hybrid classes get two lists to mix/match from, I figured I'd give, effectively, a free stat advance to the guys with the more limited selection.
Is No Shit Pilot a tech or personal move?
It's a Personal Move. The design philosophy was that your Race/Class combo really only matters for combat, while your "role" in the party, i.e. medic, pilot, "face" man, etc. would come from your personal moves. It's not perfect, as there are some combat-y personal moves, but I tried to keep the Personal moves more "thematic" and the Class moves more "battle-oriented"
Some 'balance' thoughts- so take these for what they are worth:
Some racial +1 bonuses will come up much more often, and more importantly can be triggered by player description (e.g Asari) vs say the Quarians, who really don't want to have to use their bonus. :)
Adrenal Rush is way more powerful and flexible than Singularity (not a surprise, as it comes from the slightly powergamey Touchstone) - killing someone disables them for more than one tick. And yet, the consequences of failure are worse for Singularity. Maybe consider swapping them? The Soldier also gets better gear.
Yeah, I find that I'm not over-concerned with "balance" when it comes to Apocalypse World, mostly because the game is very narrative-driven, and all characters start as kinda badasses no matter what. To address your specific nitpicks:
yes, the Quarians will rarely use their Basic Move bonus compared to, say, Krogan or Salarian, but when they DO use it, they'll REALLY need it :)
Adrenaline Rush is, yes, very badass (as is the Touchstone move from which it came). In my mind this is ok since the Soldier is otherwise pretty limited when it comes to "cool" thematic combat moves. Most of what they get are ammo powers. Singularity, however, is a cinematically cool move that has multiple applications, like battle-field crowd control etc. I also changed Singularity in the more recent revision to make it a bit cooler than it was.
I've been running two different groups of five players each, each game running once every other week, for a couple of months now and I've been really impressed with the character concepts / builds people have come up with. The human Adept who focused in Cool and Will and uses the Singularity / Dominate combo really rules the battlefield, as does the (obviously min-maxed) Krogan soldier with Carnage :) But even so, everyone gets a role to play, everyone can feel like they're doing something awesome, and most importantly, it seems to really convey the "feel" of the Mass Effect games.
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Maybe Ardhanari can comment on the intent behind "will" (I may just be missing it),
Hey Jason,
Sorry it's taken so long to respond to this comment. My read on the role Stats play in Apocalypse World is this:
Cool = generic stat to roll if nothing else really fits
Hard = physical conflict resolution
Hot = social conflict resolution
Sharp = information gathering
Weird/Will = world-based "thematic" stat / move.
In looking at the Mass Effect universe, it tries very hard to avoid "space magic" by providing at least a technobabble explanation for everything. Characters explicitly state that things like "telepathy" don't actually exist, even if that's what it LOOKS like a particular alien is doing. While I do admit that there are "weird" or esoteric things in the universe, do they really rise to the level of central theme?
What I DID think was a central theme was the idea of overcoming incredible odds, standing up to a galaxy that might not believe you, pulling through no matter what, and leading / helping others through sheer force of personality and bad-assery. That's what Will was intended to convey, the stat that lets you keep on fighting even when an ordinary person would just lie down and die.
I did try to make sure that there were a number of Personal Moves and other options for someone who wanted to make a high-Will character, but ultimately the main benefit of Will is it's a stat that lets you literally defy death. Obviously Will as a stat (and the basic move that comes with it) are devalued if you don't include the very real risk of death from time to time, but even if you're not killing characters left and right, there's enough to be done with it thematically, especially with moves like Paragon or Force of Will, or Dominate.
Hope that answers your question :)
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No worries on delay, and thanks for clarifying the intent.