Barf Forth Apocalyptica
barf forth apocalyptica => Apocalypse World => Topic started by: zefir on November 08, 2013, 02:43:24 AM
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Hello Again - thanks for responses in previous post.
In one of the campaigns I'm playing in AW, I joined group that played quite a bit - Hardholder, Angel and Battle Babe - characters have pretty large number of improvements.
I picked chopper, and now I am feeling that my character is kind of redundant.
I knew and expected that he will have less improvments then others, but issue sprouts from something else. I get feeling, that everything my character can do - someone else can do better. I have large Hard, but Battle Babe is superior in this - better weapons, better moves. But that's fine - Chopper's essence is his gang. But - BB has gang (bought with one of improvements) which is the same size, and has similar stats (and was additionally armed and equipped for barter - so they have cars).
So I guess my question here is - why choppers gang is not better. Other characters can take holding, but hardholder has the best, they can take a cult - but hocus has the biggest - but in case of chopper, only serious difference is his move. But to be honest, if you have character with Hard +3, Leadership only fails if you roll 3, so that doesn't make all that difference.
What do you guys think about this?
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If you are going to look at which playbook which is the best in pure strength i guess a non-improved character is weaker and as you describe. But I choose playbook after what is cool to play.
I'll try to find some pros with the chopper in relation to the playbooks you describe:
* You have armor and a stronger man-on-man character than the hardholder i think. Your weapons are more powerful. Especially if you have the drop on him.
* You have a much higher hard than the battlebabe so your gang will be easier to control than his.
right? wrong?
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Well, the point is not in strength in itself, but in fact that my gang doesn't feel that unique - and that's supposed to be whole point of having one archetype per team, isn't it?
I have move that is just a bit stronger, but apart from that - my gang is exactly the same as the one that everyone gets if they improve - whereas hocus and hardholder have unique "specials", everyone else get weaker holdings or cults when they buy improvement.
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Why don't you make your character unique by being, you know, unique. My Operator always kept her word and developed a rep for it. She cared about her crew and always treated them fairly. The game wasn't about whether she was more hard or more sharp or had a better gang. The game, for me, was about Proust and what she was willing to do to keep her word intact and to protect her people, even when they were being annoying gits.
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Well, that's what I'm doing. He is pretty unique.
But when I entered play, after reading rulebook, I went in with this feeling that my gang will be the most badass of them all - after all I am Chopper - I am my gang. And there is only one Chopper, yeah?
So discovering during the play, that actually no - it's not exactly like that, kind of stopped me in my tracks.
I don't think it would be the issue with Brainer or Hocus, they kind of operate on different level. But when you have gang which is savege and has no fucking discipline at all - then strength is pretty important point in game. I mean - that's what they basically do.
Don't get me wrong, I am having fun, I like my character and gang, I have fun during play. We had lot of interesting situations with my gang, and I like it. There are cool NPCs in it, they have their own flavor - but there is underlaying feeling or redundancy, which I am surprised by, as rulebook makes pretty strong point about uniqeness of various character types - other characters can have holdings, but there is only one Hardholder etc. And rules seem to be constructed in a way, that is supposed to ensure that this is indeed the case when push comes to shove.
So I'm wondering whether anyone else stumbled upon cases like this, or thought about this from point of view, of how the game is designed. Maybe I am missing something important, maybe I'm looking at this archetype in a wrong way.
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Fucking Thieves.
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Ok, FT indeed changes a bit - are there any limits on this move? Besides the size? Or can chopper just generate barter from thin air with this? I need to pay for something, so I turn to my gang to give me something valuable, and voila?
I had situation in which Angel demanded medkit supplies for her services - could I just use FT to get them?
I was under impression that it's more for 'situational' items, but I'm starting to rethink this now.
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If it's small enough to fit.
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I've had the Chopper use Fucking Thieves to generate medkit supplies on demand before.
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There is always the risk to miss a roll. Missing a roll is never pretty. :)
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And don't forget: sometimes having the gang or gang member hand whatever it is over to you is in the gang's nature or in its best interests, and sometimes it isn't. For the latter case, there's Pack Alpha.
Charles
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There is also the fact that the Chopper gets, in addition to a gang, a fleet of motorcycles—by default! Another PC may take a gang, but any transport provided is completely at the generosity of the MC and can be taken away just as swiftly. The MC wouldn't fuck with your motorcycles outside of the occasional breakdown or roadblock.
Also, the battlebabe's weak hard score means he or she isn't as powerful a leader as you are. Their gang will follow them and obey orders—to a point. But when given an order they don't like the looks of, a leadership roll will be called for and there is much less chance for success.
The uniquiness as I see it is this: The battlebabe can have a gang, but the chopper IS HIS GANG.
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The playbooks have lots of uniqueness baked in to the beginning of play, but they're designed to become less unique over time as characters advance, presumably because the characters are growing more unique in the fiction as they develop and don't need the niche protection any more.
Or to put it more concretely, as the game progresses it's less about the gang and more about the chopper's relationship with Balls, his overzealous 2nd, and Millions, the young hotshot who is gunning for him, and etc.
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I agree with what noclue is saying; I think the most relevant bit here is that your character is joining the game late. NOT because that means you have fewer advances, or are 'less powerful' or something -- just because the fictional space for 'violent gang leader' was not reserved for your PC, as it would have been if you started the game with the other players. If the Chopper is in the game from the beginning, then when other people get gangs, those gangs are almost always responses to the Chopper's gang. The Chopper's gang becomes the context -- they are different in this or that way from the Chopper's gang, the other PC acquired the gang because the Chopper had a gang, etc.
But because the Chopper wasn't there, that baseline wasn't established, and so your gang will have to earn its fictional space in a way that it wouldn't otherwise. So it's really up to you (and the MC) to show how your gang is different from the Battlebabe's gang -- how you are different as a leader, how the gang is different in effectiveness (fucking thieves being a perfect example), and how they're different in personality. As a basic guideline, the Chopper's gang should be significantly more loyal, invested, relevant, etc. When people say 'the Chopper IS his gang' that's about how much everybody involved CARES about the gang; the Chopper is more intimately connected with his gang, and vice versa, and this makes the members of the gang more relevant as well. They just matter more, fictionally, even if they aren't better at killing stuff.
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Fucking Thieves is the main thing that makes the Chopper different from the other playbooks. Unless another PC with a gang takes that move, that's the Chopper's thing. If you want your Chopper to be unique, you need to lean on the things that set him or her apart. Use Fucking Thieves all the time, it's like free shit. If somebody highlights your hard, you should be throwing items around left and right. Also remember that even if you failed, somebody stole it, so now you have a reason to track down a thief. Go rough some people up, you're a bike gang.
Another point of difference is that the Chopper's gang isn't tied down to a holding, the way the Hardholder's is. There is no necessity for them to feel loyalty to anything other than their gang and the Chopper. You can use that to your advantage when you describe what your gang is like. Make it different from the hardholder's. Don't let the MC throw the same problems at both of you.
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Thanks for all the sugestions and feedback.
My chopper already has small holding, so he is a bit tied up, but I will be remembering about my mobility anyway. And of course, I will try to leverage my Fucking Thieves as much as possible.
I am playing tomorrow, so I will see how it works out.
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Here's what I'd do (as an MC), but this solution isn't for everyone...
Underdog (Chopper Playbook Mod)
When your gang isn't the biggest, baddest, or most well-equipped in town, you get the move "Something To Prove". After you have that, you can also take the rest as advancements.
Something to Prove: At the end of each session, instead of saying who knows you better, ask the other players as a group if you proved to someone this session that you're a force to be reckoned with. If the majority agree you did, every PC knows you better (and takes the appropriate +1-Hx) and you mark XP.
Recruits: At the start of each session, if you proved yourself last session, you get a few new recruits (maybe only one or two, but given time it'll add up). These might come from another PC's gang or followers, or else from the general population, MC's call.
Fearless: When you or your gang is outmanned or outgunned, you (or they) get +1-armor.
Never Give Up: When you'd be out of the fight, like unconscious, dead, or captured, you can instead take a debility (and set yourself to nine o clock, if you're higher), but only once and only in a real battle. If your gang sees you do this, they'll of course fight to the death if you ask them to, but only right then and there.
Why, you might ask? It turns a fictional and mechanical weakness into a potential strength (fearless + never give up), aligns your own real-life concerns with those of your character (something to prove), gives you an additional XP source to help catch up in advancements to the other players (something to prove), possibly drives pc-npc-pc conflicts (recruits), and more.
I actually think it's a pretty tidy solution!
- Alex
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@Antisinecurist
Thanks for ideas, they are pretty cool.
Well, in last session I made some changes in my character - I took driver move, so I started adding my bike to my Hard moves - which made me feel extremally badass (+4). I failed operation at start of game session, and got surrounded by enemy gang. Not only I managed to get out of the trap, but they got decimated. Fucking Thieves was nice too.
Unfortunately the end of session went south - we had standoff with hardholder, and it ended ugly, my character is no more +.
The wisdom we all got from this, is - if you bring chopper into team late, give him strong connections with rest of team, especially hardholder. If he is somewhere from the start - his gang will be part of foundations of the setting. But when he get's late, especially with savage gang - he will be constant threat for hardholder, and that doesn't end well.
But nevertheless, your advice made me feel, that my character is really badass on his last session, so that was fun :)
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Sounds like a win!
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Well, I hoped he will make it through few more sessions - getting smeared by grenade launcher was sad. But mostly I regret not being able to play out the subplot of quarantine-like-npcs whom I recruited for my gang (they had no idea what is going on, and were imprisoned). Having lieutenant that I would call Captain in my gang, would be so much fun.
Some issues also sprout from the fact, that in our group, part of team prefers rather mild view of the world - and I played it, a bt more savagely.
Anyway, had a lot of fun. Now I'm moving on to Maestro D.
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I made a series of articles on what makes the different playbooks unique and interesting. Here is the one on the chopper: http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=6570.0
Hope it sparks something in ya.
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Actually I read it before I posted this topic - but thanks.
As a matter of fact, I had a bit different relationship with my gang - so fights ensued here and there.
There was nice scene, when we had some kind of festivities in the town, with all occupants gathered on the main square with great bonefire in the middle. There were few other gangs there, but only my was savage, so they were going straight for trouble. Guns, and all.
One of PCs approached me, asking to do something about it. I told my gang, that they can't use weapons - neither guns, nor melee. I had partial success, so two of them started doing fuss about that (I had to punish someone).
I stood up, and went for the guy. I wanted to use one of hard moves on him (I don't recall which one), I failed. Shooting match ensued, but as other gang tactfully retreated, it was internal. When I finally managed to get control of my gang, one of the troublemakers were dead, and one of my two girls was also barely alive. So I made example of the second one by burning him alive in the bonefire. Of course, we also called the other gang cowards - as they ran away, didn't they?
What I really like in this game, it's how failure (cause I at first imagined this scene will go differently), can end in very cool and engaging scenes.