A modern Apocalypse World does somehow force us to do stuff. Maybe because we're incompetent ("we", meaning you and I, modern people). Who can farm or raise animals, let alone hunt for their own food? That's a small percentage of the population of the civilized world anymore. So it's all scavenging & stealing for survival because we suck. That's a big deal on the Walking Dead TV show - people suck, and that forces them to be assholes to other people.

In the Dark Ages, you're looking at an agrarian world, with a lot of serfs and peons who can farm, forage, and hunt. Many fewer lawyers, for sure. Survival (for the a-hole player characters) is about rounding up peons to make food for you, right? You can't scavenge for tins of SPAM & baked beans & ramen noodles because that didn't exist. Food is about getting peons under your thumb. So that means a very different experience for you, right off the bat.

Yeah, a gang of Chopper-riding a-holes might not be totally different than mounted cavalry, but you actually want to preserve peons in the Dark Age (from an economic perspective)... and you don't really need to care about the incompetents that you roll in a modern apocalypse. (Of course, brutal Dark Age thugs being what they were, a lot of peons were brutalized anyway...)

So... here's my simplistic apocalyptic hierarchy of needs (thanks Maslow).

• Survival. So, this is the food, water, shelter stuff. Modern Apocalypse World does a lot here because we suck. AW:DA shouldn't do as much here because peons.
• Safety. This is about making sure your area is Clear. Getting rid of external threats. Rally the in-group, defeat the out-group. Both AW & AW:DA play here, but I think AW:DA should be playing in this space a lot more than simple Survival stories.
• Stability. (EDIT: Oooh, another S word (besides shit). Had to add this one in after I completed my list.) I'm talking about internal threats. Like Shane in Walking Dead. Like a bastard son, or someone in line for inheritance trying to take your shit. These are sometimes the worst threats, or the best ones because they're so dramatic. AW does play in this space when you can get it there, and AW:DA should definitely play in this space.
• Succession. Self-actualization is kind of meh when you can barely keep alive sometimes. What's left after eliminating the external threat is accumulating wealth getting ready for the end. All true wealth is biological, as the Butcher of Komarr once said. This is why Rick is hauling Carl & Judith around... but really isn't a main thing for Walking Dead, and not a main thing for AW because you'll basically never address any of the other two needs to the point where they aren't a big concern. HOWEVER, for AW:DA, I think you need to get here. Who inherits the throne from the Keep Liege? Survival should not be an issue for most AW:DA games... and this is what should get folded in, on the top end of the hierarchy. Sons, marriages... setting up a society is more than this generation, and that's what changes a brute & thug from a real noble, with the right to rule.

We just have very little for anything in the game beyond fighting stuff, and I think that's only the first step in making a playable Dark Age.

Marriage might be way off the rails for some of you who want to be hard ass War Champions & Battle Babe Peasant Beauties... but succession wars are, I think, a big deal for the Dark Age genre.

This is why I think some kind of Clan/Family setup would help. I don't care about individual Hx, per se. I think you do need divisions between people, though. It should be factional rather than individual like Hx.

I think a lot of individualism would make it too modern. Rugged individualism might work for a modern apocalypse, but clan/family dynamics are more important in this period. That's why I think a straight Hx wouldn't work. You'd not capture the dynamic of blood ties and blood oaths.

As for group setup...
Asking leading questions solves many questions about the PC relationships, I think.

...

To illustrate, I use my theoretical setup... Vikings in Ireland. A bay by the sea with an Irish village and a Viking longphort. The Vikings have taken over the area.

(Except it's the Ireland that never was, of course. It's not actually Celtic Ireland, and it's not actually Vikings.)

The big, blonde, pagan raiders have conquered the village. Let's say it's been 5-10 years since the raiders took over. The people of the village are slighter, dark-haired people (who are all converts of the Roman religion through the work of missionaries)... they mostly hate their overlords, but they're mostly powerless to stop them at this time.

Players can be part of either the blonde pagan people, or the slighter dark-haired people who all worship the son-god of the Empire of Eagles... but being one race or the other doesn't necessarily imply something about the drama, even if it could. (Racism & religious intolerance being meaty reasons to do bad things.)

Furthermore... let's say the self-made Jarl of the pagan raiders has just died prior to the start of the game.

Who will take over? (Is the new Jarl one of the players? How did he gain the right to rule?) What if the old Jarl only had a daughter, and she did not have the right to inherit? What does that mean about the new Jarl? Who might challenge the new Jarl, and why? What happens to the daughter, and what happens if someone marries her?

(And do we assume the Jarl died of natural causes? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. And if the Jarl didn't die of natural causes, who murdered the Jarl and why?)

What happens in the village? Who might rise up, now that the Jarl is dead? Who amongst the blonde pagan raiders might ally themselves with the village in order to overthrow the new Jarl?

And what about the 50 men who serve the Jarl? 50 men, supported by a village of 300 people... the logistics do not add up. What did the old Jarl do to keep his men fed and happy? Raiding? Trading? Killing people in the village & stealing their things? What will the new Jarl do?

What would the neighbors think about the close proximity of a band of pagan raiders? What local lords might want to attack the new Jarl and expel the pagans from the land?

...

So, binding the PCs together shouldn't be difficult if you're asking the right questions, even if I think the game needs some faction/clan-based approach to allegiances (and not a Hx).

I think Apocalypse World doesn't make binding-together a requirement, though. It works well as disorder and chaos within a faithful reading of the drama of the world.

Here's my BS for a Priest of the Roman Order because I hate (HATE) the marriage rites in the existing rules.

Cleric of the Order
(prime stat will be "Good", not "Weird" like a pagan)

Rights (some lifted directly from the rules, others invented):

• You have the right to excommunicate any member of the faith. This allows any member (of any birth or station) the ability under religious law to deny the rights of the excommunicated.
  
• You have the right to induct and confirm any person as a member of the faith, thereby conferring the rights of personhood and community upon that person. (Perhaps including the excommunicated... perhaps not.)
  
• You have the right to receive gifts and offerings as the spiritual head of your community.
  
• You have the right to consecrate a marriage.  Roll with Good. On 10+, the MC must ask you 3 of the following. On 7–9, the MC must ask you 2. On a miss, the MC must ask you 1. (The MC may answer any question left unanswered.)
  * Do the persons involved in the marriage consent to this Union? What is their relationship?
  * Do the Heads of each Clan or Family consent to this Union? What is their relationship?
  * Does the Union of these peoples settle the differences between their Clans or Families? What is their ancient grudge?
  * Is the Union of these peoples blessed by the god(s)? How might they be blessed or cursed in the days ahead?
  
• You are literate in Latin and Arabic / Greek / Hebrew / Persian (circle 1 in addition to Latin). You have the right to own and read books, including religious, legal, historical, and administrative texts, and to conduct written correspondence beyond simple message-passing and note-leaving.
  
• You have the right to write your betters for aid (i.e. the Pope in Rome). When you do, treat it as mustering warriors from among them, but roll Good instead of Bold.
  
• You have the right to solemnize the funerals of the dead. When you do so, roll Weird. On 10+, choose 1 of the following; it is true. On 7–9, choose 1; we will suppose it to be true. (See the Options in the Rights PDF)
  
• You have the right to throw down demons and lawless spirits. When you try to do so, roll Weird. On 10+, choose 2 of the following. On 7–9, choose 1. (See the Options in the Rights PDF)
  
• You have the right to call others to repentance and confession. When you do, roll Good. On 10+, ask them 2 of the following
  questions. On 7–9, ask them 1. They must answer truthfully and aloud. Before they answer, they can ask for privacy, which you may grant but need not. (See the Options in the Rights PDF)
  
• You have the right to declare any group (aside from the People of your lands) to be Anathema. (Whatever that means, but I bet the Jews are involved!)
  

I was just watching the Tudors, which is certainly an entertaining show. And I know certain pieces of AW don't come over to AW:DA, for various reasons. "Sex Move" just sounds kind of dumb to apply to a Dark Ages setting because we all can't play Henry VIII. At the same time, there has to be a middle ground somewhere.

I also play a lot of Paradox's Crusader Kings 2 with various mods (including the Westeros mod on occasion... and we all know what the "R.R." stands for in G.R.R. Martin). Marriage is an incredibly important part of that game... along with your ruler's bedroom habits. I had one ruler in Crusader Kings who had a political marriage with a neighboring sovereign's sister (who happened to be a lesbian). In spite of whatever incompatibilities in private, they declared a public mutual love for one another... for the good of the realm. It was one of the more interesting rulers that I played. Marrying & having children in that game are incredibly important, as are generational politics & the struggles relating to inheritance.

I guess I'm saying that I don't need a "Sex Move", but I'd like something about Marriage, as well as something about inheritance in the Dark Ages. (Crusader Kings 2 does this in a delicious way... including various traditions of Catholics & Orthodox folk, as well as Muslims & others. Ideas around inheritance were hardly confined to Salic law.)

And I'm not just talking about whatever the "Princess" playbook might bring, but across all of the characters. What does it mean to be married, and how does it point you towards screwing over the current Dominus that rules your little geographic setting? Courtly love (like the romanticized Camelot) would be nice... but then we'd be getting further afield from Westeros, especially when all I'd truly want is crap around Marriage & Power.

Yeah, I guess I can just take up Marriage as a story-hammer (if your dude marries the chick from the Bad-Wrong family, then all heck will break lose because Hard Move... or if someone marries the Hardholder's Sister, and has a Son by her, he's got every reason to depose the current Hardholder & murder all the offspring of the Hardholder...)... but it would be cool to have more stuff around it than the b.s. in my head if I'm MCing.

And, yeah, Gender has come up on this board in a way that it doesn't have to in other Apocalyptic settings... but the politics of Gender are so much more vital to the Dark Ages (as stated previously by others). I just wish Gender-stuff were more prominent in this because of the setting, even if we in our modernity should not be so judgmental about this stuff. The character sheets are just awfully quiet about Gender & Marriage, and I wish they weren't.

If anyone has advice on this topic or ways they've worked it in, I'd be interested in reading it. And I haven't playtested this yet, so I'm just spouting off at this point.

(Sorry if this is covered by other topics. I did a quick search on Marriage & didn't get back a ton.)