Thanks!

I tried to post to G+, but for some reason only I can see what I post to G+ communities. If I visit them without signing in, or on another account, I can't see my posts.

I've looked into correcting it, but the main support forum for G+ is a G+ community ...where my posts aren't seen. I tried deleting my G+ account and recreating it. Maybe I'll try to set up an entirely new Google account and see if that works.

Please note that I have removed the document linked in the original post. There has been ..so much.. work on this that I didn't feel that document accurately reflected the hack anymore.

• Yes, this makes three active hacks for me.
• Yes, I’m trying to conjure Vincent Baker level multitasking.
• Yes, I know zombie hacks already exist. I reinvent wheels. It's what I do.
• I don’t normally enjoy games that emulate a movie or TV show.
• I’m not even actually much of a zombie fanboy.

I… just had a few ideas in my head, and this seemed like the best way to combine them. This hack will likely look the least like Apocalypse World (of my hacks) when complete. I kinda dig that. Here are some early concepts.

NO PLAYBOOKS
I don’t feel like playbooks are the way to go here. I considered roles, but I’m already doing that in a hack so I’d rather not duplicate the effort. Characters will all be drawn up using the same character generation rules.

Moves will be broken up into something resembling skill trees, with dependencies like D&D Feats, and a number of trees will be available. The depth you go into skill trees will allow you to develop the niche of your character further.

Everyone gets to claim one skill tree for their character. That tree is locked to everyone else. Nobody else gets to take skills from that tree; even with improvements. So if you take the Leadership tree, your character is THE leader. If nobody claims the leadership tree then maybe several characters exhibit leadership potential. So..

• If you take the crossbow skill tree, then you are “the dude with the crossbow.”
• If you take the sword skill tree, then you are “the chick with the katana.”

NO STATS

• All moves will be made at a base +0.
• Characters will have access to individual pools (currently being called Hope). Characters may declare they will spend 0 to 3 points of Hope on any move they are going to make, and add the spent points as a modifier to the roll.
• Running out of Hope, leaves you Hopeless.
• Hope will regenerate between sessions in some way. It will likely regenerate faster with comfort, safety, and good health. Don’t expect much of those things.
• You can also lose Hope as the result of moves. Attacks that don’t actually leave you hurt, will often sap you of hope instead.

I haven’t decided how big a Hope pool needs to be yet, or how it will be generated exactly… but I want to incorporate Trust (this game’s version of Hx). The idea is that you have Trust with every character in your “group” (PC and NPC alike), and the score on your sheet indicates how much they trust you. The more trust you have (deserved or not), the higher your maximum Hope pool will be.

• For this reason, Trust will NOT reset like Hx does (that would be a penalty). It will still cap at +3. The plan is to incorporate Trust into the dice mechanic and/or moves so that you are constantly doing things to earn or decrease trust.
• I’ve considered using the advanced basic move mechanic here, allowing you to gain trust with someone when you roll a 12+.
• An end of session move will likely allow players to designate who their character has gained and lost trust in as well.

NO HARM
Harm will be replaced with 4 conditions.
Fatigued — Caught — Hurt — Dead

• Fatigued, Caught, and Hurt each incur a -1 Ongoing to rolls (so that base +0 you roll on all moves could drop to as much as base -3 in the worst situations).
• If you are Hopeless (your Hope pool is at 0), you are automatically Fatigued.
• If you are killed (dead). you may become Maimed instead (a permanent Hurt condition) to save yourself from death. This can only happen once.
• Zombies will be immune to fatigue.
• The natural progression for zombies is to run you down (fatigued), corner you (caught), claw and bite at you (hurt), and eat you (dead).
• Human opponents won’t necessarily stick to that script. They might corner you by surprise, or attack you from afar. It really depends on their motivations and whether they want to take you alive.

NOISE
Weapons won’t have harm tags. The move you make determines which status you apply to your target. Instead, I’m considering a Noise stat on weapons, that determines how much attention you might draw with it. When there is a chance that using the weapon will draw attention you would make a reverse roll (like the harm move) to figure out if you did.

RESOURCES
I’ve put the least thought into resources, but they will play a huge part in the game. Part of the reason I liked eliminating stats was because some sort of resource tracking will be necessary, and I didn’t want to bog down the game with multiple sets of numbers.

One idea I had was to give guns and vehicles “stats” for ammo and fuel. So one of the tags on a gun might be “3-Ammo”. Attack moves would decrease the stat. Certain moves would allow you to avoid the stat decrease (your skill allowed you to conserve ammo).

ZOMBIES
Not much work done here yet, but gangs provide a great base for zombie herds.

Maybe? I'd need compelling reason to use that format though. I used to MU* a lot too, and loved the format for rules-driven games to be played by a large number of people at once. A MU* could totally be set up to do what you're talking about, and a couple of decades ago it would have been the ideal platform for this sort of thing.

But the rules light nature of Apocalypse World, with moves providing choices and campaign specific custom moves, limits the usefulness of a MU* environment. I have a hard time seeing it offering much more than communication (via text), a dice roller, character sheet management, and possibly a session log.

So, why would I use this over a virtual tabletop, like Roll20, which is already overkill mechanically? The VTT usually offers the dice rolling and session logging. Communication is usually done via voice (and sometimes video), and character sheets are usually intuitive form fields that don't require commands to edit. Most also offer image/file sharing/editing as well.

Undecided on moves. Haven't gone that far down this road yet.

I absolutely want the NPCs to be critically important. I want them to be a source for tension (like how Monster of the Week uses bystanders), and the heart of the game. I'd like them to be a sort of shared resource that the player's characters can invest in. The players are dealing with problems, potential threats, trying to find a way off the planet, or whatever... it's the NPC's that are building things, preparing food, farming, and so on. The less of them you have, the harder things should be.

In theory. I haven't actually worked on any of that yet.

Thanks! I have to admit. I only have a page of notes on this one, so a LOT of this probably subject to change as the idea fleshes out. I'm 75% done with my other hack and I still find myself writing something that requires me to go back to another chapter and rewrite or add a whole section to facilitate it.

How many primary and secondary roles will you try to support ? A set number ?

My notes include 17, subject to change. You would use the same roles for both primary and secondary. The key difference is that the primary is unique, and your primary role provides most of your starting assets (NPCs, equipment, etc.)

• Holy Man      +1 Duty, +1 Manner, -1 Sway
• Courtesan      +1 Duty, +1 Manner, -1 Insight
• Pilot         +1 Duty, +1 Sway, -1 Manner
• Soldier      +1 Duty, +1 Sway, -1 Insight
• Colonist      +1 Duty, +1 Insight, -1 Manner
• Laborer      +1 Duty, +1 Insight, -1 Sway
• Celebrity      +1 Manner, +1 Sway, -1 Duty
• Aristocrat      +1 Manner, +1 Sway, -1 Insight
• Doctor      +1 Manner, +1 Insight, -1 Duty
• Scientist      +1 Manner, +1 Insight, -1 Sway
• Trader      +1 Sway, +1 Insight, -1 Duty
• Engineer      +1 Sway, +1 Insight, -1 Manner
• Bounty Hunter   +1 Instinct, -1 Duty (locked)
• Pirate      +1 Domain, -1 Manner (locked)
• Convict      +1 Rage, -1 Sway (locked)
• Smuggler      +1 Sense, -1 Insight (locked)
• Mad Man      0 Weird

I wonder how you plan to deal with stats ?

For now, each role includes a set of stat. You get both.
Characters only start with access to 4 stats (Duty, Manner, Sway, Insight). The other 5 stats (Instinct, Domain, Rage, Sense, Weird) have a nil value to start, except for in a few special cases. Weird may not be available at all in some campaigns.

As an aside, I am intrigued by your decision to duplicate secondary roles.

It would probably be more useful to the group to not duplicate secondary roles, but I like the idea of leaving the option open. For instance, if you wanted to play a group of stranded marines: One character, probably the guy in charge, could have the primary role of Soldier. Everyone else, probably, has that as their secondary too though.

I don't think you are out of bounds at all. You've already looked at other hacks, so I know that you know that messing with the format totally works. Monster of the Week is an *awesome game*, and it's prep (the idea of creating mysteries and determining the monster the players will face) flies in the face of "play to find out" (in my opinion), but it works perfectly for that game. Don't be afraid to add to the game. That contribution may just end up being your gift to the PbtA world.

I'd never tell you to just play Monster of the Week. Game design is fun, and hacking Apocalypse World is super fun! (when it isn't frustrating as hell..) I'm writing a cyberpunk hack and I've managed to write it slow enough that about a half dozen others have made it to market before me, but I'm still writing it!

Great idea! ..and great spin off of Monster of the Week. I never considered doing that. I'll take a look at your stuff.