hi! A player picked up this skin in my campaign (well, 2 sessions so far), and it seems to work fine, although it really needs to specify what happens if you bestow a gift to an NPC. The easy way could be to put them at an advantage, but maybe something different can be done, because the advantage is to NPCs the equivalent to a +1, and this is even better. Perhaps coming out of nowhere with a hard-hard move? (damage, strings, conditions, etc.)

Also, I think there are too many moves, in comparison with other skins. I'd perhaps cut out "the dark powers  are always willing to help", "just this time" (too specific, and only against PCs), and also cut out any one of "my bitch" and "the devil is a winner". Finally, addictive could perfectly be part of the sex move: "they lose all strings over you. If they have none, they gain instead the condition 'addicted to [your name]".

We had the session on sunday, and there were 3 players new to the campaign: the one with the antagonic PC concept, plus 2 of his friends. For a grand total of 5 players (6 with me) :O.
I finally decided to allow him to play his concept, with the only requirement of linking his character in a positive way to most of the other PCs, which we did. It turned out the hocus helped in turn both hardholders in the group* to reach their positions, in the first case by influencing the people to aid the PC, in the second by selling weapons only to the aspiring hardholder.
The PC was a hocus with a seudochristian cult, but all the cultists secretly believed in a different thing, basically they had to kill everyone in the world to allow the world to heal itself. A little inhuman, but some people in the world are just this crazy, so I let him.
I asked the player to tell us about his character during the game setup. He didn´t want to reveal his character as antagonic, he pretty much wanted to lie to the other players, but I told him that that wasn´t feasible in this game (I might have been wrong). So he told everybody about his crazy hocus.
2 of the players, with a big rpg experience (10 years or so), but mostly of traditional or homemade PCs, reacted to it defensively ("your cult won´t start in my holding, that for sure"), and that was a hint of what would come next -.-.
We started the session, wealth and fortune moves, and the cult started in the holding of both new-to-AW-players. A "read a person" move during an argument started the suspicion towards the hocus, and then the hocus´ speech in the holding streets (with the possibility of some gang members entering the cult) was the trigger to a crazy combat between the harholder, gunlugger and his gang against the hocus and his cult.
The combat was super fun, at the beginning some players had complaints against the vague division in turns and also against the soft hit of "go aggro", but soon they were involved in it and it turned out to be really exciting and tense. It ended, obviously, with the hocus dead.
So, yes, I was probably wrong to allow that player to have an antagonic PC, that would have suited a group with more experience in the game, and more trust between the players. But luckily the session was fun anyway, the new players are interested in the campaign.

Other stuff:
-running a campaign in 2 holdings at the same time seems daunting. Any advice or threads about that?
-so far, 5 PCs seems crazy fun, although I have read some threads about running campaigns with big numbers of players and I´m taking note of the advice.
-I have my first queer-dominant group! :D. 4 of us over 6. Shame many of them created women/old dudes, so no queer PC-sex so far : _.

I have started a campaign with 2 friends, and we´ve played 2 sessions so far. Another friend will be added to the campaign soon. I briefly told him about the setting and the existing PCs...
When I finish, he´s already telling me about how will his PC be, and essentially he wants him to be an enemy of the other 2 player characters.

I like the idea a lot, but I´m concerned about the reccomendation of the game about having the PCs be friends (or at least allies, working together) at the setup of a game.

What do you think?

I wanted a custom rule to disincentive worn armor. I'm thinking:

ARMOR IS AWKWARD

- Its hard to move around wearing armor. When you act under fire, subtract from your roll the value of the armor you're wearing.

- Armor also puts you in the mood to bust heads. Armor of a gang is subtracted from Leadership/Pack Alpha rolls made for them.

Here´s why I think they´re not good:

-They mess quite a little with the core rules: the moves are pretty much always 2d6+stat, they almost never have circumstance penalties (other than -1forward), and that´s by design. You´re adding a new layer to the moves rules that goes against the design principles in AW.

-The penalties are BIG. First of all, 1-armor, by the book, may not be armor at all, just a leather jacket. I think it shouldn´t give you a penalty. And second, a -2 (if 2-armor) is SERIOUS SHIT: even a +3 will be turned into a +1, a big difference. You´re not making a little disincentive. Most serious players are gonna drop the armor completely.

-You don´t solve the armor tank issue. Let´s take a gunlugger. He always uses Hard, he´s even got a hard move to run away from combat. So the awkward armor moves don´t bother him: armor doesn´t interfere with seize by force and go aggro, and neither does it with his escape move.

-The move creates weird situations: Maggo wants to stay behind cover and avoid heavy fire until the end of battle. He rolls to act under fire, substracting his armor value. Why? You still have to think whether to apply or not the penalty case-by-case, so I don´t know if it saves you some time or not.

-The move nerfs gang users A LOT: every gang you create by the rules or playbooks has 1 or more armor. What your move does is draw out a lot of power from both chopper and hardholder pcs, who will be pretty much always rolling -1, and that´s a lot. This will lead to fictionally weird situations, like a gang leader telling their gang to drop their armors before heading into combat. Also, remember 1-armor may not be literally armor, so imagine a gang member feeling more secure because he´s wearing a leather jacket. Why?

I´d rather stay within the core rules and add a descriptive tag, like cumbersome, ridiculous or something like that. Tags are not so hard to use, they only pop up when it makes sense in the fiction, pretty much like car weaknesses. When they do, call for a move (like acting under fire), say something that makes sense (no way you´re sneaking into the building with that wonky armor, drop some pieces or you instantly call their attention) or use it when the player fails a move. Easy!

I think that is part of what had me concerned about a character that was always wearing full on invulnerable armor, it lacked realism. The shit is hot and uncomfortable. Who spends their entire day in full body armor on the off chance someone might decide to start a fight? To me, wearing full body armor at all times feels "gamey".

But he isn´t walking all day in full body armor. Remember, 1-armor might be just motorcycle jackets, that isn´t so hard to wear all day. The extra +1 armor comes from a character move, and you can´t take that away from him. So I´d just look for other ways to put him into danger.

Imagine all those people, shooting rifles at someone who is not at all trying to protect themselves, just walking cooly up to their leader. Even with 2-armor, that should leave a dent, I feel. In that scene, Apocalypse World did not seem real to me.

Did de player say his character was walking cooly up to their leader? If he said so, I wouldn´t have him roll "ok, so they have plenty of time to aim for your head, that´s 2 harm AP until you reach the leader. Are you sure you just want to walk up to him?"
But he rolled "seize by force" and chose the "receive 1 less harm", so I´d assume he was running from cover to cover, trying to avoid bullets as he closed. Doesn´t it make sense?

How have you handled in your games the time period when a character needs to spend many days out of action to recover his wounds?
The best solution, I think, is to have that time period advance faster "A week later...", but...
-do you have the threats or fronts act and advance while the character rests?
-if there are other PCs not hurt or willing to rest, what do you do?

What I´d do is to have the threats act, tell the players what they do, and ask if their characters still want to rest. If there are PCs active while others rest, I´d ask them what they do during that week, and then have them roll one custom move, common move, or a series of them if needed.

I´d love to read any examples of actual play to know how have you dealt with the situation.

Quote from: noclue on September 18, 2011, 12:51:29 PM

You need to:
1. Have a character that wants something.
2. Try to figure out how to get what you want.
3. Go and do those things.
and 4. Realize that the character is going to change because of these choices.

Sometimes brutally so.

So, no. Don't just be more adventurous, or violent, or manipulative. Be more willing to go for what you want and more willing to see how things turn out.

I think that should be in the new Players Book.  That is how I would love to have all my players play.

But the MC himself should be prompting the players to run their characters that way, it shouldn´t be something the players do by themselves...
I have a question about the Battlebabe and the Skinner. When they were introduced, did you introduce them in the ongoing campaign by asking the player about their relationships, their family, their jobs, etc.? Or did they just drop out of nowhere? Do they know already another PC?
I would´ve made my best try to create links between the new PC and the ongoing situation. You have to ask the player what does his character want, whom does he/she appreciate, why did he/she move on to the new holding, etc. If you try all that and the player still prefers to run a boring character, then you should stop him and have a serious talk about how does this game work.
But to me it seems like the first mistake was to simply let a character like that come to life.

There are always some players in a group that will show up only once in a while, but might not have the will to play regularly (like, every week). Sometimes, it´s better not to play with them. But in some cases, for whatever reason, the group doesn´t mind having such players in a campaign.

The question is: how to deal with them (in AW, not in general)?
Let´s suppose they create their character, they play once, they have the PC take stakes within an ongoing conflict, change it, etc., but next session they aren´t here, or probably they play once and they don´t like the game. What to do?

-Having them "disappear" feels weird to me, as the character has already a part in what´s going on, so normally it will feel awkward, to say the least. Still, if we do this, the best thing to do would be to have a brief talk with the player, make up a reason for the PC to be absent once in a while, so that it feels as natural as possible. When the player shows up again, you make him roll for a love letter, maybe tell the other players what´s been his character doing all this time (maybe not, or let them ask him during session itself), and job done.
This would be the standard solution, I think. Are there other alternatives?

-Have a one-shot player within an ongoing campaign turn a known NPC into a PC. You inform him about his past, general motivations, relationship with other PCs, but he´s free to do what he wants from then on. I think that "minor", not so important NPCs are better for this, but I can imagine a player taking a former NPC hardholder, it would be quite a surprise. Next sessions, the PC turns back into an NPC, but taking into account the previous events. Should that player ever show up againt, he takes another NPC, maybe, or the same one if still alive.

-If the player will be absent for some time, and for whatever reason the character can´t just fade into the background, you may sit with the player so that he tells you, briefly, how to run his character while he´s absent. It wouldn´t be a PC run by the MC, since he´d work as an NPC for the whole session, perhaps with a minimum protection like, say, having death occur only at 3-harm, or a -1 when acting with X stat against them (like, a gunlugger: -1 to roll +HARD against him). Other possibility might be to have his death, should it happen while he´s absent, be apparent and not real (if possible). He´ll show again next time, despite all odds, badly hurt and all, but alive.

This hasn´t happened yet in my group, but I have a friend (newcomer to the hobby) who doesn´t want to sit and play every week, but she still loves the game and wants to play every now and then (in fact, she says she doesn´t love the whole hobby, she just loves AW :P). I´d like to have her come when she wants, pick a character, have fun, and then come again another time, no pressure or schedule. Have you already dealt with this issue? If so, what have you done? What do you think of the ideas I´ve wrote above?