That is, essentially, what we're doing. Renaming things, reworking the fiction.

Apocalypse World, as it stands, has a particular fiction going on, and that is a post-apocalyptic setting on what is, essentially, Earth, 50 or so years after the maelstrom ended the Golden Age, or whatever ended the Golden Age created the maelstrom. The setting is flexible, sure, but still limited to planetside.

To take it into space, you need a few things: ships, rules for ships, a different setting history, a definite change to the fiction of each class. "Angel" works in the vanilla AW setting, because of the kind of culture that arises in an "After The End" situation. It doesn't work quite as well in the Space Age, though you could use it if you wanted to. In our group, we wanted a different fiction, but the core of the game works just as well within the new setting, with a few minor changes, and we didn't want a different game, we just wanted a different fiction surrounding it.

Consider it like a campaign module for any tabletop RPG. We aren't mucking with the core mechanics, we're putting up a new setting with a few setting specific things, and anyone can play with it as they please.


In addition, you can consider this the foundation. This is the quick and dirty hack, the rough draft. More stuff will be added as we get around to it, and maybe more/different moves will put to the classes as we figure out what still works and what can be changed.

Examples of Pilot ships seen so far in games we've run:

The Sunrunner
power+2; looks+1; 1-armor; weakness+1
Weapons: Medium lasers (2-harm close loud energy fighter)
Frame: Modified Long-hauler Bulk Freighter
Strengths: long-range and huge
Looks: quirky
Weakness: unreliable

Description: The Sunrunner is essentially an enormous rectangular box, with a ship-spanning mural of the Yggdrasill painted on its hull (quirky). Due to the Huge attribute, it was ruled that it had a forward laser battery, under the control of the pilot, and two turrets on the port and starboard sides of the hull, which require individual gunners to operate.

Largely, the dual-turret option was included to allow the Privateer (Operator) and Marine (Gunlugger), who were the other participants in the game, the option of being useful in space combat. One of the flaws of the game, perhaps, but there are ways around it for the inventive MC/player.

An example of a craft acquired through Warmachine:
The Void Hawk
The Void Hawk
power+2; looks+1; 3-armor; weakness+2
Weapons: Assault Package:
Top-mounted turret: (3-harm close/far energy fighter) heavily armored ball-turret with a huge coverage arc
Nose-mounted Gaussian Sequencer: (3-harm close/far reload-optional kinetic fighter capship-optional) six fighter grade gauss rifle barrels arranged in a hexagon, covers a wide arc in the forward direction. Each barrel fires sequentially, eliminating reload times, though the sequence can be altered. If all 6 barrels are fired at once, its a capship grade weapon, but needs a reload time.
Frame: two-man superiority gunship
Strengths: Fast and Responsive
Look: powerful
Weaknesses: cramped and short-range

fighter grade and capital ship grade weaponry mucks about with how much harm is done against what type of armor: general rule is that fighter grade weaponry does full harm against fighter grade armor, +1 harm against personal armor, and -1 harm against capital ship armor. This'll be treated with more attention once we get the weapon mechanics thread up.


The Sunrunner is essentially a mobile base for the group; the long-range tag means that it can make almost any journey you want it to, eliminating the danger of running out of fuel in the midst of space. Fictionally, its drive is essentially a self-sustaining energy source, possibly a fusion engine. We haven't concerned ourselves too much with those details.

Worth noting that, due to amazing seize and under fire rolls, the Sunrunner disabled a frigate (a vessel actually designed for combat), and killed four fighters, in the same battle.

The Void Hawk belongs to the same pilot as the Sunrunner, and fits into that pilot's hangar. So long as it sticks with the Sunrunner, the short-range (i.e. guzzler) doesn't matter that much. Fast, on a ship like this, means speeds more like Mach 5 and up: you ramp things up when you go flight capable.


In general, all space-capable vessels are VTOL capable, though you can always fiction them differently, if you wish.

THE PILOT
There was a time, way back when, that pilots were dime-a-dozen. Back when it was 'safe'. Send the galaxy to hell and back, though, and the ones that survived either gave it up or got real good real quick.

And those are the ones the galaxy wants. The kind that can navigate a raging storm of Gravitas in a rustbucket, and come back to tell the tale.

STATS:
• Cool=0 Hard-1 Hot+1 Sharp+2 Weird=0
• Cool+1 Hard=0 Hot=0 Sharp+2 Weird-1
• Cool=0 Hard+1 Hot=0 Sharp+2 Weird-1
• Cool+1 Hard-2 Hot=0 Sharp+2 Weird+1

MOVES:
you get this
A no shit pilot: when behind the controls... (etc.)
and pick one:
Good in the Clinch
Weather Eye
Daredevil
My other craft is a warmachine: you get an additional craft. Give it an assault package (3-harm close/far) or bomber payload (3-harm area loud) and +1 armor.

GEAR
You get:
• 1 handy weapon
• oddments worth 200 credits
• fashion suitable to your look (you detail)

• Handy weapons (choose 1):
• Hand blaster (2-harm close cooldown loud energy)
• 9mm (2-harm close loud kinetic)
• big knife (2-harm hand kinetic)
• spreader (3-harm close cooldown messy energy)
• naval sword (3-harm hand kinetic)
• heavy blaster (3-harm close cooldown loud energy)

SHIP
Choose one of these profiles:
Power+2 looks+1 1-armor weakness+1
Weapons (optional): Medium lasers (2-harm loud energy close fighter)
or missiles (2-harm loud kinetic far fighter)

Power+2 looks+2 0-armor weakness+1
Weapons (optional): Medium lasers (2-harm loud energy close fighter) or missiles (2-harm loud kinetic far fighter)

Power+1 looks+2 1-armor weakness+1
Weapons (optional): Light lasers (1-harm loud energy close fighter)

Power+2 looks+1 2-armor weakness+2
Weapons (optional): Medium lasers (2-harm loud energy close fighter) or missiles (2-harm loud kinetic far fighter)

Choose its type:
Planetside
Spacefaring

Choose its frame:
Spacefaring: One-man fighter, two-man fighter, shuttle, freighter, frigate, yacht, dropship, scout ship
Planetside: Speeder, walker, tank, car, truck

Choose its strength or strengths:
Fast, rugged, aggressive, tight, huge, long-range(ship), all-terrain(land), responsive, uncomplaining, capacious, workhorse, easily repaired. Choose as many as its power.

Choose its look or looks:
Sleek, vintage, pristine, powerful, luxe, flashy, muscular, quirky, pretty, vicious, shiny, garish, handcrafted. Choose as many as its looks.

Choose its weakness or weaknesses:
Slow, fragile, sloppy, lazy, cramped, picky, guzzler, unreliable, loud, jumpy. Choose as many as its weakness.

Hx, the special move, and the improvement list remain unchanged.

Gravitas is, put simply, a space opera hack of the regular Apocalypse World game. In terms of changes, we've reflavored and renamed the classes, and come up with a few minor mechanics changes to incorporate spaceflight and space combat.

For the most part, the classes remain unchanged. The Driver, Hardholder, and Chopper got the most changes, but at their core, they remain the same. As we go, we may expand on these.

We don't have the classes quite ready to post for this forum, so those will be forthcoming as we get them reorganized.