Guys,

I'm working on an AW hack for a Sword & Sorcery game I'm going to run at Gencon this summer, and I'd love feedback.

The link to my work in progress is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11nd5yEVDdO32mvUBlrI-gbK9xR3MJtHpCIvT_u-ZC5Q/pub

It doesn't include playbooks yet; I'm working on the basic moves and system outline stuff.

The game is intended specifically to mirror the feel of some of the Howard Conan stories later in Conan's life -- the ones where he is a king and deposed for whatever reason and has to retake his throne.  In my focused story, the king is dead, and the playbooks will represent his heir and allies as they try to retake the throne.

Here are some specific questions I am working through:

1.) I have three traits (compare to AW's five.) Is that too few? I have five players.

2.) Inspired by World of Dungeons, I have written a mechanic called 'Skills'. You can see it in the WIP document, but essentially, if you don't have a relevant skill -- and playbooks will grant skills -- then you treat 10+ results on my Act Under Fire equivalent (called Take A Risk) as 7-9 results. Are there unintended consequences there?

3.) I have written an "Allies" mechanic, also granted by playbooks. (I have gone back and forth between calling them 'Allies' and 'Contacts'.) In the game, the players will be gathering support to retake the throne, and the allies they select as part of character generation in their playbooks -- one character might have Allies among the nobility and the temples, another might have Allies among the thieves and the seafarers, etc -- should sort of signpost places for them to go. Right now, the primary mechanical impact of that is that it can act as a 'reason' -- the old 1E leverage -- for the Seduce/Manipulate move. Is that enough?

4.) More specifically on Allies, I have considered writing a more expansive Move, something like 'Gather Support', one where you ask a group for support -- on 10+, they help you, no problem, and on a 7-9, they need something first. If they aren't already your Allies, treat 10+ as a 7-9. I think maybe that's covered already by Seduce/etc, but perhaps it would benefit to be called out. Anyone have any thoughts on that topic?

I've also reworded a few things in some of the Moves from vanilla AW, which might provoke opinions. I'm not sure.

Anyways, tell me what you think!

I mean moves like "When you go into Dremmer's territory..." -- PC moves linked to a threat.

Do you put them on the table as soon as you mention Dremmer has territory, or do you wait until a PC says "I am heading to Dremmer's territory," at which point you say 'About that...'

Putting them out front signifies that 'hey, here is something interesting.' Waiting means that there is an element of uncertainty.

It may be that some go in one category and others in the other category -- any thoughts, though, on which go in which?