Our sessions are 5 to 7 hours real time typically, and we tend to cover between a few hours and three days in play, normally averaging about a day and a half.

The new barter rules puts real onus on the players to make some type of capital every single/other week, and this tends to be a very valuable effect because it emphases the scarcity of basic goods and needs in the world at large. If a player had a huge pile of barter, then tended to live the high life for every session they could until they literally didn't have a choice but to go back to the standard squalor. We made it count.

I found that in AW1 stockpiles of barter were like nukes the players piled away until they wanted to basically buy off an entire army, arm an entire army, or something similar. This tended to mean that I gave out very little barter normally, and they would spend it very cautiously. In AW2 the barter really FLOWS and shows much more of an economy. Everyone is getting it and using it all over the place, and that's actually inspired quite a few little stories all by itself.

What it normally means, especially when the players are very busy on scene, is that they're getting moonlighting during the pauses between scenes working for some wealthy npc. This was interesting because it allowed an NPC hardholder to actually have significant influence over the day to day living conditions of the party. Sometimes we had that moonlighting blow up, but most of the time it went pretty smoothy and was more like "a Gunlugger on call" or a savvyhead doing general / consistent "maintenance" .

If the NPC got killed or that money got cut off, the players Immediately felt it, even if they had enough for a session or two of being stingy. Like most people with a consistent cushy job, they were very fond of their boss. Even when she was being a little sadistic.

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In AW1 if a month of gameplay took 4-5 sessions before we passed time, then I would expect 1 barter to be earned during that period with more if they worked their asses off for it. a barter was HUGE, like a suitcase full of cash.

In AW2 a barter is more like a coat, a nice blanket, etc and because it was zoomed in so much these was significantly more interesting. But we had some weirdness still with the 1-barter auto 10 from the barter moves section. That never made any sense on scene. Not Once.

You could carry a mechanical benefit. But I wouldn't do that (thought about it though). Instead I use that tag in the opposite way I use vulnerabilities. When I present opportunities, a hot car will draw people in, or help someone stand out, or allow actually INSPIRE the narrative reaction in everyone else. Hop into a Hard dump-truck, and we're talking knocking through walls and crushing over scenery. People seeing it coming at them are going to see the vehicle being fuck hard as hell. Same with cool, inspire the cool options and cool reactions. Weird is a bit more touch and go, and I figure that just takes the drivers personality and quirks and amplifies them through the vehicle. 

That could also all be represented by +1 to that stat, but in play, the mechanical benefit was just overkill to the fact I was barfing forth those opportunities anyway.

This looks awesome. Thanks Lumpley!

What I meant is, feel free to hate it, hack the old one back, etc. I don't think you need to like the driver, much like I don't need to like or appreciate the rock and roll crap-noise-thing in the alternative play books. Only reason I kept going after that line is that if Vincent reads this, I wanted him to know I love it.

So like what you want, hate what you want. Driver has plenty of things, and if you and your player cannot figure out what he wants his to be, then, maybe a brain storming session is due.

IMO some of the play books just come with a lot of noise.

I hated the Driver playbook before. Now it's one of my favorite. So... disagree. :)

Thanks! :D

I was really afraid that the database change affected the max value of the column and it was gone.

People drive down the road to get to where they're going. They're probably in every day type cars. IN the apocalypse world, maybe those cars are diesel fueled war-machines, but the in the end, they're still just the trash people put together.

In my games, the driver is the luxury car, the racer, the real damn tank. For whatever reason they've got a relationship with their vehicle that tends to go their way. The vehicle and the driver both care about each other, and it shows. The other crap on the roads just don't compare in the same way, hell, the other cars are probably jealous.

Driving is a drivers art.

The driver also has access to vehicles that other people just don't. If you've got a bunch of people sailing on the coastline with rickety old fishing vessels loaded with arms and small speed boats with front gun turret. The Drivers the guy I'll let say. I want a Helicopter, a Submarine, A hovercraft for the marshland, a small airplane. They get access to things that change the scope of the game.

Drivers don't escape threats. He can try, but the threats might still come after them, and word-gets-around. The driver also generates threats, because he's got shit that other people want. He can access things that other people cant. When you've got a driver on the move, then probably the most relevant threats are also on the move. The game probably covers a larger area. Just because the driver moves, doesn't mean he doesn't need the road. Or he doesn't need friends along the way that help him resupply. Think Firefly (the movie) and what happens to Shepard with the Crew tries to go to ground. A driver still has to eat. 

I dont do mad max type of games, not even close. But My games normally encompass a larger area. Usually it all plays around a few hardholders and whatever is in between. Getting through the middle of that and all the threats, that's always dangerous and I'm always pushing problems in into it. The driver can get ~anywhere~ more reliably then someone else, but that doesnt mean he's just gonna drive off into the sunset.

Drivers also pretty much swallowed up the operator. Far as I'm concerned, all the cool things an operator could do are now in the drivers hands. So I talk about how he gets his jingle, and play into that pretty hard. These places probably sit pretty still, and thus are vulnerable to all the things the driver might out run.

As for playtime, keeping people on scene can always be a challenge. Doesn't have anything to do with a driver though. I don't see how its related. I rarely if ever have all the players in the same place at the same time. That's just too much firepower, and they're not always friendly towards each other.