1) Dent it feels a punch in your lower back when Shit-head shoots you in the back.  Shit-head starts screaming at you about how Dent will never disrespect him again.  He has a shitty little revolver in his hand, it has duct tape around the metal handle; its kind of amazing the fucking thing even shot, really.  Take 2 harm and roll the harm move.

2) Bullet is following this Nissan and the trunk opens up.  You realize right then that the trunk was rigged so it could be opened from the inside. Kneeling in there is a kid with an uzi on some kind of jury-rigged tripod.  He blazes on your windshield.  3 harm and make a harm move.

He rolled a 7-9 on the Harm Move, so he lost track of the Nissan.

I have trouble bringing this one out.  I admit it, I totally feel guilty bringing out damage without some kind of a die roll.  Example #2 was only after a die roll was failed.

#1 was done on the first night, one of my first MC moves but since then, in general, I like to start the move a little earlier.  Like so: 

Dent, Shit-head is front of you, waving a gun around, screaming about how you should never have disrespected him or his bike in front of the guys.  He pulls the hammer back and points the gun at you.  What do you do?

I tend towards that lately.  I think the reason I went with #1 in play is because Dent specifically stated how he was turning his back on Shit-head and walking away to do his business.  He was so dismissive, it just made sense to put a bullet in him and see how he reacted.  Also, I wanted to see the harm move in action; turned out JJ rolled low, so he rolled Go Aggro when Shit-head refused to put down the gun and beat the biker gang's pack omega to a pulp.

Any Inflict Harm thoughts and/or examples?

 - Baby wanted military motorcycles for her boys.
 - Dent wanted a big army truck...like the kind with a canvas top (a deuce and a half,      Barry told us, it is called).
 - Bullet wanted a crane, a working construction crane.
 - Marsh wanted...to meet Cannibals.

I don't recall the mix of misses and 7-9's but it was a nice mix and it resulted in this:

They they were, cannibals in their homemade suits, almost Amish looking but if Amish were special forces soldiers in an apocalyptic world with matching AR-15's assault rifles, gathered around the deuce and a half they had just salvaged with their shiny new crane.

Baby wasn't having it and opened fire, seizing the crane.  She took some shots but drove them off; they took cover behind the truck.

Things got nasty.  Everyone got shot but Baby kept seizing shit by force, so she got really shot up.  Everyone else I had roll their Harm right when it happened but I forgot with Baby, so when the fight was all over, after Marsh had knifed the little boy, Elijah, to keep him from revealing his stealthy position, after Bullet had been pinned down but backed Baby up, after Dent had attempted to get into melee but got shot and lost his grip on his hammer, after Baby sent them running again and I decided that they were done messing with her and they were in full retreat, numbers be damned, she collapsed with 3 damage.

The only doctors worth a damn was in Kip-town.

They stowed her in Bullet's 'vette (he went and got it) and he sprinted on up to the biggest city on the Hudson River.  The rest followed.

Ah, but I'm missing stuff, missing how Baby ended up possessed by the spirit of dead, Elijah and how Rubbin asked Baby if she should kill Bullet because he killed her entire family and a few other things.

But the important facts are there.  Baby's bleeding out and Bullet's running her up north to Kip-town.

That is the important stuff, that sets up everything else.

Dent and Marsh went to Bear to round up Baby's boys to meet up in Kip-town.

Bullet got into Kip-town and made a deal with their warlord, the Kipsie.

Yeah, I need to do dishes and to bed.  I'll start there tomorrow in Kip-town.

I took a map of upstate New York and marked up Duchess County with red and black sharpie markers.  I X'ed out all of the bridges into the cities.  If you want in to NYC, you have to crawl down the western roads or make a deal with the cannibals who control the tunnels.

I labeled New Jersey as Cannibal Country (partly an homage to a post-apoc PTA game from a few years ago and partly because I grew up in New Jersey).

At the base of the Hudson I wrote, "Squid up through Kip-town," because I read that the Hudson is brackish right up to that point and I also saw a youtube video about these fucking squid on the west coast and liked the idea of them having made it this far east and up the Hudson.

Stuck Pole on the eastern side of the Hudson, coming out of the city, put Dog head's 'hold, Coop, in Yonkers.  The other 'holds are bridges, leading up to Kip-town, the self-proclaimed capital of the region. 

The players headed to Bear, the nearest bridge town.

Brandy came in with her Maestro'D this game.  We finished her character, Saffron and stuck her joint in Bear.  Saffron wears a big, purple dress with ruffles and lace, has a bodyguard who knows his business named Shmee.  I start the game with Shmee bringing in Been, a guy who owes Saffron.

I like starting off a new character with them making a judgment call.  She wants to cut on him and rolls 7-9, so there's a rough choice involved.  I say that she can do it but Shmee will get cut up a bit in the process.  She cuts on Been anyway, putting a little fork in his tongue to remind him to pay up on his debt, not caring that he lost his shipment on the river because of squid.

On a piece of paper I wrote the following words:

Rival
Lover
Unfinished Business
Friend

And asked questions, handing out one off the list to each of them.

Turns out Bullit has a rival, one of Saffron's customers named Toyota.  He drives a rusted out Toyota truck that he piles his nine kids into the bed, giving them weapons.

Baby's lover is one of Saffron's girls, Newton.  Newton wants her to buy out her contract so she can leave Bear and travel around with Baby's gang on the back of her bike.

Marsh has unfinished business, having been mugged last time he was in town by a guy who had pretended to be his buddy and gotten drinks with him.

Dent had a friend, another faceless named Stomp, with a mask made from car-seat leather and tremendous boots that give him his name.

And the whole game drove on from those four bits, those questions the players answered.

Bits of last night's game to write about later:

 - a little about Bear

 - Dent pays in violence

 - Bullit's race

 - Bear explodes

 - Saffron's Bouncer 

Chargen

I had a worried moment there.  Barry was looking at the Driver with a gleam in his eye.  Padraic was going back and forth between a Brainer and a Hocus but was leaning towards a Brainer.  J.J. took the Faceless.  K.K. was not sure but there she was teetering between Battle-babe and Chopper.

No followers, no holdings.  They would have been a tribe of loner bad-asses traveling the wasteland, men and women with no names.  It is the same kind of fear I get when people take object demons in Sorcerer.  Some selfish GM part of my brain says, "But I want to make up cool NPC's that are bound to you!"

Brandy made a Maestro'D but she won't be there until next week, so we hold off on her character from Hx on down.

In the end, K.K. took a Chopper and their group is really neat, not tied to any particular hold in the Hudson River Valley, making trips into the city as needed for salvage.  Good stuff.  We talked about post-apoc life in the city, salvage vs. production and what-not.

Start

I wasn't sure where to start the damned game.  There's no Hardholder, dammit!  They didn't make a town for me.  Bastards.

I latch on to my image of a town whose walls are made of telephone poles.  I describe it as a ragged wild west palisade fort but made out of telephone poles and mud.  The town is called Pole.

"You've just gotten out of the city and you are dragged a big-ass haul behind you, like, dragged behind the car with chains.  What did you get out of the city?"

Some ideas are thrown out there.

J.J. speaks up.  "Maybe its a person."

"Its a fucking person.  Yes.  Chained up in a trailer. Someone dangerous.  Who is it?"

"The local warlord's daughter?  Maybe a Romeo and Juliet kind of thing?"

"Yeah, she went off and hitched up with a rival, Dog head and her dad, the Warlord of Pole is pissed.  Her dad is Millions."

And off we went.

They brought her in, knowing full well that Millions would execute her for disloyalty.  J.J.'s Faceless, Dent, did the execution, doing in her skull like a watermelon.

This is their first job.  The rest of the game is them lazing about, spending Millions' reward.

Bullit, the driver, agrees to take some gas and some time in Millions' garage.

Dent, the faceless, agrees to be paid in a week's worth of food and flesh.

Baby, the chopper, just wants  week's worth of food, booze and whores for her boys.

Marsh, the Brainer, just wants a week worth of food and booze.

Millions feels like he got off cheap.  He is a central stop-off point when people get out of the city on salvage runs.

Cool Dice Shit

Dent, big bastard in dirty carhart overalls and a dented helicopter helmet with a sledge-hammer on his back, is nervous.  They got their payday from Millions for delivering his wayward daughter to her execution but had to piss off Dog head to do it.  He wants to know where Dog head might strike back.  He reads a sitch, sitting around town, watching its ebb and flow.

There's a spy in Millions' hold and its his favorite son, Look.  Once Look has info on where they're going, he'll send it to Dog head and there will be a nasty ambush. 

Shit.

Dent visits Ugly, his favorite prostitute but the she asks if he wants to take off his mask.  He cuts the massage short and just walks off, tells the rest of the group what's up with Look.

Baby watches Look playing cards with her boys.  The boys are liquored up and fuct and loose.  They are telling Look shit.  She tries to get them away (manipulation) from the table by sending girls over and sending signals but they aren't taking the hint.

Baby follows Look when he walks off to piss.  She could hit him (Acting under fire, I think) but there's no room for error.  He's the golden boy in his daddy's own hold and if there's a brawl it will turn ugly.  She'd have to hit him HARD, I tell her that it might put him in her clutches unconscious and it might put him in a coma.  Head trauma is funny like that.  She elects not to hit him.  Look walks away, not knowing how close he came.

Marsh is sleeping with Hundreds, who is Millions right hand girl and main security gunslinger.  He's all up in her brain and she likes that he's this exotic Native American from the great-big-outside-Pole.  He knows how she wants to leave but likes feeling legit, likes being a part of something bigger.  When he pushes her, asks her why she hangs around, they get into a nasty fight and she stomps off once she's done cleaning her guns in bed.

Next up: Cool NPC's & Leaving Hundreds with the Problem

The theme song to AW in my head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxoD9zWY9Rg

Los Angeles Is Burning by Bad Religion



Somewhere high in the desert near a curtain of blue St. Anne’s skirts are billowing
But down here in the city of limelights the fans of Santa Anna are withering
And you can't deny the living is easy if you never look behind the scenery
It's show time for dry climes and bedlam is dreaming of rain
When the hills of Los Angeles are burning
Palm trees are candles in the murder wind
So many lives are on the breeze even the stars are ill at ease
And Los Angeles is burning
This is not a test of the emergency broadcast system
Where Malibu fires and radio towers conspire to dance again
And I cannot believe the media Mecca - they're only trying to peddle reality
Catch it on prime-time, story at nine
The whole world is going insane
When the hills of Los Angeles are burning
Palm trees are candles in the murder wind
So many lives are on the breeze even the stars are ill at ease
And Los Angeles is burning
Jacaranda boughs are bending in the haze
More a question than a curse
How could hell be any worse?
The flames are stunning, the cameras running, so take warning!
When the hills of Los Angeles are burning
Palm trees are candles in the murder wind
So many lives are on the breeze even the stars are ill at ease
And Los Angeles is burning