I decided to consolidate what was going to be 4 fronts into 4 threats all in one front.

My main worry is that the first game took place in Pole, with the players leaving in a hurry.

So, other than Dog head, I am making a bunch of shit up, not based on the players' character sheets, just cold, outta the blue.  I'm thinking that is fine, that some threats will fade into th back for a while while others surge forward and I have the countdowns to figure out what is happening hither and yon.

I have one more threat to throw out there, the Brutes from Kip-town but any advice or thoughts (custom moves, etc.) is appreciated.

One more threat to get down, the feud concerning the Hudson river bridges.

I'll write that up tomorrow.

Threat 2 - West Point Myth

Kind: Affliction/Delusion

Impulse: to dominate people's choices and actions

Descriptions and Cast: It is always a friend of a friend in some other distant hold or village who saw a tank or troops with legit uniforms or knows a warlord who killed someone for being an army spy...

Custom Move:

On a 10+ you find evidence that there is no army left at the Point and that it is all a myth.

7-9, you know it is a myth but someone now thinks that you are an army spy.

On a miss, the MC chooses someone who you are sure is a spy.  +1 forward in accusing and convincing others of their guilt.

Countdown:

00-03: Drunk gang thugs grumble rumors around the fire
03-06: Stories about troop movements begin to get told as fact.
06-09: A play or song or pamphlet begins to be circulated.
09-10: Newcomers are driven out of a hold for being army spies
10-11: Mission to the Point does not return.
12 Witch hunts begin in earnest, people are killed.

I still can't believe you cheated on me.

Nice AP thread though.

*sigh*

Pete is my housemate.  Let me explain the above post in the way of a short play:

Judd:  I started a game without you on Friday nights, Pete.  I feel like I am cheating on you.

Pete:  That's silly.  What are you playing?

Judd: Apocalypse World.

Pete: Apocalypse World!  I'm giving you your ring back!  You aren't the man I married!

Glendower,

I wasn't looking for folks to do my barfing for me, more just looking for nudges in the right direction.

Thank you for the enthusiasm, though.

Thanks nemomeme (may I know your name, please?).  I am glad the AP worked for you and that you could picture shit.  I had one of those moments where the players at up once I mentioned telephone poles, something so common in a new context helped everyone get there.

Yeah, Shit-head...I fear for the boy.  I really do. 

I am a brainstorming fronts with threats and I am just making shit up.  I am using the scant bits that came up in game but because we didn't have people with strong ties to an area, we didn't make up a whole lot.  Dog head, an unnamed rival gang, the city...not much, so I am making shit up left and right, which I think will be fine.

Before they go into the next town, I am going to ask some pointed questions to link them to it in a bit more of an emotional way.  Should be keen.

Padriac, J.J., K.K., Barry, Brandy, you probably should not read this.



I got home and got excited.  My buddy, Witt, was in town and we sat up and talked about gaming and life and shit.  I started asking questions about New York City, about where our game taking place just outside The City, could be set.  He mentioned Duchess County and we were off and running.

Maps, links, bookmarking shit, reading wikipedia and so on.  I'm thinking of printing out a Revolutionary War era map and marking it up with a sharpie.

The Hudson River has some fun toys.  West Point.  The Indian Point Nuclear Plant.  Spook Rock.  Crazy tides with brackish water.

I vaguely remembered how to make Fronts.  I jotted shit down.

Death Point: site of nuclear reactor and the descendants of the engineers who have tried to mitigate the radiation leakage who now fight a religious war against the fading plant's inner workings.

Landscape: Furnace
With doomsday clock that will note when the radiation entirely destroys the Hudson River.

Army Point: At first this was going to be a front, but after talking it over with Witt, we decided that the army of West Point is a myth.  Some guy in some hold was killed because he was a spy for the army.  A tank was seen in the woods by X.  That kinda shit.

Kip-town: A hold built around a bridge and lots but lots of cargo containers (the FDR mid-Hudson bridge in Poughkeepsie, NY).

Brutes -> Hunting Pack
The bastards sent from Kip-town to destroy all bridges and barges that can get across the river so that Kipsie has control of all river crossings.

Coop: Projects in Brooklyn ruled by Dog Head.  Fear of him played a prominent role in the first game.  I thought he should be among the fronts.

Warlord -> Slaver
Moving slaves up and down the river and maybe even down the coast.

So, those are the vague ideas put vaguely into Front-like shapes.  Now I'll re-read the Fronts and Threats chapter and sharpen it all up before next game.

To be continued.  Thoughts appreciated.

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