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Messages - john anderson

Pages: 1 [2]
16
Apocalypse|State / [Apocalypse|State] - Character Generation
« on: September 05, 2010, 05:35:40 AM »
I want to keep the A|State character generation style because it creates a character that is intrinsicly tied to the setting, rather than just appearing out of the ether. In A|State, characters have an origin, an upbringing and finally a profession.

Origin is based on the economic and social class to which you were born.

Upbringing tells of the type of adolescent and early adult life your character led.

Your profession is where your character is right now.

I've focused the origin far more so than in A|State, reducing the seperate delineated classes into three, prole, petty bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie. These will provide language skills and basic in-built modifications to the basic moves. Here's what I've got so far.

Origin

Prole

Dispossessed, redundant or drudge, you’re from the streets and have had a grim, hard life. Your parents, were homeless, unemployed or slaved in one of the factories for barely enough to feed and cloth themselves and their children. You had to grow up fast and learnt quickly that you could only rely on one person, yourself.

You get
Broken: You speak and understand the language of the streets, broken, a dialect of common. You can fully understand and converse with another person speaking broken. Those unable to understand the patter have no idea what you’re talking about.

Choose 1
Take what you can to survive: When you seize by force, roll+smarts
I know the streets: When you read a situation, roll+hard
One small cog in the machine: When you peer into the dark places, roll+hard

Petty bourgeoisie

Your parents escaped the worst deprivations of the streets, and managed to build a life in a, relatively, more comfortable part of The City. Educated and ambitious, they were the middle class small business owners, professionals, traders, craftspersons, owners of microcorps, or low ranking officials within one of the macrocorps. Life wasn’t as hard as for most, and life in the burbs was comfortable but by no means extravagant. 

Choose 1
Language of commerce: All complex negotiations and bargaining  between businessmen, entrepreneurs and macrocorps officials is undertaken in commerce, one of the three language groups in The City. You can fully understand and converse with another person who also understands the language of commerce. Anyone else has no idea what you’re talking about.
Cultured: You are able to speak and understand the language of Culture, one of the three main language groups in The City. Culture is the language of art and high-society. Those unable to understand culture have no idea what you’re talking about.

Choose 1
Work ethic: When you do something under fire, roll+smarts
Ambitious: When you seize by force, roll+smarts
Insecure: When you read a person, roll+hard

Bourgeoisie

Born with a level of security, wealth, luxury and privilege unimaginable for those born to the streets. These people make up a fraction of The City’s sprawling populace, yet are the political, social and economic elites. They live lives of comfort and decadence, shielded from the harsh realities of life for the teeming multitudes.

Choose 1
Language of commerce: All complex negotiations and bargaining  between businessmen, entrepreneurs and macrocorps officials is undertaken in commerce, one of the three language groups in The City. You can fully understand and converse with another person who also understands the language of commerce. Anyone else has no idea what you’re talking about.
Cultured: You are able to speak and understand the language of Culture, one of the three main language groups in The City. Culture is the language of art and high-society. Those unable to understand culture have no idea what you’re talking about.

Choose 1
Superiority complex: When you go aggro, roll+rep
Silver spoon: When you seduce or manipulate, roll+cool
Mover and shaker: When you read a situation, roll+rep

John

17
Apocalypse|State / Re: [Apocalypse|State] - The City
« on: September 04, 2010, 06:34:59 AM »
I think taking this route (collaborative setting of the burgh) is probably the way to go. It ties in nicely with ideas of hope in the darkness as it creates a setting that is far more personal and intimate than an entire city. It also, hopefully, creates a by-in for characters to try and improve the lot of their fellow burghers (?sp).
John

18
Apocalypse|State / Re: [Apocalypse|State] - The City
« on: September 04, 2010, 06:32:33 AM »
One possible route for creating the setting (The City) is to marry the idea of the Hardholding with that of the burgh. The vast majority of people within The City are born, live, work and die within the same burgh. The costs and dangers involved with travelling to other burghs makes travel less than attractive for those unable to afford private means of travel of an armed escort.

Name your burgh:
  • Choose 1, 2 or 3 names from the list below, and mix and match them together for the name of your burgh. You can also include as one of your choices one of the names from pages 6-7.

Quote
Cold, skank, sullen, stacks, fell, lanes, cut, gate, sleeping, rookery, tor, rain, towers, bank, side, bright, lights, clear, water, junction, hills, lucent, mire, folly, break, parish, fog, long, spires, project, shore, warrens, pond, dog, hell, side, bath, dreaming, heights, long, calculus

You start at the bottom:
By default, your burgh is:
  • moderately populated, with most people squatting in decaying tenement blocks
  • it produces a mix of light manufacturing, cottage industry, crude farming, and scavenging (surplus: none, want: hungry)
  • there’s no authority, no law

Choose 4
These are just placeholder ideas at the moment...
  • Improve income of the burgh
  • Increase the population density (increased income, but also increased hunger)
  • Decrease the population density (increased anxiety, decreased hunger)
  • Add a market (increased barter/credit)
  • Add a well-known place that is known through The City for something cool or hard to find.
  • more to add...

Choose 2
These are just placeholder ideas at the moment...
  • Population even poorer than usual (want+disease)
  • Very high prevalence of drug use (want+disease)
  • Population decadent and perverse (surplus-1barter, want: savagery)
  • more to add...

More as it comes to me...
John

19
Apocalypse|State / Re: Apocalypse|State - Economy
« on: September 04, 2010, 06:00:55 AM »
And of course, these moves should read...


Barter move: To buy what you want, you need to have as much barter as the price of the item you want. Roll+smarts,
  • On a 10+, you drive a hard bargain, you get the item and pay 1 less barter than the price given.
  • On a 7-9, you buy what you want for the agreed price, subtract that many barter items from your possessions.
  • On a 1-6, you can buy it, but it'll cost you 1 more barter than listed. He saw you coming, and has some large lads with sparklocks as his complaints department. Subtract 1 more barter from your barter items than the original price. Don't have enough barter? Better find some more, or you'll be meeting the complaints department.


Credit move: To buy what you want, you only need a credit of 1 or more, regardless of its price. Roll+rep,
  • On a 10+, your credit is more than welcome, you purchase the item and your credit rating gets upgraded (+1credit).
  • On a 7-9, your credit is of course accepted. You get what you want but you're pushing your credit limit. If you still want the item, reduce your credit by -1.
  • On a 1-6, you can buy it, but if the price is greater than your current credit, it'll max out your card, and that means the Collection Agency will want their dues. You don't want to fuck with the CA, their complaints department involves Tintenel power-armoured drop troops. If the price is less than or equal to your credit, they hold your card and you don't get squat, now you're credit-less. Your choice chum.

Oh, and steal away! :)
John

20
Apocalypse World / Re: NPC/PC Pictures
« on: September 03, 2010, 12:10:58 PM »
I can't for the life of me remember where I saw this link, but it is very AW-ish. Shit I only saw the link yesterday as well. To tie back into the original thread you could organise them and NPC details via Stixy.
John

21
Apocalypse|State / Apocalypse|State - Economy
« on: September 03, 2010, 11:11:58 AM »
Quote from: A|State page
Currency in The City consists of Pounds, Shillings and Pence.
While all of the macrocorps, several banks, some local governments and a few churches produce their own scrip, all are denominated in the same manner and are generally given equal value, as money circulates around The City at a fairly rapid rate.

The City economy.
Yeah, the toffs and the middle class, they're alright, jack. They can get credit. Us lot? The drudges, the mudlarks, the flowghosts, ordinary people trying to just live? We get almightily screwed. We can't get no fucking credit. It's all barter with us. Wanna loaf of bread to feed your family for a bit? Gimme a week's worth of processed nebelweed. Can't get it? Well, don't fucking eat then! See what I care.

While the macrocorps exist in their cocoons, safe from the deprivation of the street and spending their credit to buy the shiney toys they just can't live without, on the streets, there is no credit. Just the cold hard reality of barter.

In A|State, the economy is delineated into bands of scarcity. Goods or services are either very common, common, rare, very rare or scarce and then individually priced. This fits in with a system based purely on a cash economy. For barter, less so. Rather, I'd like to use the relative scarcity's as a system of barter and a cash economy.

1-barter
Very Common: Sideband TV service for a year,  eating out at a shitty roadside vendor, nebelweed for a day, a months rent in a shithole.

2-barter
Common: Additional factual TV channel for a month, gas for the home for a month, sustenance level food for a family of 4 for a month, edge, scrape, or escape for a day, medical treatment at the local quack, a months rent in a higher class shithole.

3-barter
Uncommon: Telephone service for a month, electricity for the home for a month, 1 litre of purified water, Ghostfighter glue,

4-barter
Rare: Medical treatment at a private health clinic

5-barter
Very rare: Eating out at a posh restaurant with tables and chairs and plates!,

6-barter
Scarce:...


Barter move: To buy what you want, you need to have as much barter as the price of the item you want. Roll+smarts,
On a 12+, you drive a hard bargain, pay 1 less barter than the price given.
On a 10+, you buy what you want for the agreed price, subtract that many barter items from your possessions.
On a 1-6, you can buy it, but it'll cost you 1 more barter than listed. He saw you coming, and has some large lads with sparklocks as his complaints department. Subtract 1 more barter from your barter items than the original price. Don't have enough barter? Better find some more, or you'll be meeting the complaints department.

Barter involves the tangible acquisition and trade of concrete assets. You've either got it or you haven't. But at least if you don't have it, you could go scavenging, or stealing, for it. Barter is a 1-1 exchange on the list above.

Credit move: To buy what you want, you only need a credit of 1 or more, regardless of its price. Roll+rep,
On a 12+, your credit is more than welcome, in fact you get upgraded (+1credit).
On a 10+, your credit is of course accepted, your credit remains unchanged.
On a 1-6, you can buy it, but if the price is greater than your current credit, it'll max out your card, and that means the Collection Agency will want their dues. You don't want to fuck with the CA, their complaints department involves Tintenel power-armoured drop troops. If the price is less than or equal to your credit, they hold your card and you don't get squat, now you're credit-less. Your choice chum.

Credit is the opposite of barter. It doesn't exist. It is a measure of the perceived ability (rep) of the indivual to repay it at some point in the future. Want more credit? You gotta buy more. Of course, max out your credit and you're screwed. Credit doesn't even see the scarcity as an issue. If you've got credit, you can buy the item.

I see credit being the preserve of the uber-wealthy in the macrocorps, and barter for the streets and alleyways. Barter has to be real concrete items. You have  to say what each trinket or item is to your character. Credit is just that, a card with a series of numbers and a bar code. Yay.

John

22
Apocalypse|State / [Apocalypse|State] - The City
« on: September 03, 2010, 09:05:46 AM »
So, CGS's A|State. What is it, and how can AW be made to bring it to life?

I think A|State was my gateway game into the world of the indy/small game publishers. It got me to the forge, where I was confused. It led me to Burning Wheel, which is my go-to game of choice. It was the stimulii that changed what and how I play rpgs. Problem was, I really wasn't a fan of the system for A|State. Loved, and I mean really loved, and still do love, the setting, but I just couldn't get past that system. I tried NWOD, then BW and then I read AW.

A|State is a post apocalyptic setting. You've got the calamity striking down civilisation in the dim, dark past. You've got all that remains from the Bombardment and the Shift stuck in one place. The City. A circular metropolis of unimaginable size and population, with a sickening level of inequality between the industrialised, hitech and uber-wealthy macrocorps hiding in their shiny, well-protected fortresses. You've got pseudo-Victorian, smog-laden and acid-rain pelted burghs full-to-bursting with the uneducated, unwashed and starving populace all toiling to survive against horrendous odds.

There's no escape from The City, it's outer boundary is a wall of something that disappears any poor bugger who steps into it. There's the Shifted, bizarre mutants and things that appear from nowhere, kill for seemingly for no reason whatsoever, or, more scarily, they may even help you. Lost Places make entire tenements or people, or vehicles just...disappear.

The City is decaying. There's no central authority to maintain or rebuild The City. Anarchy, deprivation and decay are underlying themes of this Hobbesian dystopia. It is AW in a city. An industrialised, anarchic city to be sure, but with just as much misery, depravity, loneliness, want, humanity and weirdness to make it a great fit for AW.

John

23
Apocalypse|State / Re: Apocalypse|State - Fronts
« on: September 03, 2010, 08:45:16 AM »
I think it might make more sense to replace The Breeding Pit as a threat with Lost Places. More thematically appropriate.
John

24
Apocalypse|State / [Apocalypse|State] - The Lost Places
« on: September 03, 2010, 08:20:13 AM »
Lost Places:
Quote from: A|State page 39
A lone man walks down a darkened alley, never to emerge on the other side.
An emaciated dog runs from nowhere into the middle of a crowded street.
Children scrabbling in cellars and basements, playing to blank out the misery of existence, find one of their friends gone. Forever.
Squads of heavily armed troops disappear while on patrol, their screams faintly floating on the breeze.
Half heard voices from nowhere, partial glimpses from the corner of an eye.
These are the Lost Places.

Ok, so Lost Places are a by-product of The Shift? No fucker knows for certain. Not even the wack-job scientists of the Shift Studies Group. I mean, they do tests and they make these fucked-up theories that sound a-o-fucking-k, but really? They don't have any more of a clue than your average drug-addled drudge slaving in some god-forsaken factory.

So what do we know?
  • People, animals, trinkets, even whole sodding buildings...gone. Just fucking gone, man. One minute they're there. Then...nothing.
  • Finding a Lost Place? Yeah right. Looking for it won't find one, people just, well, stumble across them. Poor buggers.
  • Some snotty-nosed ex-mike fighter told me once you can't even photograph Dark Places. Nothing on the photo, she said. Nothing. How screwed up is that? She didn't say what you do see though...
  • Oh, there are plenty of stories about Lost Places. Torture lane, The Pit, The Torment. Loads of stories, whispered in shitty gin palaces and skanky Edge-dens. But again, would you believe those wacked-out fuckers?
  • The Shifted are connected to the Lost Places. We think. They're not gonna tell us though, so who knows?

Initial thoughts for Apocalypse|State.
1. Lost Places replaces The Maelstrom.
2. You don't look for Lost Places, well you can, but you ain't gonna find one.
3. LPs and the Shifted are connected.
4. Drug use is rampant in The City. How to connect the dots?
5. Your weird stat is related to LPs, but how?
6. What's inside the LPs? Where do you go when you enter? Canon states there's no return from the LPs. Is it death? Can it be used as a fail result with certain drugs?

John


25
Apocalypse|State / Apocalypse|State - Fronts
« on: September 03, 2010, 04:00:22 AM »
Fronts
Fronts remain fundamentally unaltered from AW (see AW pages 136-150).

Fundamental Scarcity
The City is a place of startling inequalities, and away from gleaming towers and fortresses of the Macrocorps, life is shaped by adversity and scarcity.
  • Hunger (Food is always an issue for those too poor to escape the grinding poverty and oppression of the streets)
  • Thirst (Whether it be a thirst for knowledge, freedom from persecution, freedom from want. Everyone in The City thirsts for something they don't have).
  • Ignorance (...is bliss? Ignorance gets you a Hirplakker Commune gunship going mental on your block when that little strike you organised over fair pay interfered with the factory production cycle. Everyone in The City knows that knowledge is power, or more accurately, lack of knowledge gets you killed.)
  • Fear (The Shift, that your neighbour has more than you, that your children will die of malnutrition and not care for you when older...)
  • Decay (The City is literally falling apart, decay is rampant, physical, psychological, spiritual)
  • Despair (There's only two ways to leave The City, by your hand or by another's)
  • Envy (There’s always someone in The City who covets what you have)
  • Ambition (Want your neighbour's windmill? fucking take it! No fucker's gonna stop you, as long as you have the biggest balls, guns or friends. Generally in that order.)

Threats
These are the 5 categories of threat.
  • Demagogue
  • Grotesque
  • The City
  • Affliction
  • Brutes

Demagogues
A demagogue threat is the demagogue, his gang or organisation, and other people under his control. There are 6 types of demagogue.
  • Capitalist (impulse: to own and sell)
  • Communist (impulse: to consume and swarm)
  • Prophet (impulse: to denounce and overthrow)
  • Fascist (impulse: to control)
  • Collector (impulse: to own)
  • Predator (impulse: to hunt and dominate)

Grotesques
A grotesque is still fundamentally a person, a human being, yet their humanity has been crippled, either eaten away over time by the insidious nature of The City, or shattered in one horrific moment. The names of the grotesques are taken from (or perhaps it was vice versa) the 6 suits of a standard 80-card pack of playing cards that is so prevalent in The city.
  • The Daemon (impulse: craves satiety and plenty)
  • The Priest (impulse: craves restitution, recompense)
  • The Assassin (impulse: craves pain, its own or others’)
  • The Temptress (impulse: craves contact, intimate and/or anonymous)
  • The Captain (impulse: craves mastery)
  • The Warlord (impulse: craves overthrow, chaos, the destruction of The City)

The City
The killing fields of the contested grounds, the grand Cathedral of sideband media,  the rusting, brooding menace of the iron Bastion and the hulking caverns of Crossbar Terminus. These are just a few of the places within The City that make life so interesting for its inhabitants. The locations of The City can be broken down into 6 broad threats.
  • Prison (impulse: to contain, to deny egress)
  • Breeding pit (impulse: to generate badness)
  • Furnace (impulse: to consume things)
  • Mirage (impulse: to entice and betray people)
  • Maze (impulse: to trap, to frustrate passage)
  • Fortress (impulse: to deny access)

Afflictions
An affliction threat isn’t a person, it’s something threatening that people are doing, or that is happening, or that has come to be.
  • Disease (impulse: to saturate a population)
  • Condition (impulse: to expose people to danger)
  • Custom (impulse: to promote and justify violence)
  • Delusion (impulse: to dominate people’s choices and actions)
  • Sacrifice (impulse: to leave people bereft)
  • Privation (impulse: to impoverish people)

Brutes
A brutes threat is a group of people, with or without a leader. Acting in crude, perhaps provisional, concert.
  • Chaser (impulse: to victimize anyone vulnerable)
  • Devourer (impulse: to consume someone’s resources)
  • Ganger (impulse: to victimize anyone who stands out)
  • Cult (impulse: to victimize & incorporate people)
  • Mob (impulse: to riot, burn, kill scapegoats)
  • Family (impulse: to close ranks, protect their own)

26
Apocalypse|State / [Apocalypse|State] - The Ghostfighter
« on: September 02, 2010, 10:45:52 AM »
    This is one of the new playbooks I'm putting together for a AW hack for
Contested Ground Studio's A|State.

Quote from: A|State main rulebook
The ghostfighters of The City are a breed apart from the common guffer or militant trooper, having honed their skills in knife fighting and stealthy attack to a remarkable degree. The most talented of ghostfighters are prosperous and in demand. Untalented ghostfighters are dead. A ghostfighter is quite simply an individual who has trained themselves to a high degree of expertise in stealth, infiltration and armed combat. Do not make the mistake of thinking that they are assassins. They are stand up fighters, preferring to look their enemy straight in the face before delivering the killer strike. Many notable figures employ a ghostfighter or two as unobtrusive bodyguards at exorbitant prices.

Creating a Ghostfighter
To create your ghostfighter, choose name, look, stats, moves, gear and Hx.

Name
Choose a first name, a family name and/or street name from the list of names on page 6-7.

Look
Male, female, to scarred to tell
Street clothes, all dogskin and chains, combat gear, suited and booted. 
Scarred, tattooed, fidgety, thousand-yard stare, piercings.

Stats
Stats (Cool, Hard, Rep, Smarts and Weird) range from -1 to +2, distribute stats so that the total equals +3.

Basic Moves:
You get all the basic moves

Ghostfighter Moves
You get:
The patter: The street-talk of the ghostfighter is full of belters. dancers, tans and stookies. You can fully understand and converse with another ghostfighter using the patter. Those unable to understand the patter have no idea what you’re talking about.

Choose 2: 
Scarification: Physical and mental scarring is an occupational hazard for a ghostfighter. When you suffer harm from a blade (self-inflicted or whatever), and the character’s harm countdown reaches 9:00, you may choose the following instead of the list on AW page 165.
  • Physical scarring (describe): +1rep (max 3)
  • Mental scarring (describe): +1weird (max 3)

Every tattoo tells a story:  Some have none but they are very much in the minority. Most ghostfighters have five to ten tattoos, and a sizeable number have many, many more. Some even have almost all of their skin covered in some sort of tattoo, living works of martial art. When you show your tattoos and talk about the stories behind them, no one who can see and hear you can do anything but watch. You command their absolute attention. If you choose, you can exempt individual people, by name.

Live & die by the blade: When you fight using only a blade you get +1armour.

Infamous: You exude an aura of barely-suppressed violence and imminent trouble. When you go aggro on someone, roll+rep or roll+weird.

Markain fighting style: When you fight using a blade (only), you sacrifice some defence for a punishing attack. Roll+cool.
  • On a 10+, you are a whirlwind of bladed fury, you inflict +1harm.
  • On 7-9, you strike with scary speed and accuracy inflicting normal harm, but you have left your opponent a gap to capitalise on, take -1 forward.
  • On 6-, like a noob, you’ve have left yourself extremely vulnerable to attack, the MC should inflict significant harm or offer a hard choice.


Demeloque fighting style: A more cerebral and defensive fighting style emphasising wearing down your opponent and striking fast and hard when they’re tired and make a mistake. When you use a blade (only) roll+smarts. On a 10+, choose 2, on a 7-9 choose 1.
  • Inflict harm.
  • They take -1 right now.
  • Your harm is ap
  • Take +1 forward


Ghostlike: While many Ghostfighters have messy public and bloody fights there are also a substantial number who do their business far more quietly. When you infiltrate a place in order to kill an NPC, roll+cool.
  • On a 10+, you get in, kill your mark and get out, like the ghost that you are.
  • On 7-9, you get in and kill your mark, unfortunately you’ve been caught standing over the still-warm body, blade in hand.

Gear
You get:
  • 2 weapons.
  • Oddments worth 2-barter.
  • Fashion suitable to your look, including a ghostfighter’s coat worth 2-armour.

Weapons (choose 2)
  • Boatman’s hook (2-harm, hand, messy)
  • Butcher’s blade (3-harm, hand, messy)
  • Garrotte (hard-harm, intimate)
  • Half Llife (2-harm, ap-1, hand, hitech)
  • Llife (3-harm, ap-1, hand, hitech)
  • Long Llife (3-harm, ap-2, hand, hitech)
  • Mudlark’s fist (1-harm, hand)
  • Razor gloves (2-harm, close, messy)
  • Sword (3-harm, hand, messy)

HX
Everyone introduces their characters by name, look and outlook. Take your turn. List the other characters’ names.

Go around again for Hx. On your turn,
  • Tell everyone Hx+1. You put yourself out in the public view.

On the others’ turns:
  • Choose the character you trust the least. Whatever number that player tells you, ignore it; write Hx+3 next to the character’s name instead.
  • Everyone else, write whatever number they tell you next to their character’s name.

At the end, find the character with the highest Hx on your sheet. Ask that player which of your stats is most interesting, and highlight it. The MC will have you highlight a second stat too.

Special
If you and another character have sex, you take +1 forward. At your option, they take +1 forward too.

Improvement
Whenever you roll a highlighted stat, and whenever you reset your Hx with someone, mark an experience circle. When you mark the 5th, improve and erase.

Each time you improve, choose one of the following. Check it off; you can’t choose it again.
  • get +1hard (max +2)
  • get +1rep (max +2)
  • get +1rep (max +2)
  • get +1smarts (max +2)
  • get +1cool (max +2)
  • get a new ghostfighter move
  • get a new ghostfighter move
  • Improve your dojo (workspace, detail)
  • Improve your dojo (workspace, detail)
  • get a move from another playbook

Barter
If you’re charging someone wealthy for your services, rep-barter is the going rate for one murder executed or one week’s employment as bodyguard.

John

27
Apocalypse World / Re: In the Dark
« on: September 01, 2010, 01:19:29 PM »
Same lad, but a cracking photo showing the rough-and-ready approach that'd be prevalent in a post apocalyptic world.
John

28
Apocalypse World / Re: In the Dark
« on: September 01, 2010, 03:54:53 AM »
Hi all,
Just got AW so taking it and all the existing forum threads in.

In terms of powering a landhold, you're going to need expertise, fuel and assorted crap to convert that fuel into electricity. While generators seem the easy solution, you'll need firstly the generator and then an ongoing supply of fuel that you have to either obtain from outside sources or create yourself (which requires more expertise and assorted crap - so to speak). With a bit of ingenuity windmills are the post-apocalyptic future. Free fuel and all you do really need is assorted crap that's lying around.
John

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