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Messages - Jim D.

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16
Apocalypse World / Re: How Tank Girl Saved My Apocalypse
« on: September 29, 2010, 04:29:39 PM »
That's so completely ridiculous on face that it may well just be awesome.  Refuge in audacity.

17
Apocalypse World / Re: Take a Sex Move from another Playbook
« on: September 29, 2010, 02:01:57 PM »
If you did allow a character to take another sex move, what would happen?  Would it supersede the old one?  Would they both happen?

I would say you shouldn't, as the sex move really speaks to the core of a character type.  I can't see the "canonical" AW Driver playing "hit it and quit it" like the Battlebabe, for example.  Outside of his car, he's just not cool enough.  (Then again, what if he was having sex inside his car... hmm.)

18
Apocalypse World / Re: How Tank Girl Saved My Apocalypse
« on: September 29, 2010, 11:26:32 AM »
Allow me to throw in my desire for some AP from this as well.  Sounds pretty sweet.  Still trying to work up the cajones to pitch AW to my friends as well.

19
Apocalypse World / Re: Babies
« on: September 28, 2010, 11:23:23 AM »
Yeah, that definitely sucks less than my idea.  :P

20
Apocalypse World / Re: Babies
« on: September 28, 2010, 10:56:22 AM »
Weirdly, somehow I get the idea of a threat countdown or something for poor Saffron.

If Saffron's a PC, maybe do a custom move like this:  When you have unprotected sex, roll+weird.  On a 10+, you're fine, it's cool.  On a 7-9, advance the pregnancy countdown one segment.  On a miss, your partner's sperm owns your shit.  Advance the countdown three segments.

When the countdown reaches 12:00, the character becomes pregnant.

Of course, this is all intended with tongue firmly in cheek, but it'd be funny to see in play.

21
Apocalypse World / Re: SMG, MG and belt ammo
« on: September 24, 2010, 12:17:23 AM »
Ah, dude, seriously, no sweat.  I'm not at all worried about it -- honestly I was making a joke.  :)  I'm not about to come around here all high and mighty going "I'm the bestest evar!"

...that hurt to type, frankly.

22
Apocalypse World / Re: SMG, MG and belt ammo
« on: September 23, 2010, 04:30:42 PM »
Damn.  Vx, that is sweet indeed.  Man, I don't know how this happens but these games are like poetry -- they sneakily enforce truly awesome design decisions and perfect simulation (stuff like your and Jeff's points) without any conscious effort.

Aside:  that was me talking about the SMG.  *bows*

23
other lumpley games / STTW and Enforcing Play
« on: September 21, 2010, 11:02:27 AM »
Vx, as you asked, a thread for Storming.  I'm going to ask you a question that came to mind, and probably in the process answer it myself.

You expressly described the game as attacking a gamist agenda.  I can see how that works -- the goal is pretty much for the PCs to whup the monsters and get the treasure/save the town/whatever.  When I think of my days in an on-again off-again D&D third-edition game, it was pretty much accepted practice (in our group, anyway, and in what appears to be the larger part of RPG audiences) that you more or less followed the GM's story and contrived a reason to be there, because to not do so would be "showing up to poker night without nickels".  Reflecting on that notion and experience, I found it, frankly, dysfunctional.

There was a 3rd edition Dark Sun campaign I worked in for a while.  It had a great adventure hook going in -- I was playing a psion whose master had gone missing, and was told he was killed outside of town or some nonsense.  Cool.  So I go outside the town, throwdown Sensitivity to Psychic Impressions (or whatever that power was called), an ability that let me go back quite a few years and view in hazy detail all the vivid emotional moments in an area.  I saw a couple things, fights, rises and falls, but nothing about my master.  Cool.  So I do some more digging and come to find out he's halfway across the world.  Cool.  So I set out to find him, and my buddy half-ogre (who genuinely thinks I'm just a really cool dude) follows me.

Then the plot takes a left turn; suddenly I'm part of this prophecy coming true, where a psion and an ogre would go about to these shrines and save the world.  I tried like hell to ignore that, because, thinking in my character, his attitude is pretty much "so fucking what?  This prophecy is ridiculous, has nothing to do with me, and I have zero compelling interest in following it.  I don't give a shit about what I'm 'supposed to do' to save the world and return its lush greenness, and I doubt it'll work anyway; I've learned not to take shit like that on faith.  I don't care, I'm going to go save my master!"  And the GM spent the better part of an hour pretty much twisting my arm into following his preplanned storyline because without it there was no game.

What your example with modern Storming seemed to do, essentially, was take what we thought of as a dysfunction -- because, perhaps naively, we were playing D&D as a Nar game -- and enforce it in a way that makes it fulfilling, at least in theory.  Pretty much, don't write your plots such that there's sprawling worlds and free will; they're all together for a reason, enforced by rule, and they go out laying the smack down on monsters because it's their job.  Remove the trappings of an external, non-linear storyline, and focus on getting down to the nitty-gritty of beating the bad guys in combat (or whatever).  So we established why Elliot's character wouldn't leave yours -- we more or less sat down with the predetermined knowledge that it's your characters' job to stick together.  You're there because you have to be there, not because you necessarily want to be.

That much I get, I think.  So let me see if I can attack the other angle, the "We're better off fighting on until we're truly beaten than ditching out as soon as it turns against us".  I've got two guesses:

1) Attacking until you're truly beaten means you suffer no worse loss than if you'd skipped out.  You keep pressing, and since your low-endurance butt got wounded anyway, you're out the next session regardless.  So you might as well give it all you've got.
2) From a tactical standpoint, bailing out and regrouping gives you the ability to redouble your strength and get some more appropriate gear/spells/whatever, but also gives the monsters time to entrench and stand against you when you show up again (which, of course, you will).

Is any of that on-target?

24
roleplaying theory, hardcore / Re: an instance of Step On Up
« on: September 21, 2010, 09:24:02 AM »
And, sure enough, duh on me.  :P  Makes sense.

25
roleplaying theory, hardcore / Re: an instance of Step On Up
« on: September 20, 2010, 10:29:18 AM »
Quote
We're better off fighting on until we're truly beaten than ditching out as soon as it turns against us. I can say more about that if you like.

Actually, I would kind of like to hear the rationale behind this.  Don't get me wrong -- I think it's great, honestly! -- I'm probably just not putting two and two together, but I'm just mainly curious what (stated or unstated) design goal that decision serves.

26
Apocalypse World / Re: AP:Limits
« on: September 14, 2010, 11:27:35 AM »
So, bullshit in the "I really hate these raiders" way, and not the "I really hate this GM" way?  Cool.

On another note, proof freaking positive, right here, folks, that gunluggers are the baddest asses around.

27
Apocalypse World / Re: Why are grenades at hand range?
« on: September 09, 2010, 01:42:52 PM »
Eh.  Depends on the shotgun.  Sawed-offs are good to about ten yards, good full-size models up to 100.

28
Apocalypse World / Re: Why are grenades at hand range?
« on: September 09, 2010, 09:43:43 AM »
Messy assumes area, though, doesn't it?  It may or may not hit anyone in the area?  If you already have area, messy is a downgrade.

29
Apocalypse World / Re: AP:Longneck
« on: September 08, 2010, 01:32:43 PM »
Last night: TEH FINALE!!1
By the way, I  wish AW had a "they believe the lie" move. We were talking about this in play. There's no way to convince an NPC or another player.  I mean, you can read a person and find out if they're lying, but there's nothing that sweetens the deal for believing what they say. Maybe nobody in AW trusts anyone by default, but how do I play a smooth talker without having to be one?

"Seduce or manipulate" wouldn't work?  The leverage might be the NPC asking the PC to go with him.

30
Apocalypse World / Re: Why are grenades at hand range?
« on: September 08, 2010, 12:03:04 PM »
Yeah, we could get into the discussion of the difference between offensive/defensive grenades (the Russian/French F1 is a truly scary beast -- 30-meter casualty radius!), or perhaps the use of concussion versus frag grenades for interior combat.

But if we don't care about caliber, why should we care about that either?  Grenades are thrown, go boom, and hurt lots.  Good enough for me.

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