No savvy opinions. But my two AW books are also coming apart at the 136-140 range. Is it a book problem, or a "I read the fronts too much" problem?

Hmmm. It's hard to game toward a theme, from the GM's end, in AW. I've tried it and it's never really worked out. I'd get to tied to my plans, not enough toward the PCs.

That said, I think you're on, but it's... organic. So front /=/ premise and threat/=/ theme, but later, after, you might see theme and meaning.

I don't know.

"Things are going to change. And the question is "Will they be changes we initiate or will they be changes that are forced upon us because of the consequences of our behavior?""

Apocalypse World.

I think everyone forgets that, like greg said, the names don't just communicate things into the world, to the other PCs and NPCs, but also to the players around the table.

The fact that the gunlugger has a list of dog names communicates very little to the other characters in the world, but it communicates a lot to the other players and most of all, to the player of that character himself.

A character named Steve and a character named Vonk the Sculptor are two very different characters and I defy anyone to play them the same.

That said, I'm sure Baker doesn't claim to have a patent on cool post-apocalyptic names. The playbooks are designed so that someone who has never played the game and has no character concept in mind can make an appropriate character for Apocalypse World. So my rule has always been "If you can come up with a name that everyone thinks is better than one on the list and is setting appropriate, go for it. Otherwise, the list it is."

I posted this song by Frightened Rabbit in the Outsourcing thread and then played around with it for fifteen minutes or so, looking for a playbook angle. Never could get it. A doopelganger-type who can only relate to people as someone other than herself? And needs something from people, like their energy/heat or whatever. Maybe too close to the ghoul. It felt like a stealth ghoul.

You twist and whisper the wrong name
I don't care nor do my ears
Twist yourself around me
I need company, I need human heat
I need human heat

Let's pretend I'm attractive and then
You won't mind, you can twist for a while
It's the night, I can be who you like
And I'll quietly leave before it gets light

So twist and whisper the wrong name
I don't care nor do my ears
Twist yourself around me
I need company, I need human heat
I need human heat

I need human heat
I need human heat
I need human heat
I need

Well, I like that, but it's still just a way to pass out info. It's a great way, sure; I'd do countdown clocks with hold moves that fill it up, each tick giving more info, something like that. But does anyone got anything for clue interpretation for investigation games? I dig the Cthulhu thing, sure, but it's a small part of the investigative genre that seems overrepresented in gaming.

It just seems that the entire point of the genre, that deductive part, happens entirely outside of the character.

Sort of a "When you [want to] make a deductive leap, roll..." sort of thing? And then the MC tells you what your character came up with? But that feels so bad. Is this a fruitful void conversation?

I think a Right to Dream investigation game is Trail of Cthulhu. The question in ToC is not "Can you find the clues that lead to the conclusion?" (of course you will) or "What will you do to find the clues?" but rather "How will your investigative skills lead you to the horrible conclusion that will wreck your mind?".

See, I think both CoC and ToC are ultimately about how the PLAYERS interpret their clues. CoC makes you work for the clues while ToC doesn't, but the actually nitty-gritty, solve the mystery stuff is done purely out of the character headspace, to me. And in ToC, having all the clues doesn't mean you know what's up. That "Dr House/Sherlock Holmes" AHA moment is always on the player end.

I think investigative games are already in that challenge space. I made a thread here about getting them out and pushing more toward story.

The best I was able to come up with is a more robust ToC-style clue "giving" system that uses resource points earned in personal conflicts.

I'm saying that in games that thrive on creating interesting, untenable situations, the resolution of those situations is much more simple if the character's morality is directed tied into the player's perception of the mechanics. I.E. he knows that mechanically, he can "solve" this situation by removing one or more elements from it like a math equation. And the argument for consequences is reductive; he can do it all the way down until his destruction of the environment and the MC's subsequent consequences are ruining other people's enjoyment.

For some players and GMs, even those looking for dramatic situations to arise out of play, their play style simply needs a set of rules that encourage status quo rather than discourage it. They naturally dissolve status quo and run through situations. It might be pathological, sure, but it's also problem of looking at just the mechanics, not the character. Like the fact that there's no reason to take the Hypnotic move as a Skinner. The Skinner can just as easily sleep with someone and get the Hypnotic move for free; it's the same roll based on the same stat, with more options and no need to waste the character move slot. Except people in the RL don't sleep with everyone they run across. As Baker put it in another thread "That's icky".

As far as what type of rules discourage that? Grittier ones, I suppose, where it's easier to die from that sort of behavior. Maybe Hx for NPCs, to create a larger sense of investment in the NPCs at a mechanical level.

These aren't things I think AW needs. But I think some of the people I play with, ones who look at the mechanics more deeply than I do, would appreciate. More mechanics that effect mechanics, rather than fiction, which looks to be the exact opposite of AW's intent.