I've run 2 games and played in a third.

Chicago gangster post-apocalypse: Gunlugger, Brainer, Angel, Driver (all new to the game).

Urban post-superheroic apocalypse: Chopper, Brainer, Hocus, Savvyhead, Battlebabe (male, FWIW), all of these folks were new to the game.

Appalachian Windmills Game: Chopper (me), Brainer, Skinner, and Hardholder. 3 of us were new to the game, the Hardholder has literally been playing it longer than anyone else.

So, yeah, something about the Brainer seems to really compel. Beyond that, I do find that the specifics of the setting the group comes up with does have some influence over the playbooks that get used. I wasn't thinking about a Chopper until the MC presented us with the setting in the Windmills game, and the Chicago gangster setting made a tommygun-lugger, a getaway driver and a back-alley sawbones all really flavorful choices, while a world where there's a bunch of superhero tech lying around makes the idea of a Savvyhead way more appealing.

-JC

It can also be part of the cast of a threat, or part of the casts of more than one threat. It can also be a weapon.

I think that keeping the world's psychic maelstrom perpetually undefined will be counter to your agendas and principles practically every time you play. Sooner or later, in practically every game, you'll have to decide and commit to some concrete explanation, or history, or something for it.

So where's the line between writing into a the fiction as a Front/Threat and allowing the players to define it in play by exploration? Actually writing it up feels like I'm violating the 'Play to See What Happens' principle.

I have some ideas about what the Maelstrom is and why it's like it is in our 'Super-Apocalypse' game, but I fear that setting that stuff down too concretely shuts down (or just really restricts) the players' chances at exploring it at their own pace.

Honestly, based on my reading of the book, it hadn't even occurred to me that I could use 'The Maelstrom' as a threat or even a Front. I'd love to see more specific examples of how people are doing this in their games! (And for anyone on here who is in 'Decimation City', be ready for a spoiler or two, maybe, as we talk about this, and maybe skip over my posts!)

-JC

Just a quick question:

Why is it possible to advance basic moves so quickly and easily (two advances for all seven)?

Is it because 12+ results are rare in play?

It seems to me that choosing *which* moves to advance makes really interesting statements about the character and where you want them to go. But in two advances, you've got all of them, no choices to make on that front.

I feel like I would still choose that advance even if I could only apply it to one or two moves (especially seduce/manipulate, right?).

For those of you who've played long and hard enough for this to come up, what's it look like in play?

Paul, I have a gone multiple sessions sometimes without rolling particular moves. By advancing multiple moves, it seems to me that it makes those advancements worth taking, on par with the other good stuff, as well as driving the fiction towards interesting places.

It also means that the ability to uncover radical stuff abut the world is relatively open to everyone. If you could only advance a single move, it's likely ALWAYS and ONLY ever be the Brainer who uncovered the true nature of the Maelstrom, and ALWAYS AND ONLY ever the Skinner who got people to become her ally. With the ability to advance multiple moves, you increase the chance that at least one of them will come up without making the player feel like they need to just keep spamming one particular move if they ever hope to get actual utility out of that Advancement.

At least, that's my take on it, anyway. My Chopper isn't called to Act Under Fire all that often in our current game, that's just the way it goes. The fact that I can tack a 12+ result for it onto the Hard moves I really wanted is great, it creates possibilities that encourage me to not ALWAYS be pushing to Go Aggro so that I have a shot at a 12+ result before I die.

I do have to say I remain kind of baffled why people feel it's necessary to take that option away form others who may want it... of curse you're free not to take it yourself if you think it's badnotfun, but is it really so pernicious it needs to be slapped down?

-Jim C.

For instance, in my hardholder Barbecue's holding, at the beginning of every session I roll to find out whether I have 2-barter, 2-barter plus either anxiety or idleness, or no barter but both anxiety and idleness.

Excuse me, your Hardholder's holding?

Though this does bring up a question I had, which may be of use to others so I'll ask it here in public: If a Holding changes hands (like hypothetically if the Hardholder changes playbooks and someone else steps in by taking the 'Gain a Holding and Wealth' advance, like maybe from the Chopper Playbook, just to pull a random example out of the air), is the new boss of the Hold bound to the choices the original made, or is it reasonable for them to change some stuff around when they take over (assuming, of course, that you follow it up with fiction that supports the changes) as if they were creating a new Holding?

-JC

It’s been about 48 hours since the assault on the Sunset Cabaret, and the crew have cleaned up the place some and are recuperating at their respective places of residence {_HEALING: Any PCs with Harm can Heal 1 tick on their Countdown._}

Adele the Savvyhead is back in her lab in the SPECTOR Building where she’s continuing her work on he research into finding a new leg for Tavi, who is currently packing her things so that she can move in with Jones the Brainer.

She comes across some old government research on cybernetic interfaces that looks like it was intended for power armor, but when she tries to crack the file, something goes wrong and she triggers some kind of security override. The computer starts to shut down and she has to hack FAST {Act Under Fire, Hit-12} to keep the info from being dumped and her system access revoked.

She manages to work around the system and get it to recognize her as a resident of the building, getting access to the data and clearing the Alert {Advance the Tavi’s Leg Countdown one tick}.

Meanwhile over on the Rainbow Bridge, Gnarly is running his mouth again, giving Hammer the Chopper shit about how they still need to replace Stinky already. Hammer is just about sick of it, and things are pretty tense with the Trolls and all, so he decides to give Gnarly what he wants {Read a Person, Hit-8, What Does He Want?}, which is a shot at surviving Speedforce to become a Watcher. In the meantime, he grabs Stinky by the throat and douses him in Yellow Krylon {Pack Alpha, Hit-11}, hands him a thermos full of coffee, and tells him to get his ass up the Yellow tower, the one that points towards Midtown that they’ve never bothered to man before.

Over at the Sunset Cabaret, Damson the Battlebabe is staring out the broken front window and realizing that the joint is in desperate need of additional security, and comes to the conclusion that his current arrangement with the Valkyries may just be more trouble than it’s worth, given their current dispute with the Crocs. As he passes back through the restaurant proper, he notices that the TV is putting off that weird test pattern again, and stops to study it {Custom Move, (+Sharp) Hit-12}, realizing that its pattern is not random, but that there’s a message of some kind embedded, but it doesn’t distract him as it did when he first noticed it a couple of days ago.

Realizing he’s never explored the SPECTOR Building as fully as he ought to have, he starts wandering around outside the cabaret, and idly letting his mind wander {Open Your Brain, Hit-11} and discovers a hidden basement door buried behind a pile of old trash and discarded custodial equipment.

Casually mentioning to Ruby that he’s decided to head downstairs, he grabs a flashlight and passes through the door to and down the staircase he finds. Whatever power Adele has kept going in the place powers the dim emergency lighting of the spotless basement he discovers. The physical plant of the building, including the encased base of the elevators, hums all about him, but his eye is immediately drawn to the large area enclosed in heavy glass and steel that squats in the center, clearly a Security Office of some kind from the bank of several dozen monitors he can see flickering inside.

Reaching to open the door, he hears a click and sense pressure on his hand {Act Under Fire, Hit-7, Can choose to get stuck by the door and take his chances, or chance letting go and risking an Alert that way} but holds on as a tiny needle inside the doorknob pokes him. After a few moments of the machinery grinding away, he is relieved when the knob turns and lets him into the room. Stepping inside, he hears the door click closed (and lock!) behind him.

Jones the Brainer has decided that the manual labor of clearing debris and cleaning up after the fire ill suits him, and collects Tavi to wheel her over to their new home and show her a bit of his ‘romantic life’ along the way, stopping by his Madame Olympias fortune-telling booth. Arriving at the scene of the booth, he is distressed to fin the back of the booth quite forcibly broken open and the front plastered with Myth Busters brochures labeling Jones a fraud, like the ones he saw the other day. Reaching into the Maelstrom to try and learn the whereabouts of his foes {Open Your Brain, Hit-11}, Jones envisions a Mercury-like servant sprinting through the ether to deliver a message to him. Unfurling it, he sees a playbill, one not yet printed, touting a Myth Busters Rally for Truth in just a few days (the same time as he is supposed to meet Absinthe if we wishes to accept the Fiddler’s Green gig, in fact).

Tavi is visibly upset, and asks what he will do, but he just wheels her on to their new Sanctum, now lavishly if perhaps inexpertly redecorated in garish pink and lavender. She professes to like it, and starts right in on the harpsichord he’s has installed.

Meanwhile back at the SPECTOR Building, Adele heads down to talk to Ruby about the Security situation, and notices that weird test pattern on the TV {Custom Move (+Sharp), Hit-8, Take -1 Forward but don’t get caught in the pattern} and though it gives her a headache, she’s able to pull her attention away from it. After a chat with Ruby, she heads down to find Damson and finds the Security station. Damson frantically tries to communicate with her not to open the door {Act Under Fire, Miss-5}, but can’t make his gestures understood, so Adele tries to open the door and triggers another Alert that loudly demands she ID herself in 10 seconds or face Security Measures. As she runs possible scenarios in her head {Read a Situation, Hit-13}, she realzies that if she doesn’t act fast, the system might ID her as a hostile intruder {1-Biggest Threat}, but that if she can install the proper protocols, she might be able to either reset the system or have it ID her as someone else {2-What to Look Out For}, but if all else fails, she should hide out in one of the trash bins rather than try to run {3-Escape Route}.

Damson searches the room for help [Read a Situation, Hit-8} and realizes the emergency shutdown switch will stop the system, but might also disrupt power the the entire building. Not prepared to subject Adele to whatever ‘security measures’ might mean, he punches the big red button and the building goes dark.

Jones makes his way to the Rainbow Bridge looking for a Valkyrie to deliver a message to the MythBusters. Scrawling an obscene drawing and defiant warning on one of their fliers, he contracts with Domino to make the delivery in exchange for agreeing to tell her what Hammer is really thinking when he thinks of her. She roars off as Hammer arrives and asks Jones to help him track down some Speedforce so that Gnarly can becoming one of the Unsleeping. Jones calls upon rune-maidens in Asgardian warrior gear to point their flying steeds towards a potential source {Open Brain, Hit-9} as Hammer helps translate what the maidens mean when they speak of ‘The Scaled Foe’ {Help+1, Hit-11}, meaning the Crocs, who have quite a stash of performance-enhancing drugs in their possession.

A sudden commotion in the camp summons Hammer and Jones to the foot of the bridge where they find Crille, the Croc who went on a lunch date with Adele, standing surrounded by the gang, his hands in the air. He tells them he wants out of the Crocs and that means he’ll need protection, so he wants to join the Valks. Hammer spends a minute or two spitting questions at him {Read a Person, HIt-11} (1-Telling the Truth?: Yes) (Really Feeling?: Terror, like he made a horrible mistake) (Hoping Hammer Will: Put him against someone he can beat to get into the gang), and decides to being him along when they go down to the Power Pavillion to get some Speedforce. Crille rides over in the sidecar of Hammer’s bike.

In the pitch black, Damson opens the door for Adele and they spend some time exploring the Security Office, sadly now completely inert. They discover a number of high-tech weapons and the dessicated body of a Security Guard, apparently dead by suicide decades ago.

Adele tries to get a feel for what happened to him {Things Speak, Miss-6}, but despite Damson’s best efforts at pointing out potentially relevant details and holding the flashlight reasonably steady, he can’t offer any cogent insight {Help, Miss-6}. When they make their way back upstairs, Ruby is crying and confused, and extracts a promise from Damson not to leave her and to make sure she stays safe in the now powerless building.

He agrees, then promptly heads off on his motorized bicycle to find fuel for the generators they’ll need to operate. As he heads uptown, he encounters the Valkyries and falls in convoy with them.

Adele makes the long, slow climb back to her workshop in the dark via the stairs, and exhaustion soon sets in, but she pushes on despite it {Act Under Fire, Hit-8: Take -1 Forward from exertion}

When they arrive at the beach, Hammer hands the nervous-looking kid his crowbar and Damson scans the too-quiet beachfront {Read a Situation, Hit-8: Biggest Threat: Blues, who will kill Crille the first chance he has when Hammer’s not looking}. Jones reaches into the font of divine wisdom to find their enemies {Open Brain, hit-8} and sees an ankh scrawled in the sand pointing to dark shapes just below the surface a few dozen yards offshore. As he shouts a warning, the Crocs, lurking under the surf in large 2-man jet skis, erupt and the gunners send rockets at the Valks!

Hammer guns his bike to get out of the blast {Act Under Fire, Miss-6}, and only escapes the brunt of it due to the psychic warning from Jones {Help+1, Hit-11}. The missile explodes nearby but only jars him, not hurting him {0-Harm Move, Miss-6} or the kid at all. Damson leans down and rides his bike straight into the missile contrails, passing harmlessly between two of them as they explode well behind him {Act Under Fire, Hit-11}. Jones, with Satan swerving the bike out of the path of another missile, traces a Rune in the air, cursing one of the Crocs (Go Aggro with Weird, Hit-11} to fall into the surf.

Hammer attempts to rally the gang to get them headed in a phalanx at the Crocs who will be up on the beach in just a few moments {Pack Alpha, Hit-9}, as Damson shouts encouragement {Help, Hit-9}, drawing the Crocs’ attention to him, as Jones managed to convince another of their attackers to give up the fight {Go Aggro with Weird, Hit-11}.

Meanwhile, back the SPECTOR Building, Adele has managed to get back into her lab, where her little AI companion Oliver suddenly starts talking to her in a different voice, calling her ‘Eliza’. She tries to gauge whether he’s being truthful {Read a Person, Hit-8, Is He Telling the Truth?} and it seems like he really does think she’s this person and they’re there to break into the building. She grabs her tools and tries to examine him {Things Speak, Fail-4}, but whatever anomaly in his programming was causing the reaction seems to have left no trace. She returns downstairs to walk right into the middle of Nils and a handful of his thugs kidnapping Ruby.

Hammer and the gang smash into the Crocs, with Damson and Jones lending support from behind the lines. Damson lays down covering fire {Go Aggro, Hit-8} and Jones continuing his psychic assault {Go Aggro with Weird, Hit-8}. The gangs collide, led by Hammer {Seize by Force, Hit-7: Take Definite Hold, Impress Dismay or Frighten}. A couple of the Valks are bashed up in the melee, but Hammer manages to escape further mayhem {Harm Move, Miss-6}. Damson is now amongst the brawl, swinging his brass knucks and beating up one of the Crocs {Seize by Force, Hit-8, Inflict Terrible Harm, Take Definite Hold}, and also manages to sidestep the worst of the retaliation {Harm Move, Miss-6}. During the melee, Crille managed to get ahold of Hammer’s crowbar and does in one of the other Crocs who was going after Hammer.

By this point, the Crocs are largely defeated, and the couple left out in the surf eventually agree to a deal with the Valks, trading their drug stash for letting them go. The Valks, blooded, having lost a couple of members, including Blues (Named earlier as a casualty by Damson, who also foresaw Jones surviving this donnybrook), return to the Rainbow Bridge with several doses of Speedforce intended for Gnarly.

At the SPECTOR Building, Adele confronts the nervous and twitchy gang of kidnappers, {Read a Situation, Hit-10} and determines that she needs to keep an eye out for one of them accidentally firing one of the Science Weapons they’re waving around (What should I be on the lookout for). Though it’s just Nils and two other guys inside, she can tell there’s a couple more outside, waiting with a vehicle (Enemy’s true position), and that if they’re not all careful, then Building’s newly-awakened security system might just decide they’re all intruders (Biggest threat?). Adele tries to threaten them with the building’s security as her leverage, but they’re too twitchy and start firing {Go Aggro, Fail-5}, searing her arm and causing her to black out instantly, Ruby’s screaming the last thing she hears.

Hrm...

Maybe their special move could be triggered by seeing someone else (other PCs, maybe?) having sex? The idea that kids should never, ever see that kind of thing is pretty recent, and also an economic luxury. That gets at the idea that you're learning something about someone else by seeing them when they're vulnerable and intimate, but without quite the level of discomfort that potentislly nonconsensual sex might carry.

I cant see anything else that makes sense to trigger a special move that wouldn't taek it too far away from how the others are triggered.

-JC

Wow. I did not realize I had gone a little mad with all the forwards and the ongoings and the holds.

I think they need to stay with Ride the Airwaves, but I can definitely change Ear-Worm since I'm "meh" about it. I'm really not that excited about the sex move either...

And I can definitely cut the forward in Cloud-Sourcing. I don't even know why I threw it in there.

But I'm open to suggestions! Making playbooks for AW is all kinds of fun!

Maybe the sex move lets the partner know without a roll when they're talking to him when hes riding someone else?

-JC

For our 'Decimation City' game, we've pretty explicitly established that everyone born after the Apocalypse, including the PCs and NPCs, all have names out of the book, but that figures from the Golden Age of Legend are not so constrained.

Hence Adele the Savvyhead trying to get some "Tony Stark" DNA to open the battered old briefcase of his that Hammer the Chopper scrounged up.