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Messages - Jim Crocker

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76
Apocalypse World / Re: In the Dark
« on: September 12, 2010, 11:04:01 PM »
Curious if anybody knows enough about tidal generation to know if it'd be anything like viable for one of those 'inland ocean' sunken-city type AWs. I'm not any kind of engineer, but I understand that sort of thing exists at least in theory, and it just seems like a cool idea...

-JC

77
Apocalypse World / Re: sell me on weird
« on: September 11, 2010, 09:37:55 PM »
After a read-through of the book and several descriptions on people's games, it sure seems like the maelstrom is there so that it's possible to 'complete the game'.

If the world is inevitably dying a prolonged and painful death, there's not a lot of fun in that at the end of the day. If there's a mysterious thing out there, no matter how remote or alien or difficult to access or understand, that if we could understand it, and figure out how it works, we might just, maybe, be able to somehow do something and FIX it, well... you've just taken a depressing dark social tragedy and made it into a darkly humorous superhero
game.

For me: 'Weird' powers and the maelstrom are the ultimate dangling carrot: the possibility that you can save the world. I'm sold.

Shreyas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_2000   : )

-Jim C.

78
blood & guts / Re: the Battlebabe
« on: September 10, 2010, 02:16:41 AM »
Quote from: fnord3125 on September 09, 2010, 11:18:10 AM
Quote from: Jim Crocker on September 09, 2010, 02:34:59 AM
too damn hot to die
Cool.  Too cool to die.  Battlebabes may or may not be hot, but good goddamn are they ever fuckin' cool.

Heh. Fair enough, though the one I'm playing is cool because he's so hot.

-JC

79
Apocalypse World / Re: Extended Mediography
« on: September 10, 2010, 12:54:38 AM »
I am also a fan of the 'nonfiction' sources for Apocalyptica.

Definitely check out The World Without Us:http://www.worldwithoutus.com/index2.html for how the planet, and particularly our urban-industrial centers would respond to suddenly not having us around to maintain them. It's a really fascinating book and a keystone for thinking about this stuff.

One of the things that makes it interesting is that he goes over several places in the world where 'mini-apocalypses' have already happened, forcing people to abandon population centers in a hurry. The aforementioned Appalachia gets some play, and you see a bit of it in the video posted earlier, but the craziest thing there is Centralia, Pennsylvania: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania, a town completely abandoned due to a mine fire that has been burning underneath since 1962(!!!).

They also talk about Cyprus, where the Civil War demilitarized zone necessitated abandoning a fully-functional modern resort community: http://listverse.com/2008/03/10/top-10-interesting-abandoned-places/ (Actually, that last link has a wealth of amazing Apocalyptica... check out that mind-blowing abandoned 'pod village' in Taiwan, and of course, Chernobyl.

Someone mentioned comics, and there's a wealth of good stuff out right now: Wasteland, Y the Last Man, DMZ (particularly well-suited for the vibe of AW), Zero Killer, and classic stuff like Kamandi and Killraven if you want to go really gonzo.

For my money, the most interesting right now are 'Resurrection', an AW set after the invading aliens who destroyed civilization mysteriously up and left, and 'Irredeemable' and 'Incorruptible', which as superhero comics are light on the AW-type stuff, but present a pretty compelling vision of what a world where Superman decided to just be a total dick would look like.

-Jim C.

80
Apocalypse World / Re: Custom Moves Compendium
« on: September 10, 2010, 12:24:18 AM »
Our Holding is the flooded ruins of the Big City, where the ocean has rolled in to cover the first 4-5 floors, depending on where the tide is...

When the fog rolls in, roll+weird.  On a 10+, choose 3 of the following.  On a 7-9, choose 1 of the following, and I choose 1.

    * You have nightmares, flashbacks, or both.  Take -1cool ongoing until the fog rolls out.
    * The psychic maelstrom is that much closer.  Hold 3, and spend 1 to take +1 weird forward.  If the fog rolls out, you lose them.
    * The fog is thick enough to separate you from everyone around you.
    * You hear voices in the fog, and you can ask one question (mentally) and get an answer to it.
    * Something you own goes missing in the fog.
    * Something of value or interest appears from the fog.

When you find yourself alone in the fog (outdoors or on the water, no other people that you can see, roll+weird.  On a 10+, you know exactly where you are and all is well.  On a 7-9, you are either lost for a time, or something or someone finds you by accident - your choice.  On a miss, you are lost or confused long enough for something in the fog finds you.

When you find yourself in the water, roll+sharp.  If you are in unfamiliar waters, take -1 to the roll; if you cannot take a moment to survey the water, take another -1 to the roll.  On 10+, you get wet.  On 7-9, choose one of the following:

    * You are noticed by a shark or sharks.
    * You are noticed by something else.
    * You find a particularly nasty bit of effluvium.  Take -1ongoing until you can get clean.
    * You run into something sharp.  Take 1-harm, and you are now bleeding.

<We're actually playing this one by e-mail. It's been fun so far, but I'm really looking forward to a F2F session at the table. Props go to our MC Charlton for coming up with these...>

-Jim C.

81
blood & guts / Re: the Battlebabe
« on: September 09, 2010, 02:34:59 AM »
Quote from: Elizabeth on July 08, 2010, 09:53:46 AM

Nope. Speaking from experience, being a Battlebabe is great for being just competant enough to get into trouble in style. You can get out of trouble too, just not by doing violence. A battlebabe might take on an entire army with a sword, but he'd get out by sweet-talking the army into doing him a favor, not by decimating them.

I just got started in an online game and the Battlebabe jumped out at me as uniquely interesting because of just that thing you point out, Elizabeth, which was that idea that she's actually not a fighter per se.

For the OP, what has worked for me so far in terms of story and the general fun of the game is to essentially treat violence as just another conversational gambit, to not take it any more or less personally than the character would any other social conflict. My PC started his first day getting shot at by a couple of contract killers; 15 minutes later, he's helped get one to the Hospital and is paying the other to go look for a giant octopus because the octopus is just more interesting than why they've been hired to kill him. More than the other characters, I think the ironclad certainty you're invincible, or just too damn hot to die, is rich territory for getting yourself into really, really interesting situations.

-Jim C.

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