Crossposted from my gaming blog:
http://realityvault.blogspot.com/2011/03/apocalypse-world-rough-narrative-on-our.htmlApocalypse World
Actual Play
Session One
We started a new campaign of Apocalypse World. This is a very different game then what we've been into, not separating the fiction from play as much as we are used to. The players are to play their characters as if they are real people and the GM, or Master of Cermonies, is to run the world as if it's real and speak directly to the characters instead of the players.
We jumped in and chose characters - a brainer, a battlebabe and an operator. In history (hx) we followed the instructions closely introducing the characters by name, look and outlook only.
As we went around highlighting I decided to focus on Weird to start, inspiring players to open up to the Psychic Maelstrom and hopefully creating more Weird custom moves.
The Brainer, Sundown, starts with +3 with both characters.
The Battlebabe, Amber, starts with +3 with Sundown, trusting her least and +1 with Bells.
The Operator, Bells, star is at +2 with Amber because she let him down in the past.
We had a very brief discussion on setting. We will have shambling dead in the game as environmental hazards. We don't know how we become undead or what created the undead but we will be exploring that over time. We are using straight up barter for the world's economic system. We'll be set in the Philadelphia region. I am definitely using The Road and Walking Dead as my creative inspiration to start - bleak, empty.
I wanted to start with loneliness and cold. The game starts in a empty farmhouse. Amber is in a cheerleader's outfit and a furred jacket. She is sipping tea spiked with moonshine looking out over the overcast farmland. The house they found has a generator in it with some fuel so they've had light and hot food last night in the sparse living room in front of a fireplace.
Amber walks around the perimeter and sees that there's little cover. One one hand it would be hard to escape unseen if anyone happened upon the farmhouse, as they have. However, they'd probably have a twenty minute warning if anyone were to come upon the farm as they had. Amber sees another farmhouse a good distance away, up the road.
She finds a burn scar out behind the house, some ten to fifteen feet across with various blackened objects scattered about and two obvious charred bodies. She looks about and determines that the fire was about a week old and could be seen from several days distance away. Whomever did this used the furniture to fuel the fire and either had enough that they didn't need the generator's fuel or hoped to come back (10+ on a Read Charged Situation move).
Amber looks over and sees Sundown staring at her through a wavey farmhouse window. Sundown is absent-mindedly winding string into a ball. Amber lifts the old window and Sundown looks down at her ball of string. "We're going to have to leave soon," Amber says, "whoever did this is gonna come back." Sundown hands her the string and walks away.
Amber looks at the string and instinctively drops it as the hairs on the back of neck stand on end. She takes a few steps toward the front of the house and stops, looks back and picks up the string.
Before they leave Amber does a sweep of the house. Upstairs she finds some shards of mirror on the floor, the mirrors and windows are broken in the bathroom and some dried blood on the glass of the broken window. Touching the blood she pays more attention to the tingling sensations tugging at the periphery of her senses. She quickly shuts out the flood of images of violence, fear and surprise (rolls a 7 on her attempt to open her mind to the psychic maelstrom).
Sundown approaches the burn scar. She turns over one of the bodies and sees that the hands are bound in barbed wire. She wraps her hands in some clothing from her pack and begins to untangle the barbed wire from the body's wrists. She wonders who this was. Why she was here. The voices speak to her from beyond. Sundown listens. She hears the sound of the burnt earth crunching under someone's feet. Startled, Sundown bears the barbed wire between her hands to defend herself. A sooty woman in her 40s in common clothes and a scarf stands there wringing her hands looking toward the house.
"What are you afraid of?" Sundown asks.
"I don't know what she's found," the woman looking up to where Amber looks about.
"Is there something there she should fear?"
"My husband. I don't know if he rests. I worry he'll be violent. Hungry."
"Where is he? Where did you come from?" Sundown looked around, "did you walk here?"
The woman raised her skirt to reveal her ankles were still bound and bleeding. Sundown noticed the cuts on her wrists matching the wire Sundown took off one of the burned corpses. When Sundown looked back to the woman she was gone. (Open herself to the psychic maelstrom 10+)
Amber is picking about some discarded bedclothes in a corner with the broken end of a broom. It is the only thing in this room. Arms stretched she unfurls the heap of comforter and sheeting to reveal ichor, brown and deep green instead of the dark reddish she would expect. Amber drops the stick and steps back away from the gore cover sheets. She backs out of the door into the hall and into Sundown waiting and watching silently. Amber, startled, takes a deep breath, her hand tightening around the butt of her revolver. "Someone's coming." Sundown points out the window.
At first the girls freak out, pack up and prepare for a hasty retreat, making certain the farmhouse is always between them and the stranger. They stop a few feet from the house.
"Why are we running. It's one man. Maybe he knows something?"
Sundown just nods and follows behind Amber.
As he gets closer they can see he's an older guy, maybe 30s or 40s. He's in overalls and a quilted shirt. A floppy hat shadows his face, beaten and streaked in dried blood. He walks with a limp and one bowed leg. He stops about 50 yards from the girls. Amber is leaning against a post eating a small crab apple. Sundown is several yards behind her on the porch of the farmhouse.
"Hey" he shouts. "You alone?"
"Just about to leave," Amber calls out to him paying attention to her apple. "Care for an apple?"
"Uh, sure. But whatcha doing out here all by yerselves?"
"Same as you I suppose. Where are ya comin, from, sugah."
"I had a farm a ways back. My wife died. I figured I'd find other folks to work or travel with. Aren't you girls worried about traveling alone?"
Amber pulls out her hand canon. "Nope. Not worried at all."
"Uh, I'm Tork. Ya all have any food?"
From the porch Sundown stiffly sticks out her hand. Wide eyed she says, "pleased to meet you, Tork. I'm Sundown, this is Amber." She stands there, arm straight out, extended to a man in shouting range.
Amber sees the hungry look in his eyes but can tell his focus is more on the food and her gun than on them. He's scared and wants to eat. He's no threat, she thinks.
(read person in charged situation 10+)
"Come on in, Tork. We were actually about to leave but we can trade stories and some grub."
Tork looks at her and chews his lip. Amber eyes the man and slowly unloads her revolver. Tork gives them a nervous smile, takes a deep breath and walks toward the house. (rolls 8 on an attempt to manipulate someone)
The three eat what they have. Tork tells them he's been walking for a couple weeks. He ran afoul of a gang of ghouls and Sundown looked at them both quizzically.
Amber scowled. "I ran into ghouls once. Nasty buggers. Folks that eat other folks and aren't right after a while."
"After a while? As if eatin' folks doesn't make you not-right off the bat?"
"I dunno. I was lucky. A weak soul allowed me to get a little too close to him. After I broke his nose and freed my bonds I high-tailed it outta there."
After an uncomfortable silence Tork continued, "so, where are you headed?"
"Meeting a man named Bells in York. We split up for a bit. He had work to do."
"Well, we're on the same road. Lookin' for the same thing. I don't have much to offer but I'm another set of hand and eyes."
Amber eyes them both, "Well, we could use someone that runs slower than we do..."
Show Posts