Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - SoylentWhite

Pages: 1 ... 3 4 [5]
61
Apocalypse World / Re: New Playbook: The Abacus
« on: January 09, 2012, 05:31:52 PM »
I'm still musing over it, but I did want to say, based on what you've said, I very strongly support the idea of having an area for 'Employer' (or 'Boss', or whatever).  Having a boss seems like a key concept for this character, so it makes sense to treat it as centrally as the Maestro's business, so you can end up with stuff like:
'At the beginning of each session, roll +cool . . .'
and you select options for surplus and want, like:
Surplus
+Open-handed
+Pliable
+Violent
Want
+Panicing
+led astray
+flights of murderous fancy

Or whatever.
(Obviously done through options, like 'Your boss thinks with his fists.  Surplus + violent.  Want + flights of murderous fancy.', etc.)

But I will say that Like a Ghost and Lethal alone make them arguably more dangerous than a gunlugger (unless Lethal applies before armour, but even then, thorough can deal with that pretty easily).  (This is mostly Like a Ghost.  It's like the Gunlugger's NTBFW on jawjack, with a nice bonus on top.)

In fact, Thorough concerns me just for the sheer 'fuck you' factor it can give to other PCs who are highly dependent of 'stuff' for effectiveness/fun (drivers spring to mind, but gunluggers and a few others as well)

Like I said, I'm still mulling it over, but, at least as I understand your concept, you seem to have waaaay more in the way of directly battlefield-related moves than I would.  Not that I'd recommend stealing them, but the Tribal's 'Bushwack' or the Ruin Runner's 'They'd be crazy to follow us in here' seem like much more along the lines I would expect - using planning, cunning and forethought to win a fight, rather than pure brute force.

Also, your last stat line seems one short.  Deliberate?

Regardless, interesting.  I'll see where this one goes.

62
I thought I saw a thread waaay back which came to the conclusion that if a basic move's stat was overridden, the value was overridden, but not the highlight.

So, if cool is highlighted (and not hard), but you roll hard when acting under fire, when you act under fire, you mark xp.

Man, that's an awkward phrase.  Hopefully you get what I mean, though.  Of course, I could be totally making that up.  It's been a while.  If I remember, I'll try and find it later.

Edit: okay, found it.  Totally wrong.  (Whoops!) http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=437.0 has a reply from Vincent on this question.

63
Apocalypse World / Re: Dead World
« on: September 23, 2011, 07:56:30 AM »
Whores don't have followers they have Johns.
Well, maybe.  But *all* whores have Johns, else they wouldn't really have much of an income, it's not something they'd need to buy with an advancement.
I think it's more likely they'd have other whores as their followers, sort of like how Trixie (I think?  It's been a while since I've seen Deadwood) has all the other whores in the brothel looking up to her, and she's viewed as their leader.

64
Apocalypse World / Re: Dead World
« on: September 22, 2011, 07:24:52 PM »
In the interests of tidying things up a bit:

-The Doc's 'Breathe, damnit' still references 'make an earnest plea'.
-The Gentleman's establishment has a few strange options: 'luxury food', 'fashion' and 'art'.  I can understand the reluctance to take away options, but I have difficulty seeing them 'fit' (except maybe right near the end of season 3).
-The Muscle can gain a holding and 'Wealth', but a Gentleman (arguably the closest thing to a Hardholder) can't.  Deliberate?  (The preacher and sheriff can gain a holding as well, fwiw).
-If you are including 'Wealth', why not a hardholder equivalent ('Mayor' or something)?
-Just a note: without wealth or fortunes, games miss the whole 'session's begun, and things are . . . falling apart already' that the base game can have.  You can still have a lesser version of this through gigs, but there the fallout is generally smaller (IME), and only happens during downtime.
-Seeing souls.  Without weird to root through someone's brain, I have a tough time figuring out how you can inflict 1-harm by gently hugging them, especially since a harm can kill an NPC (especially if they're already injured), so it's not like you hugged them so hard you caused bruising - it's serious.
-A whore can get followers and 'fortunes'.  Did you mean 'congregation', or something else?  ('Congregation' is clearly the wrong word in this case, however.  Sycophants?)
-Hypnotic is missing a 'Th' in 'They'.
-No information on gigs.  Unchanged from the base rules?

And that's all the notable items I've got for now.

65
Apocalypse World / Re: Playbook: The Gladiator
« on: September 15, 2011, 06:34:10 PM »
Thoughts on the update:

Torrid: Big improvement.  Simpler, seems more balanced, and fits the theme.  Might want to indicate if it's max +2, max +3 or max +4 (not recommended, but could be).

You have a couple of really colourful weird moves, but only one statline has a non-negative weird, and you don't even have +1 weird (max +2) in your advancement scheme.  That's . . . well, weird.

Show-off: might want to amend it to 'a bystander is watching'.  You're showing off to an audience, not your opponent, after all.

The world's a stage: why can't they back off?  I'd interpret it as turning tail and bailing town, but the concept's the same.  While I'm not sure what to replace it with, s-harm indirectly doesn't seem that much of a deterrent.  I fail to see what they lose by choosing to suck it up each time (unless they just happen to be doing something else important at the time).

Arena clown: This one is interesting, but, I dunno, seems 'off' somehow.  Partly, I think it doesn't quite fit the tone of the rest (which are the moves of someone who's a show-off, but serious), and partly the 7-9s are *nasty*, at least when it's a PC who can choose which result.  I'm not sure I'd describe it as a horrible move, but I can say for certain I'd never take it, so something's missing.

Special: so, it's either an orgy or nothing.  Suits the concept, and will result in nothing but trouble.  I like it, but +1 forward may not be enough of a carrot to incentivise the character into walk into that much trouble willingly, which would be a shame, but on the other hand, you don't want to make the move too complex.
Also, doesn't seem to be a difference between a hard and a soft hit.  Maybe make a hard hit better, so as to provide the bigger carrot.
Also, you don't specify a maximum + for the roll.  Is this deliberate, or do you want to specify max +3 or something.  Maybe after that, they add to the intensity of the effect?
Regardless, a huge, huge improvement.

Is there a reason there's no +1 cool/sharp (max +2) - both are very useful for a combat character, and at least give the character the option of not taking 'Show Off' or 'Tactical Mind'.

Frenzy (weird) and Reputation (Cool) are strange choices to have for a character who can't improve either stat beyond their starting values (max +1).  Don't get me wrong, they fit the concept, but they can't get the stats to back them up.

I think some indication of what +community should do would be helpful.  The only thing I can think of would be on a 7-9 result, taking it would mean that at least the more destructive fallouts are not self-inflicted, but what would it mean on a 10+?

You have +1 overburden, but it's not mentioned elsewhere.  Typo?  (should just be +overburden?).

Fallout: +litter.  I know this is a positive choice, but for a fallout this mild, you might as well not take it.  Honestly, simply having fallout: litter is good enough on it's own, as it gives you a 'safe' fallout option on a 7-9, but that's really kind of lame.  I'd either change it to fallout:thrown debris (take (1-2)-harm area) or remove the fallout option entirely and just have them throw pretties.

Do you intend for 'inability to deal' to result in mass suicides, or something, because that's how I read it.  Cool if so, just want to be clear that's what you mean.

And that's it for the moment.  I like a lot of the changes here, a big improvement over your first draft.  Keep it up!

66
Apocalypse World / Re: Playbook: The Gladiator
« on: September 06, 2011, 02:24:14 PM »
Specials
I can kind of see where you're coming from, but I see 2 major problems: one mechanical, one flavour.
Flavour-wise: in the RAW, cultural context is gone.  Devastator is as acceptable a name as Mother Superior or Dwayne (although I can't really see Dwayne as being along the same lines as all other names provided, so that one's probably rather exotic).  Without the cultural context of 'Devastator' being more badass than Dwayne, you're just some guy with two names.
Mechanics-wise: you sleep with one person, NPC or PC, and you are their slave FOREVER.  Any time you do something they don't like, they can threaten to shoot themselves and give you a debility, which you can NEVER recover from.  And even if they don't seek personal power over you, you HAVE to dedicate your life to their well-being.  If they join a cult which your gunlugger wishes to wipe out, you have to stop him, else he'll keep on shooting this person until you run out of debility slots, are permanently crippled and they can finally die.
So, while I can see where you're coming from, I stand by my assessment: terrible, terrible move.

No need to swap out a gladiator move for the +3 hard, just do what the Hardholder does - have +1 hard (+3) as a standard advancement.

I'll see what I can think of re: fan flaws.  No time now.

67
Apocalypse World / Re: Playbook: The Gladiator
« on: September 06, 2011, 08:50:46 AM »
Very interesting.  A few points as I come across them.

Hx: the third one sounds wrong.  "One of the characters thinks the fights are a barbaric waste of time. They get +3Hx with you."
If they think the fights are a waste of time, they *don't understand you*.  I say it should be -2 or even -3 Hx.

"One of the characters, you have fought with in an area."  To my mind, this is unnecessarily limiting.  Not everyone would fight in an arena.  I suggest you change it to 'fought with in front of an audience/crowd', just to open it up rather (so it can include an impromptu bar brawl with onlookers, for example).

Not an expert in melee weaponry, but why is mace loud but machete not?

Hot commodity and Moment of clarity are awesome.

Resilient is a bit strange.  A session-long +1 to a stat is a massive bonus, especially once they've been able to get a couple of +3s.  Further, as written, you don't even need to do the replacement when the harm takes place.  The basic *idea* behind it is really good, but I think it needs a bit of a rethink.  (Even 'when 2 or more harm is taken (in a public battle?)' and 'Max +3' would make a difference.)

The Specials:
Wait, what?
No, seriously, WTF.
If they don't know your name, it's massively powerful, saving you a week (or 4 days and a barter)'s downtime.
If they do, it's absolutely crippling and unfun. 
If I was playing, I'd never use my 'real name' (what does that even mean in AW?)  If the MC had people suddenly discover it, it'd be a dick move on their part, and the character would never have sex again, for fear of being forever at the mercy of an (N)PC, and being unable to do anything about it.
This is, to me, a terrible, terrible move and needs a total rewrite.

No advancement to gain +3 hard.  Thereby almost forcing them to get one of the other playbook's +1 (+3) hard moves, since they are a hard character.  Strange omission.  Explain, please?

There are 5 moves.  You start with 3 and can buy 2 more.  i.e. you can get all your playbook moves.  Mistake, to my mind.  Don't think you should be able to do this.

I can't help but feel you should have more negative options for your fans, choose 2, but have an advancement to remove one.

By default, 100 fans.  That's the population of an average hardhold!  I can agree with that many people being fans of the arena (given that some will travel from outside the hardhold, but not that many, considering travel is typically very dangerous/expensive in post-apocalyptic worlds - that's where the driver gets his cash, after all), but these are your personal fans.  I would suggest half that, tops.

Re: your addendum: Hypnotic, with this change, on 400 fans is broken, pretty much no matter the result.  Trying deep brain scan under these circumstances will result in your MC murdering you.  Perhaps allow it on one selected member of the audience?

What strikes me is that this almost seems like a Hot playbook, but with a move that lets you 'when fighting in front of a crowd, roll +Hot (NPC) or +Hx (PC) instead of +Hard when going aggro or seizing by force'.  You don't have the moves for a deadly scuffle in an alley, or an assassination - you're a showman.
But that's just my impression, not saying it's wrong to do it this way.

But a promising start, all told.  I'll be watching this with interest.

68
the nerve core / Re: Apocalypse World game...online?
« on: August 26, 2011, 04:55:25 PM »
Sort of on topic. To answer the question first: I would be interested in an online game, and would be ok to MC it (never MC'd AW but I do run other games regularly). And I could persuade my wife to join. But I cannot commit to a regular weekly game. I have a few players in my Thursday game who may be interested.

I am UK based.

Hmmm.  This is a rather old topic, but on the off-chance people are still looking,  I too am UK based, and the AW game I was playing in is currently on hiatus as the MC has a really warped sense of priorities and decided to prioritise his newborn firstborn above roleplaying, so would be potentially interested in an online game.

But not PbP - tried it before, not a fan.  Skype or chat would be fine.

My issue is that I'm currently working till around 8pm most weeknights, but that should end in a few weeks, and I am a bit flexible about that.  Weekends would be fine (and likely necessary if the Boston-ish based OP is to play, too).

69
(Yay for speedy response here!)

Having played a gunlugger, I can say: in my experience, fighting against 'normals' isn't a question of giving out enough damage, unless they're gangs of heavily armoured folk (in which case either you have AP, you shouldn't be fighting, or your MC hates you).  The problem comes from *taking* damage.  Everyone's kind of a glass cannon, NPCs much more so, obviously.

So, here's a thought: retask the battlebabe move 'Impossible Reflexes' to something like (just throwing ideas out here)
When you are being cool in a fight and aren't wearing armour, act like a medium gang on defence (or 2-armour).
If you go the medium gang route, then perhaps add 'at the beginning of a fight against 'normals', roll +cool.
10+: Hold 3.
7-9: Hold 1.
6-: take -1 forward.
You may spend a hold to turn your defence to 2-armour resist AP for that round. 
But that may be making things too complicated.  Depends on your tastes.

You may want to give the move as a basic move to everyone, or not.  I mean, Mouse certainly didn't have it. ;)

The idea is it keeps things in the narrative.  They *can* do all that jumpy, wall-running stuff, regardless, and as long as they keep the narrative interesting while doing so, they get the move's bonus.  It doesn't rely on good dice to get their feet off the ground.

Anyway, they're my thoughts, take them for what they're worth.

70
Apocalypse World / Re: Problem: gunlugger that's not a gunlugger
« on: August 12, 2011, 10:32:48 AM »
I'll admit, we don't really enforce that at either of my MCs' tables, and I don't think they would choose to do so. If only because they've been having a ball with all the drama we've had where Daryl has reacted like a human being with a shred of sanity left rather than just being a buzzkill and offing the drama-generator. Hell, my group awarded Daryl the campaign's first Crowning Moment of Awesome for solving a problem in the (non-violent) way she did when she could have just gone offing people, particularly the local crazy dictator (not because she was feeling charitable, or because she was scared, but because a) she didn't feel like throwing the entire hold into chaos, b) she didn't care to let the asshole who'd probably end up taking the current dictator's place get the chance, and c) she sure as fuck doesn't want to run the place herself, because seriously, fuck that kind of responsibility--she has enough of it just looking after Frost, which, incidentally, was the nature of the problem she was solving).

It's not that Daryl has no taste for blood; she's eagerly thrown herself into the centre of a melee to crack some skulls the fun way more than once. It's more that there are kinds of violence which are stimulating and exciting, like ten-to-one odds against raiders and savages out for blood, and then there are kinds that she just finds kind of tasteless and unrewarding, like poor scrubs who can hardly fight back or throwing her home hold into political chaos. That's just shit she doesn't care to be bothered with.

Quite right, I shouldn't have spoken in such absolutist terms.  Character first, and all that.

However, I still believe that AP ammo with an area/autofire weapon (such as MG or assult rifle) is *way* more deadly than Merciless-bloodcrazed (without the above) in a fair number of dangerous circumstances, without any limitations on behaviour  (Not without its own problems, admittedly), so I don't view it as a balance issue.

Disclaimer: while my gunlugger has an AP assault rifle, so I can attest to its effectiveness, I haven't actually tried merciless or bloodcrazed in-play.

71
Apocalypse World / Re: Problem: gunlugger that's not a gunlugger
« on: August 12, 2011, 07:48:15 AM »
Regarding Merciless and Bloodcrazed stacking: I totally would allow this.  Why?

Somewhere else here (not sure where off the top of my head) there was a thread that explained that moves aren't just moves, they're *integral parts of the character*.  This is likely not news to most/all of you, but in my early days of browsing the forum, it hadn't clicked before then.

If you are merciless, you *cannot show mercy* or you lose the move (as you're no longer merciless).  If you're bloodcrazed, you can't talk down a tense situation, or choose a less violent option, or you're no longer bloodcrazed.

(This was likely a suggestion rather than a Vx ruling, but it really clicked for me).

Someone with both is an omnicidal maniac, who *will* be killed sooner or later out of revenge/pre-emptive self defence.

So, if I was MC and one of my players wanted to do this, I'd say "Go ahead.  Make my day."

72
Apocalypse World / Re: Problem: gunlugger that's not a gunlugger
« on: July 25, 2011, 11:46:37 AM »
With regards to the name, just throwing in the idea that in the Deadwood hack mentioned elsewhere, the Gunlugger is rebranded the 'Muscle', which, to my reading, would be more suited, since it isn't gun-focused, while still keeping front-and-centre exactly what the class is about.

73
Apocalypse World / Re: Dead World
« on: July 23, 2011, 03:36:20 PM »
Don't know when I'll use them - I'm just 3 sessions into running a Corporation game, and given the glacial pace my players are moving at, it could well be a year or more by the time I'm ready to run again, by which my enthusiasm could have waned.  We'll see.

3) It's fair enough to keep the simplicity.  My main regret with the current way was, with the exception of the Preacher, at most 50% of the character statlines (IIRC) are non-negative Will, and me and my fellow players were very reluctant to roll negative stats if we could help it - the chances of misses were too high, which I felt would discourage players from indulging their vices, which I wanted to avoid.  But, hey, there's definitely something to be said for keeping bloat out of the rules.

Incidentally, talking of the Calamity, I did *love* the 'In your cups' variant of the 'Impossible Reflexes' move - *so* much more 'in character' for the setting, while still making perfect sense.  Kudos.

Edit: Also, I think an operator variant could fit into the setting easily - possibly without a crew, 'The Hustler' or something.  Someone on another thread of similar subject matter quoted E.B. acting as the middle-man in Swarengen's attempted purchase of Alma Garrett's land, and his attempt to skim a large chunk of money off the top.  That kind of thing.  I might get around to suggesting a full playbook, but I'm on very limited time at the moment, thanks to work, so it likely won't be for a while.

Double Edit: Ironic that the Whore's 'Arresting Visage' is named such, given that 'visage' means 'face', I believe, and that's one part that's rather unlikely to be covered up.  'Arresting figure' or 'Alluring Curves' are perhaps more logical names.  But up to you, of course.

74
Apocalypse World / Re: The Operator
« on: July 23, 2011, 03:22:18 PM »
I have never played an Operator, but I did design one as my next character in case of death, and this is my view:

As a discrete entity, the Operator isn't that interesting.  What makes him interesting, to me, is his crew.  Sure, Choppers get their gang, a Hocus has his cult, but a Chopper's gang are all pretty much the same - a bunch of hard dudes and a Hocus's cult, by definition, have shared beliefs.  What makes an Operator's crew interesting is that they, to me, would be a mix of individuals, with a mix of skills, who rely on each other, but don't necessarily have anything in common beyond a need for barter.  When I was designing Waters, my Operator, I spent far more time on the personalities of the crew.  I literally made a matrix of what each person thought of everyone else, absolutely chock-full of plot hooks for the MC.

The one part of the Operator himself which really sings to me is this: to munchkin him the most (if I read the rules right), you need to be a complete douche.
You have sex with someone, getting you an obligation gig.  This gets you +1 juggling, so you can do an extra job in downtime.  But this is only a benefit if you don't spend the extra juggling attending to the obligation.  So, you want to actually spend as little time as possible actually maintaining the relationship, so you don't work it and you let them down in some small way.  Again.  And Again.  And Again.  Only working the gig when you have to.  Sure, they'll break up sooner rather than later, but in the meantime you're up loads of Barter.  It's even better if you can juggle two or more relationships at once.

It's no coincidence that Waters had a long history of running from problems.  It's like Chroma said - they are the biggest trouble magnets in the book.

75
Apocalypse World / Re: Dead World
« on: July 21, 2011, 06:58:35 PM »
I found this so inspiring, I registered just to reply.

While you clearly made this for your game at a con last weekend, hopefully these comments will not be entirely in vain.

1) I would point out that both the Doc and the Muscle have moves that reference 'Make an Earnest Plea', which, if I remember (I presume) your posts on story-games well enough, is what 'Indulge your vices' became, and so there are no rules for.  You also can't really just substitute one for the other - the battlefield is really a rather bad place for a Muscle to indulge his love of hookers. ;)

2) I'm sad you didn't name the Muscle's +1 grit move 'True Grit'.  But that's me.

3) Indulge your vices is awesome, but I have a problem with it.  Namely, that it relies on Will to be effective, and not many characters have much reason to take high Will as opposed to other stats.  And it certainly won't be all of them - and I'd want all my players indulging their vices fairly regularly.

Personally, and this is just me, I'd make it a bit more complicated.
The player decides for their character to indulge their vices, and puts forward a level of consequence.  I would, to note, include personal vices as well as social ones in this.  So Alma, for example, would indulge her vices both when she takes dope and when she acts overly proudly.

0: No significant consequences.
Examples: involved in a bar brawl which ends with no hard feelings and no serious injuries, sleep with a hooker without problems, etc.

1: Some inconvenience, or a chance of more serious consequences later.
Examples: lose a barter (spent, stolen, ripped off, gambled away), take 1-harm (beaten up in a bar brawl), sleep with another man's wife while he's away from camp, get an STI from a hooker, etc.

2: Moderate consequences, or a chance of very serious consequences later.
Examples: make some loud disparaging remarks about the town Gentleman while drunk, get into a fistfight with his muscle, from the show: Alma Garret going to negotiate with Hearst alone, etc.

3.  Serious.  Fucking.  Consequences.
Examples: from the show: dragging Heart through the streets by his ear, revealing the the Gentleman that you've been sleeping with his wife, just so you don't lose an argument (due to pride, natch), etc.

The level of consequence (0-3) I'd call the excess.  They then roll +excess.  Treat the rest of the move the same, except I'd let them mark XP for a 10+ hit, just to provide an additional temptation to go for bigger consequences.

On the other hand, I haven't given much thought to if this'll break anything.  It just brings a joy to my heart to see self-destructive behaviour in characters, and it seems fairly appropriate for the setting.

Pages: 1 ... 3 4 [5]