So I was once very stupid and somehow acquired 33 Rifts books.  Kevin Siembieda probably bought himself several nice dinners thanks to me, maybe put a down payment on a house.

I noticed Jonathan's off-hand comment about doing this on Story Games (http://story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=13102): an AW adaptation of Rifts.

Well, this afternoon I paged through my vast Rifts library at my parents' house and started scribbling some notes.  I likely won't be posting much to the forum about it (spotty Internet here), but I DO plan on making mutant capybaras playable (like they do in the South America worldbook).

Oh, what crazy creatures we humans are.

Dude, sweet!  And the large group is no hindrance?

Our AW game, as you might've read, is pretty low on direct PvP.  Heck, we only successfully used Hx: interfere moves in our 16th session!  That doesn't mean that there hasn't been a lot of manipulation and maneuvering up until that point though.  The strength of the AW system is that it gives you story rewards if you go ahead and stick together OR if you all tear each other's throats out.  You're not really "penalized" either way – debilities kinda suck for your character in the interim, but make for great story-telling in the long haul.

Apocalypse World -- Appalachia, Windmills and Treehouses -- Session 15

"Bad Bloody Death"

It's morning. October's followers (success) are fine, and Hooch is keeping the holding (wealth: partial; Hx with Burroughs -> success) in production with the help of Burroughs' organized medical "care."

Barbecue sees Peach's crushed, bruised, swelling ankle and wraps it up (read a situation: partial). He was under a rock for a day, according to his account. Peach is hampered in movement, but might know his way around the Warrens. He lives there, after all.  The first thing he does is warn Barbecue about the Machine, which has always been a part of the Warrens.  "Sometimes it drills up some cool stuff, sometimes…" he stammers. Barbecue grows impatient and makes to leave and find the other survivors.  Peach's eyes silently plead for him to come along, and he says: "Don't leave me here. If the wolves come back, I'm dead." Barbecue sighs and takes him along anyway, breaking up a chair into a makeshift crutch for him.  According to his earlier opening of his brain, there are 2 people one way, 2.5 people another way. Odd.  He makes his way toward one group and the air acquires a fetid smell.  Things begin to heat up, meaning the hirsute Barbecue begins to shed layers.  The evidence of the blink wolves' carnage becomes ever more apparent: he is surrounded in these tunnels by bad bloody death.  One room even contains the mutilated corpses of a family of ten.  Barbecue is taking it all in (acts under fire: fail) when he hears a woman singing from down in the depths.  He has a hard choice: make a concerted effort to find the survivors, or discover the source of all that singing.  Barbecue courts the unknown and chooses the latter.

Hooch and Burroughs head down to Valley Camp, which is a group of treehouses that frame an open market, in turn framed by a bowl-shaped valley with cabins up the side of the hill.  A crystal clear stream runs through the market, in which nothing lives and from which not a soul drinks. The path down to Valley Camp from the holding is a steep one, and the gates themselves are a mishmash of parts designed more to run would-be visitors through a gauntlet-like series of checkpoints with a couple of snipers up above. You pay a toll at the gate, which goes to the hardholder in the big treehouse, Harrow, and then go about your business.  Hooch is most eager to see his regular contact Wire, a former Trailjack who got hitched with Sands, and he doesn't want to see Rolfball, an annoying kid with boundary issues who's the only person Hooch has turned down even riding the course to join his gang.  In tow, Hooch and Burroughs have a whole mess of metal pans and oddments with which to trade.  As they approach, Burroughs (opens his brain: success) sees the town as a web of multi-colored brains, with there being more purple up the hill, and all varieties of colors down in the market.  It's unsettled, like a goulash.  "Crazy B… I mean, Doc B, what's up?" Hooch asks.  "I need to see an interaction!" Burroughs demands.  He's excited by the prospect of watching so many brains in concert.  They pull up to the Valley Camp gates, they're greeted by Batty the guard, who's got white rattails sticking out of his head and a life-preserver as improvised armor.  Batty asks Hooch how things are up at the holding. "Pretty fuckin' good." he replies.  When he introduces Burroughs, however, Batty is visibly disturbed, even more so by the news he carries of the Warrens being no more.  Burroughs chats up the guard (read a person: success) and finds out that his ideal person is someone who does their business and doesn't cause problems.  He intends to keep a sharp eye on us on behalf of Harrow, and he's comfortable enough here that he wouldn't be easy to bribe or sway.  Hooch wants Batty to keep Rolfball off his back (seduce/manipulate: fail), which means, well, Rolfball's going to find him almost immediately.  Hooch sets up shop anyway; Wire in his barb-wire armor and Sand greet Hooch and prepare to start the transacting.  Hooch tells Wire that Barbecue quit and now he's in charge, news that goes viral through Valley Camp in about 15 seconds. Wire laughs openly about Hooch's being in charge. Burroughs points out that he remembers Wire from earlier - he was the Trailjack who played with himself.  Burroughs looks at his brain (opens his brain: partial) and sees it trending blue. They shut him up and go about finding how their barter is going to convert into some seeds for October.  Hooch (barter: success) finds the motherload: melons, mustard, shallots, some weird plant… just about everything a good produce garden should have.

October and her bodyguard West are over at Eliza's to examine Dusk's tea.  They brew up a cup of the tea (augury: success) and discover the tea is a mild narcotic, but that it's also got the physical and spiritual equivalent of rust scrapings from Sun and Drew's house mixed in.  Dusk is on to Hope, and is hoping to gain leverage over October's followers to boot.  Wet is clearly freaked out by this whole thing: "Do we need to take care of Dusk?" she asks.  October nods.  Eliza suggests Marlene's tea should do the trick, though October wants Eliza to alter it so Dusk can't figure out its origins.  October wants to know West's feelings about the plan (read a person: success).  West wants October to have a clear plan, get it over with quick, keep including her in these "extra-special crew" meetings, and have a Plan B.  The Plan B turns out to be forceful intimidation from West.

Lunchtime comes at the holding.  Quarantine has sort of casually been lifted and everyone has been bathed by Always Flowers.  October now wants to talk to the new people, while still watching Dusk like a hawk (Everybody eats, even that guy: partial). It's clear that Dusk trusts only Waters and Nash.  The ex-Warrens residents did all kinds of jobs: Clear took care of the children, Roschild ran a high-class drinking joint, and Therm, Pepring, and Diamonds were all hard manual laborers. It was a tough living down in the Warrens - they scrabbled for bits of ore to barter with from a non-ore-based mine.  They had been cannibalizing their resources for a while.  She meets with Roschild (everybody eats: partial) while she munches on one of Nash's slug steaks alone from the others.  She's suspicious of them.  Talking to her, October finds out she ran a lively bar, and that October is now looking to make her own place more active.  "Tea's not a nighttime drink, no good for dancing." she says.  October knows Roschild isn't used to things coming this easy, so she makes the offer to her like this: "I want you to work for me on a trial basis" (seduce/manipulate: partial).  In exchange, Roschild gets a place to sleep with a lock.

Barbecue heads down into the depths of the Warrens.  When he asks Peach where this industrial-paint-smeared corridor leads, he shrugs and says: "Down." "You're the worst guide ever," Barbecue remarks. Peach hears the singing too, but doesn't think they need to venture any further. Now it's Barbecue's turn to shrug: "I'm trying to learn from Hooch, and just take things as they come." The walls get steadily more pink, like pale flesh, as they progress to where the holding tank was.  He leaves Peach up in the corridor as he ventures into the room with the tank, which is seeping and contains a black-haired, blue-eyed woman kneeling and singing sailor tunes.  Whoa (read a situation: success).  She's obviously the biggest threat, but his escape is being blocked by the Machine, which is rumbling through the tunnel above at the exact wrong moment.  He watches helplessly as the Machine, like a train, spits rock as it burrows steadily onward.  The woman lays her cold hands on his bare back, so he whips around (opens his brain: success).  She may be creepy, but she's still made of flesh.  He pistol whips (go aggro: success) her.  Her nose is now bleeding; she switches her song from a sailor shanty to bared pointy teeth and a death song. Barbecue (indomitable: success) shoots her in the chest, dropping her to the ground with a betrayed look in her eye.  He looks at her (read a person: success).  She's a siren who'd wish he would stay with her, and he needs to sing a different tune if he wants her to let him go.  Okay: he shoots her in the throat.  Her face goes from pale to red and she begins to gurgle angrily at him as he runs past (act under fire: success). Barbecue finds a natural cavern up and out of the way, making his way back to Peach to find more Warrens survivors.

It's mid-afternoon when Harrow himself finds Hooch and Burroughs in the market.  He's a short older man with long gray hair and a necklace of fishing flies.  He's REAL curious about how Hooch came to inherit Barbecue's leadership over the handhold.  When introducing Burroughs, Hooch attracts even more attention by cutting open his arm and has him heal it (healing touch: partial / Hx: Hooch --> success) by running his finger over the skin.  A crowd gathers.  "Anyone who has anything fucking wrong with them, they come up to our holding to get healed, see?"  Harrow points out there's a useful fellow at what passes for the Valley Camp's infirmary with a broken arm; Burroughs sets his arm in exchange for a bucket of lye soap.  He goes about his business.  Hooch is meanwhile stuck at the center of the crowd (read a situation: success).  He gathers that his chief threats are miracle-seekers and witch-burners, but what's really not so great is that Rolfball now knows exactly where they are, and will annoy the hell out of Hooch to become a Trailjack. Rolfball comes up to Hooch and begins chatting him up, trampling over boundaries, social niceties, etc. "Are you the guy up there now?" he asks.  "I'm the fuckin' guy." Hooch replies.  Rolfball asks about Hooch's bike, a commodity he can have if Rolfball takes a run at Harrow.  Hooch presses a Glock into his hand (seduce/manipulate: partial).

"And then I'm in, right?" Rolfball asks.
"Yes."
"Give me the keys."
"Right."

Rolfball drives the 4-wheeler in a crazy fashion through the market, shooting shots wildly in Harrow's direction.  Hooch pulls out another gun and wastes Rolfball with three bullets.  Harrow confronts Hooch after the chaos subsides. "What the fuck, Harrow?  You can't keep your people under control."  Harrow's not convinced that Rolfball stole Hooch's bike, and Wire isn't either (act under fire: success), but they eventually drop it: "Pleasure doing business with you." Meanwhile, Sands scrounged up a bolt of cloth in addition to long nails and Burroughs' lye soap.  Hooch offers Wire and Sands a place up the hill, which they politely decline.

It's now evening: October finds Nash talking to Rollykit and Momo, helping them acclimate to the holding's ways.  She takes him aside after he tells them a story and asks him how he's holding up.  She has another favor to ask of him (seduce/manipulate: fail).  She wants him to give Dusk the fatal tea, which means he'll have to drink the tea with her (he does).  Suddenly, Sun's kid Massey screams "Fire!"  There's fire in the scrub near Burroughs' windmill.  Always Flowers puts it out with water from the still.  October (act under fire: success) shows competent leadership in managing the situation, which gave everyone a good scare.  She opens her brain (success) to discern that the Edge itself nursed the flame from stray sparks in order to attract attention.  It wants to feel flesh on its rocks.

Hooch and Burroughs come rolling in shortly after nightfall. They head to the Moulin Noir to drop off supplies (Nash has presumably administered the tea by this point).  There they find Roschild chatting with Honeytree about new mixes for the upcoming bar/dancehall.  October, Hooch and Burroughs debrief.  Hooch is proud of "starting up some shit" at Valley Camp by shooting Rolfball.  They figure that Valley Camp is "just" a place that charges people, so the holding has to become more than just anyplace.  Their primary problem, it appears, is housing.  They need supplies to build new buildings, and someone to get them those supplies without having to go through Valley Camp.  Hooch plans on figuring out what Roschild's plans are for the Moulin Noir, Burroughs offers medical baths at the infirmary with the new lye soap, and it is suggested that the Warrens and stray windmill tubes could be scavenged for building supplies.

Next session, Barbecue will meet Dolarhyde (Jim's Operator character) in the Warrens, October and Burroughs will likely deal with the imploding Nash & Dusk situation, and Hooch will be talking liquor and dancing with Roschild and Honeytree.

I ran with 7 players at Origins, and it went pretty well. We got to figure out how the holding operated just before it was ransacked and destroyed by forces the PCs themselves unleashed (hey, it was a convention game).

My advice is, as always, try to keep players to making two Moves in a row maximum (unless everyone around the table is riveted) to keep game flow going.  Un-MC'ed side scenes are okay as long as the PCs voices don't carry into the MC's main interaction with a PC.  If you group people into factions (or just people with common tasks/ideas/goals) then they have a reason to have scenes together and so forth.  In my opinion, the more PCs, the fewer NPCs overall there ought to be.  You've got a lot of bodies off of which to bounce stories!

With a lot of people - in any RPG - good time and people management skills are your friend.

This move actually worked brilliantly in play.  Several characters made fairly untenable bargains with the mysterious stranger, because they were caught off-guard with apparent NPC benevolence in AW.

My favorite moment:

Gunlugger (Duke): *holds his gun in the Devil's face* We're going to take your Range Rover, see?
Red Rover: And here are the keys. *tosses them to him*
Me: Roll+weird...
Duke: Snake-eyes.
Me: Gotcha.

Off to Origins tomorrow - we'll give some AP reports upon return!