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.


Topics - evilseanbot

Pages: 1 [2]
16
Apocalypse World / Amor Piercing and Armor Character Moves
« on: November 07, 2011, 12:59:06 PM »
- Should Impossible Reflexes and Divine Protection stack?

- Does Armor Piercing from Ap Ammo go through Impossible R/Divine P/Daredevil? My gut says that Ap Ammo should go through physical barriers (Worn armor, vehicle armor) while most other sources of Armor Piercing (Getting hit by a vehicle, falling, Moves about surprise attacks, Brainer moves) should go through all armor.

- Should circumstances give ap to weapons against Impossible Reflexes? Such as if the person with Impossible R. had a gun to their head, or was being handcuffed while someone beat the crap out of them. (The Sin City Exception)

17
Apocalypse World / Pimp a playbook to me!
« on: October 19, 2011, 09:02:25 PM »
So I want to add a playbook to my Apocalypse World game this Thursday. Right now it has just the base 10, but I want to add the LE playbooks + my own + Groteque + something else for an even extra 10.

So I figured I would give people the chance to have someone else use their thing and talk about it (In frenzied hyperbole as I describe most phenomena.)

I have a couple of stipulations about what I think a good playbook is. The playbook that fits these stipulations will probably be the one I choose.

Is it most definitely from the Apocalypse? Like things that exist because of the apocalypse like the Grotesque or the Hocus or that are only a big deal due to the apocalypse like the Driver? +3 points.
Is it not from the apocalypse, but in a neat way that takes that into account like the Quarantine? +2 points.

Is it sexy? +2 points
Is it scary? +1 point
Is it fun? +1 point

Is it based mostly on a tight cluster of supernatural powers? -2 points
Does that cluster of supernatural powers almost guarantee that you are a bad person, like the Brainer? +3 points.

Does it add new responsibilities for the character? +1 point
Does it give the character substantial ability to ignore/avoid conflicts that most characters can't? -1 point

18
Apocalypse World / Healing moves and Hx
« on: October 07, 2011, 06:53:37 PM »
Lemme see if I get this straight:

Someone comes to the Angel with harm at 3:00.

The Angel wraps some gauze around their wounds.

The player chooses: Spend 4 days chilled out on narcostabs, or do their time like everyone else.

Possibility A:

They spend 4 days under the Angel's care chilled out on narcostabs. At the end of the 4 days, they remove 1 harm, and the Angel gets +1Hx with them.

Possibility B:

They 'do their time like everyone else'. After unspecified downtime, they heal a point of harm themselves. The Angel doesn't get any Hx with them. (Basically, there's no mechanical effects of receiving Angel's medical care, either Harm-based or Hx-based, if they don't want to be chilled out.)

19
Murderous Ghosts / 2 playtest sessions
« on: October 04, 2011, 08:51:14 PM »
I ran two games! I was the GM both times, I was mostly amused and my player was mostly frustrated. I would say most issues in the game were based on the social context as opposed to the rules text.

PLAYERS:

Eeyore! is a player that can really be into the fiddly bits of a game, sometimes to the exclusion of any meaningful color. He's really into burning wheel and can enjoy using the Fight! rules without a lot of color added to it. I think he tends to become more focused on the fiddly bits when frustration or competition becomes a part of the game, which tends to lead to the color being pushed into the background.
  But when that doesn't happen, he's usually a generator of some really cool color and we get along super well.

Sean (me) is a person who's really, really into color. Like I was all 'fuck yeah' when the whole 'color first' discussions broke out. One of my favorite bits of the AW game I'm running was when one of my players was like 'And my brainer girl has a penis'. I tend to have a love/hate relationship with fiddly bits. I think the play I run into that is most unsatisfying to me is when the color fades out and people are just sort of pushing a long a mechanical procedure, which happens sometimes when I am low on energy on other players get fixated on some fiddly bits.

SOCIAL CONTEXT
I kind of felt the game was doomed from the start, because I really wasn't in the mood to wig myself out. I just saw Blindness the other night, and while I enjoyed the film a lot, I also felt myself very satiated on being wigged out. During the before game set up, I thought 'What would wig myself out?' And I thought 'Rape camp'. And 'What do I not want to talk about right now?' 'Rape camp'. So instead I thought of vague and spooky-i-guess but not really scary stuff about junkies and mutilation and a birthday cake!

1st game
This game felt pretty solid to me, if not particularly inspired. One of the big mistakes I made was that the player digged in the rooms a couple of time, and I was thinking 'he's looking for the solution' and I said 'There isn't any Shadowgate* bullshit going on, for your information.' When what I should have been thinking of would have been 'These are opportunities to Reveal new Evidence! That's the best kind of Shadowgate bullshit imaginable and it should be happening.'

The player went back and forth between two rooms, trying to interact with the ghost, so there wasn't a whole lot of momentum towards escape, and eventually the ghost was all 'you need barbed wire eyes. For your health.' and he busted, end of game.

It clocked in at 27 minutes.

Second game

I ran the game with the same ghosts and thematic set up as the first game, since I didn't really explore them very much in the first game.

The game ran for an hour, but notably the second half was after fudging a death result. (The player was very frustrated, really wanted to see more of the game, I was down) For this reason you might consider the second half of the game not particularly applicable for playtesting purposes. This very moment the part you that is interested in receiving feedback for the rules as you've-written-them might be slapping your forehead going 'Fucking roleplayers.'

Toward the second half, color kind of faded from the fiction, and the game was basically "Spooky tortured thing tries to stab you" "I run", as the player became mostly invested in pursuing a narrowly-defined strategy and I mostly ran out of creative juice.

Eeyore described himself as frustrated. Occasinially 'RAR fuck this' frustrated, but mostly tolerable 'frickin' Boardwalk with motels' frustrated. It was the sort of expierience that afterward, he really wanted me to run it for other people, in a sort of 'I want to see them suffer as I have' sort of way.

Issues in both games

I hardly followed the 'Reveal new evidence of violence' directions past the initial room, even though it happened on the fiction a couple of times, and moreso had plenty of good opportunities to happen on the fiction. I was more concerned with the other rules of the game. This is too bad because I think it provided a nice creative springboard at the start.

We were confused about 'Tell the GM X personal information', whether it meant the player or the character. We played it player the first time, and character the second time. (Player was more interesting)

There were a small handful of instances where I'd flip 3 of my pages without having to say anything, and I thought 'this is a lot of flipping and not a lot of engaging with the other player'

Conversely, there were some pages (10?) Were there were a fuck lot of things that could be happening, and caused me to reread a couple of times to check whether one of those things could be happening.

Towards my future involvement with the game

I would definitely like to look more into it. I'm thinking of trying to run it with my brother next week when I'm feeling more hungry for the wigs, and hopefully playing it with somebody.

I think the game could be a really nice date game, in a similar slot as watching horror movies together. I think its better than Breaking the Ice etc etc in that regard because its less consciously about romance.

* Shadowgate is a point and click puzzle game that epitomizes the 'look around in crates until something kills you or you find the dongle' design of some heavily prepped rpgs. But at the same time, it had some particularly invocative examples of presenting-evidence-of-violence.

20
Apocalypse World / Playbooks as initial situation generators
« on: October 01, 2011, 11:26:05 PM »
Reading a couple of AP threads, it seems like there are a couple of playbooks that serve as an initial 'kick-off' of situation.

In the game I'm running, I'd say the Hardholder strongly performs in that role - Inserting a person who has a lot of responsibilities, probably has a good share of problems, but also has a lot of barter to throw at people to make problems smaller. In addition, they're set to make decisions that make problems for other people. In contrast, the Battlebabe, Gunlugger, Driver, Brainer and Angel don't have that sort of immediate situation creation. A lot of what the other characters have been doing is 'How do I respond to the problems/opportunities created by the Hardholders drama with their hold?

From the APs I've read, it seems like the Touchstone and Quarantine also serve that kind of role - The Touchstone inserting 'Person who wants to change everything!' and the quarantine as 'Something entirely different entering that people are likely to want to poke with a stick.'

Does this match your experiences? Differ strongly from them? Are there other playbooks that figure strongly into the game's immediate situation?

21
I've read a thread about what happens to the advancement options when a character changes playbooks, and I'm going to assume Vincent's answer would be 'Ask the fiction', which is both satisfying and frustrating because sometimes the fiction's answer is "I don't know about advancements dude, I'm mostly composed of fetish-outfit descriptions and morbid vignettes because that's the way you like me"

So what I would like to hear is: How did you handle it in play? What did the fiction tell you that made you handle it that way? Did the fiction tell you 'He just made THE transition. (Switch your character's type) is marked off.' or 'He just made A transition. (Switch your character's type) isn't marked off.' How did you feel about the result?

22
Apocalypse World / Playbook: The Gladiator
« on: September 05, 2011, 06:03:07 PM »
THE GLADIATOR:

Description: The worse off people are, the more their struggles are hopeless, the greater their need to watch bastards in even bloodier, more pointless struggles. You're that bastard and they love you with all of their hearts.

CREATING A GLADIATOR

Choose a name, a look, stats, moves, gears, and Hx

NAME:
Beast, Devastator, Matador, Freakshow, Straight Jacket, Samurai, Felon Or Benedict

Half Pint, Medusa, Obsession, Glitter Bitch, 2 faced, Trooper, Acid rain, Vicious, Ada
Loveless Or X

STATS:
Cool+1. Hard+2. Hot+1, Sharp=0, Weird-1
Cool=0, Hard+2, Hot+2, Sharp-1, Weird-1
Cool-1, Hard+2, Hot+1, Sharp=0, Weird+1
Cool+1, Hard+2, Hot=0. Sharp+1, Weird-1

Hx:

On your turn:

Choose 1, 2 or 3:
- One of the characters always roots for you. That players gets +2Hx with you.
- One of the characters always roots against you. That players gets +2Hx with you.
- One of the characters thinks the fights are a barbaric waste of time. They get +3Hx
with you.

On their turn:
- One of the characters, you have fought with in an area, either against or at their
side. Get 1 more than what they give you.
- Everyone else, get 1 less than what they give you. Your mind is on other things.

LOOKS
Man, Woman, Concealed, Andryognye

Sweet face, Striking face, stone face, busted face, cute face, rugged face, honest face

Combat wear, fetish wear, luxe wear, barely-there wear, formal wear, ancient wear

Smiling eyes, ruined eyes, calculating eyes, pretty eyes, weary eyes, caring eyes,
wise eyes

Muscular body, graceful body, thhing-of-beauty-body, huge body

GEAR

In addition to Fans, detail fashion according to your look. Have some fashion that is 1-armor for fights.

Get an Arena weapon and a Practical Weapon
Arena weapon:
- Machete (3-harm hand messy)
- Ornate dagger ( 2-harm hand valuable)
- hidden knives (2-harm hand infinite)
- harpoon (3-harm hand)
- Mace (3-harm hand loud messy)

Practical weapon:
- 9mm (2-harm close loud)
- Crowbar (2-harm hand messy)
- big knife (2-harm hand)

MOVES

Get Showman and choose 2 more.

Showman At the end of a grand display of your skills, roll+hot. on 10+, you get surplus from your fans, on a 7-9, get surplus but also get 1 fallout. On a miss, get all of the fallout.

Hot Commodity When a character other than you sets up a showy display of your skills for profit, they roll+juggling(Or 0 if you have no juggling.) On a hit, a special prize of 2 barter can be made from the competition above normal. On a 7-9, the MC chooses 1:
- The job is especially dangerous.
- The Gladiator has to lose in order to get the prize. 
- the Gladiator is competing with someone the Gladiator has history with.
- The job is somewhere treacherous or difficult to reach.
- The job is just gonzo, weird, or embarrassing

Resilent Replace 1 point of Harm with an Edge: Torrid(+1 to Hot), Humbled(+1 to Sharp), Serious(+1 to Cool). You can't get another Edge while you have one, and Edges go away after the session.

Tactical Mind roll+Hard when Reading a Charged Sitch.

Moment of Clarity: When everyone is watching and time seems to stand still, choose a primal truth that you want to convey to the audience. Roll+weird. On a hit, that truth occurs to them in a powerful way. On a 10+, they go do something about it, right now. On a 7-9, The truth only occurs to some people, and some people come away with a Lie. On a miss, treat it as you've opened up everyone's minds to the Psychic Mealstrom and missed.

SPECIAL:

If they don't know your real name, you heal 1 harm.

If they know your real name, they always have the option of forcing you to take a
debility instead of taking Harm themselves.

ADVANCEMENT:

- Get +1 cool (Max Cool+2)
- Get +1 hot (Max Hot+2)
- Get +1 weird (Max Weird +2)
- Get a new Gladiator Move
- Get a new Gladiator Move
- Choose a new option for your Fans.
- Get Reputation from the Operator playbook
- get Artful & Gracious from the Skinner playbook.
- Get a move from another playbook
- Get a move from another playbook


FANS

By default you have about 100 Fans. They love you but they don't know you or live with you. They live in distant communities from each other but some will gather for your fights.
(Surplus: +1 barter, Fallout: desertion)

Choose 2:
- Your fans are particularly hard-core and dedicated. Replace fallout: desertion with fallout: rioting.
- Your fans feel a strong kinship with each other. Add surplus: +community
- This stuff provides a escape from what's going on around them. Add surplus: +distraction
- Its a status thing for your fans to throw themselves at your feet. Add surplus: +acts of worship
- Your fans are huge in number, around 400, and gather from far. Add surplus: +1barter and fallout:+1overburden
- Your fans are active recruiters. Add surplus: +expansion

Choose 1:
- You have few fans, around 25. Surplus: -1barter
- Your followers are a bunch of animals. fallout: +savagery
- Your fans take this shit really seriously. fallout: +Revenge


Barter:

If you're charging someone wealthy for your services, 1-barter is the going rate for:
fighting one opponent in an arena, publicly announcing your faith in them, a month's
employment as a bouncer or figurehead


1-barter will cover your living expenses in a month, if your tastes aren't too grand. 2-barter will cover living with showy luxury, as your fans expect.


23
Apocalypse World / Inflicting Harm by proxy and changing Hx
« on: August 28, 2011, 05:27:40 PM »
If a PC directly orders someone to inflict harm on another PC and they do it, does the other PC get more Hx with the first?

My gut says that if a Skinner or Brainer got someone to kick another PC's ass, yes they would, because that's how Skinners or Brainers kick someone's ass, more or less, but I'm more fuzzy on other situations.


24
Apocalypse World / Quote on page 288
« on: August 01, 2011, 04:57:20 PM »
I just saw my quote on page 288 of Apocalypse World in the credits section, and I'm more proud of it than anything else I've done in my life. Can you list my full name, 'Sean Musgrave', if you edit the PDF in the future? If not, I won't hunt you down or anything.

Pages: 1 [2]