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Messages - strongbif

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61
Apocalypse World / Re: New custom move for transient PCs
« on: July 26, 2012, 01:09:18 PM »
Ooh, yes. Love letters would be the perfect way to limit this from getting out of hand... Good call.

62
Apocalypse World / Re: New custom move for transient PCs
« on: July 25, 2012, 08:09:43 PM »
Thanks! This is really helping me hone in on it. You make good arguments for just asking questions. My group is used to more traditional RPGs and this move is conceived to help them ease into those kinds of loaded questions where I just declare something about their character and ask them for details. I suppose this is one way to disclaim decision making.

Meanwhile, here's a refinement:

When you roll up to a hardhold you haven't been to in awhile, someone is looking for you. Tell the MC who it is and roll+Hot. On a 10+ both. On a 7-9 choose one:
*they aren't pissed at you
*you don't owe them anything


In cases you mention where all of them make a roll and risk detracting from why they're there, I'll remind them that the person looking for them could be the person they came to deal with. (On a miss, you can bet it's the person they're coming to deal with, and he's pissed and they probably owe him.) If they all make up someone new, well I'll just have a snarling bundle of new cues to work into the scene.

63
Apocalypse World / Re: Passive moves
« on: July 25, 2012, 06:36:47 PM »
It took me a moment to get used to MC'ing, too. This is what it boils down to: in other games, you the GM have dice and procedures for decision making tools. In Apocalypse World, you have the Principles and Moves instead. The Principles and Moves are your dice and procedures. That's why the start of the MC section says "follow these as rules."

64
Thanks! It turns out 2/5 of my players couldn't make it, so the rest of us decided to stop character creation just after introductions (before Hx and highlighting) and play a boardgame. We'll pick up where we left off when the others join us.

The ones that did make it chose the Brainer, the Driver, and the Gunlugger, which might devolve into homicidal transients, but they were good about coming up with realistic causes and effects for it so I'm not too worried.

It did prompt a custom move:
http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=3222.msg18617#msg18617

I hope my absent players choose at least one Chopper or Operator or Hocus or Hardholder, though. Heck, even the Savvyhead.

65
Apocalypse World / New custom move for transient PCs
« on: July 25, 2012, 06:21:41 PM »
So far my players have chosen playbooks that don't include explicit built-in motivations or NPC relationships, i.e., no hardholder, hocus, operator, or chopper. They basically freelance smuggling and escort gigs up and down a river valley dotted with hardholds. Since I don't want to come up with all the NPC relationships alone, I made this custom move:

When you roll up to a new hardhold, you know someone there. Describe the relationship to the MC and roll+hot. On a 10+ both, on a 7-9 choose 1:
*they're not pissed at you
*you don't owe them a favor


What am I failing to account for with this move?

66
I seek advice about the best way to later include a player who couldn't make it to the first session. What should I do? What should I avoid?

Thanks!

67
Apocalypse World / Ask Questions! ("Get the ball rolling" edition)
« on: July 17, 2012, 12:11:30 PM »
Rather than necro'ing this thread, which I love dearly, I'd like to share here a few "get the ball rolling" questions I came up with to use when I draw a blank during the first session (coming up this Sunday), and solicit similar general questions from you, gentle readers.

"When you wake up, what's the first thing you think about?"

"What does your place look like? What do you display there? Who gave it to you and why?"

"What's unusual about your morning [or any] routine?"

"What do you seek out purely from habit? Who do you get it from?"

"Who reminds you of [the abstract thing we're talking about]?"

OK, so what are some of your favorite general-purpose questions?

68
I like all of these. I think I want kids that the PCs are likely to grow fond of, so that their default "shoot it in the head" approach to handling threats will be horrifying and give them pause. Like, offspring of their current love interests or whatever, looking up to these guys and trying to be helpful and brave and impress them and it's endearing. Making them some or all of a pack of sybarites with a disease vector garnish seemed like a good call, but I'll have to consider these others, too.

How did the hunting pack and collectors function in that game? Kids-as-condition might work, too...

69
Just kidding. In my game, one of each. :)

70
roleplaying theory, hardcore / Re: PC+NPC+PC Triangles
« on: July 05, 2012, 11:26:24 PM »
My brain is crackling like one of those gizmos. It's so easy! I just do what I do for most everything else, making my players come up with most of what's going on. Thanks, guys! I'll keep you posted on how it goes for me once I get the game going.

71
roleplaying theory, hardcore / PC+NPC+PC Triangles
« on: July 05, 2012, 01:20:06 PM »
When I MC this time around, I want to improve at establishing, leveraging, evaluating, and re-establishing PC+NPC+PC triangles. I've reviewed the advice and examples on pages 112 and 129 of the book.

Can someone give me advice on developing and maintaining the mindset for doing this well? How can I best remind myself when we're at the table and I'm juggling things? How will I recognize when I'm overdoing it?

Also, I'm interested in any dirty tricks and shortcuts I can use. For example, I can mine the Hardholder's choices about his holding by explaining some or all of them with NPCs, like "your gang is well-disciplined" is true because Spong has a knack for keeping them in line, or both "your population is decadent and perverse" and "add a bustling, widely-known market commons" are true because Dustwich is a manipulative bastard who knows how to shuffle people's wants around. Know of any other handy fixtures to hang NPCs on?

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