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Messages - benhimself

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106
Apocalypse World / Introducing... the Weeder
« on: June 30, 2010, 11:26:26 AM »
So a friend of mine, Erik, made a playbook called the Weeder. It's in a friends-locked lj post, but I got his permission to share it. Here ya go!

The Weeder

Amber waves of grain, that was part of the golden age, food enough to eat for everyone.  Food enough to waste, and the trash pits of the old days overflowed with things to eat that command serious jingle these days.  You ever been hungry then I know you heard that shit, we tell it to one another every time the only other thing to hear is the growling of an empty belly.  Nowadays, farming's a sucker's bet, where the wheel comes up famine, disease, famine, disease, and only the desperate scrape at the ground in hopes of something both green and edible.  Only the desperate and the Weeder, who knows a thing about that which comes out of this poisoned, scorched soil green and how to make it grow.  You ever not been hungry, you've got one to thank.

To Make a Weeder, choose a name, look, stats, moves, farm, gear and Hx.  Choose in any order you like.

Name
Jessamy, Folger, Scrape, Ivy, Cass, Daryl, Marco, Vavilov, Chorey, Cincinnatus, Jackass, Daisy, Ramiya, Devin, Yingxia, Tappuah, Concupiscentia, Sanada, Nathaniel, Roman, Demeter, Gorey.

Look
Man, Woman, Ambiguous

Overalls, casual wear, utility wear, scrounge wear

Sunburnt face, pocked face, pretty face, gaunt face, broad face, smiling face, inscrutable face or young face.

Squinting eyes, unreadable eyes, staring eyes, bluging eyes, dark eyes, doe eyes, mismatched eyes or hawk eyes.

Bent body, sturdy body, plump body, wiry body, lush body or odd body.

Callused hands, scarred hands, dirty hands, stained hands, square hands, sure hands or hidden hands.

Stats
Choose one set:
Cool -1 Hard 0 Hot +1 Sharp +2 Weird +1
Cool +1 Hard +1 Hot -1 Sharp +2 Weird 0
Cool 0 Hard -1 Hot 0 Sharp +2 Weird +2
Cool +1 Hard 0 Hot +1 Sharp +2 Weird -1

Moves
All the basic Moves, which I am not putting down here.  You can go here and get your own.

You get this one:
Feast or Famine: At the beginning of a session, roll + Sharp.  On a 10+ you've grown enough to eat and a lot to sell.  On a 7-9, you've got enough to eat  and a little to sell, or you can skip a few meals and have a lot to sell.  On a miss, your crops are fucked and unless you come up with the means to fix them this session, you don't get to roll them next session.  If you didn't roll last session because they were fucked and you didn't fix them, you can roll this session.

You also get one of these:
Whispers in the Weeds - As long as your crops are not fucked, you can walk through your garden and gain Insight.

Tracker - When entering or examining an area, roll +Sharp, on a 10+, ask three questions, on a 7-9, ask 1:

    * Who came through here last?
    * Where are the people who came through here last headed?
    * Has ____ been here recently, and where did they head?
    * Were they expecting trouble?
    * Were they trying to hide or protect something?


Heel on the Blade - When you roll to seize something by force, you can roll +Sharp instead of +Hard to do it the clever way.  If you do this, you cannot choose to inflict terrible harm.

Green Fingers Know - When facing a blight, disease of plant, animal or human, or a poisoned, blasted, blighted or weird area, roll +Sharp, on a 10+ ask 3 questions, on a 7-9, ask 1.

    * What's causing this?
    * What's the best way to stop or contain it?
    * What's the best way to use it to my advantage?
    * What's the best way to cleanse or clear it?
    * How can I keep from getting sick on it?

If you follow the advice, get +1 forward for dealing with it or using it.  On a miss, you poor bastard, you get sick off it.

It's all Sex and Death - Choose a Special move from one other Playbook.  When you have sex with someone, both apply.

Farm
For personal gear, you get

    * A farm tool that has been somewhat modified on the basis that all flesh is grass: hatchet, sickle (2  Harm, Hand) or scythe (3 Harm, Clumsy, Hand).
    * Oddments worth 1 barter.
    * Fashion suitable to your look, including, at your option, a piece worth 1 Armor.


Your farm features 3 of the following: hothouse, grow lights, meat animals, labor animals, fur/leather/textile animals, tractor or atv, a freak of nature with beneficial properties, orchard, farmhands (Pippa, Gorge and Big Sally).

For security, you get either this 1:
a real gang of farmhands (Aloyshka, Tifa, Spleen, Charmschool, and Mikado - 3 Harm small 1 Armor)
or 2 of these:

    * doggies (Sarama and her pups, 2 harm gang, small - 0 armor)
    * downright evil boar that, for some reason doesn't try to eat you (The Beast - 2 Harm, 1 Armor)
    * rifle on the porch (3 Harm, Loud, Reload)
    * fence with some razor wire (1 Armor)
    * secret boltholes and hide-aways
    * poisonous plants (1 Harm AP)

Hx
You're a farmer, you're not very complicated.  Everyone gets +1 with you.
You're a farmer, everyone comes to you if they want to eat.  You get +1 with everyone.

Weeder Special
When you have sex with someone, you get to read a sitch from the point of view of your partner, and get +1 forward to anything you do to help or interfere with that sitch.  If you miss, you totally misinterpret what's going on with them in various hilarious and potentially bloody ways.

Weeder Improvement
__ get +1 sharp (max sharp +3)
__ get +1 cool (max cool +2)
__ get +1 hot (max hot +2)
__ get +1 weird (max weird +2)
__ get new Weeder move
__ get new Weeder move
__ your farm now functions much the same way as a Savvyhead's workspace
__ add a feature to your farm
__ get a move from another playbook
__ get a move from another playbook

107
Set Apart / Re: Influence!
« on: June 30, 2010, 11:01:34 AM »
An idea for negative rep is starting each session (or each stretch of downtime) with an, "If you have negative rep with a faction, at the start of each session or after downtime, roll +rep. On a 10+, everything's quiet for now. On a 7-9, pick one, on a miss, (all? pick three if somebody has ideas for other options?):

* They'll take deliberate hard action against you, soon.
* They influence their allies against you (take -1 hx with a group positively associated with them)
* They turn against one of your allies, as well (One of the other PCs on more or less friendly terms with you takes -1 hx with them)
* (Some other stuff, maybe? Or maybe you can choose the last two options multiple times, just for other groups, or other PCs?)

Other characters can help you with this roll, but they have to roll +hx with the faction in question, not their +hx with you.

108
blood & guts / Re: [a cry for help] AW broke my brain
« on: June 30, 2010, 09:59:55 AM »
Someone mentioned, in an irc channel I hang out, running a Lady Gaga game. To which I replied:

"Roll +fashion. On a 10+, awesome. On a 7-9, a little TOO awesome. On a miss, much, much too awesome."

109
blood & guts / Re: Opening your Mind
« on: June 30, 2010, 06:43:17 AM »
Now I want to come up with a special move called "Trepanning". Hmmm.

Deal any amount of Harm to yourself, and take +harm dealt to your next weird roll.

It would be a fun custom move to throw into a basic AW game. "Well, you're pretty bad at opening your brain, yeah? But there is a rumor you remember hearing once..."

Offer them an opportunity, with or without a cost.

110
Set Apart / Re: Influence!
« on: June 30, 2010, 06:41:14 AM »
Yeah, I would lean towards "all the people who really like you are a part of the new faction, and the remainder is the people that only sorta like you".

Another exciting idea: Why not let influence go to -3, and when it hits -4, it resets to -1, and a new faction within the group splinters off, specifically devoted to opposing you, personally?

111
Set Apart / Re: Influence!
« on: June 29, 2010, 11:41:55 PM »
Awesome! Especially what happens when a faction peels off and attaches itself to you. What's your starting "ix" with the "traitor" group? And I could see it being interesting if that group, itself, schismed into another group that's even more dedicated to you. Like a band of warriors defecting from an army to be your personal followers, and then, from the midst of that group, a cult forming in outright worship of you, or something.

As alternatives to +ix, "+rep", maybe? Reputation and Influence aren't quite perfect synonyms, but I think they'd be close enough that I think they'd be similarly applicable in the situations you're using in them.

112
blood & guts / Re: [a cry for help] AW broke my brain
« on: June 29, 2010, 10:29:34 PM »
When you require a custom move, roll +hx with the MC.

On a 10+, choose a stat, and make a list of four good things. Roll the stat: on a 10+, you pick three, on a 7-9, pick one.

On a 7-9, the MC chooses a stat, and makes a list of four bad things. Roll the stat: One  a 10+, pick one, on a 7-9, pick three.

On a miss, the MC will tell you what the custom move looks like. You're probably not going to like it.

113
Apocalypse World / Re: Extended Mediography
« on: June 29, 2010, 02:10:32 AM »
I just noticed nobody's mentioned FreakAngels yet. So allow me! I consider this more or less a must-read webcomic for Apocalypse World, it hits a lot of the same notes as the game, scarcity and suck, weirdness, the lot.

114
the preapocalypse / Re: Help me pitch sales?
« on: June 28, 2010, 05:24:10 PM »
Obviously I was speaking to other, less awesomely talented individuals than as yourself, who might be reading the thread and considering applying the suggestions therein!

I'm also a big fan of using the "Intoducing the..." sections to get to the heart of Apocalypse World's setting. The Chopper one in particular's excellent in that regard, followed by the Operator and Driver in no particular order.

115
the preapocalypse / Re: Help me pitch sales?
« on: June 28, 2010, 04:18:31 PM »
- It's basically Firefly.

As a warning, when "Orly" opened with this in his Apocalypse World game at GPNW, it gave a few people the impression it was a scifi game for a few while until we realized the disconnect and corrected it. So you might want to append that with "Except post-apocalyptic, instead of scifi".

116
the preapocalypse / Re: Help me pitch sales?
« on: June 28, 2010, 03:21:11 PM »
It's Max Max, as written by Grant Morrison, and directed by Joss Whedon.

117
blood & guts / Re: Opening your Mind
« on: June 28, 2010, 02:57:24 PM »
Suddenly I want to make the psychic maelstrom a person just so people can have sex with it.

Especially an Operator. "Keeping the world's psychic maelstrom happy" as an obligation gig. Hee.

118
brainstorming & development / Re: a dice hack thingamabob
« on: June 28, 2010, 12:40:19 PM »
Maybe I'm misunderstanding things, but how are the probabilities really close? When you roll 4dF, your odds of a zero or less are at least 50%, right? When you roll 2d6+2, your odds of a 6- are 1 in 6.

119
blood & guts / Re: Opening your Mind
« on: June 27, 2010, 11:34:40 PM »
The world's psychic maelstrom tells you something interesting. At least in my book, that means telling them something that will create a conflict of interest through revelation alone, or highlight an existing conflict of interest by revealing dramatic new facts about it.

And a related thing: I'd like to talk about how the maelstrom functions or does not function in a way that's analogous to a character in the fiction. The maelstrom doesn't act like a disinterested force or entity. It acts like it's involved in what's going on. Do other people find that in their game? Is this an intentional characteristic, and what are the implications of including or not including Open your Mind in your hack?

This is something that you can run with a lot of different ways, I think. One thing to remember: if you give the Psychic Maelstrom agency, give it a threat type. Most of the landscapes are pretty interesting to think about, but I've also gotten a lot of mileage out of "Disease Vector" and "Mindfucker", myself.

And in contrast to what Orly said, my personal advice would be to give the psychic maelstrom whatever information it needs to make your characters' lives more interesting. (And keep the world real, of course, but you've got more wiggle room for that agenda when you're talking about the psychic maelstrom as opposed to more mundane aspects of the world.)

Now, HERE'S a related question for you all. What has happened, in actual play, when characters in games you've been in have gotten the expanded "open your brain the the world's psychic maelstrom" move, and rolled a 12+? What's beyond that sucker, ladies and gentlemen?

In one game I was running, the apocalypse was sort of an endless nuclear winter scenario, the skies eternally choked by the ashes and smoke created by civilization-that-was going up in flames. Gradually I invoked some of this imagery into the world's psychic maelstrom, ash demons and it being smoky and choking and whatnot, until I realized that the death-cloud blotting out the sun and skies and the world's psychic maelstrom were the same thing. So, naturally, when a character managed to pierce "beyond" the world's psychic maelstrom (which they only managed to accomplish as their dying act), they punched through, and a single shaft of sunlight, the first the world had seen in 50 years, fell down upon their corpse, with green shoots blooming up almost instantly around them. (Cue end credits).

But I'm curious what other people have done with the expanded move!

120
brainstorming & development / Re: Dungeon World
« on: June 26, 2010, 09:04:41 PM »
For the DM:

Whenever you roll on a random table, written before the start of the session, and use the first result rolled, hold one.

I don't know what you spend the hold on yet (something pretty minor, or maybe something like spend 3 hold to give any PC -1 to a roll?), but I like the idea of encouraging the creation and use of random tables. One of my favorite bits of Apocalypse D&D was "Roll on a random table" being there on the DM's moves, and it's definitely something I want to take further in Dungeon World.

ORC
* Bloodlust: Inflict +1 harm whenever you do damage.
* Fearless Heart: When rolling to resist the effects of fear, you automatically get the 10+ result.
* Ugly SOB: -1 hot, +1 hard (max +3).

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