It's for con play, and a whole bunch of stuff is somewhat artificially, well, *stuffed* into it, precisely because regular AW has a slightly longer brewing time.

The AW first session rules are better for having a first AW session -- that's kind of the point.

Of course, if you need to fish for ideas, sure. But you have some postapocalyptic fiction that you like, right? Use that.

Just go with it.

I played a dog once in an AW game, a Battlebabe. It's not like just because most people imagine those to be beautiful and seductive that that's how you have to play any character (dog or not). It's the Apocalypse.  Why not psychic dogs that watch you sleep?

Just make sure the player is aware of the logistical limitations - can't pick stuff up, can't really communicate worth a damn. When you're a dog, you're a dog.

I have a notion that AW's whole advancement system, ungiven future especially is about drawing a game *towards* a close.

As in, as you're playing the game, you eventually end up with characters that can deal with any problem the setting throws at them - seeing beyond the maelstorm, making allies, etcetera. At some point, you're inevitably going to say - if anyone's going to fix Insurmountable Problem, it's going to be Player Character! And then you play to see if he does, and whichever way that falls, the game is done.

Or you could go on forever with a new character + retire to safety / change playbooks, but those mean you're not playing the same game anymore - you bring new characters with new interests that change the 'end game' conditions.


So, uh. Advancement-based story-pacing? That doesn't sound like it's a new thing, but it's there.

No problem! It's an awesome idea for a hack, after all.

I'm totally with you on those stories being something that need to be told through the fiction. But that doesn't mean they can't have mechanical implications, right?

They should do steps instead of resolving the whole thing, though. That is to say, mechanical implications that carve up the thing into little bits, like going aggro, seize by force, acting under fire and read a sitch carve up a violent encounter, as opposed to mechanical implications like the Hardholder's Wealth, which sums up a complicated process.


Now the following are ilde thoughts based on fairly recent play experience, so they're not reliable in any way. They seem to be relevant, though, so I'll share them.

So okay! In a game, you start with a capable protagonist, the best man for the job. Which is not to say they'll succeed, but rather that if anyone is going to succeed, it's them. So, like, if there's a Bastion in play, whether or the 'hood is saved from the sharks swirling around it depends on how good the Bastian does (and not some random NPC).

To begin with, the character faces fairly simple problems - Walter White wants money, he makes drugs and finds a guy who helps him sell them. All of this he accomplishes easily.

But things escalate - Walter White finds he needs to kill a drug dealer and then remove his body, only to eventually have an even meaner drug lord take the killed guy's place.

That's where advancement comes in. It allows a kind of bump-around - we find a capable character in a situation he is no longer capable in; he gets knocked around a bit; he becomes better and tries a new approach to the problem.

So character advancement is there to make sure that characters can become capable as the situation escalates. Eventually, it can be expected that it will escalate to the setting-level questions of the game (what is the maelstrom and how do we deal with it? Can a person thrive in the post-apocalypse? Can a person escape the 'hood? Can a person live a good life in the 'hood?).

So how you advance is the story of how you become capable to deal with the setting-level problems. In AW, you do that by being cool, hard, weird, and etc. In the 'hood, I imagine, you become capable of dealing with setting-level problems not because of skill or ability, but because you deal with your money and your name succesfully - you get more money, you protect what you have, you spend your excess, you deal with a shortage.


Now, since I believe all of the above, I think that your game will be awesome at looking how characters deal with problems as they arise... But that it may or may not (that is to say, not depending on the game as written) address any of the big questions of the settings. I'll have a game where I'll get to see how the Blur tricks people, gets into trouble for it, and then tricks them again to solve his problems. But it'll be harder to see if the Blur ever gets enough cash to set up a life that isn't a lie, or one that is a more beautiful lie than it is now.

To get that stuff, there need to be real, rule-supported ties between dealing with money in all of the ways possible and advancement and, through it, various game bits.

Any of this make sense to you?

In that situation, nothing. A small 2-harm gang is easy pickings for a combat-oriented PC. The player took the options that he did so he could do exactly what he did - grin and tell you that he takes 0-harm. Celebrate that! Say things "Not like that would stop you, of course! You punch the gang leader's face in and the rest of the fuckers scatter to the winds!"

Aside from I'm sure you've developed a way to throw more interesting challenges at that player...

One possibly counter-intuitive idea is to not use the gang rules for encounters the players are invested in (which may include the MC) - fighting a small gang with 2-harm weapons is cakewalk - it's one roll and you're done. Fighting Shithead with a sawed-off behind the door, III with a knife waiting to pounce from a shadow, the Twins providing cover fire for their mates from a nearby building and Zuto with his half a dozen wolf-hounds means a bunch of acting under fire, go aggro, seize by force, and read a sitch rolls, any of which can fail or hit complications, which can provide you with results far more interesting than 3-harm.

As MC, you don't control outcomes fully, but (most of the time) you do control the pace. It can be a useful tool!

If you want, you could make something like the Driver's vehicle harm rule - there's a countdown clock, and the thing gradually deteroriates as it suffers damage. If the armour (or weapons, whatever) that a fighter-type uses deteriorate, he needs at least a couple of people on his good side to keep him stocked up.

You could also make threats less directly confrontational. I wouldn't go so far as to try and eliminate large-scale battles out of the game altogether (picking a fighter-type is saying "I want to do a lot of fighty stuff!", after all, and the game is all that much better when it's about something the players want to do), but you could add an extra step before the threat gets murdalized - a sniper nest that can't be shot at before you know where it is, raiders that employ hit and run tactics that you need to catch up to, psychic monstrosities that only partially exist in killable meatspace.

That doesn't solve your problem directly, but it does stop things from being boring for everyone, which is your actual worry, right?

You complete favours because otherwise other people or even that same person wouldn't give you favours, right?

When someone chooses not to make good on the favour, there could be some kind of chance that the favour rating with all other people decreases - you may have given them favours, but they're less likely to pay those back now.