A houserule that my table plays with (harvested from someone else on this board) is that when you highlight a Battle-hardened character's Cool, you're actually highlighting Act Under Fire. So when he Acts Under Fire, even though he rolls Hard, he gets an XP because Cool is marked. It keeps stat-sub moves from messing with what I think is the best part of highlighting, which is incentivizing behavior, at the cost of being slightly less intuitive.

Does "Dark Powers" mean you mark experience twice for each gift, or is just clarifying that you mark experience once for each gift? I'm pretty sure it's the latter, but am I wrong in thinking it could be read as the former?

This is neat!

It's a Cold, Cold World

The world's ending in ice, not in fire. People who bother to talk to the oldsters hear that first the world was getting hotter, and then it got colder, and then it got way cold, and then it got bad. Maybe it was something they did to try to fix the warming, stupid as that sounds nowadays.

As the winters got worse and the summers got winter, people started to go underground. Some went in bits and pieces, converting subways and steam tunnels, but if they really had their shit together they built something shiny-new, deep and well-stocked. The luxe ones and the jury-rigged ones alike became known as "Cores." The lucky got in and the unlucky stayed topside.

Things break; the Cores couldn't remain sealed forever. The surfacers had had a much rougher time of it, scavenging for heat and food and shelter enough not to end up a corpsicle. The cultural exchange was a little rough at first, but each side had stuff the other wanted. That was a ways back; the surfacer/core distinction is more about pedigree than practicality nowadays.

The known world goes from the edges of the sea-ice on the east coast, west (along the highway that is the frozen river) and north and south until you run out of ruined cityscape and start getting into wilderness and the cannibal tribes. There there be dragons. Sometimes travelers come through claiming to be from other, distant Cores, and there are people who range the wastes and claim to know safe ways through.

The Yard’s Golden Age iron fence has gotten some beefing up into a proper compound since the local Core (built around four miles of steam tunnels and a subway station, among other things) opened up. It’s a little ways from the where the river hits the southern tip of the s-kink it takes before continuing west. The Yardies have good relations with the Beaverhold that lies on their side of the river to the east, dealing through them with Administrator Romulus at Government Center.

The cast:

Lobsterclaw, the Chopper. His gang of snowmobile-riding hard bastards -- the Claw Crew-- operates out of an old boathouse by the river.
VERITAS, the Hocus. Her secret society, Phi Beta Kappa, reveres the written word and hordes books while structuring themselves in layers of initiations and titles like P.h.D, Magna cum Laude and Assistant Dean of Housing.
Nero, the Operator. A cold-as-ice, James Dean looking motherfucker. He's got a super hot, way competent crew of highly skilled badasses... as long as he can keep the gigs in order and the jingle flowing. Preferably while staying ahead of Romulus' boys, a neighboring hardholder (and his father).

Dirty Snow

Tum-Tum’s gotten knocked up. Her man, Hill, left the Yard and left her in the lurch. Tum-Tum’s sad about it. Her brother Dremmer isn’t too pleased, either. Which is why he’s paying Nero a fuckton of jingle to make sure that Hill never comes back.

Nero’s got Cloud and Feather, pretty blond sharp-faced killers. Cloud has a tendency to stare off into the distance vacantly when he’s not engaged in murder or rutting, and Feather has the personality of a razor blade, but they’re both good at their jobs.  Nero had got word that Hill had run off north to Belmont Medical, and was making some kind of courier run back. He has the route.

They’re just along as consultants, though. He tossed this one to the Claw Crew, offering them as pay whatever he was carrying. They’re lounging around behind snow banks, waiting for Hill to come topside via a manhole cover. Sunny, one of the crew, is making snow angels, his assault rifle across his chest. Cloud and Feather sit apart, together, quietly. They all come to attention as the manhole cover slides away with a scrape, and they hear Hill saying goodbye to his pals, and pushing the cover back.

Lobster lets him get a little ways, but not so far he’ll make the cover of a building. He guns his snowmobile and comes roaring through a snowbank, a huge man in blue camouflage and a bulletproof vest. Hill pulls a pistol, which tickles a little before a machete takes his hand off at the wrist. The Crew takes their lead from Lobster, circling and taking potshots. Sunny, smiling the big smile that earned him his name, finishes it by pulling up beside Hill and planting his crowbar in his head before grabbing his courier bag. Lobster makes doubly sure by parking his growling machine on him, popping the clutch and revving.

Hill dies ugly in the snow. Dremmer paid enough for ugly.

***

VERITAS is sitting in her library underground, scrawling intensely into a ratty notebook. Stacks of books, moldering golden age texts and ones transcribed by her students on crude paper. Dictionaries and Thesauri and Encyclopedias take pride of place, but there’s everything from Reader’s Digest to academic journals to technical manuals to Harlequin novels. Times are good. Her students sit around, philosophizing and shooting up. Three of her tenured faculty are trancing out together, Blood’s reading a text in a distant voice while Salt and Slack rock back and forth.

A dirty-faced girl comes in. She’s probably pretty, under all of it. She’s maybe seventeen. VERITAS sits up, in her academic robes and hood, made of Golden Age plastifabric. Her eyes glow reptile-like in the dim light. “Yes?”

“I... I have a question.” She’s small and withdrawn, which isn’t actually like the rodents that run around the tunnels at all. They’re fierce sons-of-bitches. She blurts it out, though. “Can you tell if someone’s pregnant?”

VERITAS stares at her for too long. “Come into my office.” She stands and turns in a spin of crimson robes and heads back to her office, not a separate room but a cave of books. There’s a huge wingbacked chair, a bar stool, and a couple of folding chairs leaning against a wall. VERITAS sits in the chair, and Tum Tum perches.

“Have you ever had sex?” she intones, leaning in closely.

“... yes. I... I just want to be able to tell Hill...” she hesitates over the words before saying, “the father.”

“Let me... consider.” VERITAS sits, and contemplates, and opens her mind.

In front of her expands a vast sea of words. She knows many words, but she can never tell what the ones far away mean; they come into focus, not like through a lens but for her mind. They swirl, the ones in focus forming a garble and then becoming clear, in words of red: the father was killed.

VERITAS jerks back into reality, eyes wide. There is a long pause as she scribbles in her notes, muttering. She looks up, then down, then up again with awkward, halting movements.

“I have understood.” VERITAS begins suddenly, loudly.  “I’m...” She stops again and stares, her manic intensity fading into something resembling empathy. “I’m sorry. Hill isn’t alive anymore.” Tum Tum’s face falls, confused and hurt. VERITAS puts a hand on hers in comfort, a show of rare affection. “Don’t worry. We are here, and we will care for you.”

Tum Tum sniffles and looks down at the floor. Finally, she whispers, “I... I don’t know how to read.”

“That’s all right.” VERITAS smiles. “We will teach you.”

***

After showing the Crew to the manhole cover, Nero climbed behind Grass on her machine and roared off back towards Lobster’s boathouse. Grass is one of Nero’s, but rides like one of the Crew because she used to be. She’s actually Lobster’s niece; when Nero headhunted her, he got one of the Yard’s best mechanics. Something of a sore point with the gang, but bikes need fixing, so they grit their teeth and alternate between being pissed at Grass, for deserting, and Nero, for luring her away.

They roll up on the boathouse from the frozen river side, with the ramp and the large doors. As the engine dies, they hear... fucking. And screaming. “Shit,” mutters Nero. “Go left, quiet.” They draw pistols and go to opposite doors; Nero kicks his in.

He sees Dust, one of his crew, dangling by his thumbs while a thug digs into his stomach with a sharp stick. He’s one of the ones screaming. In the corner are Frost, June, and Grace -- Dust’s whores -- probably not getting paid for what’s being done to them by three others. Between those three and the rest of the room, holding guns, are two more, keeping an eye on some of the Crew -- Clam, Fox, and Tooth, plus Big Tuna, although he’s lying against the wall and not moving.

Romulus’ goons. Nero figures the one with the stick for their bossman, and lets him look all the way down the barrel of his magnum. “Tell them to drop their guns or you get a new hole in your head.” He’s ripshit, no-one messes with his crew like this, but cold.

The man slowly lowers the stick, looks him dully in the eye. “Your daddy wants to talk to you.”

BANG. The back of his head explodes outwards to the wall, and there’s a moment where he stands before flopping bonelessly to the ground.

The two with guns look at him, eyes wide. He goes to try the same move on them and they just open fire. He flings himself back, firing, towards the boathouse door while Grass opens up with her nine from the other side. A shotgun demolishes part of the heavy wood in a hail of splinters and the submachine traces fire across the wall and both sides of the double door, with Nero in between. He feels something warm and wet.

One of the two goes down to Grass, and the other turns on her. Nero draws a bead through the pain. Click. A rat-a-tat-tat and a cry from Grass. Clam and Fox and Tooth rush him; he rounds and takes out Clam’s knee in a spray of blood, and then the submachine gun clicks empty. The Crew is on him with boots and fists.

The three who were in the corner with the whores still have their pants down and are scrambling for their weapons. Nero forces himself to his feet through the pain in his belly and levels his empty gun at one of them as he’s about to grab an assault rifle off the floor. The man hesitates. Nero’s hand is steady.

“Anyone who can still walk, can walk with whatever they’re holding.”

The man still hesitates over the gun. The sound of Clam, Fox and Tooth beating his buddy to death echoes off of the ceiling of the big room.

“How do I know you won’t just shoot us?”

Nero lowers his gun to his side, eases the hammer down on the empty chamber. The man starts to back away, and then eyes the gleaming rifle.

“You’re not holding that,” Nero clarifies. The man pulls up his pants, and he and his three buddies start shuffling out.

Nero starts gives orders in a loud, clear voice. “Tooth, go get Key, fast.” Key is part of Nero’s crew, a medico. The door closes behind the three brutes. “Fox...” he takes the assault rifle and passes it to him, speaking quietly now. He picks up the submachine gun, takes a clip from the corpse, loads it. “They don’t walk away.”

They’re starting up their snowmobiles when Fox and Nero come out and gun them down in a hail of bullets.

Mechanical notes:

Nero worked two gigs, Doing Murders (Hill) and Technical Work (fixing the Claw Crew’s bikes). He got a weak hit, and chose tech work to go poorly, figuring the hurt feelings about Grass would be the problem. Since he was leaving his Avoiding Romulus gig unworked, it didn’t quite turn out that way (the third gig is Fucking, hence Dust).

VERITAS’ cult are academics -- argumentative, but drug-fixated with a disdain for fashion, luxury, and convention. Also a powerful psychic antenna, but that didn’t come up until next session.

The Claw Crew are well-armored and disciplined.

McDaldno and I exchanged a few words about love letters here. He's not a big fan of them for M<3s, but I like them. In this particular case  I'm about to go in to a session a) with a big gap between it and the previous one, b) it'll probably be the last one before a player leaves town, and c) one of the characters missed two session. So they seem apropos.

This tiny Kansas town will never be the same.

Here they are:

Dear Carla:

It must have been very isolating for you, stuck at home alone all day while Lex goes out and parties and your aunt goes to visit her mother in Colorado. But you're used to it. You've been doing some thinking... some very productive thinking. Now it's time to get down to business.

You're a quiet type, but despite a lifetime of experience to the contrary it seems like people are starting to notice you. Mara. Vance. That strange Eric boy who talked to you in the hallway and knew your name. After highlighting stats, we'll see how that's going.

Roll +Hot, and some of the following will be true. On a 10+, all three. On a 7-9, pick two.

*You think Vance is sweet on you. Gain 1 String on him.
*Vance doesn't consider you a liability in the hunt. If you don't chose this option, he gains 1 String on you.
*You think you've seen someone hanging around the house. Is that... Eric? Gain a string on him. You can spend a String on him to have him right there when you need him.

On a miss, I'll pick one and you'll pick one to be true, but not as true as it would be otherwise -- it won't affect who gets Strings. There might still be some truth to the last one, too. We'll see.

Vance is coming to pick you up. Good hunting.

Love and kisses,

--Your MC

P.S You’ve had a lot of time to yourself to think. Pick any or all of the following:

*You were up all night thinking. Get the Drained condition and mark XP.
*You hurt yourself (anger, despair, training for the hunt). Take 1 harm and mark XP, up to twice (you can start with 1 healed, but that counts for this session).
*You’ve been obsessing. Pick another PC, give them a string on you, tell them why, mark XP. Do up to twice with different characters.

Mara,

So you're a monster. How's that working out for you? At least you haven't eaten anyone you liked (yet). Just a few cows. And the janitor -- Ed Clark, they made an announcement over the PA. And poor... Beth? Was it Beth? It's so easy to forget names when there's so much... flavor. Well, serves her right for picking up hitchhikers, everyone knows that's dangerous.

You're cutting a swath. You're mad, bad, and dangerous to know. What could possibly go wrong?

After highlighting, roll +Cold, and we'll see. On a 10+, pick one. On a 7-9, pick two.

*You didn't do as thorough a job of hiding/skeletoning Beth as you could have. She's found and ID'd by morning, to hit the news along with the meth lab explosion.
*You get a text from your brother Kent. Your parents are upset -- something about blood on some clothes they found in your room? They want you home, now.
*Alice's mom calls you. She never got home last night. What asshole did you have drive her, again?

On a miss, all 3.

Love and kisses,

--Your MC

SERVANT! [Cain]

THE TI-TI-TIME HAZZZZ COME. EXZZZZZODUS IZ APPROACHING. READDDDDY YOURZZZZELF.

Shit's gotten real. The buzzing in your head is a near-constant, and there's static in your vision that you're not sure is reality glitching or a hallucination. You haven't asked Caleb whether he can see it to, but he's got a distant look in his eye.

The Fallen wants things. It wants Spoons aflame, its streets awash with madness. It's given you a shopping list:

*Knock out the transformer for the town. It's ten miles east on RT28.
*Spike the water supply with Dust. There's a water tower just inside city limits as you come in to town from Jed's.
*Oh, after you take out the power, there're still some emergency generators. Like the one in the Hospital. Get rid of that.
*Burn something big, like a building, and/or that's a symbol of authority, like a police car.
*Kill someone within city limits. It doesn't have to be public, but it should be messy, and the body should be found before too long.

Every time you do one of these things, it loses a string on you. Murder might have diminishing returns -- you'll need to do more, bloodier, scarier.

The good news is that it's going to lend a hand. Let's see what kind.

After highlighting, Roll +Dark. On a 10+, the Fallen gives you three. On a 7-9, it gives you two.

*Weapons of terror. Old man McCreevy, who owns the plot next to Jed's, had a son who was in the militia movement before the Feds got him. There's a buried cache that they never found. The Fallen will show it to you.
*Minions of madness. Kelly gave some of the rock to some meth cookers. Who knows how many people got dosed?
*Supernatural might. The next 3 times you call on your Bargains, it won't gain a String.
*Succor of the damned. Remove 2 Conditions.

On a miss, pick at least one and up to two, but for each one you pick the Fallen gets a string on you.

SZZERVE ME WELL.

--Your MC

Dearest Lucien,

(Or are you going by "Luke," nowadays? Quaint.) I do hope you've been enjoying your time in the colonies. I'm sure it's very... provincial. Despite the DeWitt hunter following you (and good job getting the local brutes to give him what-for on account of him being a nancy boy, we all had a good laugh) you seem to be doing well for yourself. You've even built yourself a coterie! Precocious boy. I wouldn't think a place as, mmm, rustic as this "Spoons" would support one...

In any case, let's see how they're doing, shall we?

After highlighting stats, we're going to see how your HR skills are. You've got, in order of conversion: Jared (the very-much-ex-lead singer of the Moral Disasters), Lex (Carla's sister and head cheerleader), and Christian (a shy, quiet type who fancies you). Christian and Lex, who you converted last night, would normally be waking at the next sunset. They just came to, gasping and twitching. That's weird!

Roll +Hot. On a hit, chose some of the following to be true. On a 10+, pick three. On a 7-9, pick two.

*Christian isn't getting all vampire-obsessive on you.
*Jared isn't butthurt about this club getting less exclusive (and including undesirables like cheerleaders who turned him down for a date once).
*Lex isn't doing some serious angling for Queen-of-the-Damned status.
*One of them knows something useful.

On a miss, I'll pick one. No matter what, everyone's hungry.

Love and kisses,

--Your MC

The context: Carla the Mortal really digs Mara the Ghoul, but has decided after nearly being eaten that Mara needs saving. Possibly with a flamethrower. So she's teaming up with local hunter Vance to get it done (while being stalked by Eric, secretly a werewolf). Cain the Infernal is in deep and Darkest Self with their weird alien space-rock master whose ground-up dust she sells as drugs (last night she dosed Mara's friend Alice, for example). Lucien, the British expat vampire, took the gang advancement and spent all night recruiting. Carla's the one who missed two sessions.

To do it, do it. When you do it, you do it.

If a Chopper with a 2-harm gang takes out a bunch of guys with assault rifles, can his gang become 3-harm without him taking the advancement? If he takes the advancement, do his guys have assault rifles now with minimal fictional positioning, or are there hoops?

Other situations: An Operator cuts a deal with the hardholder to run compound defense. Does he get the gig? An operator shoots the subject of his Avoid Someone obligation in the head. Does he lose the gig? The Hold owes tribute to someone. The Hardholder leads his a coalition and burns the fuckers out. Does the hold improve?

Same situations, but with taking the advancement, maybe in the middle of an unrelated scene: do you then [need to/get to] cut the deal, shoot the guy, burn out the warlord?

DWeird, That's sort of where I was at, and thanks for the peek into the psychic maelstrom designer's playtest notes. Mechanics follow fiction in the usual AW way, and that'll lead to something, and a lot of custom moves, to me, definitely could be written "To Do This Thing, do This Basic Move with the following modifications/specifications." The battle moves seem to be semi-canonically in that category.

Not-being-noticed to me is sort of a big one, since it's something that's likely to come up all the time, and the same Gunlugger on the sheet will have very different play experiences in games run by a more/less liberal-in-this-respect MC who are/are not using optional special moves.

Ask questions, make it seem real. There are many Gunluggers with shit Cool and Battle-Hardened, of infinite variety; they might be a specops ninja,* or they might just be good at bushwhacking and not at infiltrating,* or their enemies might know them by their hear-him-coming-a-mile-away fidgeting with guns/roars/cackles/screams/heavy nervous breathing, even if he keeps it together fine when the bullets actually start.* And similar arrays for other swap-moves, to taste.

Cool. Thanks guys (feel free to keep at it, though).

*and Ratsie is frustrating bastard who just gets him and the warrens turn him right around, and he has neither the talent nor inclination to control his reputation or do regular gigs for hire &tc.

Some of Millions' gang show up, looking to collect. Do you send them away empty-handed and risk tankly response? Do you pay up? Do they notice your antitank preparations? Are you sure? Are you willing to murder some kids to be 100% certain you take that tank unawares?

Are any of the PC's gang NPCs? Do they really want to go up against a tank? Seriously, boss? This is a good plan and all, but... tank. Inch-thick steel, shells the side of my head. Well, Rolfball's head.

Millions, meanwhile, needs gas, parts, and ammunition (if he ever gets around to shooting anything). Where/who do they come from? Do those people talk to/are the other PCs? Maybe they don't come from anywhere, and that tank is toast... shortly. Millions has just long enough to piss a bunch of people off, and then it's just him and a bunch of gutter rats against, er, everyone Millions extorted/shot at coming after him. What do the PCs do if he comes to them for help? Or maybe a more sympathetic member of his gang, all of whom are on the chopping block thanks to that pint-sized megalomaniac?

If it does come to a fight, this seems like it might be a good time to break out the Battle Rules! Their plans and traps give a framework in which they maintain untenable positions (fighting a tank), provide covering fire, face an increasing number of bullets and shells as the clock goes to midnight, and eventually throw a hand grenade in to Millions' lap. Now they've got a busted tank on their front lawn. How busted? Who wants it? Is it the PCs? Well, now they need gas, parts, and ammunition...

I've noticed a sharp aversion among people (myself included) to abilities where you pay a cost and add to a roll, chosen before the dice hit the table. Examples are Downward Spiral for the Mortal (1 harm for +2 to gazing in to the abyss) or The Power Flows Through Me for the Infernal (+2 to any roll for 1 string to the Dark Power). Unlike spending strings post-facto, there seems to be a conservative feeling that the extra +2 has a significant enough chance of making no difference (a weak hit to another weak hit, boosting an already strong hit, or failing to improve a miss) that the high cost is rarely worth it.

Is this just poor statistical analysis? How bad/different would it be to allow to use after rolling?