The only thin I don't understand is why the Maestro d' doesn't have moonlighting as one of it's improvement options.

The scale is the biggest obstacle I've been facing. A combination of the some of the above suggestions would also be rather nifty. I've been playing around with a few haks and how hardholder functions inherently as well. I'll keep everyone appraised.

I would almost say the Expansive Hardholder is like an extension of the Hardholder playbook, or maybe an all-new playbook ("the Conqueror") but even that might be too complex. However, for grand ideas like this I wouldn't make it too difficult. One of the reasons Apocalypse World is so inviting is the simple ways complex ideas are addressed.

My idea is that you take the idea of the Hardholder and just make it bigger. Instead of a single holding you have holdings, but you don't need a lot of details for them. You know how in the Hardholder playbook one of the options is "your holding owes protection tribute"? Well, who is that? If there's lots of places paying tribute to one guy, then that's the Conqueror. So, starting out you'd detail four basic holdings and each one can have a trait that makes it special and each one has some drawback. Each holding gives 1-barter every month. How do you maintain control? You've got a large gang and you make moves with them just like you would if you had received a gang and pack alpha through an improvement. Pretty simple. Then the MC can look at these places through crosshairs, ask lots of provocative questions, and respond with fuckery.

Scale that idea up and make it into a playbook: the Conqueror, or the Tyrant
You start with an army, it counts a large gang but can be split up into two medium gangs or four small gangs. Soldiers who are not present to hear your commands will follow your last orders before trying to regroup or return to your base. When you issue commands to your troops, roll+hard. On a 10+, they understand your orders and follow them to the best of their ability. On a 7-9, choose one:
-they didn't understand your orders (they make an honest mistake or there's a communication breakdown)
-they usurp your orders (they still follow your command but they know what's best for you)
-they half-ass it (they don't follow through on your commands, whether because of a lack of discipline, cowardice, or whatever)
On a miss, the MC chooses one and can make a hard move against them or you.
You start with a base of operations, choose what is:
-a radio tower on a hill
-a multi-level parking garage
-a monument of the golden age, miraculously preserved
-something else that sounds suitable
When your soldiers defend your base from inside, they receive +1armor.
Four holdings owe you fealty or protection, name them and work out details with the MC or other players, at the beginning of every session roll+hard. On a 10+, you get barter from each with no issues. On a 7-9, the MC chooses one that is contested, you get barter from the rest. On a miss, all are contested, good luck!

I wrote this up in about 40 minutes just from looking at the Hardholder and thinking bigger. Pretty simple.

Well, I haven't got the War Company sheet in front of me right now, but isn't it possible that there's a typo and what Vincent meant was "the largest faction War"? In the example you gave, your 30 man company would have War +2 (their largest faction are the romans, with War +2). Later on, if 15 romans died or disbanded or whatever, the company's war would be +0, as their largest faction would be canadians.

I work as an accountant so when I see the word "fraction" I automatically start thinking math, not typo, but that makes more sense.

So, regarding the words on the War Comapny sheet that read "Use your company’s majority or largest fraction War."
Seems like a lot of fiddley bits just to get a +1 difference in rolls, and it also seems like most rolls will end up being +1.

Let's say I've got 20 guys with War +2 (Romans) and 10 guys with War +0 (Canadians), would that mean their War is +1 (1.3 rounded down)?
and what if the War-Captain, or whoever, wants the Canadians to die first by putting them on the front lines, does that make their War go up when they're counting their dead and realize that they're down to 19 Romans (war +2)?
and what if they're down to 19 Romans and 2 Canadians, the fraction is 1.8 so does that get rounded to the nearest (+2) or down (+1)?

I'm not sure what "largest fraction War" means so I'm making up an average calculation to get the numbers I think that phrase means.

That's exactly my doubt here, your whole answer seems to assume the character has the fingers in every pie move. What if he doesn't (that's an optional move, right?), what roll would the character miss to get problems with his bar (or other business), how can he ever get profit out of it?

You're assuming the business has to be profitable. It doesn't.
If the player wants to expand their business, or make it profitable, without using fingers in every pie or picking p an improvement then that's something you play to find out by asking the player "what do you do?" The business without anything is simply self-sustaining, add the player's intentions, desires, and actions and the business might be profitable or it might crash and burn. Adding a mechanic to draw money from the business would make the business more of a resource to draw upon and less of something to look at through crosshairs, or maybe the MC would look at it even harder. There are no status quos in Apocalypse World.

I've always MCed that the establishment is self-sufficient, provided the player doesn't miss a roll. We had a Maestro d' in our last game and when he missed rolls I looked through crosshairs at his bar: a power outage occurred, somebody stole his fresh whiskey, and one of his employees tried to take over the business.

When I played a Maestro d' I never once rolled a 10+ with fingers in every pie and so I was always struggling to get what I wanted and trying to make what I had work. The MC in that game was kind enough never to hit me with a really hard MC move when I blew that roll since I had terrible luck with that character.

The barter moves and fingers in every pie don't need extra bells and whistles or extra rules to make the Maestro d's life harder because the MC agenda, principles, and moves provide enough for you to challenge the PC.

We began the session with a brief overview of a description of the setting to help everybody get into the mood. My players decided very quickly that they didn't want to include Christianity into the game and wanted to focus on mysticism and the fantastic. We ended up with a Dark Age that sounds-like-it-could-be-Earth but clearly isn't.

Because we ran out of time all we got to do was create everything and perform a single season move.

Creating the stronghold
Going through the options, right away somebody wanted the stronghold to have a library and another player wanted a shrine. They're both under the same option so I said their village has both a shrine and a library, the library is closer to the center of the village because they want it well-protected.

The enemies were quickly defined as people who want to destroy knowledge and hate the Empire of Eagles influence. I marked 'hostile clans' here and asked why these enemies would hate the old knowledge, the two ideas that were proposed were that either these enemies couldn't understand much of what was left behind and so they simply wanted to remove its influence, or that some of the knowledge was actually quite powerful stuff like details on how to smelt and build medieval era war machines. This created the idea that the Empire might have been very technologically advanced compared to the locals despite the Empire's decline. But there was also a consensus that anybody who still embraced the old Empire would be enemies to the revival of the Old Gods, and at that I marked 'remnants of the former crown's rule' and decided that the advanced Empire is still revered by some locals. This makes a lot less work for me because anybody who embraces the Old ways and anybody who still clings to the Empire will hate the PCs' stronghold since they gather and study lore left behind by both cultural groups!

When we began discussing fortifications and somebody suggested that their be some kind structure surrounding the stronghold where enemies could be crucified, but describing the brutality of crucifixion made everybody balk at being so ruthless (Here I made a note that their enemies could do this.) I finally passed the Stronghold sheet around the table rather than read off the options. As it passed from each player's hands they all had different options they felt were appropriate. A palisade outer wall and archers' overlooks were both selected, to help defend the village itself and keep their stronghold formidable for small bands. A hilltop position was selected right away after that, to help keep the library off of a flood plain and to make the archers' overlooks justified. Finally, an unusually rich treasury was selected, because gathering knowledge from the countryside also meant that they were gathering jewelry and riches left behind by the Empire's recession.

Detailing the armory became a sticking point because nobody could decide if they should have gear for 10, 20 or 60 warriors. Ultimately they chose the "for 20" option and with "bows and a supply of arrows" selected to compliment the archers' overlooks they added spears and round shields to compliment their hilltop village.

First issue: The selection of the armory was troubled because it wasn't clear what the choices meant (as others have stated) but also it wasn't clear how the improvements and wants fit in, so we ignored them.


Creating Peoples
I insisted we create two Peoples and draw our characters from them, but really I wanted another way to draw conflicts by having two Peoples living together, and that decision fell apart during character creation. I also made creating a household part of character creation, because I view households as families, either through genetic relationships or adopted family members. I left the option open for players to make more if they wanted. Only one player took a People sheet but he left it mostly blank and handed it back to me (this became the Spider Clan).

Second issue: At the end of this process of creating Peoples I felt that creating a People should come before creating a Stronghold, because I think creating the Stronghold first informed how the Peoples were defined and I think it would have made more sense to create Peoples and explain how they came to be living within the Stronghold. But there also needed to be some good choices starting out for how many People should be created.

The first people created were the lore keepers and seekers of knowledge. As we negotiated the details of these Peoples these are the notes I was left with.

the Aetosians
Defined by their desire to gather and collect knowledge left behind by the Empire of Eagles, and consolidate it with the lore of the Old Ways that survived the Empire's reign. Most revere book keeping and historical record, they wish to found a school and are the stewards of a library, the keep Eagle shrines maintained. Cynical scholars, getting greedy as they collect more treasure and artifacts
They look fat and stocky, with pale skin and curly brown hair. They often wear gaudy, bright clothing.
Known for their obsessiveness over the traditions and customs passed down from the Empire of Eagles. Their sorcery, gaudy fashions, strategy & tactics, far-reaching trade routes.
They hold sacred any knowledge that can be acquired.
Numbers:  19 souls in 4 households with 5 warriors
+1 Rites
+0 War
+1 Wealth

the Aetosians were meant to be a people who had descended from pagans that had mixed with the people of the Empire

the Ferdigen
Defined by their ancestral ties to the land. They were once subjugated and enslaved by the Empire of Eagles, but now they speak of themselves as a people reborn.
They look athletic and muscular. With straight blonde hair and tan or tawny skin, they are simple people, but the loud coloring of clothing that the Empire wore, and that the Aetosians wear, has begun to creep into their fashion.
Known for their archers, craftsmanship, and skill at arms. They are a loyal people and consider themselves benevolent protectors of the Aetosians. Their celebrations where they venerate the uprising of the Old Gods sometimes last for days.
They hold sacred their ties to the land and the Aetosians' search for their lost heritage and traditions.
Numbers: 301 souls in 40 households with 40 warriors
-1 Rites
+2 War
+0 Wealth

the Ferdigen were meant to be pagans that didn't mix genetically with the Empire but served the Empire and had been influenced by it, they hold a long standing alliance with the Aetosians because of their direct connection to the Empire

behind the scenes: the names for our Peoples came from entering words that symbolized the People into google translate and switching up the languages until something sounded kinda cool with little modification, Ferdigen came from ferdighet (Hungarian for skill I think) and Aetosian came from aetos (Greek for lore I think).

there were more People to be made but a this point we began Creating Characters & Households
I announced that I would be designing a troll and pushed the players to select Trollkiller, War Captain and War Champion. I also announced that I would make a character along with everybody but I would pick my playbook once I everybody knew what they wanted to play. I also pointed out that the Court Wizard basically has the right to take the day off, in other words "I DON'T WORK ON SHABBAS!"
During this process I talked about a People I created called the Munii and several players were very taken with this People so several characters ended up as Munii. Early on I instructed players to make their character's Household during character creation, but if two or more players wanted to be part of the same Household they should negotiate that and make it together. I also ended up making some Peoples during this time based on my note taking (see below) and somebody joked the MC should have the right to railroad.

the Munii
Defined by their displacement from their homeland by the Empire of Eagles and scattered to many areas.
They look tall and fair-skinned, with muddy-brown hair that they keep loosely cut or tie back with simple ribbons, and typically wear simple clothes without ornamentation or unnecessary coloring.
Known for one prominent and large family who settled along the river in this region and built a village where their descendants now fish and hunt and only trade with those who prove themselves worthy. They are ever vigilant against monsters, their ruthlessness is matched by their great beauty, their sorcery and enchantments as well as their marvelous feasts are envied.
They speak the Nymenian language and hold the brutal cycle of nature sacred by worshipping spirit animals, especially predatory beasts such as wolves and bears.
Numbers: 50 souls in 6 households with 8 warriors.
+1 Rites
+0 War
+1 Wealth

We ended up with a Wicker-wise, Outranger, Dragon-Herald, Court Wizard, Troll-Killer, and a War Champion; and then I made a Keep-Liege.

Third issue: Households seemed extra and almost unnecessary. I explained Households to my players as families, so the characters of one Household might be related or some characters might have been adopted into those Households. It wasn't clear what the default starting equipment was for each character and I told players just to use their own best judgment based on how they wrote up their Households.
Somebody also mentioned that with HX no longer part of the game there was no decent place on the character sheet to list other characters' names. I told him his character sheet has a backside and he was amazed at how blank it was - I'm assuming the Household details should be on the back but I didn't print my sheets 2-sided.

Quote from: nerdwerds on September 08, 2014, 02:00:02 AM

If a Dragon-Herald tried to impose law on the village under the stronghold's protection, nothing will happen (or maybe the player will trigger a basic move while role-playing the attempt).

I don't think this is true at all.  I think if the Dragon Herald tries to impose law on the village under the strongholds protection then as MC I will make the NPC's behave accordingly.  They will laugh at him and not do so.  If he brings soldiers then it's a different matter. He may get away with it. 

I don't think there is absolutely any difference in either of these statements.