First one's THE HERMIT

The Hermit

What's left in the world when everything worthwhile has turned to dust? There's you, and them that did it.

CREATING A HERMIT

To create your hermit, choose look, stats, moves, gear, and Hx.

NAME

Don't choose a name. The other players will decide what they call you after you introduce yourself, by look alone.

LOOK

Man, woman, concealed, or withered.

Ragged wear, vintage wear, scrounge wear, or straight-up rags.

Scarred face, rugged face, frightened face, pockmarked face, innocent face, lean face, weathered face.

Rheumy eyes, milky eyes, wild eyes, distant eyes, kind eyes, starry eyes.

Wiry body, bent body, slender body, corpulent body, youthful body.

STATS

Like a brainer, but Weird -1.

BASIC MOVES

You get the basic moves just like anyone.

HERMIT MOVES

You get these:

Walks By Himself: You start with insight+0. When you stand alone, you get +1 insight. If you show yourself to another, by speech sight or sign, your insight goes to 0 and you get nothing for it. If you get insight+4, reset it to 0 and mark experience.

A Dark and Quiet Place: When you open your brain, roll+weird+insight.

And one of these:

Scrounge: When you need a thing, you know where you can probably find it. Roll+insight; on a 10+ all three. On a 7-9, choose 2:
- You get it or close enough, up to 1-barter.
- You get -1 insight (If you don't pick this, you get -2 insight.)
- You didn't have to leave something behind.

Speak Of: When you repeat someone's name over and over, and you don't stop to say any other thing, roll+insight. On a hit, they appear by the end of the next session; don't matter who or what or how, even if they're dead or lost or gone away across the sea. On a 10+ they don't know why. On a 7-9, MC chooses one:
- They came lookin' for you.
- They came lookin' for another PC and you sent them.
- They are followed.

GEAR

You get one, maybe two:
- A good stick
- A good seat
- A place what keeps the rain off your back
- A dog or whatever, it knows a coupla tricks

HX

When it's your turn, ask, who's the stupidest of you lot? Tell that person +2. Everybody else, tell them -1.

You don't know no one. Don't write down what they say, put down -1 with everybody.

SPECIAL

If you and another character have sex, everyone opens their brains. Not just you and them, the other PCs too. After that, permanently lower your insight by 1 - i.e. change its range to -1 to +2, reset at +3 - and so on if you do it again.

IMPROVEMENT

The usual kind - gear, another Hermit move, stat improvements but not Weird. Whatever.

I have never seen anyone play a Skinner. Aside from that I think I've seen all the "core" playbooks once or twice, with none of them getting way more play than others. Savvyheads might be slightly more popular than the others, now that I think about it.

Weird! For me none of the playbooks turn me on except the Skinner and slightly the Hocus. I think I tried to play a savvyhead once and actually bored myself.

This is totally one of those "do you play with RAW" things. Do what works for your group!

For Maestro D' names I suggest...

Nigella, Child, Hervé, Naked, Martha

Been thinking about this - I think that there's a point where fewer stats does NOT indicate fewer moves, but there is no visible ceiling apart from "how many of my stats do i care about as a player," which I suspect tops out around 7.

Here's the thing about the names.

They signify a complete break in cultural continuity. All these things are names of things and the people of Apocalypse World know it but they don't know what they used to be the names of. It says it in the book because I said it to V: They're cultural references that have lost their referents.

It's telling you that the apocalypse wasn't just material - it was psychological.

If your AW isn't like that, well, change it.

You should explain what weird-harm is, of course.

I think the best way to find out the answers to these questions is to remove those elements from the game and see what you get.