So, this topic is largely continued from "The Problem(s) With In a Wicked Age" but a) the most recent post to that topic seems to be from a spam bot, and b) I wanted to touch on a wider scale here. I wasn't positive which forum this should go in, so please move it somewhere more appropriate if this is off topic. But enough introduction:

Vincent has mentioned that "In a Wicked Age" suffers from the resolution mechanic not having enough connection to the fictional events of the conflict. You *can* go blow by blow and you *should*, but you don't *have to*. Dogs and Apocalypse World both do pretty good at this in a couple different ways, as Vincent has talked about elsewhere: Dogs conflicts plain don't work if you don't describe your raise actions, because it leaves the other side with nothing to respond to, and AW roots the moves in concrete fictional cues, and then has mostly fictional consequences that are spelled out rather than straight mechanical consequences.

So, my question is: what are some other games that *succeed* in tightly linking the fiction to the resolution (and other) mechanics, and how do they do it? Also, if anyone wants to delve deeper into how AW does it, I'd love to hear that too. I'm starting to get a rough idea for how this works, but am having trouble visualizing what it looks like other than the specific examples of moves and DiTV resolution.

So, over in the "Organizing NPCs" thread (and elsewhere) there's been lots of talk of printing out pictures of apocalypse people  to put faces to names. I know lots of people might balk at having their imagination constrained so, but I find the idea great!

Unfortunately, I have no idea where/how to find images of appropriately apocalyptical people, so this is my cry for help:

Please post links to collections of AW-useful pictures of people! (Photos, drawings, whatevs)

Or else just tell me what to feed the Google, and I'll be on my way.

So, I'm having some ideas on a number of interacting parts (moves, qualities, stats, et cetera) that I think need to be discussed together, so  I figured I'd whip up a proto-type character. Plus I figure that will force my hand into committing to some design ideas that I'm juggling in my head and provide some more fruitful discussion.

For now, any moves given might be basic, might be playbook based, might be available to buy individually, I'm not sure. Likewise with qualities.

[[commentary looks like this]]

So here goes:

Name: Bran Snow
Look: Young Man, Utilitarian Armor and tunic, long, shaggy hair, blue eyes
A Sworn Sword

Stats:
Ice: +1
Fire: +1
Steel: +2
Flesh: 0
Shadow: -1

[[I thought it would be neat to have 'ice' and 'fire' in the stats, and the vague nature of the stats got me to some thinking that I'll show more a little later. Ice is how cold, calculating, and unfeeling you are. Fire is how passionate, zealous, and so forth you are. Steel is how hard and sharp you are. Flesh is how much you're linked to your body - lithe, sexy, gluttonous, what have you. Shadow is your connection to the weird and strange. Better stats than flesh and shadow are welcome]]

Status +1 (strata 1)

[[I figure stratum 1 is about where retainers of lords hang out. Men at arms, sworn swords, maesters, that kind of thing.]]

Qualities:

Swordsman: when you fight with a blade:
roll+steel
Additionally, add the following options to your fight move:
* your opponent loses his footing
* you inflict terrible harm
* you take no harm

Devoted to a cause: when you roll to sway someone to your side, roll+fire

Bastard Born: You're a bastard, with all that entails. When making status rolls involving nobles, you count as one stratum lower.

Horseman: you can gain full benefit from riding a horse, cross country or in battle

[[Okay, so where I was going with the vague stats above is that I think the stat to move match up might be considerably more fluid than normal here. Different characters might fight with +steel, or +ice, or +fire, even though all of them might be choosing the effects of 'seize by force' or its equivalent]]

Moves:

When you fight someone, roll+flesh
On a 10+ choose 2, on a 7-9 choose 1
* inflict harm on your enemy
* take little harm
* maneuver to an advantageous position


When you read a person or a situation, roll+ice

When you seduce or manipulate someone, roll+flesh

When you try to sway someone to a cause, roll+fire

[[these are presented as the 'default' moves, that can be modified by qualities, both as to options and as to what stat is rolled. The last few were left blank just because they'd work basically like AW]]

Unfortunately, I didn't have nearly as much for this as I thought I did just now. Anything here seem particularly cool or particularly lame? Going in good or bad directions?

The Scarver is basically a Bulwarkified hack of "The Swapper/The Capital", and the character sheet is basically a Bulwarkified hack of John Harper's awesome sheets, but check it out:

Scarver Character Sheet

Western World

A quick and dirty AW hack for westerns

Stats
Cool becomes Nerve
Hard stays Hard
Hot stays Hot
Sharp stays Sharp
Weird becomes Spooky (or Hunch or something)

The Playbooks:
Angel - Doc
Battlebabe - Gunfighter
Brainer - (Medicine Man)
Chopper - Outlaw
Driver - Wagonneer/Roper
Gunlugger - Lawman
Hardholder - Boss
Hocus - Preacher
Operator - Cowpoke
Savvyhead - (Inventor/Blacksmith)
Skinner - Entertainer

I recommend having or not having the Medicine Man and Inventor depending on the level of weirdness you want. If you want a savvyhead type and a more normal game, make him a blacksmith/gunsmith or some such and limit his activities to more realistic stuff.

Opening your brain becomes listening to your gut and is less psychic and more general awareness and picking up on hunches.

Weapons probably oughta be tweaked around a little bit, with most having reload and maybe more 3 harm pistols around. Hatchets make a nice messy hand weapon. Probably change 'hi-tech' to 'fancy' and make it pretty rare. And autofire oughta be super rare (like, maybe a gatling gun if you're feeling crazy) unless you're going for some steampunkiness.

For the playbooks, most would work pretty well as is, with some flavor changes. Obviously the doc's kit's contents are gonna be way different, and heck, some custom moves that involve amputating things might be fun.

As mentioned above, the brainer/medicine man is the most troublesome in a 'straight' western. I took the easy way out for this quick and dirty approach and figured 'use it if you want weirdness, don't if you don't'

The car/bike rules are a bit of a stretch when applied to, you know, horses, so some more tweaking is probably in order there, but the chopper and driver can probably get away with having horses with different stats. If I were going into this more, I'd probably replace a lot of the car/bike specific cool stuff with neat tricks horse riding specialists could do.

For the boss/hardholder, color the gigs a little different (for a ranch owner, saloon owner/crime-lord/et cetera) and the details of the holding. Otherwise, looks pretty good.

The lawman, preacher, and cowpoke work pretty good as is, again with the flavor changed somewhat. The operator gigs work surprisingly well for odd-jobs in a western setting.

The breadth of options available to the savvyhead don't translate so well to a low-tech setting, so probably use them only in a steampunk type game or severely limit what he can do to 'realistic' stuff.

The skinner/entertainer works pretty well as is, too, if you make allowance for a bit of weirdness with "Lost".

Otherwise, armor is pretty problematic (unless you strap a potbelly stove front under your poncho there, Clint). Maybe you should just not get shot or get too attached to your character.

Modifying the fronts would take some more work, and obviously there's some holes in character types. I bet the swapper/capital would fit right in here as an enterprising businessman.

And that's all I got! I'm sure a more detailed and specialized hack would give some fun opportunities, but I think this would work with very little legwork.

So, some thoughts on weapons, gear, and fighting as they come:

I want to keep the same range of harm as in the base game, with the same general effects and such. Obviously a lot fewer ranged weapons, but most weapons will be 2 harm, serious ones will be 3, and 4 will be reserved for really ridiculous stuff.

Armor will mostly still be 1 or 2 points. I figure 1 will cover a mail shirt, leather, et cetera, while 2 represents an average knight's armor, and 3 will represent expensive, fancy, full on plate mail, like tourney plate. Thus 3 armor will be more common than in AW, but still not so common.

Okay, I've got a rough idea on how to handle group combats. Basically, it's the gang system plus strata. My idea is that you have one or two guys, then small, medium, and large gangs as in AW. But then above that, you have small, medium, and large troops, and above that you have small, medium and large armies. There are two ways I can think of to do inter-level conflicts: either you have them all on one spectrum (such that a small troop is an extra large gang), or you just say that a smaller tier can't stand up to a larger tier in a meaningful way. For edge cases (like large gang against small troop) I thought maybe that the smallest size in a tier counts as two of the largest group in the tier below it (continuing our example, a small troop counts as two large gangs, for example).

I figure guys on horse fighting guys on foot count as one size bigger (so one or two guys mounted against one or two foot count as a small gang).

I figure AP will go to things like longbows and warhammers and be fairly uncommon.

That's all I have on this topic for now, but please throw in your thoughts!

So, for anyone not familiar, "A Song of Ice and Fire" is a series of fantasy novels by George R.R. Martin, taking place primarily in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros (really one kingdom, but they used to be seven).

It is a series that deals with intrigue and betrayal and sex and loyalty. Good, meaty stuff, and perfect for an AW Hack. So here we go.

Okay, I decided to take a page out of Orly's book and cook up a custom playbook to force myself to get into the nitty gritty of how the playbooks work (partially in prep for a hack, but also because it's fun).

While I was coming up with my guy, though, the "Swapper" was posted, which covers a lot of the same area in a different way, and is probably more clever than mine. I mean, I stole John Harper's scavenge in the ruins move wholesale. Anyway, here goes:

Introducing

The Scrapper
Choppers need bikes. Drivers need cars, gunluggers need guns, hardholders need armor and rebar and whatnot. Who the fuck knows what savvyheads need down in their shops. Trouble is, folks ain't makin stuff like they used to in Apocalypse world. So you gotta go out there and find it, or something near enough. Or you hire a scrapper to do it for you.

Creating a Scrapper
To create your scrapper, choose name, look, stats, moves, gear, and Hx.

Name
Tinker, Grip, Griff, Shiv, Kay,  Eddie, King, Switch . . . (need more names!)

Look
Man, woman, ambiguous, transgressing, or concealed.

Utility wear plus armor, scrounge wear plus armor, scrounged together, mismatched armor

Weathered face, bony face, dirty face, friendly face

Quick eyes, hard eyes, squinty eyes, calculating eyes, sharp eyes, or weary eyes

Wiry body, sturdy body, slight body, or fat body

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

Basic Moves
You get all the basic moves (p72-74)

Scrapper Moves
You get this one:
 Scavenge in the ruins: when you search for valuable scrap in the ruins,  roll+sharp.
On a 10+, choose two and find an oddment worth 1-barter. On a
7–9, choose one and find an oddment worth 1-barter:
• You find it quickly.
• You find it with relatively little trouble.
• You find an item that is valuable.
• You find an item that is hi-tech

Then choose 1:
An eye for detail: you get +1sharp (sharp+3)

Jerry-rigged: when you try to fix something, roll+sharp. On a 10+, choose two and it'll work long enough to get to someone who knows what he's doing. On a 7-9, choose one and it'll probably make it to a savvyhead's shop:
• You fix it quickly.
• You don't cause more serious longer term problems with it.
• You don't need any help fixing it.

I think I saw that somewhere: when you search your  pockets
and rucksack for something, roll+sharp. It has to be something
small enough to fit, and it can't be hi-tech. On a 10+, you happen to have just
the thing, or close enough. On a 7–9,  you happens to have
something pretty close, but it might worse for wear. On a miss, you used to have just the
thing, but it turns out that you traded it to somebody for something shiny.

Canny: when you roll to manipulate someone, roll+sharp instead of roll+hot.

Gear
You get:
• 2 handy weapons
• oddments worth 2-barter
• a scrapping kit (saws, wrenches, screwdrivers, etc. Some items in it can be used as weapons in a pinch)
• fashion suitable to your look, either fashion worth 1-armor or armor worth 2-armor (you detail)

Handy weapons (choose 2):
• .38 revolver (2-harm close reload loud)
• 9mm (2-harm close loud)
• big knife (2-harm hand)
• sawed-off (3-harm close reload messy)
• machete (3-harm hand messy)
• crowbar (2-harm hand messy)
• magnum (3-harm close reload loud)

Hx
Everyone introduces their characters by name, look and outlook.
Take your turn.
List the other characters’ names.
Go around again for Hx. On your turn, choose 1, 2, or all 3:
• One of them is your best customer. Tell that player Hx+2.
• One of them ripped you off, big time. Tell that player Hx-1.
• You think one of them is your ticket to a big opportunity. Tell that player Hx+2.

Tell everyone else Hx-1, by nature you're pretty cagey

On the others' turns:
• Whatever number they tell you, give it +1 and write it next to their character’s name. You survive by noticing small and important details.

At the end, find the character with the highest Hx on your sheet.
Ask that player which of your stats is most interesting, and
highlight it. ?e MC will have you highlight a second stat too.

Scrapper Special
If you and another character have sex, you can choose to promise to find them some particular thing. If you do, you get +1 forward and they act as if they rolled a 10+ to read a person on you.

Scrapper Improvement
__ get +1hard (max +2)
__ get +1cool (max +2)
__ get +1weird (max +2)
__ get a new scrapper move
__ get a new scrapper move
__ get a shop (workspace, detail) and crew
__ get 2 gigs (detail) and moonlighting
__ get a gang (detail) and pack alpha
__ get a move from another playbook
__ get a move from another playbook

Barter
1-barter will cover a month’s living expenses, if your tastes
aren’t too grand.
As a one-time expenditure, and very subject to availability,
1-barter might count for: any weapon, gear or fashion not valuable
or hi-tech; the material costs of a crash resuscitation by an angel;
repair of a piece of hi-tech gear by a savvyhead; a week’s hire of
the protective companionship of a battlebabe or gunlugger; a year’s
tribute to a warlord; a month’s maintenance and repairs for a hiperformance
vehicle well-used; bribes, fees and gifts sufficient to get