One of the things I've noticed about the harm rules is that, while they're functional and do what they're designed to do, they're quite different from the rest of the game's rules, in that they're quite abstract and "mechanics first" rather than being specific and "fiction first".

One of the effects of this is that even when a character has taken a bunch of harm, it's quite easy to forget about that in practice, and have them walking around chatting and fighting and chilling out like they're just fine.

There's also the whole thing with the harm move where I always forget about it.

So I made some different rules. They need some work though! Please help me! I originally made them for my dungeon exploration/alien sex game "Dungeonfuckers", so I know they work more or less, but I'm not sure the effect they'll have in Apocalypse World.

Here's the pdf: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1164498/Blood%20and%20Guts.pdf

The basic idea is that when you get injured, the MC chooses an injury for you from a list. The injury changes our expectations of what the character is capable of, and what may require an "Acting Under Fire" roll. The injury also acts as a Threat, with a set of moves the MC can make for the move.

Let me know what you think!

Hey Vincent,

I think something is kind of borked on the forum. There are messages that are not showing up, and odd behaviour in general. For example, I'm only seeing two topics in this subforum.

I noticed someone else saying the same thing.

Cheers,

Simon

Here's the skeleton of a thing that my be getting introduced in our game:

When you take harm past 12:00 and your brain is open to the world's psychic maelstrom, you can, at your leisure, change your character type to Maelstrom Ghost.


Maelstrom Ghost

Choose a look

Wisps of smoke, shadows in darkness, flickers in dreams, glimpses in mirrors

Choose a voice

Whispers in ears, crackles over the radio, writing in the dust, signs and portents

Basic Moves

Of the basic moves, you get Read a Sitch, Seduce and Manipulate, Act Under Fire, and you can Help or Interfere

You can't physically interact with anything, except by virtue of one of your moves.

Maelstrom Ghost Moves:

You get 2:

Open a Brain:
When you open someone's brain to the world's psychic maelstrom, roll +weird. On a hit, they get glimpses into your world.
10+ you can show them something you've seen in the maelstrom, and you can ask them questions
7-9 The MC will show them something, and might ask questions
On a miss, they take ?-harm.

Move through the Maelstrom: (this is pretty particular to our own maelstrom)
When you attempt to manipulate the world's psychic maelstrom, whether you're physically moving, or just taking a look, roll +weird.
10+ choose 3
7-9 choose 2
- right time
- right place
- right reality
On a miss, the MC will take you somewhere interesting.

Familiar Spirit:
When you use any other move, if it makes sense, you can roll +Hx instead of what you'd normally roll.

Possession:
When you force yourself into someone's brain, roll +weird.
10+ you control their body, like a fleshy puppet, for as long as you want it. When you make them do something, PCs can act under fire to force you out, in which case you take s-harm. If the body you're controlling takes harm past 12:00, you take s-harm and are forced out.
7-9: You are acting under fire to make them do something. On a miss, you'll take s-harm and are forced out of their brain.
On a miss, you take s-harm.

Spirit Fingers:
When you have time and intimacy with someone, at your option, they take ?-harm.

Hey Vincent,

I'm coming down with a case of jumpy text box - the same thing I caught on the Forge a while back. Something about line breaks messes with the interface, and makes the text box jump around when you're typing. I'm using IE, and I haven't seen the same problem when I use Firefox.

It's not a terrible problem, but I thought you'd want to know.

This is actually for a Conan hack, but I think it's equally applicable to Original Flavour.

I'm making a "Slave" playbook. I'm trying to make the class rich in "mindshare effectiveness" like the Battlebabe, since mechanical and fictional effectiveness don't seem right for the class.

Here's what I'm thinking: "When someone makes you do something you don't want to do, they mark experience."

Is that gonna get the job done? I feel like it needs an accompanying move, about freeing you. Also, naturally, one of the Hx things will be "This person owns or controls you. Say how, and write Hx +3"

When I was making my fronts, it came time to make a "When you enter the territory of the bad guys" custom move, and I was like "I'm sure someone has already come up with a really provocative version of this" but I couldn't find one.

Making custom moves is easy, but making those custom moves that really draw out horrible implications and drive interesting behaviours is an art form. I think a dedicated forum just for posting, discussing, and improving custom moves might make it easier to find interesting things. At the moment they're kind of being lost in the Apocalypse World forum.

I'd be happy to talk about alternative ideas though too. A wiki? A searchable database? A seperate forum entirely, that takes advantage of tags and searchability?

Here's a thing I've been idly daydreaming about while I wait to play my first session:

I guess this is a custom move or maybe the start of a class:

The Machine

There's a lot of incomprehensible junk lying around in Apocalypse World, and you've managed to get a bit of it running. There's no manual, and no one else has seen anything like it. You keep the thing running with luck and prayers and guesses, but when it's working, it's your baby, and everybody else better look out.

By default, the machine can be moved around with difficulty, fits one or two people inside, and provides one armour when you're inside.

Then choose three:

The machine can fly
The machine can drive real flippin' fast
The machine has armour +2
The machine has a weapon, harm 2, close, loud, reload and choose two of far, auto, area, ...
The machine's weapon has harm +2
The machine can drive through almost any obstacle
The machine can hold 10-15 people

And choose two:

The machine runs on something rare and expensive - pure water, batteries, brains
The machine is finicky and difficult
The machine is flimsy (-1 armour)
The machine can't be moved at all
...

Choose a name for the machine:
The Beast, Baby, Zephyr, Little Friend, Monster, X, Clarice, The Mule, Ol' Clanky, Brother, The Thing.

Say what the machine looks like and such.