Many of these player-created playbooks are hard to track down, and that's kind of annoying. I'm actually surprised at how many comments I've seen online from people saying "I don't have that one" or "I only have these."
It looks like about a year ago there was this trading community happening with a handful of people on these and a few other forums, probably because there was no single place to upload files to, but as somebody who is relatively new to Apocalypse World it feels like there are players hoarding playbooks and not sharing them with the rest of us who are late to the party, and that attitude seems really childish.
When I do searches for playbooks the first page almost always links back to multiple forums where one person is spam-asking for the same playbooks over and over again yet he refuses to share what he's acquired unless somebody else trades him something new. Just now he offered to sell me all of the playbooks he's accumulated for $15. So, you know, if you wrote a playbook that you intended to share with other players there's one guy out there trying to profit from your work without sharing the profit with you. In contrast, the stuff that I spent the last few weeks working on I make publicly available on my blog for anybody to use.
I feel that this whole trading and keeping it hard to find attitude also runs counter to the spirit of encouragement D. Vincent Baker wrote into the game by asking people to hack the game and make it their own. I think there needs to be a unified place for those who've contributed to AW, even in a small way, to share their work and get recognition for it. The forums here are difficult to navigate at times, there isn't a list of links to others' work, and there isn't a single sticky-ed thread that lists all of the great work that's come out of this community.
I'm making this post in the hopes that other people with player-made custom playbooks will upload their work to the internet and share their work with the rest of us. It seems like there are a lot of socially conscious gamers in this community which I think is really awesome. In the spirit of paying it forward and sharing, if you send me a playbook, or share a link that has it, I'm missing from this list I'll give $5 worth of canned food to my local homeless shelter. For now all I can share is this, here are links or instructions for getting all of the playbooks I've managed to find online. (If I know who wrote it, I also list their name next to it.)
This 1st list is links to tri-fold pdfs of playbooks that can be downloaded
the LE Playbooks (the Faceless, the Marmot, etc.) - if you bought Apocalypse World then you should already have these, plus they were written by D. Vincent Baker so they're official and stuff
the Coot, by Dan Hull -
http://www.mediafire.com/?7rzq6gsk7n9qntmthe Grotesque, by Joe Mcdaldno - follow instructions at
http://story-games.com/forums/discussion/14869/x&page=1#Item_1the Rat-Pack, by Gerald C. -
http://www.mediafire.com/?dd4ipfpkexrvc1athe Last Child, by Johnstone Metzger -
http://johnstone.wikispaces.com/file/view/AW-TheLastChild-Trifold.pdf/352379416/AW-TheLastChild-Trifold.pdfthe Horseman, by Johnstone Metzger -
http://redboxvancouver.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/aw-thehorseman-trifold.pdfthe Agent - broken pdf,
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13772998/agent_v1_2_sm.pdfthe Juggernaut - free to print but have to pay $6 to download despite the fact that it says it's "free,"
http://www.scribd.com/doc/74072939/Apocalypse-World-JuggernautThis 2nd list is links to downloads or forums where the information for a new playbook is listed, but no tri-fold pdf exists (as far as I know)
the Boy and his Dog -
http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=389.0the Orphan -
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jryb1Y6Q-uGM_Oq_E1F9TzBAiKZI8lzaLkBSxoRpo68/edit?hl=en#the Firebug -
http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=4192.0the Man in the Box -
http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=1547.0the Wildcard - apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=1712.msg10042
the Swashbuckler -
http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=1709.0;wap2the Traveller - email aedsoftware at gmail for a non-trifold copy
the Spectacle -
http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=1938.0;wap2 (there's a trifold version mentioned but not linked)
the Transmitter -
http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=2270.0;wap2the Feral Kid -
http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=391.0;wap2the Kid -
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_XJtVbYj_jjMTUzYWQwMWItZGI0MC00ZGQ0LTljZjEtNThiYjYxNzYyNDYw/edit?hl=en&authkey=CMS52MMKthe Scholar -
http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=1723.0the Tribal -
http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=438.0This 3rd list is simply a list of playbooks I've seen referenced in forums that appear to have no other information or download links
the Infiltrator
the Creep
the Battlemaiden
the Poison Flower
the Flesh Circus
the Ruin Runner
the Witch
the Broodmother
the Catalyst
the Fallen
the Loner
the Valkyrie
the Wurm
the Witch King
the Devoted
the Living God