Just Outside the City: Rabid Bikers and a Violent Wedding

My favorite scene, Prologue:

Rubbin is growing up so damned fast, 15 year old girls are like that and since she had been adopted by Bullet, she's kinda blossomed.  The Driver, turns out, is a decent dad and since he took over West Point she eats well and is learning from Fitty the art of the gun and learning some driving from Mr. Bullet.

So yeah, when one of the Road Demons cornered her behind the garage at Pole and told her what he planned on doing to her once she fell asleep, she took out her sawed off shotgun and put two in his chest.  The Demons' leader, Monk is a savage monster in charge of 40 other savage monsters.  When Bullet read a person he found that all Monk wanted was for Bullet to suck his dick and give him all of his shit, which was what he basically wanted from every person left on the damned planet.

And Rubbin had just killed one of Monk's boys.  Bullet gave her a look, a look that said, "You done right but doing right has a price and you might have to pay it."  So, she backed away slowly while Monk cradled the boy's head in his lap and got into Bullet's car, the vette with the machine guns mounted on the roof.

Bullet heard the vette's engine fire up.  Rubbin gunned the car outta town, lighting up the machine guns in the midst of the Road Demons bikes, fucking up many of them and cutting their mechanic in half.  Bullet managed to get a hold of the door and crawled through, getting dragged along the road.

They got away up to Kip-town, where Baby could deal with Monk and his pissed off crew.

Next up: Bullet's, Baby's and Dent's intro moves and violence at the wedding.

Dear Bullet,

Man, autumn is just flying by.  The clock is ticking and when it hits 12, it'll be winter.  You have time to get a few things done, but not everything done and shit, things might just go wrong.

Roll +sharp on a 10+ choose 3 to have ready to roll before winter.

On a 7-9, choose 1 and you can bust your ass trying to get any of the rest to happen in-game but it is going to be rough...getting Apoc Worlders together is like herding fucking cats.

On a miss, its all in the air, half done and the game is going to start rough, really rough.

You have the barter stowed, the crew gathered and the roads cleared from West Point to the city.  Time for some fucking high horsepower commerce.  Let's roll...

You have bedded a fine lady, a classy older gal who used to be a biker mama but her man got killed on a run into the city two years back or so.  She takes care of ya and Rubbin seems to like her well enough.

West Point is solid,+1 armor should the hold be attacked because its such a solid ole fort.

You managed to put a spy among the Garden-...among the fucking cannibals.  He sends back word via Gams every week or so about their plans, problems and movements.

Sincerely,
The MC

He rolled 10+ and chose:

• West Point is solid,+1 armor should the hold be attacked because its such a solid ole fort.
  
  
• You managed to put a spy among the Garden-...among the fucking cannibals.  He sends back word via Gams every week or so about their plans, problems and movements.
  
  
  • You have the barter stowed, the crew gathered and the roads cleared from West Point to the city.  Time for some fucking high horsepower commerce.  Let's roll...
  
  The high horsepower commerce is where we started the game off, with Bullet leading a semi truck full of cows from Kip-town and lumber from West Point into the city in convoy with Chase and the Road Demons, 40 savage monsters on loan from Baby, led by Monk.  When he got down into the city, I used the custom move for a front down there and it worked well.  Through that move, they found a full-up gas tanker, abandoned and ripe for the picking
  
  Bullet found a contact they had in the city, Garza and just gave him all the meat and lumber he and his family could hold...which was all of it.  Garza is going to use it to take control of the city for the winter, which totally changes the 100 tribes thoughts I had on the city...destroying the status quo.  Cool.
  
  
  Quote

  Dear Baby,
  
  If shooting someone meant you inherited their mess, you'd never have shot Kipsie in the first place...amiright?
  
  Roll +Hard...
  
  On a 10+ Choose 3.
  
  On a 7-9, Choose 1.
  
  On a miss, Kip-town is going to show you its teeth.
  
  The Kipsie's Parents, Turk and Mary, were not only giving him pointers in political science but also teaching him how to use the Psychic Maelstrom and they are willing to teach you some if you will apprentice yourself to them a bit.
  
  The Road Demons and Baby's Boys have gotten a little competitive, raiding up north, seeing which gang can bring in the better hauls.  They keep bringing you back cooler and cooler shit.  +2 Barter.
  
  You inserted Shit-head among the Road Demons and it paid off, you have some insight into their leader, Monk.  Ask 3 questions from Read a Person or Read a Sitch (choose one, not 2 from one and 1 from another) about the leader of those savage bastards.
  
  You've bedded one of the Green Mountain Boys and he seems like he is ready to tell you some McGillicutty clan secrets...all you have to do is push him a bit or maybe you don't push him at all and just keep his fine ass around for fun.
  
  Sincerely,
  The MC

  
  Again 10+ (huh, ya know, everyone rolled 10+ on these).
  
  She chose the following:
  
  
  • You've bedded one of the Green Mountain Boys and he seems like he is ready to tell you some McGillicutty clan secrets...all you have to do is push him a bit or maybe you don't push him at all and just keep his fine ass around for fun.
    
    
  • The Kipsie's Parents, Turk and Mary, were not only giving him pointers in political science but also teaching him how to use the Psychic Maelstrom and they are willing to teach you some if you will apprentice yourself to them a bit.
    
    
    • The Road Demons and Baby's Boys have gotten a little competitive, raiding up north, seeing which gang can bring in the better hauls.  They keep bringing you back cooler and cooler shit.  +2 Barter.
    
    These letters are a fun idea, they really do get folks right back into the thick of it right as the game begins and allows them to attach themselves to various fronts.
    
    It lead to Baby trying to do some remote viewing of the radioactive priests under the guidance of the Kipsie's parents, Turk and Mary.  She failed, when she came to, their bodies were flatlined and their consciousnesses were stuck in her head.  She had to act under fire to drive them back and when given a hard choice, she elected to give them control...when she came to, she was standing over Dancer, gun still smoking.
    
    Turns out Dancer was The Kipsie's second in command and bodyguard and the Kipsie's parents never liked how he had let their son die.  Baby played it off as if killing Dancer was just a deathbed promise she kept for Turk and Mary.  As if everyone in the fucking world wasn't terrified of Baby as it is.
    
    
    Quote

    Dear Dent,
    
    What have you been doing with your time, big guy?  Let's see where you are starting tonight's game.
    
    Roll +hard to see how your hammer is-a-swingin'.
    
    on a 10+, you are kicking the shit out of something/someone and life is glorious and when you get home, Ugly will be waiting for ya.
    
    On a 7-9, you are kicking the shit out of something/someone and shit just got complicated and Ugly is in a bit of trouble when you get home.
    
    On a miss, you are getting your ass kicked and shit just got complicated on top of it all and on top of that, Ugly is in big trouble.
    
    Sincerely,
    The MC

    
    JJ showed up late, having just went down south to visit some friends.  Again, the letter got him right into game right away.  Again 10+.
    
    "I'm killing the last of the fucking cannibals in the tunnel with Garza and his family, just destroying them and all of the survivors, I knock their teeth out and send them home as a message.  As a matter of fact, I send Mariner home that way too."
    
    Love it.
    
    Dent took Ugly as his lady and she really liked that.  He set her up as Flo's apprentice, so she could make a living in a way that doesn't need killing.  Dent has these really naive views on starting a family that are kind of adorable for a guy who permanently wears a helicopter helmet to cover up his cannibal chew-mark scars on his skull.  He really seems to picture a world where he comes home from killing people with his hammer and Ugly and the kids, the Dentlings are there waiting with dinner on the table.
    
    Ugly asked to be called Lee from now on and JJ would say that out loud as if getting used to that.
    
    "Lee, huh?  Lee...Lee.  Yeah, okay."
    
    Bullet really liked the idea of him getting married.
    
    So he did.
    
    And that was where Rubbin got into the crowbar duel with Rose, the Road Demon's new gang leader since Baby killed Monk.
    
    More on that later.
    

Favorite Scene, Epilogue:

Everyone is at the wedding.  Everyone (but not the cannibals because...ya know) and things are going alright.

I ask the host, Bullet, to roll under fire to keep things relatively peaceful.  He rolls the blessed 7-9.

"The Road Demons aren't acting up yet but they are on the prowl.  They are looking for a target and unless they get one, they are going to make one, still sore about the way things went with Rubbin killing a few of their members and icing half of their bikes and then Baby shooting their leader and sending him into the octopus-infested Hudson."

This leads to a discussion about the various biker gangs and who here could hold their own against them.  Nothing works.  Bullet Reads a Sitch.

"Well, they'd be open to some kind of non-lethal combat and their leader, Rose, is not much bigger than Rubbin."

Yeah, Bullet talks to Rubbin, suggests that she goes up to Rose, drop her gun-belt and challenge her to a fight, hand-to-hand.  Rubbin still feels guilty about killing the Road Demon.  It caused a lot of trouble and more than that, it got Chase killed.  She had been sleeping with Chase on and off and felt really shitty about leaving him for the Road Demons after she had shot them up.

Rubbin wants to talk to Baby first and when Bullet says that he'll talk to Baby for her, Rubbin acts like a 15 year old.  "I want to talk to her, dammit, I am the one about to fight!"

"Okay, okay, jeez."

Baby nods, liking the girl's spunk and hands her a crowbar (her gang-member, Crowbar, always seems to have one or two on him).

So, Rubbin walks up to Rose, get's in her face right in front of her bows and drops her gun-belt, wielding the crowbar.  Rose smiles, loving the idea of a crowbar duel with the little fucking privileged bitch who got her old man killed, who shot up her gang's bikes and their mechanic and shotgunned one of their boys to start the whole thing off just because he wanted to have a little fun with her orifices.

Ya see, Baby thought Rubbin would just brain Rose with the crowbar when she wasn't looking and Bullet thought the fair fight would just be hand to hand.  She mixed the two bits of advice from the two people she looked up to most.  It is one of those classic Apocalypse World parenting mistakes that anyone could make and it led to their teenage adopted daughter into a crowbar duel with a bloodthirsty gang leader.

To resolve the duel, I had KK roll a d6.  1-3, would be Rubbin's win, 4-6 would be Rose's win.  I could see the looks in their eyes, the fear.  They were kind of hoping that Rubbin would win and maybe take control of the gang...maybe.

6.

Oops.

Rubbin put all of her strength into one shot and Rose was waiting for just that.  She laid her crowbar across her wrists, then across her head, then a few times into her ribs before anyone could stop her.

Flo, the nurse from Kip-town was there because, ya know, everyone
 was there.  A concussion, both wrists broken and 4 broken ribs.  She'll live but it won't be pretty.

They set up with Rubbin all night and told her how proud they were of her.

This got Dent pretty angry, so he Seized the Gang By Force, killing Rose and the entire top echelon of the gang.  Now they're Dent's (which is a bit weird, because technically they are Baby's hardhold gang but we'll sort that out).

"They're savage?  Good, we'll have a good time in Cannibal Country."

When (ug)Lee and Dent got back to their place after the wedding, she asked to see the face of her husband.  He blockaded the room, throwing furniture against the doors as if zombies might attack.  Then he took off his helmet and took off the rag on his head and after that, he snuffed out the candle in the room.

It was a helluva wedding.

Damn Judd, I wish I could play just one session with you... mate,  I'd learn some serious MC shit.
Pure Awesomeness. I really, really like the way you tie the letters to the fronts and embroil the players in their characters scenes from the get go. No waiting in the wings in your group, it seems everyone is champing at the bit to have some of the spotlight!

Just a question. Why'd you go with the die of fate for the duel? I know that's what the rules suggest, but could you somehow tie a character's move to the outcome? I mean, I guess I see the inherant tension highlighted with a 50/50 toss, especially since the intent and stakes were fairly well stated, but would there have been a peripheral move of some sort for Baby or Bullett that would influence the result?

The reason for asking is that in my game, it appears we may be one-on-one for a few sessions more and I'm predicting some dustups are inevitable that involve Integral 'Hx' NPCs that I just don't want to have in my crosshairs all the time. I'd like to let dice decide as focused through the lens of the sole protagonist's moves.

Have you had many of these 'witnessed' NPC conflicts? Did you resolve them all via a single die as suggested in the rules?

Brilliant fiction by the way, you and your crew are to be congratulated!

Thanks for the kind words, Noofy.

I went with the die of fate because they set Rubbin against a hardened biker with crowbars and at that point, they were helpless to do anything but watch.  There was nothing to be done and I kinda wanted that feeling reflected in the dice.  If one of them had taken her aside and given her some martial advice or read a sitch on her behalf or something, I might have allowed a helping roll to effect the die of fate, as you aptly called it but no one did.

Shit went poorly but not that poorly.

Other than that, I haven't had any other NPC vs. NPC fights that I can recall.

A couple of little things:

Baby having the Kipsie's parent's brains stuck in her brain feels like a big deal.  Her new boyfriend mentioned that the patriarch of the McGillicutty clan was good with this psychic crap but he's in their fortress in the Green Mountains.  She was considering heading up there with the next Green Mountain Boy convoy but was loath to leave the town in other's hands.

When she was trying to struggle to get a hold of them, she effed up a roll and they took control a bit, causing her to come to with a smoking gun in her hands and Dancer dead at her feet.  No one knows why she did it, including her gang and when they asked her, she mumbled something about a death-bed promise she made to the Kipsie's parents.

I haven't made up the fronts up north but had an envoy from Albany stop down anyway.  Mrs. Washington runs things up there but she won't be visiting anytime soon.  She has heard about what happens to hardholders who run into Baby and quite frankly, the chopper gang leader has a rep all over the Hudson River Valley as a cold killer, especially now that she has two more people stuck in her brain.

Bullet is the one people go to when they are worried and need someone to talk to Baby.  He has a rep for being fairly reasonable.  "Sure he killed Toyota but all in all, he's being a decent dad-figure to that orphan, Rubbin."

"Rubbin, the one whose family he killed in a road race?"

"Yeah, that's her."

I reckon we will get in one more game to represent the autumn prep before winter and then get into the cold, scarce winter.

I want to write something about the game bits that are making the game go.  It feels like folks rolling 7-9 and the words savage as a gang descriptor have been the two big bits of MC Move Fuel for me this game.

 

I want to write something about the game bits that are making the game go.  It feels like folks rolling 7-9 and the words savage as a gang descriptor have been the two big bits of MC Move Fuel for me this game.

Wow, yeah, was 'savage' ever a story-driver in my game. Players will really go nuts with how savage their guys are, and it's permission to you to have their NPCs do things in a far more horrible way than they expected. On the other hand, not having any 7-9's or worse on initial situation rolls had me stumbling around a bit.