Building an Apocalypse World around Hoover Dam

We wanted a house game and since grad school was ending...  I sent out an e-mail to the guys with a few possible systems, which spawned a face-to-face discussion that led us to AW.  I asked that we make the game in a very different place than the Hudson River Valley.  Having just heard that Hoover Dam would last something like 10,000 years or some shit, I suggested Hoover Dam as the game's central point.

After some fast searching, I have a few books and a hold on a DVD.  I got a few links together:

http://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Dam

Blueprints
http://digital.library.unlv.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/lv_water&CISOPTR=605&DMSCALE=100&DMWIDTH=600&DMHEIGHT=600&DMMODE=viewer&DMFULL=1&DMX=19&DMY=0&DMTEXT=&DMTHUMB=1&REC=1&DMROTATE=0&x=43&y=198

Google Map
http://explorer.altopix.com/gmap/4bgek3/1/2/Hoover_Dam.htm?order=


It will be me and Pete and Anthony most nights but we assume that Anthony's lady-friend, Sarah will stop by.  Part of the reason we chose AW is so that people come drop in and out and it'd work.

I dropped the playbooks on the table and they sifted through them.  After some back and forth, talking about that Fafrd and the Grey Mouser kind of partnership they were looking for, they decided on an ambulance team - The Driver and the Angel.

I like it; feels like that is a team that'll be easy to motivate and they will have some tough, cool choices ahead of them (but who doesn't?).

I wasn't sure what to do with Hx, so we left it blank for now.  I reckon we will either fill it out once Sarah sits down with us to make her character (which should be before we play) or...I dunno.  Could we link Hx to NPC's?  Suggestions?

The players are riding into town from L.A., in order to escape the seismic activity that is making the roads into a mess out west.  There was something vague about Anthony's Angel's ex-girlfriend, some kind of a relationship gone sour but I'll ask questions about that later.  I like that seed.

The Doc's assistants (they come with a move) are a married couple, possibly picked up on the two year journey from L.A. to Hoover Dam.

I asked some questions over e-mail, saying that they didn't have to answer me now but that I'd like them to let 'em marinate. 

Where did Harlan get the car?  Who taught him to drive so well?
 
Who taught Doc his medicine?
 
How did you meet your assistants?

Their car is named Croaker and it looks kinda like this:



but with higher suspension all-terrain wheels and optional 4x4.

At this point, I'm day-dreaming a bit, thinking about maps of the area, some weird shit and such.  I'm looking at my toys: a nearby crater, monument valley, Vegas, the dam itself, the idea of electricity coming from this one huge source.

For my own storage and reference:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/hooverdam/

I'm running a two-player game where I just named 3 NPCs (Rolfball had to be one, and then I think it was Tum Tum and Lala) and had the players assign 'leftover' Hx statements to those NPCs.  The NPCs didn't get Hx, just the statements.

We did it in a vacuum, with the players basically picking based on what images the names brought to mind, and then we talked out who the three NPCs actually were.  It worked out pretty well.

Thanks, Michael.  That is very helpful.

I love the idea of a dam as a Hardhold in AW.  Every time I think of it, though, I get the image of some arsehole Hardholder who has made all the residents of the hold build their shantytown dwellings below the dam on either side of the run-off stream, with his armed guards looking down on them from above,  so that if they become troublesome he can just open the floodgates and wash them all away.

Thanks.

A few more pics I'd like to store here for reference:

http://bobandbarb.org/trips/LasVegas/Hoover/HooverDamMap.jpg

http://www.lasvegastourism.com/maps/lakemeademap.jpg

http://www.ecommcode.com/hoover/hooveronline/hoover_dam/lastlook/read/158r.jpg

Judd-

I just started playing the new Fallout game on my XBox, and it turns out Hoover dam is a major plot hook for it. Given how these things go, it'll be 6 or 8 weeks before I even see it, but Im looking forward to following your development of this as I simultaneously get closer to it in that game, too.

I don't know whether any of their resources would be of any use, but it's worth knowing about if you have any players who are also console RPG players...

-JC

I just started playing the new Fallout game on my XBox, and it turns out Hoover dam is a major plot hook for it.

Yeah, I solved that game tape. The Hoover Dam is a big MacGuffin, basically just something that everyone wants because it's unlimited power or whatever. The actual dam itself isn't that big a part of the game.