Viking World

so there's this hack called Saga of the Icelanders, and I read it a while ago... but it wasn't exactly what I wanted out of my vision for an upcoming Vikings game. I imagined a slightly less history-esque game, something closer to regular AW in fact.

I thougt the stats needed little to no changes at all, for example, and that some of the playbooks could be carried over as-is to a large degree. Also, with only three players, and some pre-game talks already done about the general direction of where we wanted to take the game, I would'nt need to do too much work on playbooks and such.

So, in essence, this is more of a re-skinning than a proper hack, I guess.

I added some new aspects however, to emphasize the color of the setting mainly (such as family, destiny, a new way to determine characters' looks), as well as came up with different weapon and armor options. These latter emphasize melee combat over ranged combat (fitting to the setting), and add some small but (hopefully) juicy twists to certain weapon/shield/armor combinations against certain others...

My own approach to "notable gang members", which I recently talked about in another thread here, is also contained herein. This is inspired by Vx' Dark Age first look playtest, although admittedly not having gotten the chance to read it myself yet, it may or may not be a wildly different approach to the same idea.

It's also far from done, or complete... in fact you might say it's more of a stump document right now. But it should be enough to run a first session with, and see where more work is needed, or changes become desirable...

So, for everyone interested, here goes: Viking World

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B85Z1_RyWE-RemVXcV9aNXJ1TVk/edit?usp=sharing

(yeah, the name is not the most inspired one, I know ;) but for so close a re-skinning, I felt it would have probably been pretentious to try and conceitedly come up with anything fancier :D )

Interested in reactions, feedback, opinions... :)



(edited to replace link, slightly updated version now, contains destiny move for godskin, and the destiny "basic move")

I'm enjoying reading this.  What is a "Hetman"?

Thanks, glad you enjoy it!

Also thanks for calling me out on the Hetman thing - now that I actually bothered to look it up, wikipedia specifies it as "a political title, historically assigned to military commanders".
The historical use is apparently more polish/lithuanian however, although the word originally derives from Old German (from "head man", which in German turned to "hauptmann" eventually). Huh, who knew? :) And there I was just assuming it was nordic word, as I somehow associated it with Vikings and Skandinavian military leaders.

A similar term, "het man" is also found in LGBT and feminist writing it seems, but there the "het" is short for "hetero", and it is rarely used with positive connotations, apparently... ;)

It seems I'll have to either stick with "Raidleader", or research a proper nordic term for the same position - thanks again for pointing that out!

Hey there!  Any chance you're still working on this concept?

I've had the same thought about running something like Sagas of the Icelanders, but with the more fantastic elements of their mythology.  So I've been toying with some concepts for a hack as well, but am curious where this is currently going.  Also, I know that Lumpley is working on an Apocalypse World: Dark Ages game, so such a thing may not be necessary.  But I still like the creative exercise even if it comes to naught.

Hi, thanks for the interest!

Well, "working on it" would probably be too strong an expression for it, but I've been thinking about it on and off those last few weeks.
Unfortunately, I haven't gotten around to run it yet, and so have no practical advise (or epiphanies about needed changes) to offer at this point.

But if you have any suggestions, ideas for further mechanics that might fit in, or questions about any given specific mechanics in there, feel free to post them here!

One thing I've been pondering long and hard is the Godskin's Destiny move. I'm not entirely satisfied with it - I want it to work different from the others, but not overcomplicate the actual handling of it...

Oh, and for a possible set-up for the first session, in case you are interested in these things, I was thinking about going with the following approach:
"your characters start out in your village, when one night some of the women and girls get kidnapped by unknown intruders. Suspecting a neighboring tribe (or clan, or settlement) to be the most likely culprits - and these events being more or less infrequent but not unheard of - , you resolve to go there as soon as your hangover from the previous night's feast will permit, and investigate the kidnappings. If they robbed the womenfolk in order to marry them off amongst themselves, tradition would dictate that you at least try to get them back before permitting that to happen. Or, failing that, maybe rob some of theirs in return at least..."

(I would then proceed to reveal that the suspected neighbors were in fact not the actual culprits in this case. In fact, some of their womenfolk have also been robbed, just a few nights before. Cue to the tribes teaming up and going to investigate about who actually might have done it... and I'll introduce a third, more sinister party as a result of that investigation (which may well involve some travelling the uncharted wilderness, sailing a few fjords, interacting with other Viking people, etc.). This third party will eventually be revealed to have much darker, more sinister plans with the stolen women and girls... )

(This should serve to establish the characters, explore their immediate surroundings a little (both people and landscapes), and give them an initial conflict to engage with. Wherever the story may go after that? No idea as of yet :D ... I'd want to permit and enable character-driven play for a longer-running gig with this hack, just establish some immediate situation and adversity in the beginning, to get things started out...)

ETA: Anticipating accusations of misogynism, I like to emphasize that player characters can of course be female in this game! There all sorts of spearwives, shield maidens, craftygirls, godsdaughters and female raidleaders in the setting I see for it in my mind's eye! ;)
The kind of women that would be abducted in such raids are just more likely to be the NPC types - hearthmaidens, field lasses, tavern wenches, young adolescent girls etc.

Hi everyone,

so there's been a couple playtests, and a sizeable update to the game has been made by yours truly!

I added two more playbooks (for a total of 6 now), as well as some guidelines on NPCs, animals and monsters, wrote down the advances for the various playbooks, and did some other stuff by way of making this a more complete, more readily playable hack.

I still have nowhere nearly enough moves for longer-term play - but then those should be easily salvageable from AW and its various hacks if needed (I myself did borrow a lot from AW and DW already).

This is still pretty much what I would call a "close hack", i.e. I steer pretty closely to many of the AW-intrinsic assumptions and approaches. Don't be disappointed if there aren't too many radical innovations as regards gameplay and basic ideas... although I did include a few ;-)

Here's the whole thing: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B85Z1_RyWE-RUVVwYmlWNU5vbWs/view?usp=sharing

And here's a character sheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B85Z1_RyWE-RVUtwcjl4dGVZRWs/view?usp=sharing

for hardcore Vikings only - the sheet in a pseudo-runic font: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B85Z1_RyWE-Rd2VpRVRJQ01KcXc/view?usp=sharing

Feedback, Criticism, Opinions (and, dare I hope, playtest reports?) are of course always welcome! :-)