This thread is to gather the experiences of most of us, to see which playbooks are picked the most/least by rookies (to the game), which ones by veterans (of this game only, again), or see another useful pattern. In particular, I recognise some playbooks nobody tends to pick, and would like to see if that tendence is common, to think about some new ways to "sell" those playbooks and make them interesting.
My experience:
Battlebabes & Brainers are the ones mostly picked.
Other playbooks that rely on their own are favoured: gunlugger, skinner, driver, etc.
Playbooks like the angel or operator aren´t picked by newcomers, they´re often seen as boring or uninteresting (in my experience, obviously).
Playbooks that rely on other people (this depends on the player´s profile, I think) in general aren´t picked a lot.
In general, players pick a playbook that at least has a special orientation or good tools to apply in combat situations.
Your experiences? Do you see any tendence among the groups you MC to? Do you think the profile of a RPer, the games he´s played or run, his overall experience with the hobby have sth to do with the playbooks he chooses (maybe even his life experiences or his knowledge of the postapoc. genre)?
Is there any playbook you think people don´t often come to appreciate? Which, and why do you think that? How would you make it more crowd-pleaser (just talking about the way you offer it to people, not about tweaking the playbook)?
In my case, I´d like to adequately show the awesomeness of the operator, and I often don´t know how. Since my players don´t speak english in general, I have to explain playbooks to them, so selling a playbook is my responsibility. They often don´t see the advantages of a mainly social character that tends to have a lot of money (I´d say he´s the richest character).
Other curious cases. It takes time for a player to see why having an Angel would be useful or awesome, compared to a brainer. Only after they´ve played AW they recognise healing means an awful lot of power over people, as much as a skill greatly demanded.
Maybe players that come from traditional RPGs think that a character whose power relies on people is less powerful than one whose power comes from his own. Not always: I have a case of a player coming from a 3.5/vampire experience, picking a chopper without hesitating much.
Also, in an environment as violent as AW, some players think that a skinner might be too bland.
Battlebabes enjoy so much popularity due to their versatility, and also to how easily their concept is understood (sexy assasin!). They are cool, dangerous if not in a real fight, and also are quite manipulative and hot. Winwinwin.