Dead World

I'm running a Deadwood hack of Apocalypse World this weekend at a con.  I'll write up AP when it's done. 

Hacking the game over presented some challenges, namely what do do with Weird and playbooks tied into the Psychic Maelstrom. 

I ended using seven playbooks (should be plenty for a 4 person game)

Sheriff (Chopper with his gang as deputies and his bikes as horses. I removed "Fucking Thieves" and made "Pack Alpha" more powerful by allowing him to use it on anyone in camp, renamed "I am the law")

Whore (Skinner with very few changes)

Gentleman (Maestro 'D with few changes)

Muscle (Gunlugger with few changes)

Calamity (Battlebabe with a few cosmetic changes)

Doc (Angle with a whole different list of things in his kit and his healing touch changed to "Breath, Damnit!")

Preacher (this was the toughest one.  He started as a Hocus but lost his congregation and eventually got a "mask" of faith to cover his demons.  He's one part hocus, one part faceless and a touch of brainer)

Here's the stuff I made for it

Playbooks (and moves): http://www.sadric.com/download/DW_Playbooks.pdf

Wow just finished reading your hack, really digging the Preacher and the Whore. You do have a slight typo that I noticed on page 9... I imagine that should be "Your horrors..." Reading this make me want to see a Carnivàle hack

Anyway, can't wait to see the AP. Good luck!

Sweet, thanks for catching that. I'll fix it up.

And glad you dig it.  My next hack though... Apocalypse Galactica.  That is going to be some brutal shit.

This is quite cool. I love the Preacher-as-Faceless; that's a very clever interpretation.

And glad you dig it.  My next hack though... Apocalypse Galactica.  That is going to be some brutal shit.

Looking forward to it.

I always saw Maestro'D as a straight-up homage to Al Swerengen, even down to the knife use.

I found this so inspiring, I registered just to reply.

While you clearly made this for your game at a con last weekend, hopefully these comments will not be entirely in vain.

1) I would point out that both the Doc and the Muscle have moves that reference 'Make an Earnest Plea', which, if I remember (I presume) your posts on story-games well enough, is what 'Indulge your vices' became, and so there are no rules for.  You also can't really just substitute one for the other - the battlefield is really a rather bad place for a Muscle to indulge his love of hookers. ;)

2) I'm sad you didn't name the Muscle's +1 grit move 'True Grit'.  But that's me.

3) Indulge your vices is awesome, but I have a problem with it.  Namely, that it relies on Will to be effective, and not many characters have much reason to take high Will as opposed to other stats.  And it certainly won't be all of them - and I'd want all my players indulging their vices fairly regularly.

Personally, and this is just me, I'd make it a bit more complicated.
The player decides for their character to indulge their vices, and puts forward a level of consequence.  I would, to note, include personal vices as well as social ones in this.  So Alma, for example, would indulge her vices both when she takes dope and when she acts overly proudly.

0: No significant consequences.
Examples: involved in a bar brawl which ends with no hard feelings and no serious injuries, sleep with a hooker without problems, etc.

1: Some inconvenience, or a chance of more serious consequences later.
Examples: lose a barter (spent, stolen, ripped off, gambled away), take 1-harm (beaten up in a bar brawl), sleep with another man's wife while he's away from camp, get an STI from a hooker, etc.

2: Moderate consequences, or a chance of very serious consequences later.
Examples: make some loud disparaging remarks about the town Gentleman while drunk, get into a fistfight with his muscle, from the show: Alma Garret going to negotiate with Hearst alone, etc.

3.  Serious.  Fucking.  Consequences.
Examples: from the show: dragging Heart through the streets by his ear, revealing the the Gentleman that you've been sleeping with his wife, just so you don't lose an argument (due to pride, natch), etc.

The level of consequence (0-3) I'd call the excess.  They then roll +excess.  Treat the rest of the move the same, except I'd let them mark XP for a 10+ hit, just to provide an additional temptation to go for bigger consequences.

On the other hand, I haven't given much thought to if this'll break anything.  It just brings a joy to my heart to see self-destructive behaviour in characters, and it seems fairly appropriate for the setting.

Thanks. I keep catchings (or having other people catch mistakes), which is great as I can pretty quickly fix them and get it updated. Thanks for finding the references to "Earnest Plea", they have been fixed.

Also, REALLY glad the playbooks sparked your interest.  If you end up using them (or some version of them), I'd love to hear about it.

Now, to address the specifics:

1) Doc's move changed to "Dram of Laudanum" and fixed to "Indulge your vices" Muscle updated and I'd allow the MC to figure a way to make it work in battle.  The Muscle is an extremely powerful character (write the AP now, he was a menace) so I'm not to worried limiting him this way. If I was running the game, I'd let a muscle "preemptively" indulge his vices just before a fight for the same effect.

2) Totally! True Grit it is.

3) Much as I like the Roll+Stock model here, I'm keeping it as is just for simplicity. I see indulging your vices as being a move that is both color (Calamity drinking is nothing new) and action (beating the hell out of someone who incites you) and I'm cool with negotiating those consequences as they fit he narrative.  When I play Vanilla Apoc World, I've seen people open their brain for wildly varying requests and the MC usually has a pretty easy time deciding whats involved in doing so.  MCing Dead World I'd feel pretty comfortable with deciding on the fly what the consequences for an indulgence should be based on what the character wants to get out of it.

I always saw Maestro'D as a straight-up homage to Al Swerengen, even down to the knife use.

Totally, and whether he meant it or not, I think the Calamity is a better conceived of Battle Babe than the Battle Babe herself.

Don't know when I'll use them - I'm just 3 sessions into running a Corporation game, and given the glacial pace my players are moving at, it could well be a year or more by the time I'm ready to run again, by which my enthusiasm could have waned.  We'll see.

3) It's fair enough to keep the simplicity.  My main regret with the current way was, with the exception of the Preacher, at most 50% of the character statlines (IIRC) are non-negative Will, and me and my fellow players were very reluctant to roll negative stats if we could help it - the chances of misses were too high, which I felt would discourage players from indulging their vices, which I wanted to avoid.  But, hey, there's definitely something to be said for keeping bloat out of the rules.

Incidentally, talking of the Calamity, I did *love* the 'In your cups' variant of the 'Impossible Reflexes' move - *so* much more 'in character' for the setting, while still making perfect sense.  Kudos.

Edit: Also, I think an operator variant could fit into the setting easily - possibly without a crew, 'The Hustler' or something.  Someone on another thread of similar subject matter quoted E.B. acting as the middle-man in Swarengen's attempted purchase of Alma Garrett's land, and his attempt to skim a large chunk of money off the top.  That kind of thing.  I might get around to suggesting a full playbook, but I'm on very limited time at the moment, thanks to work, so it likely won't be for a while.

Double Edit: Ironic that the Whore's 'Arresting Visage' is named such, given that 'visage' means 'face', I believe, and that's one part that's rather unlikely to be covered up.  'Arresting figure' or 'Alluring Curves' are perhaps more logical names.  But up to you, of course.

I like the idea for the Hustler for the Operator. That is totally the E.B. Farnum Character. I'll make it!

Anyway, can't wait to see the AP. Good luck!

Here it is http://seannittner.livejournal.com/129290.html

Sean

In the interests of tidying things up a bit:

-The Doc's 'Breathe, damnit' still references 'make an earnest plea'.
-The Gentleman's establishment has a few strange options: 'luxury food', 'fashion' and 'art'.  I can understand the reluctance to take away options, but I have difficulty seeing them 'fit' (except maybe right near the end of season 3).
-The Muscle can gain a holding and 'Wealth', but a Gentleman (arguably the closest thing to a Hardholder) can't.  Deliberate?  (The preacher and sheriff can gain a holding as well, fwiw).
-If you are including 'Wealth', why not a hardholder equivalent ('Mayor' or something)?
-Just a note: without wealth or fortunes, games miss the whole 'session's begun, and things are . . . falling apart already' that the base game can have.  You can still have a lesser version of this through gigs, but there the fallout is generally smaller (IME), and only happens during downtime.
-Seeing souls.  Without weird to root through someone's brain, I have a tough time figuring out how you can inflict 1-harm by gently hugging them, especially since a harm can kill an NPC (especially if they're already injured), so it's not like you hugged them so hard you caused bruising - it's serious.
-A whore can get followers and 'fortunes'.  Did you mean 'congregation', or something else?  ('Congregation' is clearly the wrong word in this case, however.  Sycophants?)
-Hypnotic is missing a 'Th' in 'They'.
-No information on gigs.  Unchanged from the base rules?

And that's all the notable items I've got for now.

Whores don't have followers they have Johns.

Whores don't have followers they have Johns.

Well, maybe.  But *all* whores have Johns, else they wouldn't really have much of an income, it's not something they'd need to buy with an advancement.
I think it's more likely they'd have other whores as their followers, sort of like how Trixie (I think?  It's been a while since I've seen Deadwood) has all the other whores in the brothel looking up to her, and she's viewed as their leader.

Thanks again for the error checking and suggestions.  I'm neck deep in con organization. Obligatory shill for http://www.bigbadcon.com.  Once I get a chance though, I'll make those changes.

Thanks,

Sean