Problem: gunlugger that's not a gunlugger

Yeah, uhm, Battlebabes I have known are as combat geared or moreso than gunluggers. NOT TO BE FUCKED WITH only works in full-on battles and not whenever the fuck you want to count as a gang. That is to say only when you're fighting other gangs and not just when you're wailing on some poor sap (or saps, even, it's has to be a battle.) For my jingle, a battlebabe with a few advances is way more potent as a straight up murder and badassery machine than a gunlugger. Only seize by force is the exclusive speciality of the gunlugger. As John Harper and Vx have discussed elsewhere, that move is not as straight-forward as often thought.

And please listen to Shreyas.

All right. Sorry for bugging you folks about this whole matter, but I talked it over with other players, my MC, and some Game Therapists to help me untangle the hivemind of neuroses who collectively became my consciousness.

We came up with a two-part fix: One, we changed the class name (in this case, to Muscle; many thanks to SoylentWhite for pointing it out to me). Two, I gave up my FOBG and one of my serious guns (and the option for AP ammo) in exchange for getting Impossible Reflexes added to Daryl's class list: she doesn't get it for free and has to pony up an improvement to keep the character-development economy intact, but she can get it as an in-class move rather than cross-class. And if I take it, she'll probably still wear her spiffy custom armour as a fashion choice and modicum of modesty, but holds in her hand of cards the power to do without if necessary. I also volunteered that if any Excellent Munitions were found in-game in the near future, I'd bear that payment in mind and give other PCs first crack. (For the remaining serious gun, I went with a hunting rifle, which is a nice non-defining 1-barter tool that would let her take gigs with the hunting crew.)

So, uh, thanks for letting me bounce this off y'all, and your input, and again the suggestion to rename her class The Muscle. It was pretty tense for a while there, but my heart rate is beginning to normalize.

Quote from: Allison on July 25, 2011, 02:21:56 PM

For the former: what vibe, and for the latter, intrinsic qualities, obviously. She's not a Battlebabe because Battlebabes are horrifically misnamed. Battlebabes aren't hardcore fighters. They are rogues.

You're bringing this to the piece. I'm playing a battlebabe right now, and Smith is not a rogue.

Fair enough: I can accept that you don't play your character that way, though the description of the class has kind of stuck in my group ever since I mentioned it. For the record, we use going aggro when making the initial threat of force or attacking someone not immediately prepared to counterattack, and seize by force once the fight is down to brass tacks and the targets are fighting back--we're in the "you don't necessarily need to be seizing a specific thing/we use it when a fight is down to trading blows" camp.

I think "the muscle" is super awesome, by the way(:

We have a violent accountant in our AW game that we call 'the heavy'.

I think "the muscle" is super awesome, by the way(:

We have a violent accountant in our AW game that we call 'the heavy'.

"The Heavy" is good, and I'll admit that I would have taken it if not for the fact that it kind of reminds me of a certain Russian, well, heavy-guns-lugger. "The Muscle" really was a good suggestion, and it's growing on me. It communicates her role crystal-clearly without the need to use toys as a reference point: with or without them, she's the person you call for blood on the ceiling, shirtless fistfights, bone-crunching power blows, pitched and bloody battles against ten-to-one odds, breaking the thumbs of miscreants, striking fear into the heart of the local Threat--I could go on.

...Wait, did you say violent accountant?

"you don't necessarily need to be seizing a specific thing"

Uh, really? You need to be making a move to get a hold of something.

Seize is for when you care about getting a hold of something; aggro is for when you care about what they do.

Here this is easy. Change all the range tags on the weaponry to 'hand' and refluff them as like, junkyard shit. "Car door 3-harm hand loud" "Tire iron 2-harm hand ap"

Shreyas is right about this. 

Also, it sounds like you worked it out, so cool.

Allison, can you explain why the playbook name matters?  I'm not getting that.  Also, you've called it a class.  It might help you to remember that that's 100% dead wrong.  You're the only one.  You didn't go to Gunlugger Academy.

Allison, can you explain why the playbook name matters?  I'm not getting that.  Also, you've called it a class.  It might help you to remember that that's 100% dead wrong.  You're the only one.  You didn't go to Gunlugger Academy.

Belatedly...

Because the character concept does not really revolve around guns, and I didn't really like the idea of her being defined as a gunlugger--it is not, logically, what people would refer to her as. Is she willing to use them? Sure, why not. But the thing I really wanted her to be defined by was that with or without toys, she's willing and able to take you to the mat, whether you're alone or you have your whole army behind you--her ability to fight, period, defines her, not her toys. The fact that she'd be the only gunlugger doesn't make this better; if anything, it makes it worse.

Hence, she's not a gunlugger, or the gunlugger for that matter. People don't speak of her as someone who carries a lot of firepower (frequently, she carries none at all). What people talk about is the fact that one night, in a fight outside the local watering hole, she slipped and accidentally punched ten armed dudes to death (no, really, that happened in the game; I didn't think to voluntarily reduce my harm to avoid carnagefest, whoops). When people talk about her, they call her the muscle.

Also I am one of those people who gets really touchy about concept and didn't want the other players or the MC even thinking of her as "the person with the guns." I actually went ahead and got rid of the FOBG and AP ammo in part to keep them from doing that, because it was driving me bugfuck insane. So you could call renaming her class (yes I know your issues with the term, but they are de facto classes even if not officially classes, even if they only apply to PCs and not NPCs) a means of controlling how she is seen.

As long as I'm revisiting the thread, I suppose I have a further question: where does one draw the line between a technique as "embedded" equipment (like the guillotine chokehold) and a move? "Embedded" armour, for instance, is already in as moves--1-armour for the hocus and 1-armour or 2-armour for the battlebabe--but what about, say, increased damage when not wielding a weapon? Like 2-harm hand embedded or 3-harm hand embedded, as opposed to the default 1-harm?

Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, why not take Merciless from the Battlebabe as an advancement?

Also, I wouldn't call anyone's armour 'embedded'. It's an integral choice, but there's no reason it can't be taken off, damaged beyond repair, or lost. Just because you get if for free from day one doesn't mean you should get attached to it. As an MC I love to take people's (non-embedded) shit away from them.

As a contrast, take a look at the Faceless' mask. It may or may not count as armour, but having or not having your mask is an integral part of that character. The Gunlugger (or The Muscle) having or not having armour at any given moment means nothing, in terms of who the character is.

Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, why not take Merciless from the Battlebabe as an advancement?

would I be a horrible person if I said it's easy for reinventing the wheel to become a hobby when one is bored and/or desires to procrastinate

Also, are you sure you mean Merciless, or do you mean Impossible Reflexes? Because one of the things I got out of giving up my FOBG, AP ammo option, and one serious gun was getting Impossible Reflexes added to my in-class list, though I still have to spend an improvement on it. As for Merciless, even I have some concept of "stop before you break this thing entirely." I'm honestly predicting that my MC would be sane enough to tell me that Merciless and Bloodcrazed (I already have Bloodcrazed) don't stack. (I'd expect her to do the same with Rasputin and Daredevil too, for that matter: I could definitely see her letting me take both to increase the situations in which I can get that +1armour, without letting them stack for +2armour, and honestly I'm not going to try to get her to give it to me--I find that my +2 to Diplomacy and Intimidate works better on MCs when they know I don't demand unreasonable things.)

Also, I wouldn't call anyone's armour 'embedded'. It's an integral choice, but there's no reason it can't be taken off, damaged beyond repair, or lost. Just because you get if for free from day one doesn't mean you should get attached to it. As an MC I love to take people's (non-embedded) shit away from them.

I think you misread what I was saying. It was about, when does a technique statted as an "embedded" item, like the guillotine chokehold (s-harm hand embedded), cross the line into move territory? I used the example of a "technique item" that happens to be embedded armour as an example of something that's treading upon move territory, which gives me an idea of where that line is (at the very least don't duplicate an existing move), but doesn't tell me exactly where. I'm just trying to whittle it down further.

Yes I had forgotten about Bloodcrazed, and it does what I meant. You were asking about the guillotine doing more harm by default which, with this move, it does.

I don't have the guillotine rules in front of me, but are you talking about implanted items? Either way, this is wrong:

but doesn't tell me exactly where.

In my opinion, there's no 'exactly' anything in Apocalypse World.

Now, and I could be wrong with this, but I feel like you're operating from a place that's common to some (many) other games. Instead of asking very specific questions like this and trying to shoehorn our answers into your preconceived idea of what games (are, should be, have been), I think a shift in perspective might benefit you more. I really don't mean for this to sound antagonistic, by the way. It's just my perception, and it's meant as constructive criticism.

You really hit on what I'm getting at by altering the Gunlugger to the Muscle. Do away with what you don't want and trade it for stuff you do. Maybe the Gunlugger doesn't exist in your AW. That's cool. Maybe the Muscle doesn't exist in my AW. That's cool too. Maybe in your AW you're so fucking tough you can strangle a man with your bare hands. Hot. In my AW moves are moves and crap is crap. One I can take away and one I can't. Maybe in your AW that's not true. I wonder what a Hardholder without Leadership would look like? Does a Hocus who loses faith in himself and God lose Divine Protection?

All I'm saying is that asking questions is good, but your answers are already right, whatever they happen to be. This system is designed to be hacked. Rip it apart and rebuild that shit. Everything is already broken anyway, it's not like you can make it worse.

Hi,

I'm playing a Gunlugger right now.  I picked Not to be Fucked with, Bloodcrazed, and with an advance, Merciless from the Battlebabe.   At this point, even without guns, I'm fucking scary.  It's actually hard for me to NOT kill people when I get violent.

First session, I held someone hostage with a rock.  Last session I wanted to take on a biker on his bike, while I was on foot, with a machete.

So yeah.  You want a Gunlugger without guns?  Go for it.  Trade out your guns for stuff like sledge hammers or concrete mixers or whatever you want to slam into someone's gut.  Get a busted off iron clamp and use it like brass knuckles.

If you've got a Savvyhead?  Trade them the guns to build you new, awesome stuff.  ("Well, it's like a gauntlet except when you punch someone and press this, it fires a bullet into them at point blank range.  It's kinda fucked up.",  "Guess what happens when I get 3 blender engines on the end of a staff? Yeah, good times for me, messy times for you!")

You don't want the title Gunlugger?  Pick something more fitting.  "Psycho", "Curbstomper", "Medievalist".

Chris

I'm late to the party, but if I were playing a Gunlugger who wasn't about guns... I'd just treat those bazookas and shit as extra barter.

Like, you're a character with big debt problems, and you happen to stumble upon a weapons cache that's worth a small fortune. Now all you need are some serious buyers, and you can make that debt go away. Of course, those rocket grenade things are starting to look more and more appealing by the hour...

I'm honestly predicting that my MC would be sane enough to tell me that Merciless and Bloodcrazed (I already have Bloodcrazed) don't stack. (I'd expect her to do the same with Rasputin and Daredevil too, for that matter: I could definitely see her letting me take both to increase the situations in which I can get that +1armour, without letting them stack for +2armour, and honestly I'm not going to try to get her to give it to me--I find that my +2 to Diplomacy and Intimidate works better on MCs when they know I don't demand unreasonable things.)

This came up with Chris's gunlugger (who as he mentioned has Merciless and Bloodcrazed). I'm just not sure it matters much -- sure, he can kill people by punching them. In fact, he can't NOT kill people by punching them, in general.  But if he wanted to kill somebody, he could probably just shoot them with his grenade launcher.

There are two big reasons why you might not want to take both Merciless and Bloodcrazed. The first is that NPCs just don't take that much harm to kill, even in groups, and trying to kill PCs with your bare hands is always going to be difficult no matter how much harm you do. The second is that they're not optional moves.  Given these two, I don't really think there's a balance problem, or Vincent presumably wouldn't have written them both!  (Since nearly every character in the game can have them both if they really wanted to.)