barf forth apocalyptica > Apocalypse World
Playbook: The Gladiator
Shreyas:
I basically like this as a way to make AW more about violence and showmanship. There are some things I'd think about...
#1 - Is this a battlebabe expansion? If no, then...
Stats, hard over hot, that's cool and works for the concept.
Gear, I kinda wish that the arena weapons were plays on the like classical arena weapons but that's merely aesthetic. On a mechanical level I'd like them to actually be less useful than practical weapons in one way or another. 9mm is good in that way 'cause its close; big knife could be infinite but that only makes it equal to hidden knives. I might argue that hidden knives are a weird arena weapon because they're...hidden.
I dunno. I feel like arena weapons should rely on 1-harm and s-harm in order to draw out fights maybe. Then you get your 2- and 3-harm practical weapons when you need to get shit done.
Moves
Showman's familiar and good.
Hot Commodity is confusing to me 'cause I don't understand the Operator and juggling. I find it interesting but I'm not sure that a playbook needs two very closely related barter-generating moves.
I share SW's unease about Resilient. Maybe something like:
"You have 1-armor when you're not wearing anything else protective, because you know how to take it in a way that hurts less. In addition, once per session when Resilient reduces the harm you take, you can hold +1 Hot, Sharp, or Cool; spend it the first chance you have, and you lose your hold at the end of the session regardless."
Tactical Mind is fine.
Moment of Clarity is fun.
You can probably take some ideas from the Hocus for fans.
I'm just gonna leave the special alone for now but basically my thought is that if it's a dual identity thing, that needs to pervade the other moves too.
Pigeon:
Don't listen to these people, Resilient is a great design. However, I might ask if it's really something you want happening every session for a gladiator, or more something you want happening rarely and mattering more. Here are some pitches:
Resilient: The first time each session you take harm, take 1-harm less and take +1 forward.
Resilient: When you take harm, take +1 forward until the blood dries.
Resilient: You get three new debilities to choose from: Serious (+1 Cool for this session), Torrid (+1 Hot for this session), Focused (+1 Sharp for this session). You can only take them once each.
Resilient: The first time each session you take harm, take 1-harm less and get serious (+1 cool), focused (+1 sharp), or intense (+1 hot), to a maximum of 3.(Couple this with reducing the Gladiator's stat totals by 1.)
evilseanbot:
SoylentWhite:
I'll probably mess around with the Hx options, I kinda think they're all too limiting right now, except for "Thinks the fights are a barbaric waste of time", C'mon, if there's a Touchstone, they have to take that. I also think that that character *would* understand you, because bloodsport is pretty much a waste of time(And maybe the Gladiator agrees with them, ala Death Race 3000), but I don't want to stamp that all over the Gladiator because that'd be heavy handed, but I want to give this one dude the license to fuck with you. Another way you could interpret that is that they're keeping tabs on the Gladiator in a way that the other player doesn't, because they care about what the Gladiator is doing.
My thinking on the Hardness: Yeah, that's totally possible, I might have considered that at some point, but what I'm thinking is that the Gladiator is Hard in and out of the arena, not like a wallofguns like the Gunlugger or a giantcrashingmonster like the Faceless, but like how a Hardholder is Hard but probably spends more time punching people. They're also pretty hot, but not like a Maestro or a Skinner is hot, except for they do look really hot after a fight when they're all sweaty and stuff, in a way Skinners or Maestros probably couldn't pull off.
Except for sometimes they -are- as hot as Skinners/Maestros, in which case, there's a lot of Barter to be made, but there's also some fighting in the cannibal island and some kind of tar and feather match on the way to that pile of Barter.
To be clear on how I was thinking of changing advancement: If I keep with the same number of Gladiator moves, I'd drop one of the advancement options that says "Get a new Gladiator Move" and replace it with a "Get +1 Hard(max +3)", so you'd only have one "Get a new Gladiator Move", which means you could be getting 4/5 Gladiator Moves.
On the Special move: Yeah, I'd probably drop the real-name distinction thing because it doesn't gel with AW so well.
But the other issues might be an issue of differing apocalypse worlds. I like the idea of "You took an extra step to be intimate with someone, and hey, maybe nothing happens with that, or maybe they shoot themselves to torture you and than join a cult and your world is fucked up.". I do think if you share a lot of intimacy with someone and than they shoot themselves to torture you, your world should be pretty messed up. And if you really put a lot of energy into avoiding that kind of intimacy, I don't see a clear way to force you to give out the name, thereby taking you out of "Beasts wonderful post-fight orgies". To me, the MC forcing a situation in where an NPC knows their name without any input from the player is somewhat equivocal to a "Earthquake happens, everyone takes 10-harm" situation, if a bit less obvious.
But maybe this is the wrong way to do that, and I should make the Special less big and glaring to make the Gladiator more friendly to people more harshly opposed to emocalypse world.
Shreyas:
Man, I don't know anything about how expansions work! Maybe? I do want to fight naked now. (You always have that effect on me though.) On one side my favorite Gladiator concepts are Battlebaby, on the other hand I can think of Gladiator concepts that aren't Battlebaby and I'd kind of want to do those.
Yeah, most people I showed it to thought I dropped the ball on the wonderful world of Gear that could open up. Hidden Knives is going out. Some kind of power tool is probably going in. I'm not sure if they should be uniformly less lethal, because I think people showed up tonight for blood! But maybe.
hahah, I really don't understand the Operator/Moonlighting that well either, but maybe it is as simple as get more jobs=get more juggling, be better at setting up cockfights? I really do want to incorporate the seedy underbelly side of arena fights and thought that was a good way to do so.
The version of Resilent I like is "When you take Harm, you can choose to take one Harm less and get +1 to Hot/Sharp/Cool that lasts until the end of the session, and you can't replace Harm again until next session." - Part of me says "If you're playing a Gladiator, it'll be pretty hard to get hot+3(You'd have to take the Skinner move as one of your other moves or some kind of ungiven future malarky), so no limits have to be put in there" But another part of me says "Battlebabes that take this as another move would be crazy", so maybe max+3 would be good.
Reax:
I have to say that I really like this playbook and will most likely end up making one of my crude trifolds for my players, and since I´ve already started to think about what I would change I might as well post 'em here.
I would probable replace "Resilent" with something like..
Glory: When you fight in front of an crowd or audience, suffer 1 extra harm to to gain an Edge /../ (choose +1 hot/+1 cool/+1hard). You can't get another Edge while you have one, and Edges go away after the session.
To really get the.. badass, sweaty and bloody victor feel. (Or simply, when you win a fight in front of a crowd gain +1 hot, but don’t really seem as.. fun). (Think.. basicly any good gladiator movie/TV-series or Khal Drogo cutting himself on an opponents blade in Game of Thrones)
Hot Commodity seems fun too, but I would move the dice roll to the Gladiator, so that the 'other character' could be an NPC (and if the 'manager' is another PC he could just help as usual, might be a good idea to leave the juggling bonus in there too) without making the MC have to find some dice.. =)
I do like 'big bad fighter'/'normal person' feel of the special move and would keep the healing in, but it feels a bit too much like the Faceless with that huge disadvantage. Something like giving another player holds based on the gladiators hx to them, and then spending the holds to transfer harm to the Gladiator and forcing him to intervene. Not quite sure how to handle that part for NPCs, but could be something like.. how often they have sex.
And a quick note about gear, I would either move hidden knives to practical weapons (and move crowbar to arena weapon for more.. gritty arenas) or allow sevral arena weapons (I do want the option of being the 'bad guy' that pulls out a hidden dagger at the last moment).. Not to mention, more weapon-choices.. =)
evilseanbot:
I wanna make it into a trifold and try it out in my players when they reach The Ungiven Future. It'll probably need another revision before than.
Re: Hot Commodity - I want to keep the insistence on involving other players. On one hand I think its weird because it gives other players power more than it gives the Gladiator power, on the other hand it makes the Gladiator the center of attention in an undergoing.
Re: The Special - I think its much worse than the Faceless, really. I'm pretty close to dropping it altogether.
One Possibility I was thinking: Roll+Additional sex partners after the first. On a hit, everyone gets a good thing, on a miss, you're too much, everyone gets a bad thing.
I like your suggestions for gear. Consider the Hidden Knives to go in Practical gear, and to change the gear procedure to "Pick two arena weapons"
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