Ordinary World, AK 'hood

See what 'hood looks like in the hands of a professional graphic designer!
    https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9Hhx1yXlz-OdjZRUkhKS3AwSmM/edit?usp=sharing

After getting a couple for suggestions for playbooks, I've written them up, plus two others I wanted to do but wasn't ure how they'd fit into the main game, so here are four New Neighbours:
The Neighbour: just an ordinary resident trying to stay out of trouble.
The Rebel: a kid with destiny or disaster written on him.
The Hacker: the ghost in the machine.
The Quack: an almost legitimate, nearly honest doctor.

See what 'hood looks like in the hands of a professional graphic designer!
    https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9Hhx1yXlz-OdjZRUkhKS3AwSmM/edit?usp=sharing

I'm getting an error telling me the file doesn't exist. :( I love 'hood, so I'm eager to see how the new version looks!

Sorry, we're just in the process of doing some updates, to add the above 4 playbooks, as well as correcting some text and adding some play-based guidance and advice to the GM's section. As soon as it's all done, I'll post the link back here. Thanks for the interest!

Sorry, we're just in the process of doing some updates, to add the above 4 playbooks, as well as correcting some text and adding some play-based guidance and advice to the GM's section. As soon as it's all done, I'll post the link back here. Thanks for the interest!

Well, I love the New Neighbours, so I'll be watching this space!

I finally got a chance to try out my urban inner city hack at Indiecon, though we only had 4 hours, so some processes were a bit rushed.

The four players looked through the playbooks available and all found a character type they wanted to play:

Ratboy, the Thief: typical scrawny teenage tearaway and nephew to...
Buzzkill Bill, the Fallen: a seriously bent copper taking a cut from whatever took place, he was also a casual customer of...
Nursey, the Feelgood: a small-time dealer with a penchant for parties, she also helped out...
Echo, the Blur: a face in the crowd who tended to fade into the background when not being directly observed.

Starting with a midnight arson attack at the local community centre, the stakes got raised when a reward was offered for information leading to an arrest; with the cops on every street asking questions, Ratboy and Echo tried hard to use their contacts and legwork to find the culprit and restore peace, but Bill knew he had to make sure it wasn't a resident who got arrested, in case he lost the trust of the 'hood. Meanwhile, Nursey realised she had blown her stash on a party, so had to go cap in hand to her own supplier, forgetting that she still owed him 2 Dough for the last batch (in other words, a couple of failed rolls in a row meant that she had her livelihood threatened and was taking heat).

It was a good satisfying session, with a slow burn that built up to the point where Bill was trying to get rid of the badly injured arsonist without leading his own force back to him, while Ratboy and Nursey had to cut and run on attempt to frame her supplier for the arson, leaving Nursey in the sight's of a much bigger criminal...

There will be a few changes to the hack soon, most notably to the rules for heat and experience: I want to kick those up a notch and make them flow faster, to encourage players to take bigger risks for greater rewards. A revised version, with the New Neighbours, should be available soon and I'll post the link as soon as Tommy has it ready.

It's been almost a year now since The 'Hood went on sale and I've been more than happy with the response: hearing about games played, having the game reviewed online by a couple of cool bloggers and seeing the book in people's photographs of their collections & gaming sessions.

Now is the time to retire it though... to make way for the new Director's Cut: some errors have been corrected, one move has been altered, some extra material has been added and there are nine new playbooks to choose from! The print & download versions should be available from Drivethru this month.

Well, that took longer than expected, but it's here at last: the Director's Cut!

You live in the 'hood, where your neighbours are trying to get by, keep their heads down and not draw too much attention to themselves, but that's life isn't for you. You want a bigger slice of the pie and you mean to get it; you may be small, but you're going to grow real big, real fast.

This is an Apocalypse World hack called The 'Hood, about ordinary people living on the fringes of law and society, looking for ways to make a buck no matter what it takes. The Director's Cut includes:

• A short introduction to the Apocalypse World system.
• Rules for basic moves, peripheral moves, experience, debt and heat.
• 27 playbooks, from The Barkeep to The Voice.
• A dissection of all the basic & peripheral moves for the MC.
• Guidance on creating the neighbourhood and MCing the game.
• The Score: a playset for one-shots.
• An appendix on the origins of the game.

Thanks to Richard Rogers for interviewing me about PbtA games in general and The 'Hood in particular; there's also a short actual play scene here if you've ever wondered what the game would be like in play. You can listen to the +1 Forward podcast here and there are several other PbtA nuggets to be found on The Gauntlet website.