To drive or not to drive.

Hey folks,

So i've been running a couple of Apoc World games for some friends which has been awesome but I keep running into a 'problem' with nearly every player. Everyone wants a frickin' car/vehicle. One guy wants an RV, another a dirt bike, and another a jeep, and so on and so on. How do you guys handle this? Do you allow people to take one but get to benefit from it when making rolls, or do you forbid them?

One of my players is playing a Driver and he has a couple of cars as well he should. I feel the Driver is the Driver for the sheer reason that he has access to wheels which is what makes him special (of course the Chopper would be the same). Am I de-valueing his role by granting players these requests? Should I be more lenient with this or more strict?

What is your experience as fellow MC's in this regard?

Some of my PC have a car and no one has No shit driver. So nobody has any mechanical bonus when using them. But having a car means you're mobile, you have armor surrounding you, you can take people with you, bring back phat loot, etc.

Now, they sure use them to make moves. "I push him off the road !" is some kind of go aggro ("clear my way or I'll crash your car" with harm depending on the vehicle speed), "I want to get there first !" can be a seize by force (harm exchanged being caused by slamming against each other), etc. I found out you don't need No shit driver for driving to be fun.

But No shit driver is the shit. Getting from +1 to +2 to your rolls when behind the wheel ? Even with shitty stats that's rad. And the driver can easily get two stats at +2 after an advance, so they'll be even with another character taking No shit... with their own advance. I don't feel like the others having car deevaluates the driver.

i figure there should be some way to make drivers special without making them the only vehicle owners in Apocalypse World.
if anything, being able to show how much better at driving you are than others is kind of what road movies and chase scenes are all about - it's about demonstrating superior driving, not about being the Guy with a Car so much.

in teen flicks and period pieces, yes, Guy with a Car has a role to play. but in the future, where there's effectively infinite biodiesel and bullets for all, there is probably a reasonable number of vehicles out there.

What is your experience as fellow MC's in this regard?

I say: "AWESOME!"

The more "stuff" the PCs have to rely on, the more stuff you, as MC, have to work with!  

"Who maintains your vehicle?"

"Who do you owe a ride?"

"You're low on fuel, if you dump one of your passengers you'll be able to make it to Nu-Castle, but probably not if you keep all three... what do you do?"

And when players are zooming around the wastelands it lets them meet all kinds of people!  As said above, without "No Shit Driver" there's no mechanical benefit from having a vehicle... but there are tonnes of narrative options and opportunities and chances for fuckery!  The non-Driver players are giving you a gift!

Remember, you're a fan of the PCs, you want to see what they do with their toys!

When I played a Driver, I liked to think of it this way.

"Sure, there's other jerks out there on the road, but NO ONE can drive as well as I can."

I'd suggest that anyone can drive a vehicle, but if they have to start pulling off stunt moves/super speeds, or anything other than following a straight line, I'd consider if a Cool Under Fire roll is needed.

I don't think the Driver needs to be the only one with a vehicle. On the other hand, last I checked players can't just be 'hey I own this incredibly valuable object, ok?' Like, if it doesn't say in your playbook 'you get a car' next to 'you get 1-barter worth of oddments', then where did you get your car, exactly? What did you pay for it? Who do you owe for it? I'm pretty sure a working vehicle costs more than 1 barter.

Last time I checked there were moves for getting things in this game. Let them spread the word they want a car and spend a little jingle to speed it on its way. You get to tell them some stuff right? What it's gonna cost, etc.

Yeah I like that, it makes sense to at least have them pay for it. The Driver and Chopper don't pay for their vehicles because it's built into the class. I think that's probably the most fair approach. Thanks for the advice everyone, it's given me lots to think on.

Everyone can lug a gun around, but there's only one Gunlugger.

Everyone can drive a car around, but there's only one Driver.

I think its fine if everyone has a vehicle - the only benefit is really narrative - they can extend the places they can go in the fiction. What makes the Driver special, as others have pointed out, is the moves, not the shit.  This mechanically differentiates the class.

I think its fine if everyone has a vehicle - the only benefit is really narrative -

Heck, everyone having cars/vehicles could inspire its own Threats/Front!

Example:

Front: Dry-ways - Expresses: Thirst

"Thirsty Beasts" - affliction: condition, more driving, means more fuel used... and no more is being made.

"Dusty Roads" - landscape: maze, the highways and byways are slowly falling apart.

"The Mechanic" - grotesque: pain addict, he knows how to fix... things, but at what price?

"Sons of Ditches" - brutes: hunting pack, blood-drinking freaks who haunt the roadways


Everything the players ask for/want is more grist for the MC mill!

One other thing occured to  me. For the driver, her car(s) are part of what the character is, so you are not supposed to take them away, even with hard moves (at least not permanently).
For the other characters though, it's just crap, so you can target it with your hard moves.

Am i right?

Note that, I think, the hardholder and the savvyhead might be able to start with a car.  Their gear is open, left to being worked out with the MC.

-edit-

Oh!  And the savvyhead can pick up a free truck as part of his workspace.

And ANYONE can take "My Other Car is a Tank."

One other thing occured to  me. For the driver, her car(s) are part of what the character is, so you are not supposed to take them away, even with hard moves (at least not permanently).
For the other characters though, it's just crap, so you can target it with your hard moves.

Am i right?

Not really. It is part of the character so don't take them on a whim not to give them back, that's for sure. As the Good Book says,

The worst way there is to make a character’s life more interesting is to take away the things that made the character cool to begin with. The gunlugger’s guns, but also the gunlugger’s collection of ancient photographs — what makes the character match our expectations and also what makes the character rise above
them. Don’t take those away.

But your sheet is descriptive as well as prescriptive. If your driver risks their precious car knowingly and fail or decide to blow it up with dynamite, the car is gone. Play to find out what happens, and what happens might be that they lose their precious wheels. Relevant quote is

Prescriptive: changes to the character’s sheet mean changes to the character’s fictional circumstances and capabilities; that’s the game’s experience and improvement rules, following. Descriptive too: when the character’s fictional circumstances or capabilities change naturally, within the character’s fictional world, the player can and should change her character sheet to match.
(...)
Fair’s fair, though! Bish’s ambulance-infirmary gets blown up. I tell his player to cross it out.

Actually, this thread does bring up a potential issue for me.

As discussed elsewhere, the Driver has slightly lower stats to make up for the fact that, due to the No Shit Driver move, he has huge bonuses when behind the wheel.

What happens, then, if other players start taking the No Shit Driver move? Is there a potential balance issue here?

That move seems so fundamental to the nature of a Driver (and his role in the story as "the Driver") that it would feel weird to me to have other characters taking the move without switching to the Driver playbook (which would require an ungiven future advance).

What do you all think?