After I put together those fronts, I got news that Aaron couldn’t make it, and Daniel could. So I took a look at the rules for introducing a new character. It worked really well, and got Daniel into the action quickly.
So to recap, we had JC the Operator, and Lemieux the Savvyhead. They had hitched onto RoverVille, a mobile holding made up of a convoy of 5 built and rebuilt RVs, led by the beloved and Corpulent King Millions. JC was in a relationship with Amy, Roverville’s resident technician.
When Sunday’s game started, we discussed absent characters at the table. It made sense to us that given the rather transient state of the character we had right now, players not there would be “off in the wastes, following up their own goals”. In fact, it also set an interesting precedent, one that will probably help this game be a little more resilient to when a few people inevitably can’t make it.
We had just had a Burning Wheel game put on hold due to two players being unable to make it. I’m thinking that with Apocalypse World, I’m pretty sure that we can keep the game going even if just one person shows up to game. After all, the threats will loom whether they’re all together or not.
I’m thinking of designing a custom move for each character when they miss a session, to represent what they’ve been doing. I saw that in the game text, and thought that might be kind of neat.
At any rate, I ran Daniel down the basic idea of Apocalypse world, and gave him the remaining characters. I have to say that the Trifold playsheets are much easier to read, those little booklets are great, but the size of the Trifolds really helped Daniel quickly put stuff together. Him not having the moves handy was tricky, though.
After some consideration, Daniel picked the Chopper. From that was born Goldie, a transvestite that takes no shit, leader of Goldie’s Girls, a savage group of monsters. Stinky, Lars, Diamond, Hooch, Juck, Blues, and about 10 others rode with her. Daniel choose for the gang to be better armed and mobile, which really fit the nomadic feel for the game. Unfortunately, they weren’t healthy, so I had some disease possibilities to play with.
I was wondering what having a crew would be like, and it turned out to be an absolute joy. These characters were so much fun for me to play, I proceeded to channel everything from Easy Rider to Sons of Anarchy to make these fuckers come to life.
History for the new character went really smooth, using the rules from the book. When we got started, I presented the Gamma road, Goldie’s Girls riding on it. I mentioned that a big group of Hugo’s soldiers had been dogging them for days, and they had ridden nonstop to get some distance (Announcing off screen badness).
They were low on pretty much everything, and the girls (be aware that every single member of the crew thus far are male, but Goldie refers to them as her girls, it was just a thing) were starting to look worn and tired. (Announcing future badness).
When they reach the fallen bridge at the Crine Marsh, they look uneasily at the two paths, one across the fallen bridge, slowly sinking in the marsh, and one path across the marsh itself. (This is my first Threat move using the Landscape of Crine Marsh – Provide another way)
I used the crew liberally here. Diamond became a sorta second in command, I gave him a torn wedding dress worn around his leather jacket, complete with veil that he wore over his helmet. I got Diamond to ask the question “Shit Goldie, that bridge don’t look so good, but fuck me is that marsh nasty. What do we do?” I bridged a lot of my “what do you do” questions to Goldie asked through the gang, and it’s a great trick to keep the world feeling authentic.
And then Daniel spoke. He had figured out a voice for Goldie, authoritative, husky, sexy and profane. It was just... awesome. When Goldie spoke, we knew it, and Daniel just knocked the character out of the park.
“I’m not risking our fucking bikes in that shit. Stinky! You’re gonna drive across.”
Stinky was a proud moment for me. His voice was breathy and labored, I kind of relaxed my mouth and spoke through it. I kept in mind that Apocalypse world inhabitants just aren’t that complicated, and had him crave Goldie’s attention, kind of like a child looking for approval of a parent. Stinky, Daniel explained, is on the heaviest bike, it even has a sidecar that contains a bunch of the gang’s additional gear.
I had Stinky drive up to Goldie, look down the slope at the fallen bridge, and then lean over to Goldie with a worried look on his slackjawed face and whisper “You’ll keep an eye on me, won’t cha Goldie? I’ll be awful lonely down there”. (Telling her possible consequences and then asking)
I wanted to see how she treats her bikers. There’s this hard edge to her so far, how far does it go? And Goldie... pats him tenderly on the cheek with her white, sequinned glove. “We’ll be right here Stinky, don’t you worry.”
And then Daniel looks at me and says “All right you fuckers, we need a rope! Who’s got one?” The Chopper’s first move! A great roll later, Juck pulls out a 50 foot extension cord from one of his saddlebags, that can be used, in a pinch, as a decent rope.
They secure Stinky and he drives down and begins to make his way across. The bridge seems to be holding...
Now, at this point I swing over to the other characters. They have heard the thunder of the Gang’s engines, and a worried Monk (the enforcer of Roverville) asks them to investigate. “I wonder what Shen’s doing over there” mutters JC, as they head to the van and drive out.
What indeed. Shen was one of the four men (down to three) that were blockading the Marsh and extracting a toll. (Landscape move: Bar the Way) As Stinky made his way across the bridge, he begins to get shot , bullets spanging around him (Technically capturing someone) and a sniper on the other side sits up from the marsh foliage (Landscape move – Reveal something). Screaming curses, Goldie guns her bike down the side of the embankment, screaming to her gang to “Kill that motherfucker!”.
Violence is in the air, and after sussing out what Daniel wanted (save Stinky from getting hit) I went with Seizing by force. And he fails the roll! I activate Goldie’s bike’s downside, having it buck and force her to spin out to stay on. The advance is broken, and the sniper leisurely takes a shot, Stinky takes one right in the chest, slumping on his seat. I want to make Stinky's injury an issue later, so instead of killing him I had him badly hurt. I of course had Stinky announce this with “Ah, Ahm Hurt pretty bahd.”
Meanwhile, JC and Lemieux pull up. Recognizing Goldie from dealings in the past (We established in History that Goldie had gotten some work done on her vehicles by Lemieux, and JC had given her a job but then acted like he was in charge in front of her gang) Lemieux turns his gun on the sniper, and JC tries to get in the way to stop this, claiming that the Gang at the bridge were being hired by Hugo.
Taking by force proceeds, and JC’s 8 on the roll means he shares in the danger. Lemieux pulls the trigger of his shotgun, and the sniper takes the hit. (he rolled a 12 on the die, pretty insane)
The sniper dies, and since JC only got a partial hit he shares in the danger. Lucky for him the harm roll for JC is a miss. I have him lose his footing from the Harm move, dodging the shot but then falling down the hill with the sniper’s corpse. The tumble bruised up his back, taking 1 harm (3 harm for the weapon, minus armor and a miss on the harm move – I figured this would be a great way to explain the smaller amount of harm inflicted). This actually adds to history between JC and Lemieux, the first time that a character has given harm to another.
I turn to Goldie and tell her that the gang’s disorganized and confused from the attacks (Landscape move, taking away their sense of purpose) She rallies them (using her alpha Chopper move) and one awesome roll later, leads them up the side of the opposite bank, getting her girls to surround Lemieux, Shen, and the other guy, who I named Fleece. (Name everyone!)
JC stumbles up the bank, and quickly tried to manipulate She, claiming that the group was hired by him to help with his plans, in the name of President Hugo (It was established last session that JC is posing as one of Hugo’s officers). Lemieux responds with an angry “fuck that guy!” and Goldie agrees. They both roll to impede his manipulation, and both utterly fail. Colin explains that JC makes a quick wink to both of them to silence their protest. However, it’s only a partial hit, and Shen demands payment for killing one of his men, in the form of one of Goldie’s guns.
Goldie takes the gun out and says “Take it in the mouth, you fucking asshole!” and fires. One 10+ roll later, and Shen’s faceless corpse lies on the dirt. The men proceed to jump down and dismember the corpse, mounting the torso onto a broken "bridge X-ing" sign, making Shen into a grim sign with the words, written in his blood “don’t fuck with Goldie’s girls”. This becomes an ongoing theme in the next few conflicts. It is the first step in building up the rituals that Goldie's Girls tend to undertake.
Fleece begs Goldie for mercy (put someone in a spot), and she extends one of her long legs off the bike, putting it daintily on Fleece’s hand, not saying a word. She then proceeds to ignore him and addresses JC.
They argue, briefly, about killing Shen. JC tells her that Shen was one of Hugo’s soldiers, and their death will mean retaliation. He explained that he was trying to get safe passage for her and the gang across the checkpoint (Lemieux has a great moment of “Oooh, that was what you were doing, I shouldn’t have shot him then!”)
Fleece is still whimpering for mercy under Goldie’s boot. She applies a little pressure, and gives a gentle little “shhh”. They begin to talk about Roverville, and the possible work for her and her girls. As they’re talking, Colin has JC do a Read on Goldie. A huge success later, he asks how she’s really feeling. Daniel thinks about it and says “Relief, huge Relief”.
In spite of her hard exterior, Goldie was worried about her gang, suffering this long without respite. Again, it really added something to the character.
I then have Stinky crest over the top of the bank, covered in blood “I feel bad, Goldie.” I describe the wound being a nasty one, the bullet still lodged inside of him, causing him pain. His face was pale and sweaty, he looked close to losing consciousness (tell them the consequences).
JC was quick to action, He had advanced life support to his van, and was eager to try it out. By the way, the workshop descriptions work awesome for people, especially when I picked that it’ll take about a day, and several attempts. I describe the bullet and the patient moving, much more than a broken toaster or a damaged piece of tech ever would. Stinky’s bellows of agony in the Van are in the background, as JC and Goldie still have their tense little conversation.
Goldie agrees to go with JC to Roverville, but demands food and drink for her girls. JC is confident that they’ll provide it.
She then looks down at Fleece, a 16 year old scrawny boy, stained green from the muck of the marsh, and around at her crew. The bikers, having looted the two bodies, were busy making a necklace out of the sniper’s teeth, and then having a small scuffle to see who gets it. Fleece follows her gaze (this is her going aggro move, and it's a direct hit) and Fleece surrenders with a panicked, hopeless look. She picks up Fleece, and then gently puts him in front of her, on the bike. In contrast to the gentleness, she says something like “I’ll enjoy this little bitch later” to the cheers of the rest of her crew.
From there they head into Roverville.
More later!