Anyone up for a PbP game?

I'm cool with a fluid play timetable. Once a day seems like a good place to aim for, but occasional flurries of activity and the odd missed day aren't going to break me or anything. I'm sure we'll find our group rhythm.

Flavourwise, my preference is the dark awesomeness of 40k over Star Wars.

And I'm looking forward to seeing how a SHip's Master turns out too!

A commander would be awesome! I'm looking at a slightly more crunchy rewrite of the army rules, I'll put it up shortly. (It's only a little bit more crunchy, I promise!) The Death Dancer is not written by me, so that one follows a slightly different design logic, but I'm sure it will work as well.

One big piece of DNA that DG shares with AW is how the mystical stuff is accessible to everyone, both via the fact that opening your brain to it is a basic move (did I forget to put that in?) and the fact that anyone can take moves from the Psyker playbook with advances. On top of what everybody's corruption special does with them, of course!

My point was 'mystic deals/stuff available to everyone' is much more consistent with the 40k universe than the SW one.

Thinking about it, a role which obviously springs out would be to be the Commander.  Older and more experienced.  The kind with Opinions.  Opinions which are Right.  And the sooner Captain Babymilk stops crapping his diapers and starts taking the Opinions, the better off the Ship will be. ;)

However, the Commander is missing basic stuff like Hx and advancement (an opportunity to increase duty is basically a requirement), which would need to be done first.

That sounds like fun: dealing with the strong willed commander of my security force, who's a power in his own right aboard my ship while I try to fill dad's shoes and try to live the decadent lifestyle I dream of.

An interesting set-up for the Lord Captain. Or Lady Captain, I haven't decided yet. :) Where does the mystic warrior fit in? A witch or demon hunter maybe, either for the ship or as a passenger aboard? Or a mystical bodyguard to one of us, or possibly tutor? Sorry, I'm curious to find out who-all's aboard!

Soylent, I'm totally with you about how it works there. The specifics of how it will work for us will become apparent when we are in play! :)

I've fixed The Commander now. Will take care of Ship's Master next.

Smeg, I'm not totally sure about how Mystic Warrior fits into DG. Of course you can have it anyway, and we'll just rock and roll it. But still, is there any other playbook that draws your eye as well? Hierophant, maybe? That one can make a character quite similar to the Mystic Warrior.

Commander is looking good.

Questions:

1) Do the Heirophant move 'Advisor' and the Ship's Master's 'ask your officers' ability stack?  (I would assume not, but thought I'd ask.)

2) The 'Armies and Military Forces' page seems to have completely different (and rather vague) army construction rules.  Since you said Commander is finished, can you confirm we'd be using the rules on the Commander sheet?  If so, what purpose is the Armies & Military Forces page?

3) The 'Your army is self-sufficient' option seems to be completely irrelevant now.  It only removes 'vulnerable: breakdown'.  You can only get that through the 'heavily dependant on a supply chain' disadvantage.  All army modifiers are now 'add or remove one option', therefore you'd remove 'heavily dependant' rather than adding 'self-sufficient'.  Correct?

4) Are you open to new/altered duties?  Some seem less suitable, given our campaign/character concept.  Example: replacing 'Raiding' with 'Reclaim lost areas (spoils/--/escaped monster!)'.

5) I'm presuming that once the character classes have been tidied up, you'll be tidying up(/translating) at least the moves of the other classes, to give us plenty of options.  Correct?  (*Whipcrack*.) ;)

Edit:
6) The crew numbers on the Ship Master page seem . . . sensible.  For this to be truly 40k influenced, you need to take sensible numbers and multiply them by, well, 40k ;).  The book itself says it's got a world-sized population (so, 6 billion or so?) and too big for anyone to know it all.  200 militia and a few thousand crewmen just doesn't sound nearly enough.  FWIW.
Double edit: oh, wait.  It also says a population of thousands.  What world is that the population of?  Pluto!?

Sure, I wasn't quite sure just how close to 40K lore you wanted to stick. ;ind you, in Dark Heresy you have the Templar Calix, which are pretty much Jedi as far as I can tell :)

But an obese Adept or a freaky Psyker could be good fun. The Hierophant too, though if we're not doing "real" 40K I'd be a bit for a loss as to just how the religion angle "works".

Soylent:
1) I'm not sure. It's basically a copy of the Quarantine's move Eager to know. I've put the question out on the forum. 

2) The Armies doc is  where I want to try and take it, just haven't finished updating the Commander because it is a hassle copy-pasting lists on the mobile. I wanted a bit more scalability, ranging from gangs/squads to armies. 

3) Just didn't decide if dependency on a supply chain should be the default or an optional weakness. What do you think? If you look at it, is there a particular combination of options that you like that is only possible one way or the other?

4) Bring it on! We need more duties!

5) I might. But that's where my lack of interest in doing design work that's not immediately needed comes in. Basically, any playbook move from AW that makes sense is up for suggestion, possible adjusting and inclusion!

6) Yeah, I guess that's one point where the 'DG is not 40K' applies. The way I see it, a world with billions of people is not really a setting, gaming-wise, it's more like an endless collection of settings. I don't want the ship to be that. I want the ship-as-world to have factions that are people, not countries made up of thousands of factions themselves. So rather it's the other way around! This instead implies that in DG there are 'worlds' with as little as thousands, probably even hundreds, of people. Asteroids, space stations, colonies, surviving settlements on ruined worlds, etc. 

However, I think I'll up it to tens of thousands, now that I think about it. :)

Smeg:
Both a Psyker or a Savant would be awesome as well, I think! (However, it's what you find awesome that counts, of course! :) Note that the Psyker is made to be able to work as a ship's Navigator if you want it to!

Re: the Hierophant, we'll take what the playbook implies or stipulates and move on from there! :)

1) Actually, kind of answering my own question, here http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=534.40;wap2 is an (equivalent) answer.

2) Well, in the armies doc, you are aware that 'Elite is one size larger' advance seems useless until all 'command is one size larger' advances have been taken (given that, as written, increased command increases elites as well)?

3) Well, the general gist I was looking at was a large, mobile army of conscripts (other advantages spent improving the elites) who (probably) were able of hitting hard & fast, but couldn't maintain a long offensive (so, they did have breakdown).  But this ran into other questions, like: does having another PC higher up in the command chain count as an 'Obligation'?  Can I actually take 'large army', given the population of the ship we're in?  Do non-'Small losses' scale according to the size of the army?  (In other words, can a large army absorb non-small losses much easier than a small army?)

4+) Okay.

6) Yeah, I guess that's one point where the 'DG is not 40K' applies. The way I see it, a world with billions of people is not really a setting, gaming-wise, it's more like an endless collection of settings. I don't want the ship to be that. I want the ship-as-world to have factions that are people, not countries made up of thousands of factions themselves. So rather it's the other way around! This instead implies that in DG there are 'worlds' with as little as thousands, probably even hundreds, of people. Asteroids, space stations, colonies, surviving settlements on ruined worlds, etc. 

However, I think I'll up it to tens of thousands, now that I think about it. :)

I think tens of thousands sounds about right. I always too the big as worlds thing to be hyperbole anyway, and even in 40k a ship with billions aboard would seem over the top. I could see millions for the biggest vessels, but that's it. And, obviously, the Ship's Master is unlikely to have the biggest ship around.

It's an interesting point of contention between the two influences, now that I look at it. For Apocalypse World style gaming, everything should be personal. For 40k, the major players are personal, and supported by teeming nameless hordes. It'll be interesting to see how the balance works out in play!

Yeah, I guess there is no reason not to let them add up. It's not certain the answers will overlap in such a sitch anyway. :)

Soylent, take a look at the commander now and say what you think!

I would assume that obligations would be to someone outside of the ship's master's and your control. Because that seems more fun!

I think the image of a ship where your troop contingent is as large as all the rest of the population together is hella cool!

What small losses mean will be entirely contextual, of course, but you can generally assume that it means smaller than if you didn't pick that option, since it is supposedly a good one.

It's an interesting point of contention between the two influences, now that I look at it. For Apocalypse World style gaming, everything should be personal. For 40k, the major players are personal, and supported by teeming nameless hordes. It'll be interesting to see how the balance works out in play!

Yes, that is a very interesting aspect of playing with this hack, I think.

I think the image of a ship where your troop contingent is as large as all the rest of the population together is hella cool!

That's going to make for an interesting command dynamic, to say the least! :)

Firstly, you seem (though I could be wrong) to have it in your head that I was asking about whether 'Advisor' and 'Ask your subordinates' stacked with 'read a situation'.  I wasn't.  I was asking if they stacked with *each other*.  Because they are *always* the same circumstance, just from 2 different directions.  (Asker asks, answerer answers honestly, asker gets +1 ongoing, answerer gets xp).

Troop numbers could equal the rest of the populace, but remember, for all that we don't have a planet's population, we do have a closed ecosystem.  We need banks, shops, restaurants, firemen, farmers (in some form), etc. in addition to gunners, engineers, manufactory workers, etc.  Equal numbers would equal a serious strain on the economic ecosystem.  (Sure, handwavium.  But thought I'd point it out.)

Right, not sure if you got my point, so I'll illustrate by way of an example.  Two different commanders, A and B, are fighting an identical size 7 force.  Commander A has a size 9 force.  B has a size 6.  Both are commanding from behind the lines.
Using battle commander, commander A doesn't appear to be at any advantage - they're still just rolling 'status'.  Actually, if casualties are determined percentage wise, so let's say they suffer 10% casualties if 'Losses are small' and 30% if they're not, commander A is actually at a disadvantage, losing roughly 30 times as many men (absolute numbers) as commander B for the same result.
This is why I was asking if losses 'scale' according to the size - if so, having a larger army is an asset if you're fighting on the front lines and a liability when you're commanding from behind, because you need so many more replacements after a battle.

As for what I think about Commander, a few points spring up:
1) It is mechanically consistent, but logically impossible, for a force to be both well trained (+1 harm) and untrained (+unprofessional).  (As distinct from mobile/grounded, where the narratively opposed elements are mechanically opposed as well).  Not a *problem*, but slightly odd.

2) The new arrangement makes the elite squad much less prominent.  The difference between elites and command is twofold: +1 harm, and better upgrades. 
There is an option for the command to get +1 harm (and it is unclear if that affects the elite or not), which in one move makes them better overall than elites can ever be (assuming that each step in army size is equivalent to one step in gang size mechanically).
Also, you can have an absolute maximum, after all upgrades, of 5 positive things.  After spending all bar 1 on all the elite upgrades, you have a 4-harm, 3-armour, 5-company, which isn't actually that impressive.
Personally (and feel free to ignore this), I'd start off the elites with the great equipment (so, 4-harm, 3-armour, 3-squad) and have the upgrades give them otherwise-inaccessible tags that give them a use - to do cool stuff that the main army can't do.
Examples:
Your elites are ghosts, able to enter and exit anywhere. +infiltrators.
Your elites are sharp-eyed master scouts.  If there's an advantage, they'll find it.  +scouting.
Your elites are experts at identifying and taking out enemy leaders, leaving them disorganised before the fight even starts. +assassins.
There's probably some overlap there, but you get the idea.

3) What effect does 'unprofessional' actual have? 

Soylent, good points!

Yes, you're right, i did misunderstand about the stacking moves. The answer, I think, is that they do stack. If you have one person who is great at giving advice, and one person who is great at acting on others' advice, then the result is like fire and gasoline, as someone put it in a thread about the Quarantine! (You can get the exact combo of moves with a Quarantine and a Savvyhead.)

You're right about the strain on the ship's ecosystem, as well, but it's a feature, not a bug. It is a perfect reason for the Ship's Master to take the Ravenous option for her ship!

Right, not sure if you got my point, so I'll illustrate by way of an example.  Two different commanders, A and B, are fighting an identical size 7 force.  Commander A has a size 9 force.  B has a size 6.  Both are commanding from behind the lines.
Using battle commander, commander A doesn't appear to be at any advantage - they're still just rolling 'status'.  Actually, if casualties are determined percentage wise, so let's say they suffer 10% casualties if 'Losses are small' and 30% if they're not, commander A is actually at a disadvantage, losing roughly 30 times as many men (absolute numbers) as commander B for the same result.
This is why I was asking if losses 'scale' according to the size - if so, having a larger army is an asset if you're fighting on the front lines and a liability when you're commanding from behind, because you need so many more replacements after a battle.

Yeah, I think I get your question, but it's hard to answer because it comes from a different direction than the philosophy of the rules here. Here's how I see it:

When you lead from the front, and seize an objective by force, with your command around you, that move gives you numbers on what kind of harm you and your people take. It is based on the enemy force's harm stat and adjusted by size difference, your guys' armor and of your choices from the move's options.

When you lead from the rear, with your guys out there without you, then they are at the mercy of your loving MC. And I'm looking at them through crosshairs. Like any other violence going on between NPCs, I will let you know how it goes. However, through your guidance from afar and this move, you can instruct me to go easy on them. And if you do, I will, because that's the rules. Exactly what that means is, as I said earlier, entirely contextual.

Of course, when I inflict harm, I do it as established, and it is well established that a larger force suffers less harm against an enemy force than a smaller one does. It's just not resolved using percentages. (See more in the rules about gangs and harm, beginning on page 168, and how they count fatalities as a few, several, many, etc.)

1) It is mechanically consistent, but logically impossible, for a force to be both well trained (+1 harm) and untrained (+unprofessional).  (As distinct from mobile/grounded, where the narratively opposed elements are mechanically opposed as well).  Not a *problem*, but slightly odd.

Nah, it's not that odd, I think. If you would take both those options, I would assume that they are well-trained in killing enemies, but untrained in maintaining discipline and coherency and generally not breaking or deserting when things go south. I looked at changing the wording, but I didn't think of anything better, so I think I'll let it stand.

2) The new arrangement makes the elite squad much less prominent.  The difference between elites and command is twofold: +1 harm, and better upgrades. 
There is an option for the command to get +1 harm (and it is unclear if that affects the elite or not), which in one move makes them better overall than elites can ever be (assuming that each step in army size is equivalent to one step in gang size mechanically).

Your assumption about harm is correct, but I don't agree that bigger is better, when we speak of these things. You can't take your regiment into a house as bodyguard, or send them to infiltrate an enemy position. For that you want a crack squad.

You have good suggestions here, about the elite, but I have rearranged things a bit now in a different way. I put supply dependence back in as default for the command in it's entirety (remembering the old idea that logistics win wars, not bullets) and given the elite unit the creatively named tag "elite", meaning they more or less don't break under the pressure of casualties. Also see the option of having only your elite unit. For those time when you want a space marine company!

Oh, yeah, unprofessional means that it takes less casualties to break them, and that they tend to desert when things are bad for a long time.

Remind me if I missed to address something now!

The key part of your answer that answers the thrust of my question was this:
The difference in size influences the base 'harm as established'.
Which is fair enough.  It just wasn't particularly clear to me just on reading the move.

Okay, the elite tag makes a big difference there.
I'm trying to decide between having a massive army of conscripts that I constantly feed into the meatgrinder, or a small pure-elite group.  Thing with the elite group is I'm having difficulty choosing a second disadvantage: savage and unruly don't fit with a well-disciplined group (no, I don't have Blood Angels), and I don't want obligation.  So: would you consider a disadvantage along the lines of 'High maintenance'?  It means that the hold you get from duty is worth less relatively (as replacing this expensive kit and elite troops is harder than 'normal' stuff).  Although the current exchange rate is fairly vague - what does '1 for 1' actually mean in this context?

Edit: Actually, the more I think of it, the more I disagree with the remote command options for 'Battle Commander'.  Well, one of them.  Currently, it is very possible to completely and definitely achieve the objective with low casualties and still lose the respect of your commander or men.  To my reasoning, the respect of your men should depend on the number of casualties, the respect of your commanders on if you definitely achieve the objective.  Also, as a minor point, 'you don't miss something important' assumes there always is something important to miss, which is stretching probability rather.  I can't help but think making it more directly equivalent to 'sieze by force' might be an idea:
10+: choose 2. 7-9: choose 1
Definitely achieve objectives.
Take few casualties
Inflict enough casualties to shatter enemy morale
Or something like that.  Maybe less direct.  But current results seem . . . odd.