Just Outside the City: In and out of Pole.

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Judd

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Just Outside the City: In and out of Pole.
« on: September 04, 2010, 11:24:15 AM »
Chargen

I had a worried moment there.  Barry was looking at the Driver with a gleam in his eye.  Padraic was going back and forth between a Brainer and a Hocus but was leaning towards a Brainer.  J.J. took the Faceless.  K.K. was not sure but there she was teetering between Battle-babe and Chopper.

No followers, no holdings.  They would have been a tribe of loner bad-asses traveling the wasteland, men and women with no names.  It is the same kind of fear I get when people take object demons in Sorcerer.  Some selfish GM part of my brain says, "But I want to make up cool NPC's that are bound to you!"

Brandy made a Maestro'D but she won't be there until next week, so we hold off on her character from Hx on down.

In the end, K.K. took a Chopper and their group is really neat, not tied to any particular hold in the Hudson River Valley, making trips into the city as needed for salvage.  Good stuff.  We talked about post-apoc life in the city, salvage vs. production and what-not.

Start

I wasn't sure where to start the damned game.  There's no Hardholder, dammit!  They didn't make a town for me.  Bastards.

I latch on to my image of a town whose walls are made of telephone poles.  I describe it as a ragged wild west palisade fort but made out of telephone poles and mud.  The town is called Pole.

"You've just gotten out of the city and you are dragged a big-ass haul behind you, like, dragged behind the car with chains.  What did you get out of the city?"

Some ideas are thrown out there.

J.J. speaks up.  "Maybe its a person."

"Its a fucking person.  Yes.  Chained up in a trailer. Someone dangerous.  Who is it?"

"The local warlord's daughter?  Maybe a Romeo and Juliet kind of thing?"

"Yeah, she went off and hitched up with a rival, Dog head and her dad, the Warlord of Pole is pissed.  Her dad is Millions."

And off we went.

They brought her in, knowing full well that Millions would execute her for disloyalty.  J.J.'s Faceless, Dent, did the execution, doing in her skull like a watermelon.

This is their first job.  The rest of the game is them lazing about, spending Millions' reward.

Bullit, the driver, agrees to take some gas and some time in Millions' garage.

Dent, the faceless, agrees to be paid in a week's worth of food and flesh.

Baby, the chopper, just wants  week's worth of food, booze and whores for her boys.

Marsh, the Brainer, just wants a week worth of food and booze.

Millions feels like he got off cheap.  He is a central stop-off point when people get out of the city on salvage runs.

Cool Dice Shit

Dent, big bastard in dirty carhart overalls and a dented helicopter helmet with a sledge-hammer on his back, is nervous.  They got their payday from Millions for delivering his wayward daughter to her execution but had to piss off Dog head to do it.  He wants to know where Dog head might strike back.  He reads a sitch, sitting around town, watching its ebb and flow.

There's a spy in Millions' hold and its his favorite son, Look.  Once Look has info on where they're going, he'll send it to Dog head and there will be a nasty ambush. 

Shit.

Dent visits Ugly, his favorite prostitute but the she asks if he wants to take off his mask.  He cuts the massage short and just walks off, tells the rest of the group what's up with Look.

Baby watches Look playing cards with her boys.  The boys are liquored up and fuct and loose.  They are telling Look shit.  She tries to get them away (manipulation) from the table by sending girls over and sending signals but they aren't taking the hint.

Baby follows Look when he walks off to piss.  She could hit him (Acting under fire, I think) but there's no room for error.  He's the golden boy in his daddy's own hold and if there's a brawl it will turn ugly.  She'd have to hit him HARD, I tell her that it might put him in her clutches unconscious and it might put him in a coma.  Head trauma is funny like that.  She elects not to hit him.  Look walks away, not knowing how close he came.

Marsh is sleeping with Hundreds, who is Millions right hand girl and main security gunslinger.  He's all up in her brain and she likes that he's this exotic Native American from the great-big-outside-Pole.  He knows how she wants to leave but likes feeling legit, likes being a part of something bigger.  When he pushes her, asks her why she hangs around, they get into a nasty fight and she stomps off once she's done cleaning her guns in bed.

Next up: Cool NPC's & Leaving Hundreds with the Problem

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Judd

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Re: Just Outside the City: In and out of Pole.
« Reply #1 on: September 04, 2010, 12:03:22 PM »
One More

Shit, I forgot about one more cool die roll. 

Bullit wakes up in his car and I tell him that he dreamed of the first offensive driving his daddy ever taught him, the first thing he ever taught him about killing other folk car-to-car on the highway.  Barry grabs two model cars and describes a maneuver, getting behind the car and giving a little nudge into a turn, once they are broadside, opening fire on the driver's side door.

Cool stuff.

Bullit is fixing up his car, nothing intense, just tinkering with it.  A group of locals gather to watch him work.  Car crows, I call them.  They hang on every move he makes and drool over the machine, with its machine guns mounted on the roof.

He likes that.  Bullit's daddy was a racer and racers do like their limelight. 

They start to swarm, they start touching shit.  Some asshole opens the driver's side door.

Bullit takes out his shotgun and orders them off the car (Go aggro!).  Their grimy hands go up and they back the fuck off, retreating a safe distance and just watching him do his thing.

Cool NPC's

When you are in a biker gang and your name is Shit-head, it could mean you are just filthy or it could mean that you are the omega and everyone kicks you for fun.  Shit-head is the latter.

When someone had to drive down with Dent to deliver the message to Millions, Shit-head was elected.  Dent treated him like garbage, kicking his bike over, disrespecting him.

So, when they got into town and Dent kicked over his bike again, Shit-head waited until his back was turned and pulled his gun, a little piece of shit with masking tape on the handle (Inflict Harm). Dent turned around and kicked Shit-head's ass (Go aggro, probably should've been acting under fire or even Seize by Force but rookie error, no big deal). 

Shit-head was the NPC member of the gang who had the most voice this game.  He asked Baby if she would teach him how to read.  Dent made peace with him but informed that even though they were friends, Dent might kill him anyway.

Baby is teaching Shit-head the alphabet.  "...D is for Dent."

"Baby, if you were going to kill Dent, how would you do it?"

She thinks about it for a second.  "While he's sleeping, shotgun up under his helmet.  Messy but effective."

"Yeah, I reckon I can't miss twice.  Even though I technically didn't miss the first time...but I can't not kill him if I try again."

I like Shit-head and I have to remember that he is in the cross-hairs.  But dammit, I am rooting for him...cross-hairs...cross-hairs.

Hundreds got her brain thoroughly pawed through and man, she wants to leave.  Millions is a warlord who sleeps with his daughters and kills on a whim but he offers her a legit gig, a warm place in the winter, food, water...you get the idea.

She got left behind.  It broke my heart a little bit.

They rolled out fast and out of nowhere.

Dent told Hundreds at the gate, "This isn't our fucking problem.  This place is a mess and we are outta here.  Dog head has a spy and its daddy's favorite son.  We aren't telling him.  Fuck that.  You're the head of security, so its your fuck-up.  You deal with it.  Look is reporting to Dog head.  Watch him, note when he's gone and where he goes.  You'll see."

And they were gone.  Marsh pawed through her brain, prodded at her dreams of leaving and then left with the rest in a cloud of dust and engine smoke, not even offering her a spot.

What a bunch of mercenary douche-bag assholes.

I really like them.

MC Moves

Moves are nothing new just like bangs were nothing new when Sorcerer put words to them.  But having the techniques spelled out, explicit, having them be part of an arsenal with names on a list is valuable.  Yeah, I have done this shit before but making me think about these named moves in such a manner sharpens up my game.



More on this as I digest.

Re: Just Outside the City: In and out of Pole.
« Reply #2 on: September 04, 2010, 12:10:02 PM »
Very cool start Judd. I know that feeling of "ah, no hardholder, shit!"  :)

Re: Just Outside the City: In and out of Pole.
« Reply #3 on: September 04, 2010, 02:25:35 PM »
Wonderful AP, Judd.

I spent a fair amount of time in-between my first and second sessions thinking about all the NPCs that only had a strong link to one PC and trying to figure out early in the second session who among the other PCs had a relationship with them and what that was.  The PC-NPC-PC triangle thing.  Rectangles too: PC-NPC-NPC-PC.  That drove some of the second session. 

Maybe there's a PC that has or could have a reason to care about Shit-head, maybe via another NPC connected to him. 

I can totally see the Pole hardhold.  Like a western fort or that one town in the Icewind Dale computer RPG...

Man, I wish I'd been at Gencon so I could have gotten a Faceless book.  I'm gonna be regretting that every year mebbe...  At least I've got my Maestro'D  :)


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Judd

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Re: Just Outside the City: In and out of Pole.
« Reply #4 on: September 04, 2010, 03:47:42 PM »
Thanks nemomeme (may I know your name, please?).  I am glad the AP worked for you and that you could picture shit.  I had one of those moments where the players at up once I mentioned telephone poles, something so common in a new context helped everyone get there.

Yeah, Shit-head...I fear for the boy.  I really do. 

I am a brainstorming fronts with threats and I am just making shit up.  I am using the scant bits that came up in game but because we didn't have people with strong ties to an area, we didn't make up a whole lot.  Dog head, an unnamed rival gang, the city...not much, so I am making shit up left and right, which I think will be fine.

Before they go into the next town, I am going to ask some pointed questions to link them to it in a bit more of an emotional way.  Should be keen.

Re: Just Outside the City: In and out of Pole.
« Reply #5 on: September 04, 2010, 03:58:56 PM »
You can see my name in my e-mail linked from my handle.  Same as over at S-G.  :)

Pointed questions are fun.  I like ones like, "Who have you slept with in this town, why are you looking forward to seeing them again, and what is making you dread it?"  ;)

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Judd

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Re: Just Outside the City: In and out of Pole.
« Reply #6 on: September 04, 2010, 04:00:10 PM »
Pointed questions are fun.  I like ones like, "Who have you slept with in this town, why are you looking forward to seeing them again, and what is making you dread it?"  ;)

Dag, you just made one of my questions better.

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DannyK

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Re: Just Outside the City: In and out of Pole.
« Reply #7 on: September 05, 2010, 03:53:13 AM »
You give good AP, man. 
I could see a game like this running almost like a Dogs game, with the players running into a variety of weak and strong but always dysfunctional Hardholders and getting sucked into their problems.  If you keep the game bounded in a finite zone so they keep running into people they've dealt with before, that would be cool as their past catches up with them.  I think think Maestro D' will do a lot to ground the group, since they've got a business to run.

Re: Just Outside the City: In and out of Pole.
« Reply #8 on: September 05, 2010, 11:46:35 AM »
I still can't believe you cheated on me.

Nice AP thread though.

*sigh*

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Judd

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Re: Just Outside the City: In and out of Pole.
« Reply #9 on: September 07, 2010, 12:14:28 AM »
I still can't believe you cheated on me.

Nice AP thread though.

*sigh*

Pete is my housemate.  Let me explain the above post in the way of a short play:

Judd:  I started a game without you on Friday nights, Pete.  I feel like I am cheating on you.

Pete:  That's silly.  What are you playing?

Judd: Apocalypse World.

Pete: Apocalypse World!  I'm giving you your ring back!  You aren't the man I married!

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Bret

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Re: Just Outside the City: In and out of Pole.
« Reply #10 on: September 07, 2010, 12:04:31 PM »
Dent is the coolest. I love the helmet and the sledge.
Tupacalypse World