How Tank Girl Saved My Apocalypse

I'm a big fan of having a point of reference before diving into a game. There needs to be something (a movie usually, but maybe a comic, or tv series, etc) to put everyone on the same page.

My girlfriend Kaleigh plays story games sometimes. She can be pretty timid about approaching new games, though, especially ones with lots of crunch & stats. Apocalypse World counts as a crunchy, stat-heavy game for the purpose of this story. I've wanted to play AW with her for a while, and have been looking for the right way to pitch it.

I feel like early buy-in is essential for Apocalypse World. Players need to feel comfortable making decisions that colour their world, and answering those provocative questions.

So, I suggested we start by finding that elusive point-of-reference movie - something that cemented our buy-in, informed our apocalyptic aesthetic, and made it easy to leap into play. And we ran through our options - 12 Monkeys, 28 Days Later, Road Warrior, The Road, Children of Men... We started to watch The Road, and then realized it was all wrong.

So we went to the video rental place (we live in a town with a giant, 7-room video rental store called Reo's), and we browsed their walls. A similar feeling of bland disinterest struck Kaleigh in the Sci-Fi section, and the Horror section. "I just don't really want some fighty movie, I guess." "This is all so grim."

I thought back to the post-apoc movies she'd seen that she'd liked. The City of Lost Children (surreal imagery, grotesquery, and a rambunctiously fluctuating pace) and Resident Evil: Extinction (one badass chick, walking through the desert) were the entirety of that list. But she really liked those two.

So, we ditched the Sci-Fi & Horror sections and doubled back to the Cult section. As we were heading over there, I asked more questions. Did she envision a zany apocalypse? A realistic one? A bright one or a drab one?

The answer finally emerged. Tank Girl. She'd never seen it, and I'd only seen brief snippets. We watched it tonight, and Kaleigh flipped out over how awesome it was. Crazy punk water-thieves. Mutant kangaroo people who dance and party in their secret lair. A 100% loco battlebabe who rides around in a kitted-out tank. Occasional musical numbers. Barren deserts. Inept corporate warriors. Oh my.

And so, buy-in is absolute and airtight at this point. We're going to be playing some batshit insane Apocalypse World soon.

Sweet, Joe. Let us know how it goes.

Is this one-on-one AW? If so, doubly, let us know how it goes.

I had never thought of Tank Girl being a Battlebabe who had taken My other car is a tank before, but jeeze, that makes complete and total sense. Now you've got me thinking about this kind of thing!

But yeah, if this is going to be a one-on-one game, I'd really like to know how it goes.

Allow me to throw in my desire for some AP from this as well.  Sounds pretty sweet.  Still trying to work up the cajones to pitch AW to my friends as well.

Allow me to throw in my desire for some AP from this as well.  Sounds pretty sweet.  Still trying to work up the cajones to pitch AW to my friends as well.

Done.

In my experience, there are two solid approaches to pitching AW:
1.) Fan out the playbooks on the table, and say, "Pick one."
2.) Watch a sweet movie, then ask, "So, like, do you guys want to play that?"

Love that movie.

Doubly so now, since it helped introduce me to roller derby when one of the local teams sponsored a screening a couple years back.

Sweet!

Kaleigh's looking to start up a Derby team in Nelson, so maybe we'll be leaking in a bit of Derby culture into the apocalypse.

Oh! SHIT! A mostly-deserted city, with mostly-intact roads. An near endless supply of skateboards and rollerskates. Cue a punk-rock, derby-infused apocalypse.

I'm going to pitch that slant to Kaleigh.

That's so completely ridiculous on face that it may well just be awesome.  Refuge in audacity.

At the risk of sounding like a nerd snob, I really hope you check out the comics, because they are even more like Apocalypse World, and also very good.

Thanks, Simon.

While the movie got K & I super pumped, I've heard that the comics are way more off the wall, and less standard-action-adventure-plot.

We're both keen to order them from inter-library loans, if possible.