How weird does AW get?

Hi,

  Imagine an axis.  At one end is Mad Max -- it's an action movie but is still rather "realistic" for all that.  No one has any super-powers it's all gun-fights and car chases and the endless outback.  At the other end is Gamma World (1st ed.).  Crazy powers, mutant animals, super high-tech stuff next to (essentially) magic.

  As written, AW seems to lie not even on the midpoint but a little closer towards the Mad Max end of things.  Everyone is human, the psi powers are pretty subtle and internal, and it's got a gritty feel.

  In play, how weird does it get?  Does the gonzo knob go to Q and what happens to the game as it ratchets up in that direction? 

later
Tom

on tuesday we had our Savvyhead simultaneously working (in the workspace) on a guy, fucking him, and injecting him with drugs. At the moment of her screaming orgasm, she opened her brain to the psychic maelstrom to tell all the dead souls there that she was sorry, and that she'll fix things. At this same moment about 30 people burst into her room.

so, weird.

I think my games have been fairly not-weird, with the only actual game weirdness coming from the Psychic Maelstrom and interactions with it.

In one game, we use swarms of bugs for magic -- healing, visions of the future, etc.  In the other, we talk to ghosts, trap them in poppets, can maybe animate the dead, etc.  Is that on the weird end?

In my old game, we had a female Skinner and Hocus manage to conceive a baby within the world's psychic maelstrom using only their inherent mental connections (it really only started to develop after the Hocus's sex move got used a few times), and it was delivered into the world by the Hocus using her cult's +augury to remove a chunk of the maelstrom itself.

I think the game can get weird, but it really depends on the characters/moves in play - the game I'm currently running has barely any obvious weirdness, due to the fact that most of the characters have negative weird, and I'm not making the game interesting by forcing them to do things they're not good at.

My game is definitely closer to Mad Max than Gamma World.


That said, I do have bugs that crawl into people's mouths and control their minds.  Ghosts have been known to possess people for short periods.  There's a tribe of blind-mute-albino-pygmies that communicate through telepathic image sharing.  My players have been known to employ a little mind control.  Sometimes people just start bleedin' out the ears.  Sometimes you're called to go to someone and you don't know why.  Sometimes voices whisper things to you, truths usually.  So there's some weird stuff, but not a ton.

I consider my game to be on the less weird side.  The biggest contributions come from a Gunlugger, Skinner, and a maelstrom-denying Hardholder.  So weird is around, but the players aren't focusing the game on it at all.  We started out simple though, I expect more weirdness in the future.

Ever since I saw the line "Hive Queen" under warlords, I've wanted to put a half-insect half-human hybrid, filling up the old hotel basement with it's spawn.

That would be the weirdest I've done.