Questions and custom moves to - AP: Crossroads

Campaign: Crossroads

Answers and comments appreciated. I'll probably add some "love letters" as well, maybe even before session 2.

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Questions:

The Drivers sex-move: It’s -1ongoing for every roll, until Phoenix can prove it’s not like she own’s hir or anything, right? I guess this means there’s encouragement to prove just that?

The Brainer-moves: Can they be secret? (the brainer in this case was more creepy than secret, but we’ve struggled a bit with In-puppet-strains, as I said it implants an imperative, but by no means overwrites your own. The player of Kite thought, quite rightly (as backed up by the player of Burroughs) that it was fuckery and wanted to kill Burroughs. We could quite easily have lost a character to PC-Vs-PC-violence, although I know there’s a few more stops inherent in the ApW-system.

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Custom moves:

When you fight a pack of Devildingos and you’ve got a gun/noisy weapon of sorts, roll +hard:

on a 10+: you’re safe, you only need to shoot a couple before they get that  you’re no prey
on a 7-9: You’re safe, but it cost you. Either let their teeth catch some equipment/gear or let them taste your flesh (1harm, after armor).
On a miss: You’re surrounded, wounded and running out of ammo. Better prey someone comes to your rescue! Better yet, call someone!


When you go into the Screaming Hils searching for something, roll +weird:

10+ You probably find it if it’s reasonable. If it’s unreasonable, you will find it!
7-9 You find someting, maybe it can help you find what you seek – or maybe this is what you really seek?
Miss: Congratulations, you’re lost in the screaming hills. Tell us what the nightmares you’ll wake from are, and remember to tell us occacionally. First though, we want to know how you propose to get home.


When you traverse the oceans of sand in a vehicle, roll +sharp.

10+ you get were you want, choose 3
7-9 you get were you want, choose 2
Miss – first of all, you don’t get were you want. Second, the MC makes a hard move.
•   you get there quickly/you don’t have to stay in a bad place
•   there’s still gas on the tank/the car’s not damaged
•   you don’t have to pick up a hitcher
•   you get to pick up a hitcher

I'm working on some Fronts and accompanying custom moves, but due to moving I don't have regular internet-access. It's really more job than I imagined, and I really can't figure out the doomsday clocks.

I'll probably ask when I get anything concrete done. (Play has been postphoned another week or so.)


Front 1; Uncle's compound 

Uncle - Dictator, Dustwitch & gang - enforcers, Uncle's daughter: Shan,  ...


Front 2: CanBowl Ruins - maze

Cannibals,


Front 3: Screaming Hills - mirage

weird

Front 4: The Poisonous Skull - Alpha Wolf

motorcycle raiders, atomic/biological reactor*, disease vector - thinking it's got to do with the reactor


 (I'm tempted with a disease, as this is were the Brainer and Taavi are looking for their "treasure")


- Hoping to have much ready for next time, to pounce whenever I need to make a move, and entice the players with pregenerated stuff to explore. Note: to explore and make their own deciciouns about.

Front: The Apocalyptic Wilderness

Drive: to isolate and humiliate the pockets of isolation
agenda/dark future: One day the "civilized" Apocalypse World will be consumed, until then - everytime we gaze "outside" we're reminded of our precariously positioned lives. The howls becken...

Threath: The Roads

Custom move

when you travel the roads in a vehicle, roll +SHARP and choose:
10+: choose as many as you like, 7-9: Choose 1 ... on a miss the GM will choose two or three and probably make a move

* you don't have an accident
* you don't pick up a hitcher passenger
* you aren't fired upon
* you aren't attacked by devildingoes/critters
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Threath:  The Screaming Hills

when you search The Screaming Roads for something, roll +WEIRD

on a 10+: you get it if 

Ergh, I wrote a semi-long thing about this and then the board crashed.

Summary: be wary of writing custom moves where all the options are just 'this bad thing doesn't happen'. Hitting a roll and then 'getting' to choose options isn't very fun when none of the options are actual events, simply the negation of events.

Most of your choices for your 'travel the roads' move just boil down to 'you get there safely/you don't get there safely' -- is it really that important that the PC gets to choose exactly what kind of non-safety it is, or is that something better left to your discretion as MC?

If the goal is really to make the move just be 'do you get there safely or not', maybe something like:

When you travel the roads in a vehicle, roll +SHARP. On a 10+, you get there safely, no problem. On a 7-9, you still get there, but choose one:
* You're running dangerously low on supplies (gas, food, water).
* You were attacked along the way.
* You got lost, and only found your way there by dumb luck.
* You exposed yourself and your passengers to the psychic maelstrom.
* You picked up a strange passenger.

On a miss, you're stuck somewhere in a bad spot: lost, embattled, stranded or all three.

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For a move with more possible upsides, maybe:

When you travel the roads in a vehicle, roll +SHARP. On a 10+, pick 2. On a 7-9, pick one, but it comes with strings attached:

* You get there safely, no problem.
* You find something valuable, secret, or profane.
* You pick up a grateful passenger.
* You find a shortcut, or otherwise get there faster somehow.
* The wasteland gives you a vision.

On a miss, you're stuck somewhere in a bad spot: lost, embattled, stranded or all three.

This move gives you more flexibility about how dangerous different travel is, because 'strings attached' is open to MC interpretation. The strings for travelling safely through the Ultra-Toxic Burnlands of Mutant Raiders can be severe, while the strings for a more leisurely drive through the Moderately-Strange Desert of Maudlin Refugees could be of a different character.

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Anyways, these are just examples, but remember that a custom move is meant to create interesting situations and opportunities -- and ideally represent the specific character of that activity (travel, in this case) in your apocalypse. If travel is super-dangerous, then a move that focuses on the danger is cool; if travel is strange and uncertain, rather than straight up dangerous, you'll want a different move for that. Etc.

Also remember that Fronts are based around a fundamental scarcity. You have threats listed under each Front, but don't mention what scarcity they're based around.

I wouldn't say it's essential, but it can help find connections between threats that might not immediately seem to group together.

Thank you for all help, I am really struggling with this, even though we got an extra week without playing. Not having internet at home, or even a decent place to write on the computer at home (due to moving) isn't making things better either. So far I've worked with three fronts, and have another prepped as well.

The idea behind the when you travel the roads in a vehicle, roll+SHARP..., is to build up the Driver as a though, lonesome, cowboy. There aren't really roads in the desert either, but the sands are solidifying as to become mountains again ... once again outlasting mankind, only in reverse. Something bad is going to happen, but in order for "civilization" to "blossom", we need the pony riders of Apocalypse World.


On the fundamental scarcity-thing, I really struggled - and am struggling with it. In the Inside Hatchet-City-threath from the Core Book it just says: "Corruption".


The clue is that I want the Wilderness the represent a danger - and to make those who dare enter them cool/though/hard


I've got a Front with Uncle's compound, who has "Crossroads" under it's protection - and Dustwitch as it's former luitenant! The threaths are easier (mostly human), but I am struggling with countdown-clocks and whatnot. Gaming (ApW) in two days, hopefully I can "bring it" at the table.


I'm planning a few love-letters as well, but I need to establish an outside threath for one of the players.

Thanks for all help, my life will get much easier when I got my own computer going.

On the fundamental scarcity-thing, I really struggled - and am struggling with it. In the Inside Hatchet-City-threath from the Core Book it just says: "Corruption".

The clue is that I want the Wilderness the represent a danger - and to make those who dare enter them cool/though/hard

Well that's a good starting point: what is the danger of the Wilderness like? Which of the scarcities seems like the best fit? Is the danger of the wilderness one of Thirst -- is it dry and parched, does it suck all the moisture/emotion/joy out of people who go there? -- or is it a Decay sort of place, full of dust storms or suffocating humidity, and fallen-apart cars and buildings, that threatens to erode and destroy anything that tries to grow/go there? Or is it a wilderness of hunger, where nothing grows; or envy, full of secrets and treasure that draws people in?

Usually a Front will have a sort of iconic Threat -- the threat that seems most crucial, or that started you building the front in the first place. Thinking about which scarcities are driving that Threat is often easier than trying to pick for the Front as a whole. Imagining how the Threat would be different if it was more about Envy, or more about Thirst, can help you get familiar with that sort of metaphorical thinking.

Though really, if you've already built the whole front, at that point the scarcity may be a bit superfluous -- I find them most helpful when I have only one or two semi-formed Threats in mind, and I need inspiration for additional threats or countdown clocks or whatever.

but I am struggling with countdown-clocks and whatnot. Gaming (ApW) in two days, hopefully I can "bring it" at the table.

Countdown clocks are linked to the Dark Agenda. The easiest way to think about it is: you decided these threats exist, so what does it actually look like when they do threatening things? If Uncle's Compound is a threat, that must be because it is going to do something -- in fact you can probably imagine a bunch of different bad things that could happen. So just list them all out, then see if some of them fit together into a sort of sequence or escalation -- those are the ticks on your Countdown Clock. It's just bad stuff that the Threat might do, and probably WILL do eventually if the PCs don't ever get in the way.

Anyways, best of luck. I am running session #2 of a new game tonight as well, so all this has been on my mind. (Though honestly I think you are further along on your Fronts than I am!)

Aaah, Countown Clocks are conceptual rather than mechanical. In the Burning Wheel game I'm in the Undead Army Advances-track is moved (to us players rather arbitrary;)), the clock is just so the threath isn't just a "status quo-situation". :)

Thanks for all help, I wonder if it's a language-barrier (shouldn't really be there), or if I just lack RPG Theory.

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On my "advanced" fronts:

I think the the thing is that I wouldn't have bothered much usually, knowing they'd get going, but the group want outside threaths and aren't to happy to make up setting themselves. They're rather ... traditional. I think and feel I have to "bring it" more than I have to "fascilitate it" and organize cooperation.

I think I see the Wilderness as a front of Decay/Despair, as in the Apocalyptic Wilderness is mainly toying with the pockets of "civilization".

The Uncle's compound I listed between Ambiton and Envy, as Uncle and his folks have both ambition and is envious of the rather nice living of the Crossroads waterhole.

The Poisonous Skulls front I listed as envy, but they could be hunger as wel, though I saved that for Cannibibal City.

Cool. Yeah, countdown clocks are both descriptive and prescriptive. They can advance because someone missed a move (mechanical), but they advance in the fiction -- by doing something concrete. And sometimes the fiction advances first -- whatever was on the clock happens naturally as part of the story -- and you mark the clock to catch up to where the story already is.

One thing that helped me when I started making Fronts was not to be too worried about every Threat being exactly one thing: exactly one threat type, or representing exactly one type of scarcity. You can have a Threat that is both Brutes/Family and Landscape/Prison, so long as that makes sense to you as the MC. Maybe the psychic maelstrom is primarily a Landscape/Mirage, but it's also a Warlord/Slaver.

Having secondary threat types/expressions can often make for really interesting Threats, but more importantly it lets you not worry too much about picking the One Perfect Thing for each Front or Threat -- the goal of all those choices is just to give you inspiration and tools, as the MC. Sometimes a combination or expansion of types is going to be more inspiring, or give better tools to fit the idea you already have in mind.