Out of Place

I'm honestly quite surprised I don't hear more about this.

Yes, I know that the Gunlugger is the one who starts with four guns and 2 armor and moves that let him kill everything and lah-de-da-de-da

And that is good!

But he also is put into everyday life. He's got to make coffee, run errands, hang out with his girlfriend etc.

My question: Why is no other character ever put out of place?

In my AW campaign I had a Hocus named Dust who was trying to ally with a psychic Perversion of Birth named Mercer who purchased a megalaser to drill into and open up the unopened preapocalypse megaprison of Marta Tarsus. When the pair tried to steal the megalaser back from local gang leader Settle Down, both were shot and Mercer was killed, but not before his consciousness  jumped into Dust's mind.

Dust started blacking out after that when Mercer took control, and the coolest time ever he came to standing outside of Brimful's house in Hatchet city with a gang of guys, wearing 2-armor and wielding an assault rifle (3-harm close loud autofire).

Why aren't other characters put out of place more often? Why does no one give the assault rifle to the Hocus? Jake loved finally being able to kill things, he was ecstatic! He lost the gear when he blacked out, but he enjoyed it!

The Brainer in that campaign went crazy with that grappling hook. He loved being able to go Faceless occasionally.

So a word to the wise: put the character somewhere odd once in a while. Give the Hocus the assault rifle for one mission.

What makes you think other MCs aren't putting characters in odd places?  Isn't the whole game about putting characters someplace odd?  That's certainly the way I see it, regardless of your character class.  The whole frikkin world has gone odd!

But I want to speak about this in a more mechanical sense...

Making coffee doesn't require a roll.  Using that weapon probably does.  The Hocus generally speaking isn't going to be very good at it, so he's likely to fail, and that increases the chance of a Hard Move happening.

My AW players are not minmaxers (they're mostly still relative newbies), but they are smart enough to know that.  Every one of them has at least one gun, but the Hocus and Brainer rarely use them.  Why would they?  They have other talents.  Taking a bigger chance of tactical failure and a Hard Move doesn't seem like fun to them.  (Might be fun for ME, but that's another story.)

An Angel catches an assault rifle thrown his way by an Operator after the two barely managed their way out of a bad situation.  It was a great part of a scene between the two where with no words, one tells the other this is bad, time to man up.  He bartered the rifle away to replenish stock for his angel kit.  Sometimes a character will do exactly what you would expect when cast as a fish out of water.  It might be cool to tease them with the idea of being a bad ass, but it does not mean they will take the bait.

Making coffee doesn't require a roll.  Using that weapon probably does.  The Hocus generally speaking isn't going to be very good at it, so he's likely to fail, and that increases the chance of a Hard Move happening.

That's what presenting them an opportunity without cost is for ;)

Precisely.  Some might think I'm saying it can't happen.  No.  I'm saying that it happens all the time.

There are several MC moves that can easily lead to such a situation, as well as random circumstance, general scarcity and worldly oddness.  I'm saying it's not really "odd", given the nature of the game, for such things to happen stochastically.  They're most often (I think) a combination of fictional circumstances and MC moves.

In my campaign the Hoarder got hold of an assault rifle at one point.  The unintended carnage he wrought when he tried to use it to come to the aid of the Battlebabe was pretty amusing.  Much like when the Savvyhead used her shotgun (and her -1 Hard) in an attempt to stop a Mexican Standoff and ended up getting the town's doctor killed as a result.

Most of us put characters out of place all the time.  It's part of "find where they're not in control and push there."  It's part of "making Apocalypse World feel real," because there are times in life when the Skinner absolutely needs to slit a throat or when the Gunlugger knows that going for the magnum at his hip is fucking suicide, so he'd better start talking fast.  It's why we highlight their -2 stat, just to see what they'll do with it.

What makes you think other MCs aren't putting characters in odd places?

I'd wager the impression comes from a comparative dearth of threads like "how do I stop my Skinner from seducing EVERYBODY?!?" compared to threads like "how do I stop my Gunlugger from shooting EVERYBODY?!?"

An important part of being the Gunlugger (also to an extent, the Driver) is building solid relationships between the other PCs. My favorite Gunlugger was awkwardly in love with our oblivious Angel. Having zero stats or moves to make stuff happen is what made that character interesting, in addition to being a badass when those opportunities arose.

It might come down to a roleplay style thing, but that's why Hx is a mechanic in AW - all the characters need a connection, but more so for the combat wombat who needs a stake in the action, even when it's not a violent scene.

Good point, Yarrum.