Here is the thing, I love apocalypse world and I have one or 2 players at my tables backing me up, but most of them are old school mechanistic, optimisation lovers, and they really have problems with apoc world. But as I didn't wanted to give up on AW. I tried to figure out what I loved about it and to mix it with other good ideas found here and there (few ones in my head also).
So here is the thing, I took the skill list from a pre apocalypse hack. And I turned the skills into moves, mostly reusing and adjusting some existing moves.
I also used the D10 pool version of apoc world.
“When the rules demand a stat roll (not Hx), roll (score+ressource)d10. called Xd10. You always roll one die, even if X is 0 or less.
If you have at least one 10, count as a success (10+).
If you have at least one 8-9, count as a partial success (7-9).
Else it's a miss.
You can kick an advanced success from an advanced move if you have at least two 10.”
So, now you give stats to moves. So you can be really good at brawl (take by force variant) with +2 but being really bad at deceit (manipulate) with a -1. These “move levels” tell you how much die you roll ( wait how can I roll -2 die ? I come to that soon my fellow rpg fan)
Moreover, stats are not dead, they still have their +2,0,... and can be used as skills when no skill would be usable. But more important they are now resource pools.
I wrote this hack for a chtulhu / film noir style so here are my stats/pool associated:
Brain/Reflexion
Brawn/health
Coordination/Endurance
Bravery/Nerve
Charm/Assurance
You get 10+stat level resources (8 to 13). Whenever you move, you can bet resources to you roll, each resource bet gives you +1 die. So if you are crappy at speaking to people (-2) you need to bet at least 3 resources to throw one die. Resources you bet represent the involvement into your move. But if you fail ! due to disappointment, self-esteem, fatigue, morale…. You may lose some of your bet.
On a 6-, you lose all bet resources (you got your as kicked getting to much into the melee, you got your self-esteem turned down by the lady as she refused to hang out with you, wait… you lost 5 assurance? so she mocked you in public, everyone lauging and a photograph was there, hopefully Facebook didn’t exist at the time boy…..)
On a 7-9 you lose half of your bet.
During a fight, bet resources are the base damage you inflict to the enemy, lost resources are the damage taken. You still have option to reduce damage, increase harm and so on.
I plane to do funny things, like proposing the players a “time” pool, they can investigate, raid libraries, using these dices as bonus but… something is prepared when they are out.
One other thing that is cool, how to restore our resources ? Wel, physical ones by having a good moment, a bath, alone or in company. Psycholgical/ morale ones by listennng to music, meditate, talk to your friends about your troubles (and make them mark HX for you mouahhaha).
One last thing, I could also do “background” resources, like you write a bit of your story, or key words ( and it could work for objects to) and give them resources, like Great war veteran (2) and you can spend these resources when trying to convince a veteran, or to know an ex general… and to reload them again, need to talk about it, or get a gearhead if it’s an object.
Hope this could be useful to anyone ^^