Extended Mediography

After the Plague by T. C. Boyle

The book is a collection of short stories. The title story is about this guy and these two women he meets after a plague wipes out just about everyone else. I won't spoil anything, but this is a really really good story by someone who usually doesn't write sci-fi.

I was really surprised not to see Deadwood on the list. The characters are straight playbooks and I can see the moves happening on the screen, not just the basic ones, but even the character ones.

One of my personal favorites. Besides most apocalyptic takes on a frontier feel. Nthe marriage of apocalype and western is easy :)

Someone mentioned 12 Monkeys, one of my very favorite films.

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/elephants-foot.html

Apocalypse World-y enough for ya?

"Indeed, semiotician Thomas Sebeok once proposed the creation of an "atomic priesthood" whose responsibility, for thousands of years to come, would be to pass on information about sites of nuclear waste storage and contamination using a combination of myths, folklore, and annual rituals. "

The two big things I look for when I start to create threats and fronts for a game (if its set in an identified real world spot are nuclear power plants and federal prisons.

"The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi is a book set in an unusual sort of apocalypse - the fall has essentially been caused by a proliferation of genetically modified animals (like the Cheshires, chamelionic cats which have replaced all domestic felines) and plagues. In addition, energy is so scarce that stored kinetic energy in the form of 'kink-springs' is the only really common form, and coal vehicles are heavily regulated, as is the burning of methane.
The constant scarcity of Apocalypse World is incredibly evident, as is the moral greyness of the characters.

A completely different book to inspire: 'Hell's Angels' by Hunter S. Thompson will give you a real insight into what it would be like to be The Chopper. Also, about three pages in ther is a paragreaph that is nothing but the names of various bikers Hunter met, any one of which would fit perfectly into AW

I must be old if no one else remembers World Gone Wild. Honestly I haven't seen it in years but it had Adam Ant as the satanic Hocus antagonist preaching out of the back of a C-130 to his flock and a city that's classic urban blight with water riots to boot. The protagonists may not fit as perfectly: there's the crazy old hippy hardholder (definitely small H), the gentleman cannibal Skinner (or possibly just sneaky rogue, AW seems short on that count), the all-American boy hero (gunlugger maybe) and the sweet and innocent Touchstone. Overall, very 80's B-movie but a lot of fun if you can find a copy.

The Decemberists just released an apocalycious video of This Is Why We Fight (off The King Is Dead): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLSOzcEQjiE

Has "The Salute of the Jugger" already been mentioned?
That movie does barf forth quite some Apocalyptica in my opinion.
This is the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6qckMHp7wU

It's good enough that a playbook for the Jugger would deserve being created I think.

There couldn't be a Jugger playbook because there's different type of Juggers.  Now, an AW hack with different Jugger playbooks would be nice.

True enough, but is it that important to mark the difference in a game of AW that doesn't necessarily center on juggers? It might be a playbook that makes you choose an initial move which sets what type of jugger you are. And of course a VERY necessary move is your squad. Sorta like the Chopper's gang.

Slime City Massacre (2010), directed by Greg Lamberson, is an indie post-apocalyptic horror flick with awesome, foul-mouthed protagonists taking on sleazy landlords, gruesome cultists and slime demons.

I cannot recommend it enough.

I've been watching "Sons of Anarchy" for inspiration for choppers. It has some great stories about loyalty and power politics in a supposedly sleepy Northern California town (it even mentions Oakland or Fremont, near where I live!).

Also, while attempting to make a AW hack to play a "Farscape" game, I noticed that the game could practically be played as-is. Maybe slight bonus moves for playbooks to represent aliens, but the show has fundamental scarcities, issues of loyalty, and even fetish wear!

Edit: Oops! Vincent already mentioned "Sons of Anarchy" in the book! Beer plus posting equals no fact-checking.

I'd have to recommend Lustmord (http://youtu.be/V3g5bSm8c7k) for music, he's just so bleak, and hits something instinctual in me.  Right in the back of the insect brain.  There's a degree of supernatural implied in the music, but I think it sets the right kind of tone for an AW game.

Also, Google for Nigeria Hyena Men. Something worth a playbook, I think.  Unless there's already an advancement move that turns an existing playbook into Guy With A Scary Fucking Pet That Will Rip Off Your Face.  In fact, seems like animal handlers would work well in AW.

Don't know that it's been mentioned yet, but Jack Vance's Dying Earth novels, and the subsequent Songs of the Dying Earth strike me as a great source of character for AW, and definitely sets the tone for how people treat one another at the end of time.  Certainly not a direct inspiration due to its being essentially sword and sorcery (besides, Robin D. Laws already did it so well), but the interpersonal relationships on Old Earth just sing Apocalypse World to me.  Seriously fucked up people doing batshit crazy and sometimes truly horrific things in order to get what's coming to them.  

Have to second The Road, especially McCarthy's world building.  The Man and The Boy don't entirely fit into playbooks, but just about everyone they encounter does-- up to and including the Old Man hocus-without-a-cult.  

Since zombies/un-zombs have already been broached, can't recommend The Walking Dead enough.  Both the comic and the series are must-sees.  Not only are they great fodder for the near-apocalypse past of AW, but the long-form decline Robert Kirkman intends for the books (and one would assume, what Frank Darabont plans for the series) is absolutely the Apocalypse World, walkers nonwithstanding.

Ed Brubaker's Criminal comics and Richard Stark/Donald E. Westlake's Parker novels are great sources for what desperate people do to one another, and the social dynamics that grow out of a fundamental lack of control.

Just wanted to throw in a link to a newish video by one of my favorite bands.

Turisas, Stand Up and Fight!

http://youtu.be/7woW7DmnR0E

It that video doesn't make you want to hang out in the post- apocalypse, I don't know what would!