One player hack

  • 3 Replies
  • 3521 Views
One player hack
« on: November 09, 2014, 04:31:24 AM »
Could you tell me if there is a hack which allows to play Apocalypse World with only one player (and game master of course).

I played using the original rules but there are some little problems: Hx mechanic, special moves and marking skills (I have polish edition of AW so I am not fully sure if I use appropriate terminology; I translate it backward to English ;-)). I would like to now if someone have solved cases already.

Re: One player hack
« Reply #1 on: November 09, 2014, 06:30:36 AM »
Maybe you can work around the Hx rules for NPCs, extend all the special moves to NPCs and other things like these. By the way, I must say I’m not sure the game can work with a single PC, but one can try and see what happens.

*

Ebok

  • 415
Re: One player hack
« Reply #2 on: November 09, 2014, 06:24:10 PM »
the game is much more flat with just one player, so I would recommend a couple things. First of all, consider dropping highlighted stats entirely, and embrace the whenever you fail a roll mark an experience alternative. Then focus your attention as the MC into really bringing to life other npcs and the atmosphere of the narrative. It is often good to start them off running, as in with an immediate goal in a tense situation. Movement becomes one of the most important parts of keeping the story interesting.

Additionally, you will want to keep in mind that you're essentially MCing at the intersection between the characters brain and the world. So you can essentially move into the psychological pretty easily, messing with perception, truth, meaning, and reality itself. I found some horror genre's play extremely well with one character in this regard, because they cant look to the guy next to them and say.. did you see that?

Re: One player hack
« Reply #3 on: November 13, 2014, 05:55:17 AM »
Yeah, use NPC's for the hx, just come up with NPC's between yourself and the player, the actual hx number doesn't matter with an NPC so just use it to gauge the level of feeling between the player and the npc.

As you're detailing the world and other characters, the player can use the "on your turn" part of the hx section to add some of their own "flavour" to the mix. It's a good prompting system if you start running out of ideas for detailing the world.

As for marking skills either go with ebok's solution and only mark experience on a failure (of any stat roll) or just let the player choose their own and you choose one as normal. It does mention in the rulebook that the player is allowed to lobby the others as to which stat she wants highlighted anyway, so it's not a big deal.