Spores and ideas for them

So, it's my first time MCing Apocalypse World and I figure, well, the best way to get the players (particularly MY players) pumped for the session is to give them some input in what this whole thing is about.

I had asked them all beforehand what playbooks they were interested in, so I knew what to print. My sister knew she wanted to be the Hardholder from the second I told her about them, my mom wasn't sure between Angel or Savvyhead, and my brother wanted to look through a whopping 4 playbooks (Chopper, Hocus, Gunlugger, and Driver.)

We ended up with Orchid the Hardholder, Grey the Angel, and Omosho the Hocus.
But before we even get to character creation, as I'm handing out the playbooks, I say "Alright, guys, here are the playbooks you were interested in. Look through 'em, but keep this at the back of your head- before we start, I want you each to give me one or two things that are different in the world now than they used to be. A way things are done, or a literal change to the way the world actually works as a whole."

This yielded amazing results, for me- my brother decided "Well, there's spores. They go off every morning in the summer, and effect everyone differently when they breathe them in." and then my mom added on "Yeah, everyone went underground at some point. The spores have changed everything, warped the way the world grows. Up until about 5 years ago we didn't know it was safe to come up, so we've just been hiding in our caves until then."

The group decided to change it to 7 years, and that we'd start out in the summer, because that's when Omosho goes down into the holding. My brother wanted a reason he could have his weird cult make people uneasy.

This left me wholly excited- But that also meant I had to decide what happens when people breathe in the spores, or let them touch their skin. And of COURSE I decided "they effect everyone differently" meant I was going to go through the most complicated, convoluted route I could possibly imagine.

So, the way it works is this- you've got to roll+weird (I quickly determined the spores were a part of the maelstrom. A way that the maelstrom kind of makes itself physical. For now I'm working off the vague idea that it's got a desire to be real, but all it knows of living is emotions, the things humans give it when they enter.) Depending on how well the player rolls, they get to pick options from a list- some of which providing "there are no long-term harmful side effects" and "there's some positive side effect," ect.

So for what the effects actually ARE, there are three categories. Positive, Neutral, and Negative. Each category has 6 columns, and under each column is 6 different options. The idea was, "oh, it'd be cool to go off the two-dice theme to figure out what you get. You'll roll 2, and the first die will be the column while the second is the option under that column."
Which, with 3 different categories, meant making 108 different effects altogether. GREAT.

My players were enthusiastic about how cool this was, so I can't really COMPLAIN, but it turned out to be a lot more work for me than I thought it would be.

I've nearly filled out the Negative and Neutral categories, but unfortunately Positive is a little harder to come by. Partly on the fact that I can imagine SO many things that could go wrong, but also it's hard to try and figure out what sort of positive effects wouldn't be overpowered or too similar to moves already present in other's playbooks, for instance. I might do a writeup of all the stuff I've got so far at some point, but for now I thought I'd just ask if anyone's got some good ideas for some effects the spores might have!
They can be physical (there's one NPC that's literally rotting. They thought he was immune, but it's too late to easily stop it now) or mental (there's one effect that is basically "pick a thing, you now mark experience when you go out of your way or against your own interests to protect or better this thing. Work under the impression that you've got a feeling it's more important than everything else, somehow.")

So, yeah, if anyone's got ideas, this is the basic idea I've been using to categorize effects:

Positive = Something good for the player or the character. Could be a new move, experience, or a boost to a certain roll. It can have a little bit of a "bad" effect, but if it does it shouldn't be a mechanical one (unless it's a new move under what happens if they fail, of course), and should be overall basically good for the character.

Neutral = Neutral can be a few things. It can be things that can end in good and bad results (maybe you get some new information, but you also take harm, things like that.) It can be that the effect literally doesn't do anything that effects the character in a good or bad way, like your hair starting to fall out or something. Or it could be something that's definitely bad, but won't actually effect the character for a long, long time, so it might as well not matter for now.

Negative = Something undoubtedly negative, with little to no good side to it. Skin peeling off, prone to seizures, can't stop puking their guts out when they're in the presence of something specific, things like that. There's one in particular I REALLY like, goes something like "Your skin feels itchy. Won't stop, even when you tear out the skin. At the start of the session roll+cool. On a 10+ you keep from scratching and can ignore it. On a 7-9, you keep from scratching too badly, for now (in which case I will periodically ask them to roll again throughout the session.) On a miss, you couldn't help it, you tear out bits of your skin wherever it itches most. Take 1 harm."

Anyone have any suggestions? Or just comments about this whole thing? Thanks!

Well first off, the spores sound awesome, and doing the work to come up with a hundred different possible results seems quite useful.

My suggestion is not to roll randomly on a table at all; my suggestion is to decide, as MC, what the spores do, in each individual case, based on your Agenda and Principles and based on the personality and agenda of the Psychic Maelstrom. My suggestion is to get your dirty fingerprints all over these spores and all over their effects on the characters in the world.

If the spores are the Maelstrom made manifest, then they are doing the maelstrom's work, and it is up to you to decide what that work is and what the maelstrom feels is best for each of the PCs and NPCs. Having a giant table where you roll randomly sounds cool -- in fact, it IS cool, I love giant random tables -- but it is gonna be LESS cool in the long run than weird spore effects that follow a slowly-building internal maelstrom-logic which you and the other players discover as you go along. (Yes, this could still work with random results, but it will be easier if you are deciding.)

It also seems obvious to me that the best effects are always going to be ones that are both positive and negative (think: doing speed/cocaine, extra eyes on the back of your head, restoring a wounded limb but now it's made of metal to 'protect' it, etc.)

The key technology here is going to be the Maelstrom asking questions when players open their brain. If the Maelstrom is in the business of changing people (via spores), then it needs information to make sure those changes suit its agenda -- so the questions it asks the PCs are going to in turn hint at and reveal that agenda.

EXAMPLE TIME: Long ago our group played a game where the Maelstrom turned out to be an intelligent nano-bot swarm that permeated the world (or at least, the world where we all lived) -- its agenda was to help people, but it had very extreme and short-sighted notions of what helping people looked like. When our characters opened our brains the Maelstrom would ask us things like 'what are you most worried about right now?' or 'what do you wish you could have done to help X?' and then depending on our answers, things would change. Things like: the NPC whose safety I was worried about waking up with her body turned entirely into metal OR now Bob's Girl has an extra set of arms, so he won't drop things so much anymore. Our world also turned out to have an issue with mutants (they were shunned and in some places murdered), which was obviously related.

Now the spores obviously are going to work on their own terms, in their own ways -- but the interesting part is going to be WHY they work that way, and in response to WHAT, and that's where the Maelstrom can provide fascinating tools for you to discover the answer. And once you have ideas about that answer, a roll on a giant table isn't going to cut it anymore -- all the stuff ON the table is still going to be enormously helpful to you, as a resource to draw on, but I suggest that the game will probably be more fun and interesting if you are making a conscious choice about what the spores do to different people.

Yeah, you've definitely got a point! I think that why I went with the "random rolls" is that my group is still kind of stuck thinking it should all be random. Particularly my mom, who has already complained it's not fair that I get to make "as hard a move as I like" when they give me an opportunity (such as missing a roll.)

I think maybe I'll do something along the lines of randomly pulling 3-5 from the table (to appease the "we need it to be random!" comments she keeps making) and decide from those, or otherwise figure it out along the way. I think I might also make little tweaks to the effects as I pull them, based on the situation and the state of the maelstrom and all that cool stuff. Maybe make the things on the table a guideline to follow, which I can tweak and change to fit my and the maelstrom's agenda. I actually quite like that idea, now that I think about it- a decent compromise between the ideal I have and my mom's want for everything to be "random."

I might even drop the randomness altogether later, if I deem it appropriate and the players are alright with it, too.

Anyway, thank you so much for your response! It gives me a lot to think about and good ways to change things for the better, not to mention cool insight and ideas for the maelstrom itself!

A couple ideas for a positive effect, both variations of a thing I came up with for Dungeon World:


When you Breathe Spores, enter a hallucinatory, dreamlike state for some hours and roll +Sharp. On 10+, you relive the last several days, fixating on a charged interaction or situation which occurred during that time. Ask 2 of the Read A Sitch or Read A Person questions that apply to the past event, and tell the MC if you want the answer as it was then or as it is now. On 7-9, ask 1. Optional: If you ask the same question you asked at the time, and ask for the answer as it was then, the MC should give a different answer this time, and alter the reality of the story to make it true somehow.

Examples:

• "Yesterday when I was in that hut with Fleece, Pellet, and Kettle -- I didn't ask at the time, but who was most vulnerable to me?" "Most vulnerable yesterday in the hut? Kettle, she was scared of you." (Different question, past status)
• "Yesterday when I was in that hut with Fleece, Pellet, and Kettle -- I asked who was the biggest threat and you said Fleece. Who's the biggest threat now?" "Kettle. She was scared then, but now she's pissed." (Same question, current status)
• "Yesterday when I was in that hut with Fleece, Pellet, and Kettle -- I asked who was the biggest threat and you said Fleece. Who was the biggest threat then?" "Are you kidding? Fleece was a scared little boy, never a threat to you at all, and you put a bullet in his head. Kettle was always the hardass of those three." (Same question, past status, reality altered)

When you Breathe Spores, enter a hallucinatory, dreamlike state for some hours and roll +Weird. On 10+, you relive the last several days through someone else's perceptions. Take any playbook move you've seen a PC do recently -- but you can only use the move once. Work with the MC to ensure that the move makes sense (Chopper's Pack Alpha probably works, but Hardholder's Wealth and other start-of-session moves probably don't.) On 7-9, same thing but the MC chooses the PC and the move.

It could always be even personalized. When someone inhales the spores, their brains are forcibly opened to the maelstrom. When you ask your question or two, use those questions to prompt the next step. If the first question's answer isn't enough, use the second question to build on it.

Example
Question1: If you had to name the emotion that you feel most, right now, what would it be?
Answer: "I'm really nervous."
Question2: Why?
Answer: Because the last time I inhaled these spores, it made me really sick.

BARTH FORTH APOCALYPTICA then give them a drive that suits their roll.

10+ Brave When you do something brave despite great personal risk, gain an experience point.
7-9 Foolhardy When you rush headlong into danger that puts someone else at risk, gain an experience point.
6 Plague bearer You're infested with growing vines, the spores are burrowing into you. When you vomit all over someone important, you spread the plague and gain an experience point.

You can't gain experience in other ways until you do this, but you can continue to do these things for additional experience until whenever the season of spore effects are up. Of course let them build on these things whenever they open their brains under the effects. Maybe the spores let the guy that missed start to understand the growing things. Maybe the foolish one is drawn into the surface with knowledge of lore, treasure, or etc. Maybe the brave one has to act under fire when they try to be a coward. Maybe the plaguelets then understand the sickened better, or maybe it gives them some type of hold over them. Dunno! But you can just go with it until the maelstrom starts to gain definition.

Or whatever. Basically the spores could be entirely about taking an emotion or something and then incentivizing them to make those changes to their character, and rewarding them for it as if they highlighted that motivation. I dunno, just a thought. A bit more free form, though very rough in concept.

Sounds like your mom has some trust issues! I mean, regardless of the spore thing, it's probably worth bringing up that this is a collaborative game, not a competitive one, and that you are there to help each other tell a rad story, not do unfair things to each other.

In any case I think seeing what the Maelstrom is like, and leaving the effects of spores relatively open-ended in the first session, is going to be the best way to go. Once you are done the first session (and asked a bunch of spore-related questions as part of it, no doubt) and are working on where the Maelstrom and the spores fit into your Fronts, it will probably become easier to figure out how to characterize their effects.

(Actually reading your post again I realise maybe you have already played the first session? In which case whoops, but also still: look to the threats/fronts for guidance.)

It could always be even personalized. When someone inhales the spores, their brains are forcibly opened to the maelstrom. When you ask your question or two, use those questions to prompt the next step. If the first question's answer isn't enough, use the second question to build on it.

Example
Question1: If you had to name the emotion that you feel most, right now, what would it be?
Answer: "I'm really nervous."
Question2: Why?
Answer: Because the last time I inhaled these spores, it made me really sick.

Oh, I love this idea! As well as the other one you presented, I actually have some things like that already on the table (the maelstrom asking questions, as ever, of course, but applying the answers to the spores as well,) but I'll probably build off it even more as a general "rule" for when you breathe in spores, as well. Adding it together with my plan to "tweak" the exact outcome given different characters and situations, this should go even further toward it!

Thanks!

Sounds like your mom has some trust issues! I mean, regardless of the spore thing, it's probably worth bringing up that this is a collaborative game, not a competitive one, and that you are there to help each other tell a rad story, not do unfair things to each other.

In any case I think seeing what the Maelstrom is like, and leaving the effects of spores relatively open-ended in the first session, is going to be the best way to go. Once you are done the first session (and asked a bunch of spore-related questions as part of it, no doubt) and are working on where the Maelstrom and the spores fit into your Fronts, it will probably become easier to figure out how to characterize their effects.

(Actually reading your post again I realise maybe you have already played the first session? In which case whoops, but also still: look to the threats/fronts for guidance.)

Yeah! We already played the first session, which gave me a bit of good material to go off of already, because two of the three characters (Omosho and Grey) both opened their minds and got to answer some questions, not to mention general questions of "hey, this guy's been exposed to the spores before. What kinds of things happened to him? Can you even tell?" ect. ect. ect.

And as for my mom and trusting this stuff, I'm pretty sure she's stuck in the mindset of "we're an adventuring party, playing against all these bad things the GM is sending at us." The only roleplaying game she's played before is D&D, and from her stories about it, with a rather "I want to win, have these monsters you aren't ready to fight yet" kind of GM, too! So I think she just believes that's how all role playing games go.

I'm hoping as time goes on she'll get, "Oh, okay, you're really NOT out to kill us." Because as it's been said time and time again, that's boring. No one wants to play a game of "get stuff thrown at us with no preparation or forewarning, die a horrible death, the end."