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Seduce or Manipulate and similar moves are carefully structured to avoid taking away PC agency. However, the Waterbearer move Peacemaker doesn't address the PC-as-subject case. Can a Waterbearer conspire with another character to bring a PC, unarmed and alone, to an ambush?

Hi Vincent, I've been playing Apocalypse World pretty regularly for about 3 years, and I have been in a discussion about your new class the Waterbearer on reddit, and wanted to get your opinion on a few questions:

What exactly is keeping the Hardholder from waltzing in and taking the source? I mean, it's just water, right? I'm really not seeing how any Waterbearers are going to be protecting their things.

Also, this seems like the kind of class that might be tempted to never leave their hidey hole. This is the problem I ran into with angels who made a drug lab. After all, with all the violence going around the angel literally never had to leave his med bay as people just kept bringing dying people to his doorstep. And then when he would run out of equipment, others would just go out and get it for him. Like, I can very easily see this person just being rewarded for hiding in their sacred water hole.

Another thing is that this resource doesn't seem like it needs the player character to be fully usable. Take for instance the Maestro D's establishment. NOBODY can run it like the Maestro D. Nobody can manage a hold beyond 50 people EXCEPT for the hardholder, and nobody can command a cult's respect like a Hocus. But if the Hardholder takes the water source, there isn't anything saying that ANYTHING bad happens. I mean sure we could say that the gods are angry or something if that's what the player picked, but would that really stop anyone? It just sounds like having this person around does nobody any favors (the laws) and that they don't do anything that can't be replaced.

My concerns are that this is a character who the other players should play ball with, but don't have to. All of the power of this character is located in people respecting her command of the resource, but if people don't then that power vanishes. Add to it that this person also has no inbuilt way to protect said resource and you might have a real problem.  Especially with the way that people I know play Apocalypse World.

To be clear, I actually really like the concept, and probably will get around to playing as the Waterbearer at some point myself.  I was just was wondering how you would suggest handling these problems.  Foreign entanglements are always an option, but that forces more NPCs in than I might want, and of course they would need to be powerful enough to challenge a Hardholder's control of an area.  I was also wondering how I might get a Waterbearer to leave their area, and that is a lot trickier.  I guess that game would need to be a lot stricter on daily routines.

Can we talk about the new playbooks? Because I think there are some fascinating design choices there that deserve picking apart.

First, the Child-Thing's den is seriously well described, it talks about smartphones and calendars. But these are things of the past, the savvyhead has their weird-ass electronica, but a Child-Thing's book knows what the electronica used to be. My thoughts are because the CT is something different from all the other playbooks, everyone else is born in the apocalyptic world, all they know are what they can piece together from ruins of the past. But the CT is different, they're not from the apocalypse but instead from the Maelstrom. Of course they know some things no-one else does: its yet another reminder of their otherness.

Also the Waterbearer's Lawbringer move is triggered strangely, not by the WB doing anything but instead the move is triggered by someone else breaking the law. I'm interested in whether that's an intentional difference because I can't (off the top of my head) think of any others like that.

Lots of questions! Let's see.

Chaomancer: corrected. Those first 3 improvements weren't correct at all. Redownload!

nweismuller: a -2 counts as a -3, for basically the same reason that a second +2 counts as a +3.

Borogove on vehicle threats: yes, the vehicle itself is a threat. I hope that looking at vehicles' impulses and threat moves will clarify the reason why. The thing about all threats is that, when they're on the PCs' side, they're still threats to the PCs' enemies.

korik1: it is necessary, yes. It contextually balances risk and reward.

Tim on threats: right on.

Borogove on peacemaker: if it's a trap, you can't justify making the move.

drmigit2: first off, it's not important to me that the waterbearer ever leaves the source. Having a waterbearer in the mix means that you have a strong central location where the characters are likely to be, and that's fine.

Now, it's possible for the hardholder to rob the waterbearer of all power, if that's what the hardholder commits to doing, yes, but it's not a sure thing. Far, far from it. The waterbearer has the single best trump card currently in the game, which is d-harm(water). To take the waterbearer out, the hardholder must accomplish it decisively before the waterbearer can take the move embargo. Otherwise the waterbearer can hold the entire hardhold hostage, for real.

And in general, it's never a question for me of how the playbook's going to defend itself against the others. They aren't designed to that purpose. It's a question of how the playbook's going to be useful to the others as a friend and ally. My suggestion is that the hardholder is far better off not getting into an escalatory war with the waterbearer, but instead making the waterbearer part of their approach to dealing with the rest of the world.

Still: the waterbearer starts play in a tenuous position, and it's in their interest to solidify it by making allies and gathering reinforcements. That's very true.

Ell975 on lawbringer: it's an intentional choice, yeah. It's all about the waterbearer's initially tenuous position.

On the child-thing and more generally: along with the faceless, these playbooks aren't going into the core set, so they're an opportunity for us to play around a little more with how the game works and what the things in it mean. You should consider them to be variations on Apocalypse World, not simple expansions of it, if that makes sense.

-Vincent

I think that makes *total* sense (to the point where it's almost a relief to hear it). Many of these playbooks mess with basic assumptions (like the Quarantine did, in a different way), and that's a good thing to keep in mind.

lumpley: That statline is the only one where a -2 is counted as equivalent to a +2.  If you're going with that, then the Battlebabe's third statline, the Brainer's third statline, every Gunlugger statline but the first, and the Hardholder's second statline need fixing for consistency.

nweismuller: really? Oh for butt sake. It better be the driver's stat line that's wrong then.

Thanks! Good catch.

edit: I just looked closely at it with the others and there's no fixing it! It gets to be the exception to the rule.

-Vincent

I'm still not getting PC-vehicle-as-threat (like, why is the Driver's car different from the Gunlugger's MG in that regard?) but I'll meditate on it.

Re. Peacemaker, okay, the Waterbearer's motive has to be to settle the beef. Can they still force a PC to come to a meeting against the player's will?

They can, yes.

-Vincent

Given my last couple of posts were about that Driver statline, I may as well ask another question.  I'm sure there's a good reason that statline is an exception to the general rule, but I'm curious if you could offer any insight as to the reasoning.  If I understand why you made that call, I may be able to understand some things a little better in the future.

Oh sure! No problem.

Here are the driver's statlines:
1. Cool+2 Hard-1 Hot+1 Sharp+1 Weird=0
2. Cool+2 Hard=0 Hot+1 Sharp+1 Weird-1
3. Cool+2 Hard+1 Hot-1 Sharp=0 Weird+1
4. Cool+2 Hard-2 Hot=0 Sharp+2 Weird+1

There are only two possible corrections for line 4, given that I want to keep the Hard-2 and the Sharp+2.

4a. Cool+2 Hard-2 Hot-1 Sharp+2 Weird+1
This would give the driver Hot +1 +1 -1 -1. I try to avoid this kind of polarization in principle, but can't always, but in this case I can't bring myself to polarize the driver across hot this way. The source material on the driver isn't exclusively hot, but it's notably hot, and the Hot +1 +1 =0 -1 spread better reflects it.

4b. Cool+2 Hard-2 Hot=0 Sharp+2 Weird=0
This would be fine for some other playbook, but again, for the driver I can't bring myself to do it. Compare line 1. For a driver to swallow that second -1 to Hard, plus a -1 to Hot, a +1 to Sharp doesn't quite balance it, even though it gives them that second +2. Since Hard-2 and Hot=0 is a weird choice for a driver to make, +1 to Weird seems fitting.

So now I have a choice: the line as it appears is how I want it, but it breaks the usual rule. The corrections I could choose from are within the usual rule, but I don't like them. What to do?

-Vincent

Vincent,

I'm looking at the "Single Combat" move, and I'm very tempted to add two options to it:

* You seize an advantage. (Take hold of a weapon within your reach or take +1forward.)
* You press hard or give ground, moving the fight to a nearby area of your choice.

Should I, or shouldn't I, and why so?

I like the idea of the fight being a little less static, or changing meaningfully from turn to turn.

(Options chosen by both parties cancel out, as usual. It would probably also make sense to increase the options chosen to 2/3, like Seize moves.)

A hard-2 statline seems vulnerable in a way that other stats at -2 doesn't. Weird-2, fine, the maelstrom freaks out out, maybe you go briefly catatonic if things get non-consensually spooky. Sharp-2, you just do not get what makes people tick.

But hard-2 means if things get violent you're going to get hurt.

(My first AW character was a Brainer with -2 hard... and I agree! Only cool can be as bad; you can more easily avoid hot, sharp, and weird rolls, roughly in that order, if it's not your thing.)

Though now, with the way the Gunlugger and Battlebabe's moves work, if you have either a good Cool or a good Hard, you can effectively ditch the one you're weak in by taking a Move from the relevant Playbook.

I'm not sure if that makes it better, really, but it's there.