2nd Edition Kickstarter

I have a question about the Waterbearer's Lawbringer move.  I can understand why the Waterbearer needs to be held responsible if nobody else can, if they can't catch a culprit.  What I'm not entirely clear on is what's happening fictionally when they flub the Cool roll and end up getting held to the penalty regardless of if they can catch the culprit or not.  This is a thing that actually makes me a little wary of playing a Waterbearer, since I'm not sure how fun it would be to be on the hook for somebody else's lawbreaking in a way that's not terribly fictionally clear to me.

You know how when your kid breaks the law, it's your responsibility? Same kind of thing.

I'm really digging the new playbooks. I think I see the limbs and entrails of other playbooks. Besides the Operator, what other playbooks (LE or otherwise) have gone into the workshop, never to emerge again? Which are getting remade for 2nd edition? Are there some that are neither, and if so, why?

Edit:  Also! Is it on purpose that the Maestro'D and News Hot-for-X stat sub moves don't have the note about also applying to Battle moves like, say, Ice Cold? If so, why?

Hey Vincent,

First of all, just wanted to say that I'm loving 2nd Edition as I read over the moves and other new changes.

I did have one question: With the "Battle Moves" now defined as they are, has the definition of being "In Battle" changed from what it was in 1st Edition?

In particular I'm thinking of that line on pg. 225 in the Gunlugger's move section that says "...going aggro on someone or acting under fire or even seizing something by force doesn’t make it automatically a battle. It has to be a battle."

But now the "Battle Moves" heading in the new Basic Moves section says under it: "When you're in battle, you can bring the battle moves into play."

Bottom Line Question: Is Single Combat a "Battle"?

That was the first thing I thought of when I read through the 2nd edition playbooks.

Oh, and while I may or may not have your attention, one of my players has brought up an interesting question: given that Wolves of the Maelstrom are painted as essentially being out to kill or severely harm the Child-Thing, wouldn't a PC answering "Yeah, I'm a wolf of the maelstrom" essentially reduce the Child-Thing and the Wolf's interactions to deadly animosity and outright flight?

Or is there something we're missing?

Oh, and while I may or may not have your attention, one of my players has brought up an interesting question: given that Wolves of the Maelstrom are painted as essentially being out to kill or severely harm the Child-Thing, wouldn't a PC answering "Yeah, I'm a wolf of the maelstrom" essentially reduce the Child-Thing and the Wolf's interactions to deadly animosity and outright flight?

Or is there something we're missing?

Yeah, there's absolutely nothing saying the wolves are out to kill or harm.

The Child-Thing's book just says "the maelstrom's wolves are hunting you". Maybe the PC wolf is misunderstood. Maybe they're hunting the Child-Thing to protect it from something worse. Maybe they have to make common cause against a more immediate threat.

Maybe the player knows that they are a wolf, but not the character. Maybe they are an unconscious agent of the maelstrom, just waiting for a chance to shed its skin and tear into sweet, unprotected Child-Thing flesh.

Or maybe the wolves are purely metaphorical, harbingers of the new age.

As is the Child-Thing.

Very excited about getting the whole text at some point! Lots of interesting changes, super keen on hearing about what makes a fight a battle in the new rules, especially considering the Battlebabe's Ice Cold.

I just noticed a few things!

The Battlebabe seems to be the only one that can pick "an ally" as an improvement. Very interested about seeing more about what Vincent has thought about this!

Since the Quarantine is now amongst the basic playbooks, that means anyone can take their move Combat Veteran and get cool+3 even before their fifth improvement. That's an interesting change.

What does "push reading a situation" mean?

The Battlebabe seems to be the only one that can pick "an ally" as an improvement. Very interested about seeing more about what Vincent has thought about this!

I assume ally here is the same as the ally from 1e's advanced seduce or manipulate -- hit an NPC with a 12+ and turn them into an ally (friend, lover, right hand, representative, guardian, confidante). Allies are no longer a threat to that PC, and no longer looked at through crosshairs by the MC. So Battlebabe can get allies earlier than other PCs (because advance a move is a below-the-line, Ungiven Future improvement), and without risking a roll.

What does "push reading a situation" mean?

I think "push" in the threat moves means "encourage", directly or indirectly. Which is interesting, because it means when someone throws a 6- when a Grotesque is in the scene,  and the MC is looking for a move to make, a legitimate move would seem to be to ask "do you wanna read that guy?"

Like, maybe Dremmer's a Grotesque/Pain Addict, and you're trying to manipulate Wisher with pain, and you roll 6-. MC says "you twist Wisher's arm and he moans out in pain, but he doesn't give in, and you suddenly notice Dremmer's eyes have lit up, he's almost drooling as he watches what you're doing to Wisher. I wonder what's up with that?" It's pretty close to "announce future badness" but playing towards a particular PC response.

I'm not sure how to interpret a Landscape threat's "push terrain" though, unless it's supposed to be the same as Terrain's "push dealing with bad terrain."

Ah, thanks, Borogove, that's great!

On further thought, maybe Landscape threat's push terrain means to zoom in on a particular Terrain threat, maybe created on the spot? It's weird how 7/8 of the time I feel like I understand exactly what lumpley's trying to say and 1/8 of the time I'm totally baffled, rarely any middle ground...

I'm running a game tomorrow (first time GMing a campaign, wish me luck)

One thing I've noticed looking over the kickstarter preview is the changes to the battlebabe. Is it just me or is it just silly broken now? It was all ways a favorite of mine due to being an interesting mix of strengths and weakness, frail, but kick ass, depending on how the encounter goes.

Namely "Ice Cold". In 1e, it only rolled cool on going agro. There was this balance of being terrifying, but balancing that with having to set up the situation and getting the drop in, staying on the fringes of a battle. The player could deliberately build themselves towards reducing this, but it took some thought to do. Now they roll +cool for all battle moves, and can wade right into the fray, even with -2 hard.

They also start with +3 cool, which is meant to be one of the harder stats to get and is used in a lot of important rolls. They don't even have to use up a starting move to get it, like the quarantine does. Take the -2 hard option and they've got effectively +3 in 2 stats and +1 in all others. Take Ice Cold and Impossible Reflexes, then as early as the first improvement, Merciless, which won't take long. They pretty much have nothing to fear, ever.

Other combat focused characters such as the faceless or gunslinger either have to depend on others or struggle in social situations, or have to keep their wits about them and not get caught unequipped. Their power depends on things than need to be kept appeased or in good working order. Battle babe doesn't care for these things.

I know I'm supposed to be a fan of the characters. But I'm also supposed to make the apocalypse feel real and make the character's lives interesting. But I'm not a fan of superman. He's the most boring superhero and not exactly realistic either. The battle babe is super man. Both almost untouchable, and still decently smart, good looking, and popular.

The most experienced player of or group wants to play a battlebabe. Any tips on how to reconcile these things and challenge the player without just fucking him over? It seems like he'll just whirlwind over any gm threat, and not have a huge amount of trouble with other players. I trust him not to hog the limelight, but he could very easily do so, he really has no need for the others.

The Battlebabe actually does use a starting move to get that Cool+3; it's just implicit rather than explicit so other classes can't take it. This is how they were conceptualized in 1e as well, according to Vx. I do agree that the way the battle moves have been re-adjusted means that they are now dramatically more powerful and adept at combat, though, and I'm hoping this will be compensated for by the final release of 2e, since they seem to be even better at straight-up battle than even the Gunlugger in many ways, unlike before. If it isn't, then I guess there's just the old standby of threatening the people they care about or need. No matter how aloof the Battlebabe might be, there's surely someone they need to get what they want. Whatever their goals are, there will probably be something that killing more people won't get them.

I was going to point out that it still gets to choose 2 moves, but thare's actually a lot of playbooks that get 3 starting moves. That does make sense.

In most ways they are way better than a gunlugger. Right from the start they are +3 on all battle moves, where even if the gunlugger takes the option for +3hard, she's still rolling cool for some battle moves now, which can be rather low. And the gunlugger depends on her gear, which can be interesting to explore how she keeps in mantained, who she talks to and the like. The battlebabe dosen't need to care about maitining anything. Even if caught stark naked, most npcs and even some pcs still wont make him break a sweat.

Then even if the game goes in a non combat social direction, some smarts are required, ot it just gets plain weird, the battle babe remains fairly competent where the gunlugger might need to turn to her allies or make friends with someone who can get her into a place pure brawn isn't going to work. Battle babe just keeps laughing and sails on through.

I try not to think about concepts such as "balance" in a game like AW, it feels "wrong" to be to analyse the game in this way. But this one just jamed out at me as being completly out of whack. Maybe I'm bitter because it used to be my favorite. It was a nice balance of kick ass and frailty, with MANY differnt ways to put one together to make very differnt and interesting battle babes. Maybe saying it only applies to single combat in battle would "fix" it. Or a look at the other starting stats. Chaotic free for all is all ready cool which leaves battle babe amzing one on one or when things are a mess, but struggles when it's a long drawn out ordered fight. I'm just worried doing that would make things too "fiddly".

I agree that arguing about if one class is overpowered or not is generally kind of silly in AW. Which is more powerful, being a mind-reader or the leader of a settlement? Being a really good healer or having a really cool car? There's no way to even try to balance playbooks against each other because they're so different and have such different goals (versus other RPGs where balance is all about damage per combat round or whatever). But the Battlebabe and Gunlugger seem to be something of an exception because they fill similar narrative spaces: they're both people that are good at killing other people. They do that in different ways, but their basic niche is similar. Previously, the Gunlugger was the undisputed king of being able to just straight-up kill people, and the Battlebabe wasn't quite as great at battle but made up for it in other areas. Now it's a little unclear why you'd pick a Gunlugger when the Battlebabe is available, since the previous distinction (Battlebabe starts fights; Gunlugger ends them) no longer holds true.