Playbook: Faceless

Um ... what is s-harm? I don't know the rulebook anywhere near as well as most of you. But I know what "forward" and "ongoing" are, and Vincent just explained "holding" to me too. What's the "s"?
Best, Ron

The "s" in s-harm stands for "stunned" or "stunning"; basically, the person can't act until the stunning effect is gone or wears out or whatever. PCs can act under fire to do something.

Aww, are you really keeping it exclusive, Bret?  Though I can't possibly deny it's yours to do with as you wish, I think that's a shame.

Not Bret; Vincent put together the playbook in a proper foldable manner after asking Bret, et al.'s permission to use it as a GenCon exclusive.

You can find s-harm on page 240. (There's no such thing as "1 s-harm" or "2 s-harm," it's just s-harm.) Color to suit; if it were me, in this case, I'd write the color into the move.

My biggest problem with the Faceless is that I keep thinking of moves I want to give it. Like: Gore-fisted - your bare hands become 2-harm AP close messy(optional) loud(optional)

Hey Bret,

It's a long-standing thing in game design to make whatever would be cool narration or personal color for most character types into abilities for one's favorite type. I see this in fantasy games especially. One of the character races is almost always clearly the author's special favorite and receives about 200% the rules-depth compared to the others, as well as being so specific in personality and color that it might as well be a single character.

I expect that for Apocalypse World, one way this might manifest is that it's overwhelmingly tempting to pack the Moves section for any character type that strikes one's fancy. As the person who just proposed an additional Move (as in, right on the sheet, not eventually-invented for advanced play) for the Faceless, I may be guilty of it myself.

But it seems to me an important feature of game design to stay on the near side of the divide between "simple + elegant = emergent in play" vs. "make sure anything that can happen or be said is there as a rules option." This is clearly a very difficult divide to negotiate in Apocalypse World because the rules and narrations are so menu oriented.

If it turned out in play that the effect and ensuing carnage in I'm Right Here emerged from existing rules, without it being used as a Move, then I'd argue strongly for not including it as a Move. I don't know the game well enough, not by miles, to predict either way. To me, though, it seems that Gore-fisted would emerge from the existing rules and would effectively be a narration for an already-existing going-forward bonus in the right circumstances.

It all comes down to play itself, for sure. Without play, I find myself making up more and more that a character type "can do," only because I want to enjoy doing that in play myself, and since I'm not doing it, the only way I can enjoy it is to put it down on paper. With play, though, I can find out whether the coolest stuff I want is actually there to be generated already through the simpler mechanics I already have.

What do you think?

Best, Ron

I like what Ron says, and Bret don't forget you can take moves from other playbooks. The gunlugger and battlebabe will have a few very tempting ones.

That said, there might be a neat faceless equivalent to how the gunlugger chooses weapons. Less so, but maybe you choose one thing from a list that gives you ap harm or +1 harm when just using your fists, etc.

So I haven't gotten to play Apocalypse World yet and maybe I will soon but maybe I won't. And yeah, I love this character type so there is certainly some of what you're describing coming through. There's also this niggling sense that the Playbook isn't finished and it isn't perfectly what I want it to be. Like, maybe some of the moves I gave it aren't the best moves.

Also, I couldn't sleep and just decided to post an idea I had for a move after laying awake in bed thinking about the Faceless punching someone to death.

Not Bret; Vincent put together the playbook in a proper foldable manner after asking Bret, et al.'s permission to use it as a GenCon exclusive.

Ah, so I have Vincent to blame.  I thought I remembered Vincent saying that he wanted to make it into a playbook to give out at GenCon but that after that it would be up to Bret what to do with it.

Oh well.  In general, my opinion is that exclusives are kind of lame, though one of the reasons I feel that way may be pure selfishness.  I'm sure it's valuable as a marketing technique.

I thought I remembered Vincent saying that he wanted to make it into a playbook to give out at GenCon but that after that it would be up to Bret what to do with it.

Well anyone could put together a playbook for personal use. I'm pretty sure I could lay one out, but having the time to muck with that is an entirely different question, and without the fonts and graphic elements it wouldn't look like the rest of the playbooks.

Y'know, a blank character sheet would be useful. Fill in the character type and improvement lines, and we wouldn't need playbooks for custom classes like this…

I want a pony.

I would love it if the Hx rules did a "final girl" kind of thing.

Choose the most innocent and pure soul. You both get +3Hx with each other.

So, for people interested in this Playbook, are the rules in this thread up-to-date? Is the "official" Faceless playbook just a compilation of the stuff in this thread?

As I just got Apocalypse World for Christmas, I'd be really interested in know the answer to the above as well...

Though a .pdf sure would be nice... we latecomers is always getting f*cked... :)

Just giving a thumbs up to someone I now have an obligation to.  :)