Rules question: When life is untenable

Hello all,

Thanks for this amazing work, Vincent.

When life is untenable, here are the options: come back with -1hard, come back with +1 weird (max 3), change to a new playbook, die.

My question: can you "change to a new playbook" while keeping the same character? Or the meaning was, "change to a new character with a new playbook"?

It's intended that the same character changes to a new playbook per the same rules as taking the advancement "change to a new playbook".

It's based on the fictional trope of a character who has a near-death experience then becomes a changed person. The recent Doctor Strange movie is a reasonable example of this I'm told, though I haven't seen it myself yet.

This is probably my favourite part of AW 2nd Edition.

(In my opinion, the "change playbooks" rule is the most exciting part of Apocalypse World, so having it attached to character death like this is very cool, and makes it far more interesting.)

Nice, thank you all

Our Brainer was just killed by our Battlebabe and is going to come back as a Faceless.  When the rules say that the player keeps, "her moves, her improvements," does that include the Brainer moves and her violation glove?  Or are In-Brain Puppet Strings and so on left behind as things "belonging to her old life"?

This is strictly something that the player and MC need to work out between them. My advice to the MC is to be generous, unless you have specific and already established reasons not to be. Switching playbooks should usually be a form of leveling up, even if you got killed to do it.

-Vincent

Awesome, thanks Vincent. 

I spoke with my player and we think she's going to lose some of her gear but keep her powers.  We even toyed with the idea of the Faceless moves being telekinetic rather than physical, but decided that she's had enough brainer shit in her life and is now here to chop up the world with her axe... at least until the Maelstrom calls.