The Campaign Builder's Guild

Anybody else been looking at AW? Anybody played it? Bought this a while back as part of a bundle of games, and just recently had a chance to start looking it over, and it looks incredibly slick.

It's just... really nicely put together. It's like everything I like about class-based games, minus everything I dislike about class-based games. Conflict is set up to be fast-pased and dramatic, not a tedious play-by-play. The focus on interactions between PCs is really cool.

Some local friends have been making noises about getting me to run a game; I'm going to try and wheedle my way into running this one.

Thoughts?

Haven't really heard about it. What's it like? What precisely does it do that works for you?

Yes, tell us more, LC.

MOAR.

Is AW the one with Hard, Sharp, Hot and Cool as the base attributes? If so, I loved that about it, and ever since I came across it have been considering stealing the idea.

Okay, uh, where do I start with this, it's big.

So, AW is built on a pretty slick system. It's small-- there are only a few stats, only a few types of moves, only a few bits of crunch-- but all these moving parts are very flexible. There aren't that many fiddly little dice rolls, so you don't have that "ten-second fight takes two hours to run" tactical game syndrome. You just... say what you want to do, and if that happens to count as a "move", you roll the dice and do what the move says. There are only seven basic moves, plus one or two more that individual characters may get from their specific playbook (think "class", sort of), so there's not a whole lot of stress about which move something counts as; you could memorize them all in about an hour of play.

All moves are built on the same basic template. You take one of your stats, which are always valued between -3 and +3, and you add 2d6 to it. If you end up with 7-9, it's a "hit", signifying success but with some kind of consequence or tough choice. A 10+ is a "hit" without these negative effects. A six or less means failure at the intended task, and the MC is encouraged to be as brutal as desired in determining the fallout from this.

There's a whole pervasive theme throughout AW about letting players build up their little world and then having the MC pick it apart. The game is focused in sharp on the PCs' goals and needs, and the fragility of all they build. You wouldn't have to run this in a post-apocalyptic setting, but the scarcity and lawlessness associated with that genre really help shine a spotlight on those elements of what the game feels like. One of the MC mechanics is "fronts" (as in "I'm fighting on three fronts"), which are basically big, threatening themes that span the whole campaign, and which can get better or worse over time as a result of the players' actions.

Quote from: Kindling
Is AW the one with Hard, Sharp, Hot and Cool as the base attributes? If so, I loved that about it, and ever since I came across it have been considering stealing the idea.

Yeah, you have five stats: Cool, Hard, Hot, Sharp, and Weird, plus a stat for each other PC, representing your history with that other character. More on that in a moment. The basic stuff is pretty generic, and the playbooks are apocalypse-flavored but could be easily reskinned or replaced with whatever kind of adaptation you want. The author encourages you to go ahead and publish your own stuff using AW mechanics, which is always freeing.

The History ("Hx") stats with each other character are neat. There aren't really any opposed rolls in the game, but there are Helping actions and Interfering actions. You use your Hx with another character to do either, because Hx represents how well you know that character (and how well you can cooperate, and how well you can push each others' buttons, etc.) Hx is asymmetrical: you might have Hx+3 with me but I may have Hx-1 with you. If you heal someone, your Hx with them goes up-- by taking care of them, you see them more clearly. If you harm someone, their Hx with you goes up-- in violence, you reveal part of your nature, and they see you more clearly. (This means that harming someone makes them better able to screw with you later, which is interesting.)

Starting Hx is determined by a round-robin thing during character creation. Everybody goes around the table and introduces their character by name and role and outlook, that kind of stuff. Then you take turns telling everyone else what to write down for their Hx with you, according to instructions from your playbook. This process fleshes out some details of your past and current relationships. Your book might say "pick one person who has fought shoulder to shoulder with you; tell that person +2. Pick one person who left you hanging out to dry when the pressure was on; tell that person -2. Tell everyone else -1." You also may get special instructions for what to do with the numbers other players tell you: "Pick the person you trust the least; ignore whatever they tell you and write down +3, because you've been watching them." So this process jumbles up all the Hx stats a bit, but it also lays a lot of groundwork for relationships in the fiction, in the process.

This is one of those games where NPCs and PCs have different game mechanics. NPCs have different kinds of moves, and as far as I can tell the MC never actually rolls dice. (If a PC is doing something, that's framed as a PC action. If a PC is avoiding something being done by an NPC, that also counts as a PC action, just a defensive/reactive type of one.) The MC has an entirely seperate "playbook" full of a bunch of moves designed to keep the pace rolling, ratchet up tension, and force difficult choices-- moves called things like "trade harm for harm" and "announce future badness" and "offer an opportunity at a cost". The whole MC style is built on the idea of those fronts I mentioned, and using mostly disposable NPCs as agents of those fronts (fronts have stats; NPCs mostly do not). I'm kind of fascinated to try this out just to see how this whole style of running games feels in play.

Uh, I've been typing for like forty-five minutes and starting to forget what I have already said and what I haven't said yet, so going to hit Post now, okay, 

Wow that sounds pretty awesome. Like an even more bare bones version of fate (no wonder you latched onto it haha). I'm rather curious to see how the maneuvers work in an actual combat, seems like (same as fate) it offers alot of opportunities to embellish your actions as you please and just slap the most appropriate crunch piece onto them which is something I like about fate. Hmm could you elaborate more on what exactly fronts are, give some examples perhaps. I'm not sure I fully understand them other than they act like BBEGs.

Like, okay, combat uses the same moves as everything else. Let's say you're playing in an AW game I'm running, and you've just found out your girlfriend Jess has been snatched by some chucklehead wannabe warlord Carlos, and you're determined to correct that bullshit.

So you go down to the junkyard shantytown where Carlos holds court, and keeping watch is Carlos's numbskull flunky, Sawtooth. So maybe you get the drop on Sawtooth while she's having her lunch, and your gun's drawn, and you make your demand: "Out of the way; I'm going in there." And the threat is implicit: or I will shoot you with this gun. This is you, Going Aggro.

[ooc]Going Aggro is one of the basic moves everyone has access to. You roll +Hard. On a 10+, the other person has two options: give you what you want, or force your hand and take the punishment. On a 7-9, they have those same options plus several others that may not get you what you want as directly (like backing away with hands in the air, or telling you what they think you want to hear, or barricading themselves securely away from you, etc.) On a 6 or less, your threat fails and probably backfires, as on any miss, I am encouraged to be as mean to you as possible.[/ooc]

It's interesting that AW really never takes away choice from anybody. Sawtooth always has the choice, even if it ends up as a choice between only two options and both are bad. The very best GA result just traps a person into your ultimatum: if it is "let me in or I will shoot you" and you roll a 10+, then yes, those really are the only two outcomes that can happen anymore.

So let's say you make your way in past Sawtooth in whatever way, and inside is Carlos with Jess, and she's relieved to see you but he's obviously not just going to let you take her away without a fight: you're going to have to Seize Her By Force.

[ooc]Seize By Force is the other basic move based on Hard. You roll +Hard and choose options from a list. On a 10+, you get three of the four, your choice. On a 7-9, you get two. On a 6 or less, you get screwed.
- you take definite hold of the thing
- you suffer less harm
- you inflict great harm
- you impress, dismay, or frighten your enemy

Seize By Force is the basic way to illustrate a really two-sided fight, with both sides fighting over the same thing. Both sides are going to inflict harm upon each other; the player's choices from that list just determine how much harm.[/ooc]

So, Jess in tow, you leave Carlos in the dust and make a run for where you parked your motorcycle on the other side of the ridge. Carlos's goons are following you, though, and to make it the last hundred yards or so, you're going to have to cross open ground they're covering with gunfire. You've got to Act Under Fire to make it.

[ooc]Act Under Fire is the move for whenever the stakes are raised for whatever reason. It's a great all-purpose move for whenever something could go wrong, like when you're sneaking through the cultists' compound, or desperately trying to repair an engine before the cannibals arrive at dusk, or trying to do anything while being shot at.

To act under fire, roll +Cool. If you get a 10+, you do the thing, no problem. If you get a 7-9, you do the thing, but "you flinch, hesitate, or stall: the MC can offer you a worse outcome, a hard bargain, or an ugly choice." On a 6 or less, screwed.[/ooc]

In a lot of ways, Act Under Fire replaces things like Armor Class or whatever. If I've got my NPCs shooting at you, instead of asking you for your defense number to see whether or not they hit, I've got several ways I can frame that mechanically. But one of the more interesting ways is to just say: "okay, bullets rain down around you; whatever you're doing next counts as acting under fire. What do you do?" And based on your choice, the bullets can get worked into any potential inauspicious AUF result in a number of ways.

In the above example, trying to get Jess to the bike, if you AUF with a 6 or less, I can hit you as hard as I like. (Because that's what happens with most failed moves; the MC can hit you as hard as he or she likes.) If you miss your AUF, I could decide it makes more sense for you to be cut off from your escape, or Carlos's thugs have gotten to the bike already, or you've just been shot, or whatever. If you roll a 7-9, that's a hit so you definitely make it to the bike, but there's a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice-- maybe Jess got shot.

I actually had the opportunity to play this only yesterday! Sadly, I didn't. But yeah, it got a lot of praise from the guy running it (and others). Just did a search of my pdf files when you mentioned that bundle and, lo and behold, I have it too. Should probably actually read it sometime soon!

Short answer: I loved my experience with it and it one of my pillars of inspiration for game design.

Apocalypse World is awesome. We have played six sessions of it so far and it really speaks to our collective temperament.

Your example effectively conveys AW's idiosyncratic literary style.

I'd been contemplating a FATE-driven setting that converges Luminous' Lords of the Meta-Realm and Steerpikes wizards-in-a-setting-whose-name-i-cannot-remember*, wherein the players are sorcerers battling amid the fragments of a sunderered consensus reality. I think Apocalypse World might actually be a better system for it.

EDIT: *Eldritch Earth. Of course he'd call it that...

EDIT EDIT: You didn't mention the sex!

You could name it Apocodritch Lords. Just kidding; that's not such a great name.

P.S., I found the character playbooks on the official site, so you can all go browse them if you like. "Playbook" is basically the term for both "class" and "character sheet"; these playbooks are what characters have in front of them during play with all their special only-I-can-do-this moves and stuff. They're written in a way that assumes familiarity with the basic process of gameplay (and the seven basic moves like Act Under Fire and Open Your Brain and whatnot), but they're still probably good to browse if you just want to get a feel for things.

The wonderful thing about the playbooks is that each one is (at least potentially) entrenched in the setting on the strength of the rules alone. Particularly:

The Battlebabe's Dangerous and Sexy creates a new enemy every time the roll is failed; Visions of Death lets her kill off and/or preserve absolutely any one NPC in the midst of battle.

The Brainer reveals human truths and induces people to carry out their will through physical intimacy and psychic harm. They excel not with violence but subtle insidious corruption of the mind.

The Chopper carries around his own mobile microsetting.

The Hardholder is the focus and (tenuous) master of a genuine setting.

The Hocus is a bona fide "priest" with her own cult and accompanying relationships, and the ability to start riots/lynchings/orgies at the drop of a hat.

Our current Hocus, Want, has selected the following traits for her followers: eager, enthusiastic and successful recruiters; possessive; decadent and perverse; disdainful of law, peace, reason and society. They "worship" her wrecked and syphilitic body, which they encountered staggering stupid in the ravenous wasteland, as the altar, transmitter and "receptacle" of a nameless hedonist god. Put them in the same setting as a hardholder whose gang is described as both disciplined and a gang of fucking hyenas, and the adventures practically write themselves!

The Skinner... well let's just say that between Artful & Gracious and Hypnotic, our campaign's skinner has neutralised every threat she has so far encountered through a combination of sex appeal and joie de vivre.

So far the strengths of these playbooks have been played to the hilt. I really want someone to play a Savvyhead.

I am finally getting the chance to play this game.