The Campaign Builder's Guild

That sounds kind of like Cosmic Encounter.

That brings up an important issue: scale. Should each sorcerer have the power to smash/craft/wield kingdoms, or erase minds, or move mountains? The Alienist (Celestiologue+Blasphemer) possesses subtle but profound power, changing the very shape of heaven. The Zoanthrope can spawn new mongrel races (Gnolls! Owlbears! Lizard-dudes!) through arcane tinkering and *ahem* intimate congress. How obvious should such abilities be in the world, to its inhabitants?

In and you, ARRUNTULLA, a sorcerer's advantage arose largely from his enemy's ignorance, fear and disgust; the sorcerer himself was not exceptionally powerful and he had to be covert in his manipulations. Here, the sorcerers are outrageous and often beautiful (though still ultimately terrifying). There's a reason why Monarchs are mentioned first in the list of Enemies, and Scorned Charnel Gods second. But do emperors and lords fear them as a direct challenge or as unwitting insurrectionists, upsetting but not destroying the rule of kings? Do the Gods hate them for their outward strength, or as a symbol of mortal defiance ?

Very intrigued.

Since I'm creating an Apocalypse World hack whose concept potentially strays far from the tone and scale of the source material, I might as well hack the source material to pieces. The transferable essence of AW is its move structure:

When X roll Y+Z. On a 7-9, Blah. On a 10+, Blah Blah Blah. On a 6 or below, Oh-No. The concept of players as sole representatives of a genre/setting archetype should be retained, but the idea that each archetype must consist primarily of local-scale moves is a needlessly limiting presumption. There will be moves written in ancient tomes or carved in stone, that can be performed only when read, and others that are both site- and event-specific. "When you taste the blood of the Martyred God as it flows down his shuddering mountain, roll..."

There is a whole category of small magics with a loose thematic relation that cost physical resources and accomplish a spectrum of unique effects . Perhaps archetypes will define character origin and include moves only accessible if that is your origin, but will branch into moves accessible to all?

ALSO: One day I'm going to make a Cadaverous Earth AW hack. Before that, a miserable-homeless-bastards-battling-the-city's-lovecraftian-underguts AW hack.  Swear to God.

Yeah, there are enough differences between this setting and the AW setting that we should probably tackle some basic questions about how to use the AW mechanics.

QuoteWhen X roll Y+Z. On a 7-9, Blah. On a 10+, Blah Blah Blah. On a 6 or below, Oh-No.

Is Y always 2d6, and is Z always between -3 and +3 (inclusive)? Also, what kind of stats are you using for characters (in place of Cool, Hard, Hot, etc.)? I've seen some interesting hacks with, say, a pair of stats that can't total more than +2, so when one goes up the other must go down (useful for, say, Youth vs. Experience, or Mad vs. Sane, or Sacred vs. Profane, etc.)

I have a lot of assumptions about what kinds of stats you'll probably include (for I've painted the sign of the Arrogant Man upon my chest), but I guess that really depends a lot on what kind of scope and conflicts you want to cover. Since I figure that will probably be a huge departure from AW, I'll forbear to make any big plans until I know what you intend.

Do you want to preserve the sort of "uneven" balance between playbooks from AW (where some have better moves, some have better stuff (hardholder, chopper, etc.) and some have better stats (battlebabe esp.))? It seems logical to me for the Zoanthrope and Ghoul to be "stuff" playbooks, with a lot of their might externalized in their armies.

Also, if you're using AW's "gangs" mechanics pretty much as-written, it might be worthwhile to tweak the numbers-- if your average Ghoul is going to command nations or worlds full of the dead, that kind of scale will break AW's crowd-based combat pretty quickly, won't it?

QuoteThere is a whole category of small magics with a loose thematic relation that cost physical resources and accomplish a spectrum of unique effects .

If you want to keep track of supplies in a very general way, could run this with a mechanic like the angel kit, where instead of rolling +stat, you roll +stock spent, so that burning more resources on a ritual like this increases your chance of making it work properly.

QuotePerhaps archetypes will define character origin and include moves only accessible if that is your origin, but will branch into moves accessible to all?

So, let me see if I get this (please correct if this is wrong)

basic moves are not part of a playbook, everybody has them at all times (I am assuming this is still a thing, but not necessarily I guess)

playbook movse are unique to each playbook; Geometer moves can only be learned by Geometers, no one else gets them. (Removing the "get a new move from another playbook" advancement option from AW to preserve each playbook's niche?)

superadvanced moves are learnable by any playbook, but only past a certain amount of advancement, so that elite sorcerers of any stripe can access them

specific moves (these might almost be called consequences) don't go on any character sheet, they're just what happens when you do something particular ("when you rebuke the august monarchs, roll +blasphemous"; "when you drink from the pool beneath time, roll +empty"; "when you trade part of your mind to the ragpicker king[/b], roll +broken"; etc.)

If your ideal "endgame" mostly involves powerful characters interacting with stuff (as opposed to, say, learning uberspells they can use at will), might be worth considering dropping the third category and just leaning hard on the fourth.

Really, though, I am super-enamored by the idea of moves that transcend local-scale, where each character has a unique style of power that can be wielded on an enormous level-- universe-wide, maybe. Characters can mess with each other from worlds apart.

What's the distinction between a Revenant and a Ghoul? The Ghoul is a manipulator of the process of death and the dead, but the Revenant is just too much of a badass for death to really inconvenience much? Is it accurate to say that most of the Ghoul moves will be blasphemous necromancer-style stuff and most of the Revenant moves will be more about personal might and being driven and unstoppable?

QuoteIs Y always 2d6, and is Z always between -3 and +3 (inclusive)?

Yes. It provides a nice neat probability pyramid with no dead weight and no distracting granularity.

QuoteAlso, what kind of stats are you using for characters (in place of Cool, Hard, Hot, etc.)?

Not entirely sure yet. This comes back to the question of scale. I have GMed two or three systemless one-shots where every skill was magical and characters never did anything mundane. Depending on the kinds of conflicts in Wizard (that's what I'm going to call this for now), one stat might fuel a character's most powerful magic while it only helps another character punch dudes in the face.

QuoteI've seen some interesting hacks with, say, a pair of stats that can't total more than +2, so when one goes up the other must go down (useful for, say, Youth vs. Experience, or Mad vs. Sane, or Sacred vs. Profane, etc.)

I was racking my brain trying to figure out how to convert the double-edged sword that is Flaws in miserable-homeless-bastards-battling-the-city's-lovecraftian-underguts. This is exactly what I needed.

QuoteDo you want to preserve the sort of "uneven" balance between playbooks from AW (where some have better moves, some have better stuff (hardholder, chopper, etc.) and some have better stats (battlebabe esp.))?

Definitely.

QuoteAlso, if you're using AW's "gangs" mechanics pretty much as-written, it might be worthwhile to tweak the numbers-- if your average Ghoul is going to command nations or worlds full of the dead, that kind of scale will break AW's crowd-based combat pretty quickly, won't it?

Tweaking this, as well as barter. Although I'm not sure if I envision the ghoul controlling legions of the dead. One of the things that appeals to me about the ghoul concept is embodied in its name: there is something... intimate in its grotesquerie. Add that to the list of Problems of Scale.

QuoteIs it accurate to say that most of the Ghoul moves will be blasphemous necromancer-style stuff and most of the Revenant moves will be more about personal might and being driven and unstoppable?

This. All the way. The Revenant distinctly remembers being dead, too. The passion that fuels their resurrection comes in part from a dread of that place, or at least a world-transcending disdain for inertia.

ALTHOUGH: since we're talking about The Ghoul, one and only, perhaps he gnaws on the festering flesh of nations, as much as on human sweetmeats. Gah! The possibilities!

QuoteIf your ideal "endgame" mostly involves powerful characters interacting with stuff (as opposed to, say, learning uberspells they can use at will), might be worth considering dropping the third category and just leaning hard on the fourth.

Advancement caps restrain character growth through moves, just like in AW. Beyond that, yes, Category 4 all the way.

It's time for me to take this talk and hammer it into something sexy.

Thinking lately about the barter mechanic from AW, and how even if money is not important enough to model in this system, some other similar bartering might work well along those lines.

Consider, for instance, if instead of starting the game with oddments worth x amount of "barter", certain playbooks started with oaths and pacts worth x "favor" (or "leverage" or "influence" or "demonologiac summoning" or whatever) with various spirits or entities.

This way you could gin up a playbook or two that feels similar to a Hardholder, where a lot of the character's power isn't bound up in personal might but in "buying power" (and possessions and ability to coerce others with influence and ability to give gifts that don't really cost the giver much). Only instead of buying-power-as-cash, it can be buying power in terms of having coerced favors from a slew of demons, or buying power in terms of knowing the most agreeable names of the eight thousand spurned gods.

Is anything more going into this setting? Because as far as Apocalypse World hacks go, I'd rate this one's potential right up there with Monsterhearts and I'm really interested in seeing what else can come out of it.

My investment in a project is only ever as thorough as my players' and right now we have two other dedicated systems running, so it's hard to squeeze this one in. We've playtested the ghoul and the zoanthrope, but progress is otherwise slow.

Small update:

I am still working on this (between the Jade Stage session report I promised Luminous maybe FOUR years ago and continued work on What We Lost). There is a fair bit of setting specific material in Apocodritch the way it's currently developing, and I just wanted to run the crux of it by anyone who's still interested so that it doesn't surprise them later.

[ic]She is the closest and brightest star. After her are named the lights we carry into shadowed places – that we hang above our beds to spite the demons of our dreams and with which we bejewel our cities so that they seem reflections of the sky. In an ancient myth the world itself was shed by Lantern as a tumbling drop of blood, and she is forever growing in that distant dark, one day to overcome us all. Her original name is Sun, which means Devourer. We have forgotten this.

A player asked me: since there's no real sun does that mean that everybody on this world is an albino? Another player interjected: just make them blue and green and red and yellow and black instead. So there you have it.

We live on and in the flesh of creatures that are taller than rivers are long and tangled into the shapes of mountains. Their mouths and eyes and clefts are the caverns of the world, as are the shifting spans between their bodies. When they stretch their substance into pillars or  twine in arches across the faraway sea our feet cling sidewards or even towards heaven and we greet the ocean as we would the sky.

Our forms are theirs – in imitation or as inspiration – and our actions are the quickened pantomime of their divine parade. Their deeds are measured against the aeons as ours are by the circling of the sun. We cannot glimpse such motions, so slow are they. Yet they are moving. Immeasurably, implacably. In silent congress or invisible war.[/ic]Spinning the mechanics around a distinct setting helps me maintain my interest, but I hope to make it unobtrusive enough that you can ditch the fluff without ruining the crunch.

Right now we're only committed to five archetypes: Zoanthrope, Alienist, Alchemist, Ghoul and Revenant. These five have a good sense not only of what they can do, but what they are. Any new archetypes will need a simple hook comparable to the Z's "beastman and master of beasts" or the G's "craven and concealed manipulator and eater of the dead".

At the moment it's looking more and more like the scale will be close to that of and you, ARRUNTULLA! That takes it far from the intended level of scope and grandeur intimated at the top of this page. I'll post the little that I have (hard drive crash, sigh) and if you all have any suggestions to help steer it to loftier heights (if it's even necessary), feel free to say a few words.

FAIR means graceful, gracious, sensual, compelling.
STERN means disciplined, measured, unfliching, unforgiving.
CRUEL means jealous, malicious, merciless, hateful.
WISE means attentive, inquiring, insightful, circumspect.

OATHS are sorceries that bind one soul in some way to another's service. They can be of varied strength and they endure until discharged by the beneficiary, completed by the swearer, or betrayed by either party. Two sorcerers may swear different oaths to one another, or even possess a common oath to which each has committed a different spiritual effort. PCs cannot swear oaths with NPCs.

At the moment I imagine an oath has a rating of 1-3 and functions similarly to the Hx rules in AW. When the swearer satisfies the oath's conditions it is considered discharged. At any time the beneficiary can deal harm to the swearer equal to the strength of the oath, and consider it discharged.

FAVOURS are oaths of limited strength and small remit, bestowed by gods and monsters and mortals, or else owed to such beings. I'm not sure how they'll work.

COHORTS function like (but not exactly like) AW gangs. A cohort can be a group of creatures (such as a zoanthrope's idiot tribe) or a powerful individual (an alchemist's golem).


THE ALIENIST
Fair+1 Stern-1 Cruel=0 Wise+2
Fair+2 Stern-1 Cruel-1 Wise+2
Fair+1 Stern=0 Cruel-1 Wise+2
Fair=0 Stern-1 Cruel+1 Wise+2

Choose two:

The ones hidden behind flesh
You are a demon or a banished god or a hive of stellar parasites, bound into a mortal body.

Strange puppetry

THE REVENANT
Imprisoned in a labyrinth built of paradoxes and nightmares; banished beyond space and time; butchered and cast into the deepest hell... yet somehow returned, strange and embittered and glorious.
Fair=0 Stern+2 Cruel+1 Wise-1
Fair=0 Stern+2 Cruel-1 Wise+1
Fair+1 Stern+2 Cruel=0 Wise-1
Fair+1 Stern+2 Cruel-1 Wise=0

You get this one, and choose two more:

Blood guilt
In betraying or killing you your enemies have built up a great spiritual debt. Hold 1-favour against every one of them who matters, and 1-oath against the one who matters most.

HELL's terrible eye

THE ZOANTHROPE
Fair-1 Stern+2 Cruel+1 Wise=0
Fair=0 Stern+2 Cruel+1 Wise-1
Fair-1 Stern+1 Cruel+2 Wise=0
Fair=0 Stern+1 Cruel+2 Wise-1

Choose two:

An idiot tribe
You possess a cohort of half-tamed beasts. Maybe a pack of wolves, a horde of rats, or a murder of mutant crows...

THE GHOUL
Fair-2 Stern+1 Cruel+2 Wise+1
Fair-1 Stern+1 Cruel+2 Wise=0
Fair-2 Stern+1 Cruel+2 Wise+1
Fair=0 Stern=0 Cruel+2 Wise-1

You get this one, and choose two more:

A foul banquet
Whenever you eat the flesh straight off the bones of a living mortal choose one:
~You heal 1 harm
~You steal an oath or favour they possessed, gaining its benefit at minimum intensity.
~You recover their memories of the last 24 hours. To do this you must consume their living brain.
Any oaths or favours you owe a victim are considered betrayed. Any that they owe you are considered discharged.

Cloak of the living

The herd

Extispicy
This is the ghoul's divination move. It involves rummaging through guts for patterns and prophetic deformities.

THE ALCHEMIST
Fair=0 Stern+1 Cruel=0 Wise+1
Fair-1 Stern+1 Cruel=0 Wise+2
Fair=0 Stern+2 Cruel-1 Wise+1
Fair-1 Stern+1 Cruel+1 Wise+1

You get this one, and choose one more:

Laboratory

Golem

Gadgets

So, about those stats.

What are your basic moves that every character has access to? Are you using the standard AW set in some way? I feel like knowing what each stat is used for helps to know what the stats feel like, and in turn informs what the playbooks feel like.

I also find it unusual that not all playbooks have a "main stat" that is consistent. Your alienist is always going to have maximum Wise, that's their highest stat, and it's presumably what a majority of the alienist moves are built around. Same with revenant/stern and ghoul/cruel (it rhymes!). But other playbooks are less clear. Are alchemists Wise-based? It's always at least tied for their highest stat, but sometimes alchemists start with no stat higher than +1 (which in itself is unusual). And sometimes zoanthropes have Cruel as the highest stat, and sometimes they have Stern? Do they just have a crazy mixed bag of abilities, or should this be firmed up? Also, any plans for a Fair-based playbook?

One thing I've noticed about AW playbooks is that each playbook is based around a single stat, which is +2 (or occasionally +3) in all stat lines, and the real options come into play when you're picking a complementary stat. So your Angel is sometimes Smart and Cool, and sometimes Smart and Hard, but always at least +2 Smart, because so many (but not all) of the Angel moves rely on Smart. So is this sort of organization something you strive for, or are you looking for playbooks with a looser focus?

Also, some of the names of those playbook moves are hella intriguing. Any tantalizing hints about what they're intended to be?

I should note that this project is really inspiring me to work on similar projects of my own.

All of the stat arrays add up to +2, except one of the ghoul's, which is +1 (the logic being that if a player wants a ghoul who is not at all ugly, it's really going to cost him)

The Alienist is always Wise+2
Certain truths have been revealed to him by the stars. He is almost always Fair, because the things that dwell outside creation are as beautiful as they are strange. When he is not Fair, it is because he is Cruel. He is never Stern, because the Outsiders have overmastered his will.

The Revenant is always Stern+2
The crucible has wounded him beyond feeling and hardened him to inflexibility. He is often Fair, because the strength that compels him is bright and glorious. He is sometimes Wise, having dredged up the secrets of the lunatic or the dead; and sometimes Cruel, having made horrid and soul blackening choices in pursuit of his liberty.

The Zoanthrope is often Stern+2 and often Cruel+2
He is a master of low creatures and so must have the constancy of a parent or the savagery of a slaver. He has an animal's mind and so is not Wise. He feuds with and lays with and moves as though a beast, and so is not Fair.

The Ghoul is always Cruel+2
His sorceries and his appetites demand the suffering of human beings. That magic has twisted him, or else his own inward loathing has made him pathetic, so he is always far from Fair. The coolness of his heart grants him discipline, so that he is often Stern. The truths that he finds in the blood and bones of mortals have inspired him with strange fancies, so that he is often Wise, though it is an ill wisdom.

The Alchemist is both Stern and Wise
I've amended the alchemist's stat line slightly. He is foremost an engineer, and must possess insight and discipline in equal measure. Many of his queer sciences were gained at the costs of human lives and those sacrifices have twisted him, so that he is sometimes Cruel. He is not Fair.