Cash, Rules, Everything, Around, Me
Wu-Tang Clan
C.R.E.A.M.
Get the money
Dollar, dollar bill y’allIt’s been twenty-two long hard years, I’m still strugglin’
Survival got me buggin’, but I’m alive on arrival
I peep at the shape of the streets
And stay awake to the ways of the world ’cause shit is deep
A man with a dream with plans to make C.R.E.A.M.
Yesterday in our Cyberpunk Nurse Asynchronous Video Play by Post game, Daniel agreed to take Mr. Roark (fuckin’ Roark, man) to an underground hospital so he could avoid corporate assassins out to get him. He agreed to pay him.
Nurse Lip agreed to take payment in old school Trauma Team International gear but what if he went for the creds?
Here’s the move, inspired by the Burned Over zine and Apocalypse World.
Cash or Creds
When some assholes agrees to pay you in cash or credstick, talk to the MC and decide which if the payment is:
Some cash, a nice tip
Take +1 Forward on your next Barter roll
Stupid money, really opulent, more money than you are used to seeing in one place.
Take +1 Forward for Barter and Act Under Fire +Barter if what you purchase could hurt or infringe on the territory of someone else or give you an advantage over a threat, if you fail the +1 is gone.
Fuck-you-money, a monarch’s ransom, some Scrooge McDuck shit.
Buy whatever you want whenever you want but once you buy anything out of the norm word hits the streets. Threats are going to circle you.
If you should buy something really huge and game-changing (aircraft carrier, Manhattan, a spaceship, a satellite, a space elevator, a giant kaiju-punching robot, etc) scale down from Fuck-you-money to Stupid money.
Now I’m going to do my best D. Vincent Baker/Meguey Baker impression with a play example. This makes me nervous because the AW2e book has my favorite play examples ever.
An Example with further thoughts
“More money than I can count? Fuck it, I buy an aircraft carrier with jets and shit. Let’s do this.”
“Cool! Let’s talk about what buying an aircraft carrier looks like in this neon apocalypse.”
“I dunno. usedaircraftcarrier.gov?”
“Let’s think about it. There are U.S. Navy aircraft carriers for sale. Shit, there are some sailing around out there, floating without orders since the Elevator Wars looking for a place to get fuel and supplies. Every so often you hear about a coastal town getting ransacked by one.
“Your local arms dealer, Dremmer has a bodyguard with a Marines tattoo. Word is he served on one and got away. He might know how to purchase such a thing. Maybe ask him to set up a sit-down?”
“Shit, I’m not going to be able to just order one online am I?”
“Want to jack into the net and see if there is a place to buy one online? Sounds like Open Your Brain…”
See what I’m doing there? I’m not telling the player no. Shit, I think the game becomes MORE interesting if they purchase an aircraft carrier. The contact, the sales and the negotiation will be interesting to me and put lots more threats on the map.
I’m not putting hurdles in their way. I’m barfing forth cyber-apocalyptica (raids from off-shore aircraft carriers desperate for supplies…niiiice), thinking off-screen and responding with fuckery.
What I’m not doing is telling them that it is impossible or shrugging and saying that they have no idea how to go about doing that. I’m offering ideas that I think will lead to cool shit happening if they decide to follow up.
An Example That Jumps To It
“Cal wants to buy an aircraft carrier.”
“Cool. Cal hands the jingle over to Captain Dustwich who heads into the Baltimore/Atlanta/Indie Triangle with a small fortune and several platoons of loyal marines. She salutes and hands Cal a saber. The people who have lived and worked on the carrier are looking up at you and your posse…”
A Mistake Example with Correction
“Brushfire wants to buy an aircraft carrier with this Fuck-You-Money.”
“No way. Fuck that. That is ridiculous.”
“Could we talk about it? If it really bugs you I’ll find something else to do. I don’t want anyone to feel unsafe if aircraft carriers are a trigger but I think it could be a fun hardhold and getting to the purchase could make for some fun moves.”
“Shit, yeah. Give me a few minutes to think this over. I was so surprised that I just knee-jerked a negative. Let’s take a break, let me digest and come together and talk about what that would look like, ask each other a bunch of questions.”
I don’t know what they want from me
The Notorious B.I.G.
It’s like the more money we come across
The more problems we see
Githyanki Diaspora 
Noice!
Speaking of aircraft carriers, we had a game of AW set in a frigid cold coastal wasteland and the Hardholders holding was an aircraft carrier that had run aground. The nuclear fuel leaking into the flooded lower decks, melting ice and mutating the life (and unlife!) there. The holder hitting golf balls off the back deck out to the frozen sea. Fun times.