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Greyhawk, Arch-Mage War and the World’s End

After last Sunday’s game, we’re sitting around the dining room table, talkin’ shit, a normal post-game routine for us.  Pete has his map of Greyhawk nearby, so he drops it on the table and starts talking to us about the fictional history of it all.  Pete is an awesome public speaker but Aaron and I are tired and have nothing invested in Greyhawk, having never played a game in its borders.

“This nation blah blah blah and that nation and evil monks the Brotherhood of the Red something-or-other.  Greyhawk is actually a city, a magocracy,” (my ears prick up a bit), ” until the arch-mages who ruled it got into a war.  A few left the plane, maybe going to Sigil or wherever.  So now-”

“Wait, stop the presses.  An arch-mage war?  That is the stuff.  I’d be up for playing the midst of an urban arch-mage war.  Shit, I’d want to play a wizard who wants to gain arch-mage status, wants to step up and gain something from the conflict.  I mean, this Realms game could end anywhere from 3-8+ games from now.”

Aaron get’s the scared look in his eye, the look of a player whose game will end before he’s ready for it to end.  He urges us, “Let’s not rush to find an ending to the campaign we are playing.”

“Nope, I’m on no rush but if it goes down, we could play that if Pete would run it.  That’s all I’m saying.”

And I’m not in any rush to end the Realms game at all.  I’d be more than happy with playing around with Old Snarl and the siege of Felbar and moving on to other things…maybe doing some running around along the Sea of Fallen Stars, giving the Zhentarim a run for their money.  Those seeds are certainly planted and ready in the campaign already.

It was just funny and odd how quickly I got excited by Greyhawk once Pete showed me some situation amidst his nostalgia.  At some point, I will have to write a blog post about the arch-mage/gunslinger found within the Greyhawk canon.

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Just Outside the City

I started this game not only because I wanted to play Apocalypse World but because I hadn’t gamed with this crew in quite a while.  I will be attempting to get a job in New York City in 2011 and playing AW felt like a nice excuse to game again, a nice way to say good-bye to good friends.

Game 1, In and Out of Pole

“You’ve just gotten out of the city and you are dragged a big-ass haul behind you, like, dragged behind the car with chains.  What did you get out of the city?”

Some ideas are thrown out there.

J.J. speaks up.  “Maybe its a person.”

“Its a fucking person.  Yes.  Chained up in a trailer. Someone dangerous.  Who is it?”

“The local warlord’s daughter?  Maybe a Romeo and Juliet kind of thing?”

“Yeah, she went off and hitched up with a rival, Dog head and her dad, the Warlord of Pole is pissed.  Her dad is Millions.”

And off we went.

Front Creation 1, Crafting Fronts

I got home and got excited.  My buddy, Witt, was in town and we sat up and talked about gaming and life and shit.  I started asking questions about New York City, about where our game taking place just outside The City, could be set.  He mentioned Duchess County and we were off and running.

Maps, links, bookmarking shit, reading wikipedia and so on.  I’m thinking of printing out a Revolutionary War era map and marking it up with a sharpie.

The Hudson River has some fun toys.  West Point.  The Indian Point Nuclear Plant.  Spook Rock.  Crazy tides with brackish water.

Game 2, Explosions on Bear

On a piece of paper I wrote the following words:

Rival
Lover
Unfinished Business
Friend

And asked questions, handing out one off the list to each of them.

Turns out Bullit has a rival, one of Saffron’s customers named Toyota.  He drives a rusted out Toyota truck that he piles his nine kids into the bed, giving them weapons.

Baby’s lover is one of Saffron’s girls, Newton.  Newton wants her to buy out her contract so she can leave Bear and travel around with Baby’s gang on the back of her bike.

Marsh has unfinished business, having been mugged last time he was in town by a guy who had pretended to be his buddy and gotten drinks with him.

Dent had a friend, another faceless named Stomp, with a mask made from car-seat leather and tremendous boots that give him his name.

And the whole game drove on from those four bits, those questions the players answered.

Game 3, Myths Busted, Hardholds Taken

The proceedings went around in circles for a while and then the Kipsie said something about no one having to bow down to him.  I tell everyone that he is fucking lying.

Baby fucking shoots him.  Seize by Force.

The king is dead, hail to the queen.

Front Creation 2, Cannibal Country, the Garden

Thanks for the medical cannibalism info, Jason and thanks again for the custom moves!

Great stuff.

 

Game 4, From West Point to Kip-Town

Spent the first bit of the game filling out info on their holds.  Both have manufactories (West Point makes lumber, Kip-town – cows).  We sped up time a month and just let them ease into things.  I didn’t make any hard moves, lots of vague future badnesses and some apocalyptica vomitting but honestly, nothing heavy.

It was the two hardholders, Bullet at West Point and Baby at Kip-town and Dent, the Faceless, roaming between the two, hammer in hand.  Dent has become an unmitigated bad-ass.  Or as JJ said so aptly, “Take moves from other character types…why would I?  I have so many awesome choices with the Faceless…as soon as I get enough XP together, I will be able to TALK to my mask and ask it advice.”

Letters to the Characters, thinking up new fronts

We took a few weeks off, some folks longer than others.  Seemed like a good time for this kinda thing.

Thoughts and comments on the letter-moves is appreciated.  Making moves is something I am still getting used to.

Game 5, Rabid Bikers and a Violent Wedding

Rubbin is growing up so damned fast, 15 year old girls are like that and since she had been adopted by Bullet, she’s kinda blossomed.  The Driver, turns out, is a decent dad and since he took over West Point she eats well and is learning from Fitty the art of the gun and learning some driving from Mr. Bullet.

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Rabid Bikers and a Violent Wedding

With that kind of title, it can only be an Apocalypse World AP thread:

Ya see, Baby thought Rubbin would just brain Rose with the crowbar when she wasn’t looking and Bullet thought the fair fight would just be hand to hand.  She mixed the two bits of advice from the two people she looked up to most.  It is one of those classic Apocalypse World parenting mistakes that anyone could make and it led to their teenage adopted daughter into a crowbar duel with a bloodthirsty gang leader.

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Apocalypse World: From West Point to Kip-town

Another AP thread:

Spent the first bit of the game filling out info on their holds.  Both have manufactories (West Point makes lumber, Kip-town – cows).  We sped up time a month and just let them ease into things.  I didn’t make any hard moves, lots of vague future badnesses and some apocalyptica vomitting but honestly, nothing heavy.

It was the two hardholders, Bullet at West Point and Baby at Kip-town and Dent, the Faceless, roaming between the two, hammer in hand.  Dent has become an unmitigated bad-ass.  Or as JJ said so aptly, “Take moves from other character types…why would I?  I have so many awesome choices with the Faceless…as soon as I get enough XP together, I will be able to TALK to my mask and ask it advice.”

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Last Sane Friday

Reading: I put down Who Fears Death for a bit but will pick it back up to finish the last few dozen pages. I am digging it.

I picked up Vance’s Dying Earth novels, all 4 in one book, with the Demon Princes on deck. I love how Vance’s fantastic shit doesn’t seem to be based on any recognizable myth or legend. There’s a hint of it here and there, a pixie here, a demon there but they are fairly alien and I dig that.

Tonight’s a game of AW, with the players holding hardholds on the north and south of the Hudson. Should be fun.

Planning: My praciticum starts in earnest next week. My weekday gaming has been entirely scrapped. I will be looking at double-shifts most days until December or so. A few of my games will either have to be moved to the weekend or abandoned for a few months.

Writing: Upon reading Vance, I naturally started writing about a library under a bruised sun but my young ladies who kill monsters while worshipping an owl totem-goddess is still in motion.

And you?

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AW AP by Technique

I have a really hard time writing about AW, especially the complicated nights like last night.  I should stick to best practices, talking about one technique or mechanic that effected play but something in my head makes me want to convey the whole damned game.

So, here are two new AP threads, with more to come, AP threads that break play of the game down into MC Moves and Principles, use of them and how they worked in play.

AP by Move – Inflict Harm

2) Bullet is following this Nissan and the trunk opens up.  You realize right then that the trunk was rigged so it could be opened from the inside. Kneeling in there is a kid with an uzi on some kind of jury-rigged tripod.  He blazes on your windshield.  3 harm and make a harm move.

He rolled a 7-9 on the Harm Move, so he lost track of the Nissan.

I have trouble bringing this one out.  I admit it, I totally feel guilty bringing out damage without some kind of a die roll.  Example #2 was only after a die roll was failed.

AP by Principle – Ask provocative questions and build on the answers

Ask provocative questions and build on the answers is the principle that pulls out more story per square word than any other technique in the book, to my mind.  There has never been an answer that hasn’t ended up being featured in a future moment in the game.  Sometimes (#4), I had the answer linked to a custom move.  Other times it just feeds into the game’s atmosphere.

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The king is shot. Long live the queen of Kip-town.

I wrote an AP thread but it sucks.  Ah, don’t read it.  Just read this.

Everyone ends up sitting down with the Kipsie for breakfast.  He is the bastard in charge of Kip-town, the one who bombed Bear and Beacon.  The one who has sent biker gangs to hunt down river folk who take people across the squid-infested Hudson.  But, that said, he puts out on a nice breakfast spread (real bacon, eggs, coffee) and he loves his elderly parents.

Baby and Marsh don’t want anything to do with the Kipsie’s nonsense.  They don’t like him and don’t want to bow down to him.

Bullet is willing to leave his daddy’s NASCAR race-car, still cherry, never driven in-game as a hostage, ruling West Point in the Kipsie’s name.

Dent reckons being under the Kipsie is fine for now but then, Dent figures he can either kill him or destroy his bridge later.  When your tool is a sledge-hammer, everything looks like something to bludgeon.

How did they get here?

Montage:

They come upon West Point, having found that it is all a myth, that the soldiers here fell upon one another a long time ago in a feud after the chain of command broke down.  There is no army here.  After a fight with some smartly dressed cannibals with matching AR-15 assault rifles and clothes that looked kinda post-apoc Amish chic (“Holy shit, guys,” Marsh said over the corpose of a cannibal kid he knifed, “these cannibals, they don’t just salvage; they’re producing.”

Bullet replied, “They’re making shit!  See, these are the kinds of people I want to deal with.”).

Baby pretty much single handedly drove the cannibals off with some blazing gun-play but she got shot up something terrible, and worse yet, got the spirit of a little dead cannibal boy driven into her skull when Marsh’s psychic healing went poorly.

It was those bullets that drove Bullet to zoom her up to Kip-town to the only reliable doc on the Hudson and it was that trip that led to Bullet being in debt to the Kipsie.

And that brings us to breakfast, until the Kipsie lies and they know he is lying because I tell them.

“I don’t want to rule over you.”

He’s lying.

Bang, bang, Baby shot him dead.

Bullet and Baby both had improvements ready to roll as the session ended.  They both took hardholds.  Baby will run Kip-town and Bullet will run West Point.

And that isn’t even talking about Rubbin, the little 14 year old girl whose family Bullet killed in a brutal road-race but now he is raising her as his own.  She’s a side character but I dig her, maybe too much.

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Our game enters the final arc of its first book

Exit the Sage, Enter the War Wizard:

It felt like the first part of Chapter 3, the Seige of Felbar. It was a promising start and it felt like a very different game without Celedon. With Aaron playing an established member of the Deep Six, the game suddenly feels entirely different and in a cool way. It is nice to see the adventuring company in action and watch Aaron and Pete get a feel for Arkadian and Auric’s rhythm.

Links to our other BWFR threads after the cut.

Continue reading →

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In which a beloved player-character retires…

From this BW AP:

The king asked to meet Celedon in the library, where his book, chronicling all he has seen on the Sword Coast, on a lectern.

“Celedon, I have read your book and I can fathom your intentions here. You seek to have my daughter crowned Etharch of the Sword Coast. You would have me send an elven host to guard her and send them to help your friend, Auric. The Burning Wheel is not only an artifact of great power but a prophecy, a sign of fire and blood to come.

“If you wish to ask that of me, you may do so tomorrow, in front of the court but not now. For now, allow me to put down my crown and only be my daughter’s father, concerned for the elf she married. I would offer my daughter’s husband a job in my court.

“Waterdeep is indeed a city of splendors but there are other cities…cities of doors, cities of brass, places where I need an emissary. I would ask you to travel to these far-away lands and use your skills for all of Evermeet. There is a grove of portals just outside and I would ask you to traverse these portals in my name.

“There was an etharch of the Sword Coast on Ilfarne. I was a ward there as a boy, taught how to use a sword there when a citadel still stood. You would ask me to put my daughter in that same danger…to make her a target for all of your enemies…the Zhents…the Thayans, they would all seek her harm. You are setting her up for tragedy.

“I only ask that you stay and use what you have learned on the Sword Coast and think not only of the young species in the north but of your wife’s safety and the safety of your child.”

Yeah, I dropped a bomb, I let Celedon know that he would have a child soon. The king knows everything on Evermeet.

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Mapping the apocalypse.

From the AW forum:

I took a map of upstate New York and marked up Duchess County with red and black sharpie markers.  I X’ed out all of the bridges into the cities.  If you want in to NYC, you have to crawl down the western roads or make a deal with the cannibals who control the tunnels.

I labeled New Jersey as Cannibal Country (partly an homage to a post-apoc PTA game from a few years ago and partly because I grew up in New Jersey).

At the base of the Hudson I wrote, “Squid up through Kip-town,” because I read that the Hudson is brackish right up to that point and I also saw a youtube video about these fucking squid on the west coast and liked the idea of them having made it this far east and up the Hudson.

Stuck Pole on the eastern side of the Hudson, coming out of the city, put Dog head’s ‘hold, Coop, in Yonkers.  The other ‘holds are bridges, leading up to Kip-town, the self-proclaimed capital of the region.

On a piece of paper I wrote the following words:

Rival
Lover
Unfinished Business
Friend

And asked questions, handing out one off the list to each of them.

Turns out Bullit has a rival, one of Saffron’s customers named Toyota.  He drives a rusted out Toyota truck that he piles his nine kids into the bed, giving them weapons.

Baby’s lover is one of Saffron’s girls, Newton.  Newton wants her to buy out her contract so she can leave Bear and travel around with Baby’s gang on the back of her bike.

Marsh has unfinished business, having been mugged last time he was in town by a guy who had pretended to be his buddy and gotten drinks with him.

Dent had a friend, another faceless named Stomp, with a mask made from car-seat leather and tremendous boots that give him his name.

And the whole game drove on from those four bits, those questions the players answered.