As stated I started to work on a Apocalypse World hack this week. The GM prep was actually quite easy to write as I have been planing this kind of campaign for quite a long time.
Now I do not make the mistake of calling what I have written ready. Actually I believe it will go through some changes still. But I do see this as an interesting opportunity to share the writing process to gain futher ideas and to hone it.
Again – I used the Simple World structure when making this.
Wayward Sons
An Apocalypse World hack
The characters are ripped from their conventional lives by some unnatural event that forces them on the move. They dedicate their lives to investigate the strange and unexplained in secrecy. For they know that hidden forces are always working against them and that the general public would judge them insane. What they do not know that they are all on the road to turn into the very monsters they hunt.
Stats:
Fitness: physicality, endurance, agility
Presence: influence, charm, looks
Violence: aggression, fighting, shooting
Intellect: knowledge, education, rational thinking, reason
Discipline: willpower, mental strength
Assign to stats: +2, +1, +1, 0, -1
Trust
Set Trust to other characters at the beginning of the game by distributing points equal to the number of characters. Trust can be set from 0 to 3.
When you Help or Hinder a character roll THEIR Trust to you +roll.
Additional Stats:
Experience
Gain experience for:
+1 for invoking own Trait to escalate the situation
+1 for each Condition gained
+1 for each esoteric secret learned (from old tomes etc.)
+1 after each session
+1 after each session when the group votes for “who made the game most interesting”
Using experience for:
-1 to re-roll
-1 to activate a Sigil
-1 to gain narrative leeway
-n to power up a ritual (depends on the level of the ritual)
-2 gain a new Trait (up to maximum of 12 Traits)
-2 to reduce Taint level by one
-4 to mark an advance
Taint
Each character starts with 0 points of Taint and a Taint Move:
Spark of Taint
Whenever you commit an inhuman act (kill someone in cold blood, work magic, eat human flesh etc.) make roll+Discipline.
10+ You remain unaffected by the Taint
On a 7-9, You are fighting the Taint. You may choose to advance it.
On a miss, your Taint advance a step.
Character Concepts:
Journalist (pushing for extra info, gaining influence with public writing, heavy drinking)
Medium (contact to ghosts, sensing weird stuff, being mysterious)
Collector (weird collections, trivial knowledge, extensive connections)
Cult Member (access to occult lore, backup from cult brothers, being in danger)
Biker (looking menacing, having biker contacts, breaking stuff)
Dealer (getting illegal things, being paranoid, all talk)
Private Eye (noticing hidden clues, getting it on with dames, shadowing people)
Boxer (hitting stuff, getting hit, abandoned boxing studio)
Ex-Cop (hangover, strained relationships, no-nonsense mood)
The Agendas:
- Make the players’ characters’ lives not boring.
- Play to find out what happens.
- Drive the characters to turn into monsters
The Principles:
- The devil is in the details.
- Introduce a believable world of (supernatural) secrets.
- Give the world more depth through play.
- Come up with interesting mysteries, not interesting adventures.
- Make your move, but misdirect.
- Make your move, but never speak its name.
- Use NPCs to introduce constancy, then destroy them.
- Name everyone, make everyone human.
- Ask provocative questions and build on the answers.
- Respond with challenging circumstances and occasional rewards.
- Be a fan of the players’ characters.
- Think offscreen, too.
- Occasionally, let the players answer the questions.
- The fight is in vain, for humanity means little on the grand scale of things
GM Moves
- Separate them.
- Capture someone.
- Put someone in a high-stakes situation.
- Harm someone (as established).
- Trade harm for harm (as established).
- Announce off-screen badness.
- Announce future badness.
- Take away one of their Things.
- Demonstrate one of their Things’ bad sides.
- Give them a difficult decision to make.
- Tell them the possible consequences and ask.
- Turn their move back on them.
- Make a move from one of your Dangers or Bigger Pictures.