Appalachia Now!

[hardcoremoose]

Hey everyone.

Once in a while I metnion this game in conversation, but until now I hadn't gotten all of the rules together in one place.  Thanks to Zak, I decided to do that today.  

I actually received hate mail because of this game, so if you're easily offended by stereotyping and the promotion of stupid cliches, you may want to stay away.

This whole thing has existed, in exactly its current form, since about this time last year.  I had just bought Elfs and was inspired to do something with Director's Stance.  And even though it was an experiment, I still convinced some of my friends to play it, and it kind of caught on.  I've played it three or ofur times since, far more than most of my other game designs.

Still, as I rewrote it today, I realized how incoherent some of it was.  When I wrote, I didn't know what Premise was.  Many of the mechanics exist only because I thought they were cool.  I resisted the urge to revise, and instead present it to you exactly as I conceived of it a year ago, in the exact same form my friends and I played (complete without working combat system).

The design process goes on.  I'm cosidering stripping out the old school skill system.  I'm still trying to come up with some combat mechanics.  A bunch of little things are still bugging me, like whether you should be able to call upon a Luvved Un to re-roll your Licker Die.  And, of course, there's lots of goofy setting material (my favorite, Tarnation - the Hillbilly equivalent of Hell).

So any comments, suggestions, or advice would be welcome.  If anyone wants to take a crack at Premise and GNS compatibility, I'm sure it would be enlightening.  And, of course, I'm curious to see what people think of the subject matter (please, no hate mail though).

Take care,
Scott

http://hardcoreroleplaying.homestead.com/now.html">Appalachia Now

[Zak Arntson]

I'm loving AN. Thanks for making it available! It's now on my mental to-play list.

Comments:

Skill List: Why the skill list? It seems everything could be handled by, say, a single Specialty (Speshultee) score (a catch-all, like "I's a good hunter, yup"). Heck, with Inbred, Lernin, Limit and Luved Uns, I think you may not even need skills. Luved Uns & the three basic stats are enough for a good story.

Experience: Do the hillbillies need to get better? Is your focus exterminating the bugs or making for funny hillbilly stories? I'm going to push you towards #2 and suggest you just get rid of improvement mechanics. I'm not going to play AN to get better 'n better hillbillies. See InSpectre's (final copy) Franchise mechanic; all players cooperatively earn "experience" to improve a shared NPC (their franchise) from which they can all draw from during play.

Combat: I wouldn't worry about combat as a mechanic separate from the main game. Handling combat with your Good Die/Licker Die system will be funny enough.

Structure: I don't quite get what you do in the game. Granted, you could respond with, "It's Sim, you do whatever." But I think the game would be improved with a focus (maybe each session explicitly revolves around a Luvved Un?)

Wild Suggestion: This looks like it would be great for an InSpectres supplement with a Shadows-esque/AN (Good/Bad Die) rulesy thing added.

Big Question for You: What is the game trying to accomplish? A bughunt in the woods? Crazy hillbilly stories with a bughunt as backdrop? Again, I'm pushing you towards #2.

Those're my thoughts. Let me know if I'm pushing you towards something that isn't in line with what you want, so I'll stop :)

[Kenway]

Ah yes, you were inspired by the 90s-era pc game Redneck Rampage, right?

[hardcoremoose]

Zak,

Pretty much everything you said mirrors my own thoughts.  

Skill List: Why the skill list?

As I was rewriting the text this afternoon for public consumption, it occurred to me that I didn't really need the skill list.  Sure, it provided some fun color - abilities like Hexin' (hillbilly magic) and Duelin' Banjos were cool, but hardly necessary to the game.  So yeah, I want to get rid of the skil list, but I'll have to pump the Attributes a bit (a major aspect of the game's design is that the players roll really high, sometimes higher than their characters can count, resulting in a Fumble and the GM's big chance to really mess with the players).

Experience: Do the hillbillies need to get better?

As far as Hillbilly improvement goes...there's no real reason for their attributes or skills to get better (nobody's going to play the game long enough for it to make a difference, and anyway, the skills are on the wayout).  But the players sitting around retelling the adventure in the form of some kind of tall tale is a real hoot, and they really do need some points to replenish their Stuff scores with.  That said, that may be all that I retain of the basic reward system.

The real reward in the game is Luvved Uns.  When I wrote the game, Luvved Uns were sort of an afterthought.  In game play, they became the real focus of adventures.  Now I look around these forums and see games where there are extensive mechanics to deal with relationships - games like Trollbabe, Isolation, and others - and I realize that's where the bread and butter is in Appalachia Now

Structure: I don't quite get what you do in the game. Granted, you could respond with, "It's Sim, you do whatever." But I think the game would be improved with a focus (maybe each session explicitly revolves around a Luvved Un?)

The structure thing has somewhat eluded me as well.  Generally, I've been able to construct adventures around exactly what you suggested - characters' Luvved Uns.  Pick a Luvved Un, put it in jeopardy or build some conflict around it, and then let the players go wild.  Normally they generate so much absurdity with their Licker dies that you have no problem filling up a couple hours of game time.  As I revise the game, I'm going to emphasize player generated content at the chargen level - encourage them to create things like Luvved Uns and rival clans - because this is the stuff you can use to create compelling adventures.

Big Question for You: What is the game trying to accomplish? A bughunt in the woods? Crazy hillbilly stories with a bughunt as backdrop? Again, I'm pushing you towards #2.

It's definitely more #2 than #1.  Hell, the bugs almost never show up in the games, and that's part of the high concept - yeah, the world has been taken over by aliens, but life for the hillbillies continues pretty much as normal.  Rival clans, personal goals and conflict...that's what the game usually revolves around, just in a very silly, over-the-top kinda' way.

In fact, I'd be willing to say that the game's not even really about hillbillies.  The redneck trappings, the locale, the aliens...all just imagery that I found interesting.  The crux of the game really is what the players choose to care about, filtered through the lense of the game's odd setting.


Kenway,

Ya' know, I've never played Redneck Rampage, but I had heard of it, and I knew it had something to do with aliens, so maybe it was a subconscious influence.  A more conscious inspiration was The Hills Rise Wild, although I've never played that either.

Take care,
Scott

[Tim Denee]

Yeeee-haw: at any time, any participant can let rip with a good loud yeeeeehaw to reroll their likker die or force someone else to reroll their likker die. In response, someone else can yeeeeehaw to cancel your yeeeehaw. And you can yeeehaw right back. Keep on yeeeehawin' until someone's throat goes hoarse or they give up (wussy).

Chug: if you're near yer limit, you can chug. This counts as taking five shots, 'cept you don't have to check to hold yer likker for your next action, regardless of whether you're over or not.
Once that action's over, you gotta check.

Gamist, you ask me. Have some sort of trophy system where you want to amass the greatest number of skins, pelts, heads, and horns.
Oh, hey, here's an idea:
Start the game with an ol' coot tale-tellin'. The most inbred (roll off for ties) character starts re-ma-nissin' about some great adventure or another, laying out the bare bones. This has to involve at least one luvved un ("remember the time the bugs stole young Skeeter, and we had ta go up inta that there shiny space-ship?"). Then, going clockwise around the table, each player bids. On your turn you can:
1) Raise the stakes: declare what great feat you accomplished on that particular adventure; killed some great bug, blew something up good, etc... This has to be a greater feat than the bids of whoever's gone before you.
2) Nod sagely: this is like passing your go. You are out of the bidding and cannot raise the stakes any more.
Continue around the table until everyone's nodded sagely to one person's bid.
In play, you gain points for killin', blowin' stuff up, savin' folks, and so on.
If the person who won the bidding accomplishes the feat they claimed at the start, they gain mondo-points.

It's kind of like the bidding at the start of a game of Five Hundred.

Enemies should just have a value you have to beat to kill them. Wounds to the character are handled through likker dice complications.
Whoever does the killing blow to a critter gets a number of "clan standin'" points equal to that critter's difficulty.
Whoever has the most clan standin' is the 'Head Honcho'. I don't know what that lets you do.

[Tim Denee]

Zeke: "I remember the time those varmints, the Wilsons, stole Big Butch."
Billy: "A-yup. Raidin' their property was when I blew myself up my first pick-up truck."
Jimbo: "I killed a bug fourteen feet tall that night. Hooo-boy."
Zeke nods sagely.
Billy: "Don't forget when I ripped the heads off of five bugs with my bare hands, all by my lonesome."
Jimbo nods sagely

Billy wins the bidding. The other bids are ignored. If Billy rips the heads off of five bugs all by his lonesome, he gets lots of clan standin'.

[hardcoremoose]

Nomad,

Not bad, although I gotta' say, Gamist is the last of the three branches I though AN would fall under.  It's so player-driven, it's sometimes difficult to introduce major challenges to the characters.  There is a sort of competition that develops naturally, a sort of oneupsmanship between the players as they try to outdo each other with their directorial power, but that's certainly not a formalized part of the rules, and the payoff is usually just belly laughs.

I've toyed with the idea of locating the tale-tellin' part of the game somewhere other than at the end of a session.  I thought, maybe, a whole session could be told as sort of flashback, with intermittent interludes in the "present" where the players can set up some of the conflict for the next part of the session.  Jared uses this sort of structure in InSpectres (not so much to generate content for the game, but rather for the PCs), and at the time I wrote AN, I was deliberately avoiding that since I had just finished writing NightWatch.  It's a good structure though, and might help with Zak's issues of "what to do" in the game.  I'll think some more on it.

Oh, I like your spelling of Likker better than my own.  I think I'm going to co-opt yours, since mine ("licker") conjures the wrong sorts of, ahem, images.

- Scott

[Lance D. Allen]

This heer game sounds rite hilar'yus. I's only gots a few thangs I dun' like 'bout it...

 If'n yer gonna get gone wit duh hobbeez, that's fine by me. But I reckon all kinsmen mebbeshould have a knack er too of their own, ta make 'em more indavidjul. Kinda like whut that Zak feller sez heer:

It seems everything could be handled by, say, a single Specialty (Speshultee) score (a catch-all, like "I's a good hunter, yup").

Mebbe when yer kinsman rolz the die bad in a area whuts his speshultee, he kin rol agin, without havin' ta sober up.

I reely dun' like that stuff be so limit'd, neether, 'speshully yer Still. I think that Still ought ta be a replen- a repleshn-... ya get more of it, wit time. mebbe yer still scor only counts as a limit fer one seshun, an' y'git mor the next one? I no if I play this heer game, I'll prolly play it mor'n wunce, an' I shore don't wanna make a hole new kinsman ever time.

Experyens: Make it loer, but only have it be mor stuff, an I'll be happy.

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

I always liked Appalachia Now, but then again, I'm the Elfs guy, so praising AN seems kind of incestuous.

But then, that would fit, wouldn't it?

Best,
Ron

[hardcoremoose]

Ron,

Thanks for the kind (?) words...


Zak, Tim, Lance, Kenway, and everyone else...

Although I haven't updated the website yet (and who knows when I will?), here's the official rules changes:

No more Hobbeez.  Instead, have each player pick one thing their Kinsmen is good at.  When he's doing that thing, he gets a +5 to his roll.  Call it a Knak or a Speshultee or Hobbee...something like that.

Give the players three more points to spend on Verchooz.  This helps to make up for the lost Hobbee points, and it's important that we keep the die rolling fairly high (so that the players will roll over their I Ken Count Dis High score at least once in awhile).

The game's structure (I'm still thinking about this, so let me know how it sounds):  Start the game off like it's sometime in the future and the characters are all sittin' on their porch sippin' 'shine and tellin' stories.  The story their telling is what will be the adventure.  Let them establish what's going on at the beginning of the adventure - "It was the first day o' spring and we wuz all up at Banyon's Mine..."  Flashback to the first scene of the adventure - in this case Banyon's mine.  During the adventure, each player can take a moment to break the continuity of the adventure, flashing forward to the present, where they can then speak (in character) about "what happened next".  Basically, this an opportunity for the player to add some content of their own liking to the story - "So then we discovered Ol' Banyon's hidden stash of gold, along with enougn TNT to blow that mountain to Tarnation and back."  Each player can do this once, and can only dictate maybe one or two things, but whatever they say is the Gospel truth - it happened just the way they say it did and has to be incorporated into the game.    

Yeah, this last bit is similar to InSpectre's Confessional mechanic.  I mean, it's actually closer to NightWatch's Confesional mechanic, but since I'm gonna' change that back when I rewrite the game it might as well have a home here in AN.

That's what I have so far.  I do have one hang-up regarding the rules changes, and maybe someone out there has a suggestion.

One of the most entertaining things in the game, and the GM's best opportunity to screw with the players, comes when they Fumble (roll higher than their I Ken Count Dis High score).  It doesn't happen all that often, but occasionally someone will goof up.  Now that I've gotten rid of Hobbeez, I have a problem.  Because the IKCDH score is based on a character's Book Lernin', it'll be impossible to Fumble a Book Lernin' roll unless the character's using his Knak (highly unlikely, since most rolls use Inbred).  Is it enough of a problem for me to worry about?  Maybe not, since Book Lernin's is rolled very little, and maybe it makes sense (within the context of the game) for a Kinsmen to only be able to Fumble his Inbred and Licker rolls.  

So there ya' go.  Thanks for the response guys; I look forward to more.

- Scott

[hardcoremoose]

Whoops...

Forgot to mention the reward mechanic.  As it stands right now, I'd kill the basic reward mechanic as written.  The rules for earning new Luvved Uns is still good, but all the Experience Point stuff has to go.  Instead, I'd have the GM award Stuff points at the end of a session, either generic or specific (meaning, he could give each player, say, 6 Stuff points, or he could split it up, saying you get 3 Still points, 2 Stash points and 1 Gunrack).

There may be a better way than just leaving this to GM fiat, but this will work for now.

- Scott

[Skippy]

Howdy, y'all!

Jus' thought Ah'd mention a thang or two about yer fancy yankee ideas of what us good ol' boys sound like.

Now, you've done a right fair job of capturing some of the essence of the hills, but you got ta remember- telling stories is about all we got to do round these parts.  'Cept fer catching possum, that is.

See, we like to take our time when we tells us a story.  Fr'instance, some fancy yankee might say "The man wore a suit."  Tarnation, that ain't interestin' atall.  What we would've said was, "Jed went and put him on his Sunday-go-ta-meeting clothes, the good ones that he had worn to his Mamma's funeral."  Don't that just flow right off'n yer tongue?

Likewise, you been talkin' bout Verchooz.  Why, the only person I ever herd use the werd Verchooz was Reverend Jake, and that was when he was tellin' me I didn't have none.  Us reg'lar folk say stuff like "Know what I like 'bout you, Vern?" 'stead of fancy werds like Verchooz.

Course, I 'spect you think I'm right uppity, tellin' you what all.  I 'pologize if I sound disrespectful.  Mamma said I'd-a probly done better if'n I'd stayed in school past the fifth grade.  I just didn't see no cause for it, though, once I'd learned my letters.

So y'all take care now.  You fellers ain't too bad for yankees, all in all.

Bobby Tibbits,
Ozark, Arkansaw

[Mike Holmes]

Jus' thought Ah'd mention a thang or two about yer fancy yankee ideas of what us good ol' boys sound like.

Being a Yankee, myself, and realizing that this perspicatious reader has pegged Scott as one as well, I would like to call for a general critique of Mr. Knipe's hillbillyisms. For example, could we hear from Mr. West of Kentucky who has probably had more experience with such dialects. Or anyone who has had the distinctly cacophonous experience of ever having to endure the Appalachian Vernacular for an extended period of time.

No disrespect to our dear Mr. Tibbets, but I have trouble believing that anyone from the Pacific Northwest can be trusted to deliver the facts precisely with regards to these matters.

Mike "Yankee without a Cause" Holmes

[Skippy]

Mr. Holmes - Sabers at dawn, if you please, sir!  My second will deliver the challenge personally.

Honestly, though, I spent three of my formative years in the delightful rural town of Ozark, Arkansas, (sixth, seventh, and seventh grades). The high school football team was the Hillbillies.  If anyone wants proof, I have my yearbooks from those days.   I went to school with a young man named Bobby Tibbets, who tormented me on a daily basis.  Ah, childhood.

I am fortunate to have lived in a variety of states during my life, including California, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Illinois, Utah, Florida, Idaho, and Hawaii.

But my point was...

I think a hickier term would be better suited than Verchooz.  Perhaps even a hick phrase.  Aside from the fact that it's not a commonly used word (except among gamers and preachers), you have to look at it carefully to realize what the word is supposed to be.  At least I did, but I'm a little slow.

Bye, y'all.

Skippy, with love in his heart, and sand in his pants.

[Tim Denee]

Oh, oh, another house rule (to add to my 'Yeee-haw' and 'Chug' rules):

Squeal like a pig: if a character is about to die, their player may squeal like a pig to save them. Group consesus judges whether the squeal was good enough.

Um, yes.