Apocalypse World: Mary and Roark

[Christoph Boeckle]

Hi Vincent and all

This is looking good. I always want to know, as a GM, when I have the permission to punch a PC in the face.

Just for curiosity, does this have anything to do with the Push and Pull discussions that were happening some time ago? I can't even find good links to those discussions, but I was wondering if there are any connections.

[lumpley]

Seth: you do establish NPCs' natures when you create them. You can also change their natures freely, as they're embodiments, not things in themself. For instance Birdie used to be just a name, then she became a grotesque: mindfucker, then she became a grotesque: cannibal.

NPCs have no effectiveness other than the moves they let you make. The GM never rolls dice, like in InSpectres, but also never sets a target number (and has full off-screen authority, unlike in InSpectres). The die rolls in the game aren't opposed at all, although occasionally one will trigger a counter-roll, itself unopposed in turn.

Those listings for Roark and Birdie are their whole character sheets. Most NPCs list one more word, like "ignorance" or "despair," but those two happen to not need to.

Christoph: of course it does! But it's not like X-thing in this game = Push and Y-thing in this game = Pull. Instead I'd say something like, in play the game is rich in push-and-pull, denying unilaterality; using the game's rules is like drawing your hand through water, with every push creating, by virtue of the rules, a rush of pull eddying around it. But I'd need to have that conversation with Mo before I committed to it.

(I believe you can find some of Push and Pull in the archives of Sin Aesthetics.)

-Vincent

[GreatWolf]

NPCs have no effectiveness other than the moves they let you make.

That's what I was wondering. That's really nifty.

So then, are the players allowed to know your available moves? Like, Birdie gives you the "attack someone from behind" move. Are the players supposed to know that? I mean, according to your evolving ruleset.

And, if all your players are putting their fingers in their ears and saying, "La la la", how can they be sure that you're saying things that are within the rules?

[Parthenia]

Seth--I (Mary's player) knew that Roark was a brute and that his move is to "victimize someone vulnerable". I also knew that Birdie was a cannibal. I didn't know that her move is to "attack someone from behind".

I don't think I stuck my fingers in my ears. I'm still trying to figure out what Mary's brother Pierre is and what his move is.

Apparently we trust Vincent a lot!

-Julia

[lumpley]

Seth: Oh the list of moves isn't a thing. Like, there's no reason for a player ever to care what moves are available to me; they're listed so that I remember to do them when I have the chance. So when I have to do over on a technicality, it's not ever a "nuh uh that move's not available to you" technicality. It's a "Vincent, did you forget that October's in the room?" technicality. I'm like - "Oh! I did. Dur. Okay, do overs."

So, see, Julia's curious, and I'm keeping some things secret from her on purpose, for the suspense, but there's no conflict of interest there that would make me untrustworthy.

-Vincent

[Parthenia]

In our last session, Mary killed Roark when he returned from his killing rampage, covered in blood. He had brought Joe's Girl back with him (that was the NPC that Mary was okay about him killing. Then Mary decided she wanted Roark to bring Joe's Girl back alive so Mary could do terrible Brainer things to her.)

Things did not go according to plan. Mary thought Roark would come back with a reasonably intact Joe's Girl, before he went off and killed other people, she'd draw him a nice bath, they'd have sex one last time, and she'd kill him before he could do any real damage to the population of the holding. That was the plan. No, I didn't tell Vincent this plan. Instead, Roark brought back a half-dead Joe's Girl, and when Mary took off her gloves and told Roark to come to bed, Birdie, the cannibal kid inside him, answered, "I don't really swing that way."

Mary's heart sank. "I have to kill him now." So she enticed Roark/Birdie with a nice bubble bath and dandelion wine. Make that dandelion wine with enough digitalis to kill a big biker dude like Roark. She got the digitalis from Kal in a previous session. Roark had a heart attack and died in the bathroom.

This all happened without a single die roll, or using a single PC move. I didn't roll to see if Roark accepted the poisoned wine, or if he died, or anything. I guess it could have been "go aggro", but Mary goes aggro either with her brain (and adds her weird), or with her gun (and adds her hard).

I like this. I didn't want to roll to see if Roark would die. It was a given that he was going to go. I said, "I hand Roark dandelion wine with digitalis, enough to kill him." Vincent asked how long would it be for the dig' to take effect. Minutes. Vincent described Roarks demise. It was terribly sad. I did roll to plant a scary thought into someone's head when he made a rude comment about Roark in Mary presence. ("Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.")

The creepiness continued, which I'll have to describe in the next post. Where Roark's death was a huge tragedy for Mary, it was small thing in the wider scheme of things. Later.

Also, I hope the other players chime in about what happened on Tuesday. This was an action packed session.
Julia

[Emily Care]

[quote}I like this. I didn't want to roll to see if Roark would die. It was a given that he was going to go. I said, "I hand Roark dandelion wine with digitalis, enough to kill him." Vincent asked how long would it be for the dig' to take effect. Minutes. Vincent described Roarks demise. It was terribly sad.[/quote]

And Vincent didn't have to make rolls to have Roark kill the other hold members that he took down while doing Mary's bidding in bringing Joe's Girl back to her, mostly alive.  Clearly this was all fine with us, as we didn't say "Hold it there, Mr. you just killed one of the fertile men in the hold! Allison's going to read a charged situation to try to get wind of it."  We all knew it was coming based on the conversation Roark and Mary had at the end of last session. 

Is that how it would work, Vincent? If we had wanted to head Roark off, we would have started this session off by saying, "I'm talking to Bill when Roark comes in covered with blood?" 

[lumpley]

Nope! If I decide to have NPCs kill each other off-screen as one of my moves, there's nothing any of you can do about it. In fact Meg tried to save Bill that way, more or less, and I just said "oh, nobody can find Bill," and that was that.

I didn't have Julia roll for Mary to kill Roark because there was no conflict. I mean, Roark didn't want to die, but for anything to be a conflict, the sides have to be capable of acting effectively for their own interests. Roark didn't have the information he needed in order to do that. He accepted the wine and drank it because he wanted some wine and didn't know it was poisoned, and that was that, too.

-Vincent