Latest / Sessions Canceled / Tabletop Shout Out: Apocalypse World | Part. 1: Ep. 152

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Tabletop Shout Out: Apocalypse World | Part. 1: Ep. 152 · Sessions Canceled

• 0:15
  Back Internet. The GM has gone a little too
• 0:18
  deep into the psychic maelstrom. Their mind has shattered,
• 0:20
  they're now babbling and coherently in the corner, and
• 0:24
  the MC is disappointed in them. Secessionist.
• 0:27
  Case circle all these squares. I did actually unironically want
• 0:37
  to play the brainer. Yeah, I mean fair.
• 0:41
  I do love the Brainer. Big fan.
• 0:43
  Personally. I don't know if there's a
• 0:44
  playbook in the game I don't like TBH.
• 0:48
  I unironically, I think the one I cared the least about, which
• 0:51
  was funny 'cause we were kind of just giving it shit, was the the
• 0:54
  fucking battle babe. Battle babe.
• 0:55
  Yeah. See, I like the battle, babe,
• 0:57
  'cause it lets you be the most furiosa.
• 1:01
  Right. But they're like, you're not the
• 1:02
  best at fighting. You're like sexy and you fight.
• 1:04
  And I wouldn't call Furiosa like Furiosa is a gun lugger 100%.
• 1:09
  I think she has a little bit of elements of both I would say,
• 1:12
  which is pretty easy to do 'cause you could you could be a
• 1:15
  gun lugger and pick up some Battle Bay moves or you could do
• 1:17
  it the other way around. I.
• 1:18
  Think that would work? Also the battle babe gets a
• 1:20
  fucking sick custom weapon which I love having.
• 1:25
  Oh, are she? Is she the only one who gets one
• 1:26
  of those? Yeah, yeah, Battle Babe's the
• 1:28
  only one who gets, actually, she gets 2 custom weapons.
• 1:32
  Yeah, those are battle bait specific.
• 1:35
  Yeah, you're not like as good at direct fighting as the gun
• 1:38
  lugger, but your custom weapon kind of makes up for it, so it
• 1:41
  kind of doesn't end up mattering.
• 1:45
  Well, I do love me custom weapons.
• 1:47
  The gun lugger gets special weapons such as fuck off big
• 1:51
  guns which nobody else gets. But yes, the custom weapon is
• 1:55
  battle bait specific. What the hell are we talking
• 1:58
  about? Because we just kind of
• 2:00
  unintentionally jumped right in there.
• 2:05
  Greetings for our line. No, don't do that, I.
• 2:11
  Don't know why. I don't know why I did that.
• 2:13
  I just, I just I, I don't even remember where that's from or
• 2:16
  what that is. I just think about it every time
• 2:17
  that's. That's from housing abridged.
• 2:22
  That's weird. Anyway, hello there Internet.
• 2:26
  We're we're back again. And as you, as you may have
• 2:31
  noticed from what we were just talking about, if you know what
• 2:33
  we were talking about and it was as you've noticed from the
• 2:36
  title, it's finally time to talk about the game that I bring up a
• 2:40
  lot all the time. But I was like, I've never done
• 2:43
  an actual episode focusing on it specifically.
• 2:45
  So let's focus on it specifically.
• 2:48
  It's time to talk about Apocalypse World, my favorite
• 2:51
  game and after giving it a reread, still probably my
• 2:57
  favorite game. Like I don't I don't think I've
• 3:00
  soured on it very much and the bits of the bits of it that I
• 3:04
  have issue with are the same bits that I've always taken
• 3:07
  issue with. So nothing, nothing changed.
• 3:15
  Yes, we're finally gonna because you know, I bring this game up
• 3:18
  all the fucking time. You know what, let's let's give
• 3:20
  a little proper full context to why I love it.
• 3:27
  I'm going to stick a big old asterisk on the sentence why I
• 3:30
  love it however, and explain that I'm going to try.
• 3:38
  But this game has a very strange quality to it that is really
• 3:46
  hard to explain, and the what makes it good is not immediately
• 3:56
  obvious when you just read the game, but when you play it, And
• 4:00
  if you play Apocalypse World to the hilt as the game, which is
• 4:04
  to say like as the game tells you to like, you play it as
• 4:07
  intended. This game has an emergent
• 4:12
  magical quality that I don't fully understand how it does it
• 4:20
  or how it works, but it it just works.
• 4:24
  Todd Howard, it just works. Every single I was I was, I was
• 4:31
  explaining to my girlfriend about this.
• 4:33
  Every single campaign I've played in Apocalypse World,
• 4:37
  which has been quite a few at at this point, has always devolved.
• 4:48
  Duvall's Not the right word has always expanded into Crazy Town.
• 4:54
  No matter what I as the GM have tried to do, or other GMs have
• 4:58
  tried to do when running it. Like Apocalypse World is this
• 5:03
  unwieldy beast that always goes in directions you just would not
• 5:07
  have ever expected and it always gets weird by the end.
• 5:13
  Like you never have a game that ends and everyone's like, well I
• 5:17
  definitely expected that to happen.
• 5:19
  It never ends how anyone expected to happen.
• 5:22
  Shit goes crazy without fail. And I cannot identify what about
• 5:28
  the game is doing that specifically.
• 5:30
  I think it's just a really complex interplay between how
• 5:36
  all of the moves work and how the game tells you to respond as
• 5:40
  AGM. That the web just intertwined so
• 5:45
  perfectly that the chaos brews no matter what.
• 5:51
  If you not only does the not only does the writer Vincent
• 5:55
  Baker tell you not to do this, but if you go into Apocalypse
• 5:59
  World with a kind of DND esque mindset where you want to tell a
• 6:02
  kind of you have a narrative in mind.
• 6:05
  You have a point A and a point B that you want to get to.
• 6:09
  This game will fight you every step of the way.
• 6:12
  It will not work it you can't do it.
• 6:15
  I know this sounds like I'm being hyperbolic but unless you
• 6:19
  ignore the game, like you just disregard what it tells you to
• 6:22
  do in several situations, you cannot make a pre planned story.
• 6:27
  It just will not happen no matter what.
• 6:31
  I promise. And I know I know.
• 6:34
  It sounds like I'm saying the game is sentient or some shit.
• 6:37
  I it's not, but boy does it feel like it's sometimes.
• 6:42
  No, I mean, so I, I picked this up just from like basic reading.
• 6:47
  The game cannot be it. Like I don't think it's
• 6:50
  possible. Like, given how the game expects
• 6:55
  you to sort of be intrinsically reactive in a very sandboxy way
• 6:59
  to your players. Yes.
• 7:02
  I I do not think you can pre plan things because your players
• 7:05
  will inevitably just not do them because you are like not do
• 7:11
  them. Or they'll try to do it and
• 7:15
  they'll get like a middling success and so you have to throw
• 7:20
  extra qualifiers on what they're doing.
• 7:24
  Like you get it, but also, you know.
• 7:26
  It it's it's that weird thing and it's weird to say this, but
• 7:29
  the players are not they can't like the the way that their
• 7:36
  character sheets are built is so unconducive to running
• 7:41
  conventional story in in the DND kind of way that like your
• 7:46
  characters just will not do it right.
• 7:50
  There is no perception check. That's not how you can even
• 7:54
  think about writing the game. True.
• 7:57
  It's impressive because you know, Josh talks about scheme a
• 7:59
  lot and you know, having read through an amount of it over the
• 8:03
  last couple days, I, I literally had to sit down and go, how
• 8:07
  would I have run that 'cause you know, the game gives you like
• 8:10
  examples on, on how to do things.
• 8:12
  Yes. And I found myself running into
• 8:14
  walls 'cause I was like, Oh well, I would have the, oh what?
• 8:16
  I can't have them. They have to do that.
• 8:19
  Yeah, yeah, You as the GM, Also important thing to point out in
• 8:23
  this game, you as AGM do not roll dice.
• 8:27
  Ever. You do not touch dice, which to
• 8:31
  some people that might be a whatever.
• 8:34
  What's what would be the opposite of a selling point, a
• 8:38
  detriment. A detriment, I guess.
• 8:39
  Yeah, some people might consider that a negative that use the GM
• 8:42
  never roll dice. And I understand why you might
• 8:46
  have that mentality 'cause it is fun to roll the clicky clack
• 8:48
  math rocks. I get that.
• 8:49
  But I tell you, give it a shot. Running this game is so funny
• 8:55
  because as the MCU sit there, the GM in Apocalypse World is
• 9:01
  called the MC, short for Master of Ceremonies.
• 9:05
  They're very explicitly not called the game master because
• 9:09
  you're not really you're you're mastering the ceremony, which is
• 9:14
  to say you're, you're conducting all the crazy shit that's
• 9:18
  happening, but you're not really dictating all the crazy shit
• 9:20
  that's happening. No, the game sort of will
• 9:23
  develop a mind of its own if you follow it's.
• 9:26
  Basically, oh, it's very much develops the mind of its own.
• 9:28
  Oh yeah, Like shit was. Fuck, what was I just saying?
• 9:36
  Oh yeah, you don't roll dice in this game.
• 9:38
  It is so interesting to sit, to sit back in your chair and just
• 9:44
  the player says I would like to do XY or Z and you as the MC say
• 9:48
  OK, give roll me this move and then just interpret.
• 9:52
  It's like you're, you're like interpreting tarot cards
• 9:55
  basically. That's the whole game.
• 9:57
  Like the players roll dice. You look at what move they did,
• 9:59
  you interpret. You just do that over and over
• 10:01
  and over again. You're constantly interpreting
• 10:04
  the numbers that appear before you and how they should interact
• 10:08
  with what's going on. You're this, you're this weird
• 10:13
  Oracle of chaos. Like, I don't even know.
• 10:15
  It's hard to explain. It's hard to explain until you
• 10:18
  run the game. You are.
• 10:20
  You're like a spirit medium, the NPCS, when they move through,
• 10:25
  but you are not in control of them because the game says the
• 10:28
  characters have to react in a logical way that a character
• 10:31
  would react. So you just kind of have to look
• 10:34
  at them and go, well, what would this character do?
• 10:36
  And you pre. Establish, when you come up with
• 10:38
  the character, you pre establish in some basic format what those
• 10:43
  things they want to do are. And then you follow that logic.
• 10:46
  You follow that, as the game says, follow the fiction and
• 10:50
  always say what is true, like all or, or or always.
• 10:54
  How does it phrase it? Always be honest.
• 10:55
  I forget exactly how phrase is it, but always be honest.
• 10:58
  But misdirect. Yeah.
• 11:01
  So it's like you establish, yeah, what would this character
• 11:04
  do? I establish they are this kind
• 11:06
  of a person. What would they do in this
• 11:08
  situation? And then, yeah, you follow it
• 11:11
  and it some people might say, well, don't you do that in D&D
• 11:16
  sometimes? Yeah, kind of sorta like.
• 11:19
  Sorta, but often not. You will often adjust to make
• 11:23
  things still flow in the direction you want.
• 11:26
  Yeah, in D&D your NPCS are an Ave. for the adventure that you
• 11:32
  are writing. So you will push them and you
• 11:36
  will mold them to be the best Ave. for which the the story is
• 11:41
  presented to the players. Apocalypse World characters are
• 11:44
  not beholden to that, and they will not follow that.
• 11:47
  And again, this is we're saying this.
• 11:50
  If you, as the master of ceremonies, want to blunt force
• 11:53
  it, yeah, of course it will happen.
• 11:56
  But you will find that the game is actively fighting you if you
• 12:00
  read the rules and run the game as written.
• 12:02
  Yes, you can ignore what the game, how the game tells you to
• 12:06
  respond, but yeah, you will end up fighting the system and or
• 12:11
  you will have to go out of your way to go beyond that shit.
• 12:16
  And it's yeah, like it sounds, it sounds almost a little
• 12:21
  ridiculous to say that MPCS take on a life of their own, but they
• 12:24
  often do. And part of the reasoning behind
• 12:26
  all that is because there's, there's two main factors that
• 12:32
  make this really possible from a, from the, from the like GMMC
• 12:37
  side of the table. You don't need to pre plan a lot
• 12:42
  in Apocalypse World because your end of the table is very loose
• 12:47
  and open-ended, right? You don't have stat blocks, you
• 12:50
  don't need to worry about saving throw DCS.
• 12:53
  You don't need to worry about damage numbers.
• 12:55
  You don't need, I mean, you, you worry about damage very loosely,
• 12:58
  but it's pretty, it's very intuitive damage.
• 13:02
  You don't need to worry about how much like HPA character has
• 13:05
  really like you don't. You're not burdened by a lot of
• 13:09
  the math and shit. So it lets you be on the fly.
• 13:12
  And the game has no final campaign objective.
• 13:15
  It's not working towards anything specific.
• 13:18
  You're following the characters around and the number one tenant
• 13:23
  of this game is play to find out what happens.
• 13:27
  That's that's really that that key thing is play to find out
• 13:30
  what happens. Never assume, never
• 13:33
  predetermine, and there are literally mechanics to help you
• 13:37
  do that further, like to lean even more into the what's going
• 13:43
  to happen aspect. All right, all that happened
• 13:49
  aside, before we continue, please hit the follow or
• 13:54
  subscribe button on your platform of choice.
• 13:56
  Again, real close to 100 Subs on YouTube.
• 13:59
  I would like 100 Subs on YouTube that would make me feel good in
• 14:01
  the feel good chemicals. Just saying yeah, all right, so
• 14:07
  the basics, I mean the basic flow is is is relatively
• 14:13
  straight like the the initial sales pitch of the game is
• 14:15
  relatively straightforward. You have a, you have your GM
• 14:18
  character, you have your players, you have your character
• 14:20
  sheet out of you know, the conversation flows as any
• 14:24
  tabletop game would do it. It does all of those things.
• 14:27
  This game uses dice. All that's there key core
• 14:32
  difference is there's no turns in this game of any kind.
• 14:38
  There is no turn taking the turn taking as it were the way the
• 14:46
  game describes it. And other games have taken this
• 14:48
  language primarily from Apocalypse World.
• 14:50
  So you if you've read other games, you will likely have seen
• 14:53
  it around the the turns quote UN quote are following the
• 15:01
  cinematic camera, right? If you imagine watching a movie,
• 15:05
  which part is most interesting? When you're watching Avengers,
• 15:09
  you don't see Captain America do 1 action and then Hawkeye do 1
• 15:12
  action and then the Hulk do 1 action.
• 15:14
  You know, you focus on whichever character is doing the most
• 15:17
  interesting thing. That might mean Captain America
• 15:19
  does 3 cool things in a row and then we jump over to whatever
• 15:22
  Hulk or Hawkeye are doing. But it's not you know, there's
• 15:27
  no rule of like you get your one thing and that's it.
• 15:29
  Now often I will say when you're playing Apocalypse World, what,
• 15:32
  what often ends up happening is you will you as the MC will say,
• 15:38
  OK drummer, what are you doing? I do XY and Z cool.
• 15:42
  All right grandma, what are you doing?
• 15:44
  I do XY and Z cool. All right Joe, what are you
• 15:46
  doing? You know, you do follow like a,
• 15:49
  a, a social contract turn, right.
• 15:52
  You follow just like a very broad, I'm going to see what
• 15:56
  what this person, then this person, then this person is
• 15:58
  doing. But there is no official turn
• 16:02
  order. There's definitely no initiative
• 16:04
  roles. So that's the one thing in terms
• 16:08
  of the basics that will throw some people off.
• 16:13
  Actually, I said that's the one thing I lie.
• 16:16
  The other thing that will probably throw people off
• 16:20
  everything in Apocalypse World is based around moves, and moves
• 16:25
  are effectively well written prompts that have a mechanical
• 16:34
  backing to them that tell you what's going to happen and to do
• 16:40
  a move so you don't make an attack role in Apocalypse World.
• 16:44
  If you say to your MC, I'm going to pull my gun on this dude and
• 16:50
  I'm either going to shoot him or he's going to back down and let
• 16:53
  me into let me past the MC will say cool, sounds like you're
• 16:58
  going aggro on this guy. Roll roll me two D6 plus you're
• 17:02
  hard, hard being a step. You rolled go aggro the go aggro
• 17:10
  move because you were you literally your character was
• 17:15
  going aggro to do a move. You have to do it.
• 17:19
  So you never ever say I'm making an attack roll or I'm making a
• 17:22
  deck save or like any nothing like that.
• 17:25
  You say what your character is doing fictionally, the the MC
• 17:29
  tells you what move you're triggering or if you're not
• 17:31
  triggering a move, then you just get to do it and then you roll
• 17:35
  and resolve. So, for example, if you're
• 17:38
  pinned down by a bunch of by a fella, by an enemy gang or
• 17:42
  unloading machine guns in your vague direction and you're like,
• 17:46
  I want to try and run to the other end of this room to get to
• 17:50
  the guys that are shooting at me because I don't I only have a
• 17:52
  melee weapon. The GM will say, all right, if
• 17:55
  you run down this hall, you you're acting under fire, roll
• 17:58
  to act under fire. They roll.
• 18:01
  You look at what number they roll, you resolve.
• 18:05
  That's the flow of everything. You always to do it, you have to
• 18:08
  do it. And on the other, the other way
• 18:11
  the game phrases it is if you do it, you do it.
• 18:16
  Which means if you fictionally describe your character doing
• 18:20
  one of the basic moves, that means you are doing one of the
• 18:24
  basic moves. You have to roll.
• 18:26
  So if you say I want to run down the hall to get in melee range
• 18:31
  with these guys while they're shooting at me, and then the GM
• 18:34
  says, OK, you're acting under fire.
• 18:36
  And then you as a player go, oh, I wasn't trying to act under
• 18:38
  fire, I just want to run down the hall.
• 18:40
  The GM says, no, no, you're acting under fire.
• 18:43
  You have to, you're doing it. So there's you never, there's
• 18:49
  never a situation in this game where you just throw dice.
• 18:54
  You always describe what you're doing and then see if the GM is
• 18:57
  going to ask you for dice or not.
• 18:59
  Again, going into that kind of weird spirit medium analogy,
• 19:03
  which I, I don't do you just do that on the fly.
• 19:06
  By the way, the spirit medium thought, yes.
• 19:08
  OK, well, it's a good one. I like it.
• 19:10
  I'm going to use it. You, you sit down at the table
• 19:17
  and say some stuff to the spirit medium and then look at the
• 19:19
  spirit medium and go, you know, wait for the response.
• 19:22
  It's kind of what you're doing in this game where, OK, I try
• 19:26
  and do this. And then you look at the MC and
• 19:28
  go, what's going to happen? And then the MC responds.
• 19:33
  It's not where as in, again, something like DND, you will
• 19:37
  often just be like, all right, I'm going to move 30 feet to get
• 19:43
  to the end of this room. There's no, the GM doesn't have
• 19:47
  any input on that. You just declare that as a
• 19:49
  player. It's your right to declare as a
• 19:51
  player. I move 30 feet down the room.
• 19:52
  That is the thing you are capable of doing.
• 19:57
  So Apocalypse World also doesn't give a shit about distances, by
• 20:00
  the way. Well, it uses abstract distances
• 20:03
  like there's far, near and. Reach or so I forget what the
• 20:06
  words are, but there's there's abstract distance tags, but
• 20:09
  there's no like 5 feet 10 feet doesn't care about specific
• 20:11
  amounts of distance. The stats in this game are
• 20:21
  there's what, 6555 sass in this game, cool, hard, hot, sharp and
• 20:28
  weird. Actually, there's kind of 6,
• 20:29
  because there's also history, but that's history's, Yes,
• 20:34
  Hicks. History I I can't read it as
• 20:38
  anything other than Hicks. Hicks yeah, I always I I always
• 20:42
  read it as hex in my head for whatever reason.
• 20:46
  To be fair though, he does literally say in the description
• 20:48
  like RX for prescription or DX for diagnosis.
• 20:51
  So he doesn't explain it. But anyway, so cool it It's not
• 20:58
  it's not how cool and swag your jacket is.
• 21:00
  Cool is like acting cool as in rational, clear thinking, common
• 21:04
  calculated, hard is your violent, aggressive, strong
• 21:08
  willed, mean, physical those things.
• 21:11
  I really like the description for hot because it's just funny.
• 21:14
  It says hot comma meaning fucking hot, attractive, subtle,
• 21:18
  gracious, sexy, beautiful, inspiring, exciting, roll plus
• 21:22
  hot to seduce or manipulate someone.
• 21:24
  So hot does mean like how sexy you are doesn't mean physically
• 21:29
  like you could be physically questionable, but sort of, you
• 21:32
  know, emotionally manipulative if that still qualifies as hot.
• 21:35
  But it is your like attractiveness.
• 21:39
  Sharp is like how you know sharp you are, how quick, witted,
• 21:43
  clever, all that. And then weird is your stat to
• 21:47
  interact with the psychic maelstrom.
• 21:50
  There is no setting for Apocalypse World.
• 21:53
  But the one constant the game sort of demands you keep is the
• 21:58
  psychic maelstrom. The psychic maelstrom is is
• 22:01
  always a present thing and you have to at least acknowledge it
• 22:07
  in some fashion. What that means in your game
• 22:11
  literally could be whatever the fuck you want, but it's there.
• 22:14
  And then you're you're, as Isaiah calls it, your Hicks.
• 22:17
  Your HX, otherwise known as history, is your history with
• 22:23
  the other player characters. HX does not extend to NPCS.
• 22:27
  It is strictly between PCs because this game is really
• 22:31
  really like cares a lot about how how PCs relate to each other
• 22:38
  and how much they do or don't know each other.
• 22:42
  History does not mean your your history stack goes up to +4 and
• 22:47
  down to -3 Plus for history does not mean you're friends with
• 22:53
  someone. It's not like a bond thing.
• 22:55
  Plus for history means I know this person very well.
• 22:58
  That could be really bad history.
• 23:00
  You could know them well because you've been in several
• 23:03
  firefights with that person. Because for example, every time
• 23:07
  if you if you exchange harm with APC, you mark history on your
• 23:12
  sheet for shooting them. You get to know them better by
• 23:16
  trying to kill them. So history is very explicitly
• 23:20
  not like we're good friends. It just means you know them.
• 23:23
  And then negative history doesn't necessarily mean you
• 23:25
  hate them, it just means you don't know them very well.
• 23:28
  Do not understand this person. My immediate thought is like an
• 23:34
  Alucard Trevor situation where you'd like, yeah, we're doing a
• 23:37
  my character and your character are doing a job.
• 23:40
  I walk into the room, your character's at the table, and I
• 23:41
  go, oh fuck, it's you. Yeah, basically, that's the very
• 23:47
  yeah, that's the very low it. It could also be a like weird
• 23:51
  what? What's the name for that trope
• 23:52
  where characters who hate each other a lot but they bang all
• 23:54
  the time hate fucking Yeah, but there's like a name for that.
• 23:58
  There's like a trope. There's like ATV trope name for
• 24:00
  that that I can't. Think enemies to lovers.
• 24:02
  That might be what I'm thinking. Of I, you know, I, you know, I'm
• 24:06
  cooked because I was like, there's a, there's a term for
• 24:08
  this in Homestuck. That's the only thing I I
• 24:10
  directly know don't do it. Don't do it.
• 24:12
  It's. Called the kism methods.
• 24:14
  God damn it, H shut up. Fucking Homestuck.
• 24:22
  Oh, I I did want to. I actually wanted to ask you a
• 24:24
  question, Isaiah, because this came up in regards to the
• 24:29
  without numbers games and fabulous.
• 24:31
  How'd you feel about reading Apocalypse World just as a book?
• 24:34
  Because I personally think Apocalypse World is is quite a
• 24:37
  fun read just as a book. It it so it is a fun read.
• 24:42
  Yes. There are times though, where
• 24:45
  I'm reading it and I'm like, man, shut up.
• 24:50
  How do you mean? I have this like directly
• 24:53
  confrontational like moment where it's like, if I say it
• 24:57
  like you don't fucking do it, I'm like, don't fucking curse at
• 25:00
  me. Like, oh.
• 25:01
  Oh, well, yeah, I mean, that's kind of good though.
• 25:04
  That is. That's because that's kind of
• 25:05
  intentional. No, yeah, I'm sure.
• 25:07
  I just, there's times where I'm reading it, I'm like.
• 25:10
  Don't talk about to do bitch. What are you talking to Yeah
• 25:15
  yeah so to to explain what Isaiah means this book is really
• 25:21
  the way epogenous world written is very it's very casual.
• 25:24
  It doesn't talk. It doesn't talk like an
• 25:27
  encyclopedia. Like the Without Number games
• 25:30
  are verbose and like to use like, you know, bigger words and
• 25:34
  like to be very poetic with the language.
• 25:38
  Apocalypse World is really terse, to the point and kind of
• 25:41
  crass and very casual. It's like you're talking to like
• 25:47
  your homie at the bar who drank a little too much and he's
• 25:50
  explaining his really cool idea and he's just throwing swear
• 25:53
  words in there even though like maybe the swear word is
• 25:55
  unnecessary. But you know, he's just he's in
• 25:57
  a mood. There's a lot of random F bombs
• 26:01
  in this book. There's a lot of random
• 26:03
  references to like banging for no particular reason.
• 26:06
  They're just kind of in there. So it's kind of AI think it's an
• 26:10
  entertaining read because it's just sort of it feels like
• 26:13
  you're talking to someone when you read it, you know, like
• 26:16
  you're having like a casual conversation even though it's
• 26:18
  explaining like rules. Yeah, it does feel very casual,
• 26:24
  I'll give you that. Yes, very much so.
• 26:29
  So I was, I was just curious what your reaction was that
• 26:31
  because you, you made it, you know, you've made a comment on
• 26:34
  how other games read many times. I'll tell you what, it it like,
• 26:38
  you know, because like you told me to read it on Sunday.
• 26:41
  Oh my God. And I was like, oh God.
• 26:45
  But much like Fabula, once you get reading, it's not hard to
• 26:51
  keep reading. It doesn't feel like a drag
• 26:53
  because it feels very conversational.
• 26:55
  It's like I'm here to tell you what you got to know, and I
• 26:58
  appreciate that because this is like the I appreciate that the
• 27:02
  video game doesn't waste my time or that it respects my time
• 27:06
  because I wouldn't say without number disrespect your time.
• 27:08
  It's just not. There was some there was some
• 27:12
  disco biscuits with me because it was just so long.
• 27:15
  It wants you, well, without number, Yeah, Without number,
• 27:17
  like, expects you to kind of sit down and absorb more slowly, I
• 27:22
  think. Yeah, in a funny way.
• 27:24
  Which preference thing I guess. No, yeah, I mean, the fact that
• 27:29
  I have severe ADHD and struggle reading text like that, yeah,
• 27:34
  unless I'm in like a work, it's funny, 'cause I can read like
• 27:36
  bylaws for contracts just fine, but I have to be in a work
• 27:39
  setting. Like my brain's got to be in
• 27:41
  that mode, in work mode. Yeah, yeah.
• 27:48
  Any other stuff on the basics? Oh HP in this game?
• 27:53
  It's referred to as harm. It's, this is one of the places
• 27:58
  that I've always felt a little like, all right, I guess harm is
• 28:05
  represented by a clock in this game.
• 28:07
  So it starts at 12:00 and then goes around clockwise till you,
• 28:11
  you know, come back around. Basically to simplify, it uses
• 28:16
  the clock thing a lot, which I kind of don't like because
• 28:18
  sometimes the clock thing confuses my brain because for
• 28:21
  some reason it's really hard for me to remember what numbers are
• 28:23
  where on a clock. I don't know why.
• 28:27
  So basically the easiest way to put it though is you have 6 HP.
• 28:33
  That's what it is. You can take 6 harm, arguably
• 28:37
  kind of sort of eight. Where do you get kind of sort of
• 28:41
  eight from because. Every the the first two things
• 28:43
  will heal on their own if you just let it sit so you don't
• 28:47
  actively have to heal. Two of them, Yes.
• 28:49
  You don't. You don't have to be.
• 28:50
  Yes, you don't actively have to heal your first two segments.
• 28:52
  They will heal by themselves, but it does take time.
• 28:55
  They don't like you. Don't like Wolverine heal in a
• 28:57
  fight? Right.
• 28:57
  That's kind of why I would like, you know, 7:50 if you.
• 29:01
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying.
• 29:03
  That makes sense. Yeah.
• 29:04
  Basically, you might say 6 HP. That's not a lot, correct?
• 29:10
  Yeah, you could die pretty easy. Yeah, this game is this.
• 29:13
  This game is fuck around and find out.
• 29:15
  Like Oh yeah you can. Yes, if you fuck around and find
• 29:18
  out you will get clapped fast. That being said, if you want to
• 29:22
  be the guy who fucks around and finds out and everybody else
• 29:26
  finds out, you can do that. You can play like the gun
• 29:30
  lugger, for example, and everybody else will find out
• 29:32
  because you are the hardest motherfucker in the room.
• 29:35
  But you are that guy. You can be that guy, absolutely.
• 29:39
  And you can be that guy with the biggest gun, too.
• 29:44
  This game also very explicitly says if a character's wearing
• 29:48
  body armor worth 2 armor and you stick a pistol up to that
• 29:53
  person's skull, nobody cares about your body armor, chief.
• 29:57
  You you're still getting shot in the head with a bullet.
• 29:59
  So yeah, very explicit about like, you know, the fictional
• 30:03
  situation of you know, what's what is the circumstance is very
• 30:09
  important. That does also apply to MPCS
• 30:12
  though. You could have a super hard ass
• 30:14
  MPC you're trying to deal with and if you snipe him from the
• 30:17
  next room, next roof over, you could just kill him like no
• 30:21
  questions asked. Improvement prep time.
• 30:28
  I don't need a bit. Bye bye.
• 30:29
  Oh I will say, did you read the why to why to play page?
• 30:37
  I think so. I'm not.
• 30:39
  Going to read the whole thing it.
• 30:39
  Was like, it was, it was like it literally like to fucking play.
• 30:42
  I think was the first one. So the first one, yeah.
• 30:44
  So there's a page, literally page 14.
• 30:47
  It's the of the very first chapter.
• 30:48
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 30:49
  It says why to play #1 because the characters are fucking hot.
• 30:54
  Yeah #2 because as hot as they are, the characters are best and
• 30:57
  hottest when you put them together.
• 30:59
  Lovers, rivals, friends, enemies, blood and sex.
• 31:01
  That the good shit. Yeah, the why to play Chuck is
• 31:06
  just funny. I'm a fan.
• 31:08
  It it gives you it gives you a good well, sort of looking for
• 31:15
  it. It gives you a good sense, I
• 31:16
  guess, of what kind of game you're dealing with.
• 31:19
  Like you read that and you're like, oh, OK, I I get we're
• 31:23
  getting it. I mean, like 5 pages later,
• 31:25
  they're like, I your character is led by whatever leads them.
• 31:29
  They're like, you know, money, power, drugs, clips and Dicks.
• 31:31
  And I was like, oh, oh, is that how we're going?
• 31:33
  OK, Yeah. Yep, yes, Sir.
• 31:40
  And then we get into the playbooks.
• 31:41
  So this game does not do. I always have a hard time
• 31:47
  explaining playbooks because people are like, oh, they're
• 31:49
  just classes. Kind of.
• 31:52
  Yes, they are mostly just classes, but the playbook
• 31:58
  influences more than just being just your class.
• 32:02
  It has a greater swap. Like it covers your class.
• 32:07
  And like in a traditional game, you know, in D&D you have like
• 32:10
  your class and your species and your fucking background and all
• 32:13
  that shit. The playbook kind of covers all
• 32:15
  of those things in one shot and a character sheet.
• 32:20
  In Apocalypse World, when you get your playbook character
• 32:24
  sheet, all of your mechanical rules for your playbook are on
• 32:30
  the sheet like as is. The sheet is like a one or two
• 32:34
  page book that tells you how to play your character.
• 32:37
  A lot of the mechanics of this game are actually nested in the
• 32:40
  playbooks themselves, so they are both character sheet and
• 32:47
  character descriptor and also rules reference.
• 32:50
  The playbook kind of covers a lot of stuff, and as you will
• 32:54
  have noticed if again looking at any other games, many games have
• 32:58
  taken this. Blades in the Dark uses this
• 33:00
  exact system. Of course, now I'm trying.
• 33:06
  Now I'm blanking on another example, I think.
• 33:09
  Obviously, Dungeon World uses this system.
• 33:11
  It literally does. What it doesn't attend a
• 33:13
  playbook is is more than a reference sheet.
• 33:15
  It is a how to playbook of strategy.
• 33:18
  It's everything in in. It's everything you need to be
• 33:21
  proficient at a thing trapped into one.
• 33:26
  So what are your playbooks? So there are also, these are the
• 33:31
  base playbooks. There are some additional
• 33:33
  playbooks that also got added later.
• 33:35
  Oh, I should say we're reading Apocalypse World second edition,
• 33:40
  but I 2nd edition's almost kind of I, I almost feel like it
• 33:46
  should be called Apocalypse World Revised edition because
• 33:50
  second is not that different from first edition.
• 33:53
  It just kind of cleaned up things and added some more stuff
• 33:57
  on top of where there were some gaps in the 1st edition, but
• 34:01
  the, the core mechanics are the same.
• 34:04
  So it's kind of like a stars to stars revise situation in my
• 34:07
  opinion. He called it second edition, but
• 34:09
  it feels not totally like a second edition to me personally.
• 34:14
  There's literally zero reason to play the first edition of
• 34:17
  Apocalypse World. Absolutely zero.
• 34:20
  I unless I'm hilariously misremembering something, I
• 34:23
  don't think there is anything that got like.
• 34:26
  Removed or moved? Around in any way.
• 34:30
  The one thing I can remember is that there used to be a playbook
• 34:34
  called the the the operator that got removed, but that's because
• 34:41
  all of the stuff the operator did he just give gave to every
• 34:44
  other playbook. Oh, I'm dead.
• 34:47
  So there was no reason to keep it wrapped.
• 34:50
  So if you're really, really love the operator, I, I guess that
• 34:53
  could be the one reason you might play first edition.
• 34:56
  Other than that, there's just no fucking reason.
• 35:02
  So the playbooks, we have each of the playbooks, there's a,
• 35:05
  there's a page that describes all of them.
• 35:07
  They all have a little paragraph.
• 35:09
  I'm not going to read them all just for the sake of time.
• 35:11
  I'll just describe them. You have the Angel.
• 35:16
  Fun fact about the Angel. Apparently the very first thing
• 35:19
  that Vincent Baker, the Creator, made when he made Apocalypse
• 35:22
  World was the Angel playbook. He had no other game.
• 35:25
  He just made the Angel playbook and then built the game from
• 35:28
  there. Interesting.
• 35:30
  Yeah. The Angel is the medic
• 35:35
  character. They are the healer guy.
• 35:37
  They they get they can have a lab, they have a healing kit,
• 35:42
  they have minor psychic healing powers.
• 35:45
  They're literally the person you go to for the healing.
• 35:47
  That's their shtick. You have the battle babe, who is
• 35:53
  like, as I was saying, as I disagree a little bit, but like
• 35:56
  I was saying, sort of your Furiosa S character.
• 35:59
  They're like there is a little bit more of like a sexy like
• 36:04
  femme fatale thing with the battle babe than Furiosa has.
• 36:07
  But the general vibe is you are crazy lady with fancy with fancy
• 36:13
  weapon that everybody thinks is really cool and hot, but also
• 36:16
  can you can kick people's asses. They're a little bit in between
• 36:21
  like a combat and a social character, which Speaking of if
• 36:27
  you're curious what the ratio of like combat to social stuff is.
• 36:35
  It kind of depends on the game, but not that much.
• 36:37
  Combat happens in Apocalypse World most of the time because
• 36:41
  when the combat happens, shit gets serious fast.
• 36:44
  Yeah, I, I imagine that it's a, and I mean more than imagine the
• 36:48
  game straight up says this like combat is quick, bloody and and
• 36:52
  visceral. It is if you are.
• 36:54
  If you're not ready to get into a fight, don't.
• 36:56
  And even if you are ready, shit can go South.
• 36:59
  Shit can go South very fast, and if you are a character like the
• 37:03
  Angel for example, you don't have much going for you.
• 37:06
  You don't likely, you have not a very good weapon, you probably
• 37:10
  don't have any armor, you have no moves to help you in a fight.
• 37:15
  Really, shit will go South and a lot of Apocalypse World is kind
• 37:23
  of the the flow of the game is is saying political drama feels
• 37:32
  wrong, but that's kind of the right descriptor where it's the
• 37:37
  connection and what's the word. I'm looking for you.
• 37:46
  All of your characters live around or near each other in
• 37:49
  some capacity, and every playbook and or character ends
• 37:55
  up with creating NPCS in some fashion.
• 37:59
  So you get into this intermingled web of
• 38:02
  relationships that makes the game very like socially messy.
• 38:06
  So you don't end up doing a lot of fighting because it's a lot
• 38:09
  of dealing with the social situation.
• 38:12
  There will be a lot of people getting hurt or murdered
• 38:14
  sometimes, but it will often not be a fight.
• 38:17
  It'll be like, oh, Jim, Jim stabbed Granny in the middle of
• 38:21
  the night. You know that kind of shit.
• 38:27
  Next playbook, we have the Brainer.
• 38:30
  This is your psychic dude, as the book calls it.
• 38:33
  Brainers are the weird psycho psychic mind fucks of Apocalypse
• 38:37
  World. They can mess with your head,
• 38:42
  they can tap into the maelstrom, all that fun shit.
• 38:45
  You have the chopper. They are the biker gang leader.
• 38:50
  You start the game with a full on squadron of a biker gang of
• 38:54
  like 15 dudes who are just your dudes.
• 39:00
  Several characters start with homies.
• 39:04
  You're the driver. The driver's basically your Mad
• 39:07
  Max guy. You have your sick car.
• 39:09
  Your car is your favorite thing in the world.
• 39:11
  You get special car moves. You can also have multiple cars.
• 39:15
  You can have like a normal car and then you have a move that
• 39:18
  they're that's called my other car is a tank, which is you have
• 39:21
  like normal car and then battle car.
• 39:25
  It also doesn't have to be a car.
• 39:26
  Like I played in an apocalypse Rd. campaign where the we had a
• 39:28
  driver character and his his vehicle was a farming.
• 39:33
  Combine. So I just think of the the Ready
• 39:38
  fell phase book show book combine.
• 39:42
  It's not too bad. Fair enough.
• 39:46
  Then you have your gun lugger to stick with the Fury Rd.
• 39:50
  examples. This is your rictus erectus guy.
• 39:52
  Basically just big fuck off dude with big fuck off gun type
• 39:58
  energy. Again, as the game puts it, gun
• 40:03
  luggers are the baddest asses. Their moves are simple, direct
• 40:06
  and violent. Then you have the hard holder.
• 40:12
  This is you're a Morton Joe. And when I say that, I literally
• 40:16
  mean you can be a Morton Joe and have an entire hold.
• 40:20
  You are the landlord. You own a base.
• 40:22
  You have minions and guards and people who love you and all that
• 40:26
  shit. And you start you start the game
• 40:28
  with this shit. None of the any of the
• 40:30
  characters who have who are like leaders or stuff like that, You
• 40:33
  start with it. There's no like, characters in
• 40:40
  Apocalypse World are important right from the get go.
• 40:43
  Your character is unique and special in some fashion right
• 40:47
  from the jump, right? Yeah.
• 40:48
  I I think that's something worth mentioning.
• 40:50
  You cannot be a shit farmer. No, you literally can't.
• 40:54
  Like in in the game. It's it's pretty pragmatic about
• 40:56
  it. You're in the apocalypse.
• 40:59
  There really is no shit farmer available right?
• 41:01
  If you are that low on the totem pole that you're a shit farmer,
• 41:04
  you're probably dead or a slave. Like, yeah, not, not in those
• 41:10
  words, but like, you have to be some level of bad work.
• 41:13
  For someone. Else survive in this world.
• 41:15
  You can't just be a nobody. Yeah, no, you you literally
• 41:18
  can't. I mean, you could I suppose you
• 41:21
  could kind of try like you could pick.
• 41:24
  I don't know who would be the easiest one to shit farmer with.
• 41:30
  I don't like maybe the, I guess the brainer probably.
• 41:32
  Like you could try and pick the brainer and just be the weirdo
• 41:35
  that nobody talks to, but the MC is going to push again, push and
• 41:40
  push and push on you so hard that you're going to get wrapped
• 41:43
  up in shit no matter what. Yeah, there's not a lot you can
• 41:46
  do about it. There's very little chance of
• 41:48
  you staying hidden away. Then we have the hocus.
• 41:54
  You're a cult. I do like cult leader that
• 41:56
  that's kind of the joke is that like like you, you play a
• 42:00
  brainer and you're basically just playing Q from our blades
• 42:03
  campaign. Like you just want to hide in
• 42:04
  your barrel and be a creepy stalker man and nobody cheats.
• 42:07
  You like get out of the barrel and you're like, no.
• 42:08
  Yeah, no, fuck you. Yeah, yeah.
• 42:12
  The Hocus is just straight up a cult leader.
• 42:15
  You start with a cult, your cult has a weird thing you're
• 42:17
  obsessed with. Your Colts can turn on you,
• 42:19
  though. Worth pointing out I ran a game,
• 42:25
  this was obviously a long time ago, but I ran a game where we
• 42:28
  had a hocus player and his cult. Praise Lord Helix from twitch
• 42:34
  plays Pokémon. Yep, it's fine I.
• 42:41
  I played AI, played in a person. This was.
• 42:43
  This was. Shortly after.
• 42:44
  This was shortly after the Twitch Plays Pokémon thing
• 42:46
  happened, by the way. I actually don't even 100% know
• 42:49
  what that is, but. Twitch plays Pokémon Oh my God.
• 42:52
  I you have to remember I'm not. I did not.
• 42:55
  Streaming was not big for me. I know, but you've never seen
• 42:58
  the memes from Twitch plays Pokémon.
• 43:00
  No. Oh, the banger memes.
• 43:03
  Dude, that's crazy. Anyway, continue.
• 43:07
  There was, it's it, there's AI was playing in a in a PBTA
• 43:10
  persona game and the someone's persona was oh God, what the
• 43:15
  fuck is the robot from Undertale?
• 43:18
  A hot robot from Undertale. Help me out.
• 43:20
  Here. Oh God, yeah, I know who you're
• 43:22
  talking about. I can't think of his name.
• 43:23
  I don't know. That was literally his persona.
• 43:26
  Like it got weird. It got weird really fast.
• 43:29
  What is that robot called Metaton?
• 43:32
  Metaton Yeah, there we go. Oh, you've never heard of All
• 43:38
  Terrain Venomoth? I've heard of that through
• 43:42
  Aster, but I. Love all terrain Venomoth.
• 43:47
  Oh man, I. OK, we're not going to go down
• 43:49
  this rabbit hole, but I, I I can explain some fun shit with to
• 43:53
  choice Pokémon. Anyway, next we have the Maestro
• 43:59
  D. This is a This is a little
• 44:00
  portmanteau of Maestro D and or, or.
• 44:03
  Sorry, this is a portmanteau of Maestro and Maitre-d' The
• 44:08
  Maestro. The Maestro D is like who's a
• 44:11
  good example in fiction of a Maestro D?
• 44:17
  I'm trying to think like post apocalypse fiction more
• 44:19
  specifically. I can't think of anybody
• 44:30
  interesting. Basically you run an
• 44:32
  establishment, a social establishment of some kind.
• 44:37
  Could be a Borderlands. Yeah, there we go.
• 44:41
  Mox is a good example. Could be a bar or a drug den or
• 44:44
  a stripper club. What a strip club, stripper
• 44:48
  club. Point being is you're kind of
• 44:52
  like a hard holder. You have a place, but like you
• 44:54
  have less obligations to worry about, but also you can have
• 44:57
  potentially, you know, more problems.
• 45:01
  For example, if you run a drug den, you might have to deal
• 45:04
  with, you know, druggies who want to steal your drugs at
• 45:07
  shotgun point. And then you have the savvy
• 45:12
  head. They are the mechanic.
• 45:15
  They do the mechanic thing. They also have a really fun
• 45:18
  ability that lets them talk to like inanimate objects.
• 45:23
  And I just I think it's if I remember correctly, it's called,
• 45:27
  I think it's called bone feel is the name of it.
• 45:30
  I just love, I just love the fact that they can just like
• 45:33
  touch the boat and be like the boat speaks to me and you're
• 45:38
  like, death doesn't bud. And you're like, no, no, there's
• 45:41
  enemies above the boat tells me. So you're like, OK.
• 45:49
  And also the the the, the game is a little vague on if that
• 45:54
  ability is psychic or not. Like you could describe it as
• 46:01
  psychic key powers, but you can also kind of describe it as like
• 46:04
  you just have a strong understanding.
• 46:08
  Oh, it's called things speak bone.
• 46:12
  Feel is a different ability. The savvy head also starts with
• 46:16
  a workspace, which is, you know, their fucking, you know, their
• 46:24
  mechanic shop, basically. They can also have like guards
• 46:28
  and shit. And then I think the last one,
• 46:31
  yeah, last one is the Skinner. The, the Skinner is the, the,
• 46:38
  the hot person who uses their hotness to make everyone else do
• 46:41
  what they want. That's their vibe.
• 46:44
  They are, they're real. They're just, they're just real
• 46:47
  cool and real attractive and everybody likes them.
• 46:50
  They're also good at, they're generally good at a art form of
• 46:57
  some kind. They have a move called Artful
• 46:59
  and gracious when you perform a chosen art.
• 47:02
  And it could be could be painting or dance or pole
• 47:06
  dancing or fucking. You do a bunch of drugs and like
• 47:11
  sing like a weirdo, Like it could be anything you want.
• 47:13
  But the point is you have this like artfulness to you.
• 47:15
  And the The Skinner starts with luxury gear, which is to say you
• 47:20
  have some sort of, you got drip, basically some sort of fancy
• 47:24
  shit going on. Yeah, that's your, that's the
• 47:31
  playbooks now, a scroll pass. So then it brings up our basic
• 47:38
  moves. And like I said, the basics
• 47:40
  moves are really the meat and potatoes of the game, I guess is
• 47:44
  the easiest way to put it. These are the ones so playbooks
• 47:51
  get access to playbook moves which are specific to them.
• 47:58
  Basic moves everyone gets. It is worth pointing out there
• 48:03
  isn't any kind of multi classing in this game, but you can pick
• 48:07
  up moves from other playbooks as your character improves.
• 48:13
  There's no levels in this game, you just get improvement points
• 48:20
  but the basic moves. So you have act under fire,
• 48:24
  which like I said, is the one where something's bad is
• 48:27
  happening. You're trying to endure it or
• 48:29
  move past it or get around it. Go aggro on someone.
• 48:35
  Go aggro on someone is always described, was described to me
• 48:37
  at some point as one sided violence.
• 48:42
  So if you have two sided violence, like both characters
• 48:45
  are trying to shoot each other or something like that, that's
• 48:48
  that falls under battle moves. But if you're dealing with one
• 48:51
  sided violence where like you're just sitting there casually and
• 48:54
  then I pull a gun and point it at, you know, stick it up
• 48:57
  against your temple that's going aggro on somewhat.
• 49:01
  There's the move sucker someone, which is essentially, you know,
• 49:05
  it could be sucker punching someone like they're not paying
• 49:08
  attention. You just deck them in the mouth.
• 49:10
  Or it could also be shooting someone with a sniper rifle 22
• 49:13
  roofs away. So basically you're attacking
• 49:16
  somebody who doesn't know what's going on or can't defend
• 49:19
  themselves in any way. You have seduce and manipulate,
• 49:26
  which is pretty much what it sounds like.
• 49:28
  You try to seduce, manipulate, bluff, fast, talk or lie to
• 49:31
  someone, tell them what you want, give them a reason.
• 49:35
  Roll plus hot. I guess I should.
• 49:39
  I guess I should describe sort of the basic stat roll thing.
• 49:44
  I don't remember actually where the game describes that now that
• 49:47
  I'm thinking about it funny enough.
• 49:52
  Well, OK, rolls in this game you always roll 2D6 plus a stat.
• 49:59
  So for example, when you do something under fire, you roll
• 50:02
  2D6 plus your cool stat. So you know, 2D6 plus 1/2 D 6 +
• 50:08
  2. It can also be minus, obviously.
• 50:09
  So if your cool is -1, you'd roll 2 D 6 -, 1 stats.
• 50:14
  Do not go above plus three in this game and do not go below -3
• 50:20
  the, the, the, the, the 2D6 dice method does not allow for that
• 50:25
  much number swinginess. So numbers do not get pumped up
• 50:28
  and down a lot anytime you roll. There is no, there is no DC in
• 50:36
  this game. There is no sliding difficulty
• 50:38
  of any kind. It's always if you get a 10
• 50:42
  plus, you succeed, you're in the clear.
• 50:45
  So a 10/11 or a 12. If you get a 7 to 9, you succeed
• 50:50
  at a cost. So you still get what you want.
• 50:54
  And this is really important. At a 7 to 9, you still get what
• 50:57
  you want or what you're trying to do.
• 51:01
  The game very explicitly says if a character rolls a 7:00 to
• 51:04
  9:00. So for example, if the
• 51:08
  character's using the do something on their fire example,
• 51:12
  the character wants to run down the hallway while they're
• 51:14
  getting shot at. If they roll A7 to 9, the GM
• 51:16
  can't say to you, you get riddled with bullets and then
• 51:19
  you stop moving halfway down the hall, right?
• 51:22
  That's taking their success away.
• 51:24
  That's not what they're trying to do.
• 51:26
  Instead, you say you run to the other end of the hall, you reach
• 51:30
  your targets, you get riddled with bullets, and you dive to
• 51:33
  the floor to not get shot in the head.
• 51:35
  You remade it's the other end of the hall, but you are now
• 51:37
  injured and on the floor. What do you do?
• 51:42
  And then a six is a failure or a miss.
• 51:45
  Some moves will specify what happens on a miss.
• 51:49
  Some moves will not and simply say you know, it's up to the
• 51:53
  GM's discretion on what's what happens here and the GM has
• 51:57
  their own moves that they follow.
• 52:00
  GM moves do not require dice rolling.
• 52:02
  They are verbal prompts essentially.
• 52:07
  So the way do something under fire, using that one as the main
• 52:10
  example reads, when you do something in under fire or dig
• 52:13
  in to endure fire, roll plus cool on A10 plus you do it on A7
• 52:17
  sign, you flinch, hesitate, or stall, the GM can offer you a
• 52:21
  worse outcome, a hard bargain, or an ugly choice on a miss.
• 52:24
  Be prepared for the worst. So that's that.
• 52:28
  That's the basic flow of it 'cause I realized I didn't
• 52:36
  describe actually how the dice math works.
• 52:40
  I don't actually, I don't remember where the I know how
• 52:43
  the dice work. I'm trying to remember where the
• 52:45
  book even says how the oh, there, OK, I found it.
• 52:48
  Small paragraph, but I found it. And then last, going back to
• 52:57
  sorry, going back to the basic moves, I'm jumping around a
• 52:59
  little bit. I knew I was going to do this.
• 53:02
  It's funny, I. I, I'm like stuff, I'll mention
• 53:08
  this thing and then you, you like directly brought up the,
• 53:10
  the partial success and I was like, OK, I'm just going to sit
• 53:13
  back. Well, what were you going to
• 53:15
  say? I was just going to bring up
• 53:16
  like it's something that I'm still wrapping my head around
• 53:21
  the partial success thing like it, you know, the Lancer kind of
• 53:26
  brings it up and it's good that this game gives you really bare
• 53:30
  bones fundamental, like fundamental instances of it.
• 53:39
  It gives you quite a few examples.
• 53:42
  Yeah, and it allows you to gauge this is kind of what what were
• 53:45
  we, what game were we talking about where I where I wanted
• 53:47
  this to be a thing partial. Success.
• 53:52
  The like, I want examples of the partial success.
• 53:57
  Oh, there was like a back and forth like, well, you can't do
• 53:59
  that all the time. I I think it was in in in stars.
• 54:03
  Might have been, might have been.
• 54:05
  The point is, is that this game does exactly what I asked for,
• 54:08
  which is give me degrees by which the partial success can
• 54:12
  manifest of like a partial success like you barely skimmed
• 54:16
  out a partial success of you did it, but at serious cost like it.
• 54:21
  It allows you to go what would I do in this situation?
• 54:24
  And then you can sort of build this little library of instances
• 54:28
  you have and go, OK, well this is close to that thing and I'm
• 54:30
  going to shift it a little bit to meet what I need.
• 54:33
  Yes, the the the the basic moves are written quite cleverly.
• 54:44
  So even if you look at doing something under fire right, it
• 54:48
  says on 1/7 time you flinch, hesitate or stall, the GM can
• 54:51
  offer you a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice.
• 54:54
  Those 3 little bullets like worse outcome, hard bargain, or
• 54:58
  ugly choice prompts enough thought in your brain that you
• 55:03
  can immediately start thinking of possibilities when this move
• 55:06
  comes up, you know? Yeah.
• 55:10
  And eventually, of course, after you play the game enough, you
• 55:12
  don't even really need to worry about that anymore.
• 55:14
  You just kind of have that locked into your head so you can
• 55:18
  whip it out whenever you need to, which is kind of why when
• 55:22
  other games do stuff like a partial success for me, I
• 55:27
  immediately go, oh, OK, I know what to do with this because a
• 55:30
  lot of those games are taking from Apocalypse World.
• 55:33
  So I'm like, I played, I played the original idea.
• 55:36
  So yes, I know how to handle this.
• 55:43
  And yes, the book offers quite a lot of examples of how it should
• 55:45
  go. It also gave gives a couple of
• 55:48
  examples. I forget which part it was, but
• 55:50
  I specifically noticed there's a couple of examples of what
• 55:54
  happens if examples of the the MC doing it wrong.
• 56:00
  So the the character got a partial success, but the MC
• 56:05
  unintentionally took their success away and then was like,
• 56:08
  oh, wait, let me you know. It was like a hypothetical
• 56:10
  example. It was like, oh, let me go back.
• 56:14
  So it gives you, it gives you examples on both ends of the
• 56:16
  spectrum too, which is good, which is something I don't, I
• 56:21
  don't think Blades does that. Funny enough, I think that would
• 56:25
  be good in Blades. Which part exactly?
• 56:29
  The examples of doing it correctly and doing it wrong, Oh
• 56:33
  yeah, no, in terms of partial success on that from what I
• 56:36
  remember, yeah, I don't remember doing it.
• 56:39
  Anyway, back to the basic news. Seducer manipulate it like I
• 56:44
  said is the one you expect. A good thing that Apocalypse
• 56:48
  World second edition added that first edition did not have is
• 56:52
  what happens when a lot of these moves interact with another PC
• 56:56
  like PC on PC situations PvP. The first game basically said
• 57:03
  this is not a PvP game so don't do it. 2nd edition.
• 57:08
  I think he realized that people were getting into PvP situations
• 57:12
  a lot in this game because your characters will often want
• 57:18
  differing things or will be in situations where.
• 57:23
  Because the game always talks about doing PCNPCPC triangles.
• 57:28
  Which is to say, 1 NPC has a relationship with two of the PCs
• 57:33
  and is like a, it's a triangle between the three characters in
• 57:37
  terms of the tension and relation between each other.
• 57:40
  So if you're doing that all the time, you're going to get PvP
• 57:44
  situations where the one player is like, no, I want this guy on
• 57:47
  my team and the other player is like, no, he's on my team.
• 57:50
  So PvP actually happens quite a bit.
• 57:52
  It's not necessarily always direct combat PvP.
• 57:56
  In fact, most of the time it's not, although it can be, of
• 57:59
  course. Don't get me wrong most of the
• 58:01
  time it's not direct combat PvP. So at some point he realized OK
• 58:07
  I need to put in rules for how it works on a PVPS level.
• 58:12
  So like for seduce and manipulate it specifically it
• 58:15
  gives the descriptor. It says for NPCS on A10 plus
• 58:19
  they'll go along with you unless, unless, unless or until
• 58:24
  some fact or action betrays the reason you you gave them.
• 58:27
  On a 7 to 9 they'll go along with you, but they need concrete
• 58:30
  assurance, corroboration, or evidence.
• 58:32
  And then obviously on a six you miss for PCs on A10 plus both
• 58:37
  and a 7 to 9 choose one. And then it says if they go
• 58:40
  along with you, they mark XP. If they refuse, erase one of
• 58:44
  their highlighted stats for the remainder of the session.
• 58:47
  Which is basically saying highlighting stats is how a
• 58:52
  person gets XP in this game. So if you seduce and manipulate
• 58:56
  A fellow player and they fight you on it, that means you're
• 59:01
  taking away their ability to get XP in the future.
• 59:03
  So you're not totally you can't mind control another player, but
• 59:07
  you can dangle a carrot of I can either give you extra XP or take
• 59:12
  some of your XP away. So you're offering the carrot or
• 59:16
  the stick on the fellow player? I think it's also something of
• 59:19
  like if a character's just not into it.
• 59:24
  I think this is worth bringing up because this is, this is part
• 59:27
  of the, like, incent thing. I think there's something to be
• 59:32
  said about if a character's not into it because the player's not
• 59:36
  into it. I, I, yeah.
• 59:39
  It it's good that the game kind of brings this up and sort of
• 59:42
  treats it like a seduction. Doesn't overtly have to be a
• 59:45
  thing about banging. Like, you can, yes, seduce
• 59:48
  someone with power, you know, right.
• 59:50
  Or resources. Like hence why it's called
• 59:53
  seduce or manipulate. Right, right.
• 59:55
  I know, I know. It just the sex moves will bring
• 59:58
  them up in a bit sort of pushes that towards proclivity or or on
• 1:00:03
  the face of it, you think it does, it doesn't actually they
• 1:00:06
  are yeah, links, but not coexistent.
• 1:00:12
  The thing I also like is just if you ignore a seduce or
• 1:00:15
  manipulate from another player it doesn't just shut you down
• 1:00:18
  right? Like you lose out on XP which is
• 1:00:21
  annoying but it doesn't like turn off your character in some
• 1:00:24
  fashion. Like you don't like lose an
• 1:00:26
  ability or anything like that. And then we have another basic
• 1:00:31
  move is help or interfere with someone, which is pretty much
• 1:00:35
  exactly what it sounds like for this one.
• 1:00:36
  This is where one of the main moves where your history is
• 1:00:39
  relevant. You roll plus history on A10
• 1:00:42
  plus they get a + 2. Or if you're trying to
• 1:00:44
  interfere, they get a -, 2. On a 7 to 9, they get a + 1 or
• 1:00:48
  -1 on a miss. Tough shit, they're probably
• 1:00:51
  going to punch you in the mouth or something.
• 1:00:54
  Then you have read a sitch, which is reading a charge
• 1:00:57
  situation, and then you there's a list of questions.
• 1:01:00
  If you get a 10 plus, you ask three questions.
• 1:01:02
  On a 7 to 9, you ask one question.
• 1:01:04
  On a miss, you still get a question, but also something
• 1:01:07
  bad's going to happen. Important thing on read a sitch.
• 1:01:15
  Some people want to treat read a sitch like a perception check.
• 1:01:18
  It is not a perception check. It is specifically when you read
• 1:01:23
  a charged situation, which is to say if there is tension in the
• 1:01:28
  moment. If you're just looking around a
• 1:01:30
  room and nothing's going on, that's not read a sitch.
• 1:01:32
  You just look around the room and the GM tells you what you do
• 1:01:35
  or do not see, and then you have read a person.
• 1:01:41
  This is if you read a person in a charged interaction and it
• 1:01:45
  works the same as read a sitch, but it's on an individual and
• 1:01:48
  there's slightly different questions.
• 1:01:53
  Interesting thing about read a person in this game.
• 1:01:55
  The first question on the list is, is your excuse me?
• 1:01:59
  Is your character telling the truth?
• 1:02:03
  And the game expects you to answer that 100% honestly, which
• 1:02:08
  does mean every player character has a lie detector.
• 1:02:13
  Make of that what you will. Some people might really hate
• 1:02:15
  that, some people might not do with that what you will.
• 1:02:19
  I think it's particularly fun because nine times out of 10,
• 1:02:21
  what ends up happening with the with that question being on the
• 1:02:26
  table at all times is that the tension is always ramping.
• 1:02:33
  Because you know, if you're trying to lie or if an NPC is
• 1:02:36
  trying to lie to you, you know, the gun of that question is
• 1:02:41
  always present and you can always reach for it.
• 1:02:44
  That doesn't mean nothing's bad going to happen because you
• 1:02:45
  could roll A6, fail, and then something bad happens to you.
• 1:02:49
  But it's always there, right? I think some people might not
• 1:02:53
  like. That of when do you I, I yeah.
• 1:02:56
  I mean, that's here's the thing though, right?
• 1:02:57
  D&D also kind of has a lie detector within site check like,
• 1:03:01
  and I know it's not supposed to be a lie detector, but show me
• 1:03:04
  one fucking campaign where somebody like he says this thing
• 1:03:08
  completely innocuous inside check yes I mean you pass is he
• 1:03:13
  lying to me? Yeah.
• 1:03:15
  You don't know that's not. Not supposed to.
• 1:03:18
  Technically how that works right?
• 1:03:19
  Like, your insight check tells you that he's not giving you the
• 1:03:24
  whole story, but you don't. You don't have to be like, Nope,
• 1:03:27
  He actually, he has six kids and a dog, and he really likes
• 1:03:30
  Christmas cactuses. Like, it's not how it works
• 1:03:33
  anyway, so fuck it, you know? Yeah.
• 1:03:35
  Well, and the thing that bugs me about the the insight check in
• 1:03:39
  D&D is that the the insight check has no consequence at all.
• 1:03:46
  Right. There's nothing.
• 1:03:47
  Nothing can happen. Whereas every time you pick up
• 1:03:51
  dice in Apocalypse World, there is a potential consequence,
• 1:03:56
  right? Like, so you don't, you don't
• 1:03:58
  want to try and you don't want to try and gun for dice every
• 1:04:01
  chance you get. In fact, a lot of the time when
• 1:04:03
  you're playing Apocalypse World, you will.
• 1:04:05
  Players will actively go out of their way to try and avoid
• 1:04:07
  making the role because if they know if there's no role, I get
• 1:04:11
  what I want. If there's a role, it might go
• 1:04:13
  poorly and something might happen.
• 1:04:16
  The players will often try to dodge rolls as best as they.
• 1:04:18
  You can't do it forever, of course, but they will try.
• 1:04:22
  Which is kind of, I think is kind of an interesting part of
• 1:04:25
  the game because it changes the dynamic.
• 1:04:30
  Especially if you used to D&D where it's the literal opposite.
• 1:04:33
  Because in D&D you want to grab the dice as fast as possible
• 1:04:36
  because the dice give you the superpower of give me what I
• 1:04:39
  want. GMI rolled the dice right?
• 1:04:45
  It's an interest. So it's a it's a fun inversion
• 1:04:47
  of that scenario. And then second to last basic
• 1:04:57
  move, we have open your world to the psychic maelstrom.
• 1:05:00
  So I will just I'll just read this one because it's kind of
• 1:05:03
  odd when you open your brain to the world's psychic maelstrom
• 1:05:07
  roll plus weird on a hit, the MC tells you something new and
• 1:05:10
  interesting about the current situation and might ask you a
• 1:05:13
  question or two answer them on A10 plus the MC gives you good
• 1:05:17
  detail on a 7 to 9. They give you an impression.
• 1:05:20
  If you already know all there is to know, the MC will tell you
• 1:05:23
  that on a miss, be prepared for the worst.
• 1:05:25
  So two things that are interesting about this
• 1:05:27
  particular move is 1. The question that you as the MC,
• 1:05:32
  every time I've run this game, when players start using open
• 1:05:35
  their brain to the psychic maelstrom, I always get excited
• 1:05:38
  because I can go crazy with the questions and start being like,
• 1:05:41
  ah, so that guy you killed when you were five, what's the deal
• 1:05:44
  with that bro? You know, like just throw crazy
• 1:05:47
  shit at them because the psychic maelstrom knows all right, and
• 1:05:50
  you can interpret the psychic maelstrom however you want.
• 1:05:55
  Another important thing is or another not important thing to
• 1:05:58
  note, I guess it does say if you already know all there is to
• 1:06:03
  know, the MC will tell you that little bit later in the book.
• 1:06:07
  He said the writer says, how does he phrase it that the
• 1:06:13
  clause of there's already they already know everything there is
• 1:06:16
  to know is there, but I've never used it and I hope you never
• 1:06:20
  have to too. So shows you his opinion on how
• 1:06:25
  that move should work. And then our very last basic
• 1:06:31
  move is at the end of every session.
• 1:06:33
  It's just called session and move.
• 1:06:36
  Choose a character. Who know I I couldn't tell if
• 1:06:38
  this was a move or not. This is a move.
• 1:06:42
  Yeah, it's a move. It's technically a move.
• 1:06:44
  I mean, it is a little weird to phrase it as such, but yeah,
• 1:06:46
  it's a move. OK, Yeah.
• 1:06:50
  Basically, when a choose a character who knows you better
• 1:06:53
  than they used to, if there's more than one, choose one at
• 1:06:56
  your whim. Tell that player to add +1 to
• 1:06:59
  their hex with you on their sheet.
• 1:07:02
  So I point at Isaiah's character and I say add +1 hex with my
• 1:07:06
  character on your sheet. If this brings them to +4, reset
• 1:07:10
  to +1 and therefore mark XP. The player who in the player
• 1:07:15
  who's marking on their sheet. If no one knows you, better
• 1:07:19
  choose a character who doesn't know you as well as they
• 1:07:21
  thought, or choose any character at your whim.
• 1:07:23
  That character takes a -, 1 to their hex with you on their
• 1:07:26
  sheet. If this brings them to -3 they
• 1:07:28
  reset to zero and then also mark XP.
• 1:07:32
  So this number is going to move around constantly and is is a
• 1:07:36
  guarantee like XP flow. And then we get into character
• 1:07:44
  creation. A lot of this is very bookkeepy
• 1:07:47
  stuff. So like, I'm not going to harp
• 1:07:50
  on it too much. It goes, you know, explains to
• 1:07:52
  you stats, basic moves, your special moves as your playbook.
• 1:07:59
  And then, well, I guess actually I guess the thing I will
• 1:08:01
  mention, this is where I think this is the first spot the game
• 1:08:04
  brings up sex moves, pretty sure.
• 1:08:07
  No, it does bring it up earlier, like very early in the book,
• 1:08:11
  but. Well, either way.
• 1:08:15
  So actually explains it here. So yeah.
• 1:08:17
  Every character has what the game the the mechanical term is
• 1:08:21
  called a special move. It's a move when your character
• 1:08:25
  has sex. Now the book is real explicit
• 1:08:28
  about this Every. This is literally the first like
• 1:08:32
  2 sentences. Every playbook has a special
• 1:08:35
  move for when the character has sex.
• 1:08:37
  These these aren't moves for playing out sex scenes.
• 1:08:41
  I'm easily embarrassed personally.
• 1:08:42
  So when I'm the MC or when it's my characters having sex, I
• 1:08:45
  always fade to black. They're moves for how sex
• 1:08:48
  changes the relationship between characters, if it even does.
• 1:08:52
  They're based on the idea that when you have sex with someone,
• 1:08:54
  you get to know them better than you did before.
• 1:08:57
  So yes, the point is not to get weird horny on Maine and just
• 1:09:01
  start, you know, explaining your weird sex fantasy stuff.
• 1:09:04
  Unless you want to fucking knock yourself out.
• 1:09:05
  No one's stopping you, but you don't have to.
• 1:09:07
  My, my immediate thought is the it's the you.
• 1:09:13
  Not that I read the Tokyo Go manga, but it's at the very end
• 1:09:15
  of the manga where Toka is looking at Kaneki and she's
• 1:09:19
  like, it's like right before the big final battle she goes, are
• 1:09:23
  you a virgin? He just kind of drops his coffee
• 1:09:26
  and then it hard cuts to them smash.
• 1:09:29
  Is that really a thing? Have you I'm finding this image?
• 1:09:33
  OK. It it it's kind of I bring it up
• 1:09:36
  because it like it can be that easy in this game because it oh,
• 1:09:41
  for mechanical point. You don't have to role play the
• 1:09:43
  awkward. You're just like I I want the
• 1:09:45
  like I I want this resource from you other player yes fitness it.
• 1:09:50
  Can be mechanical and here's the other thing you gotta here's the
• 1:09:53
  other thing you gotta understand to some degree is that you know,
• 1:09:56
  genre wise, post apocalypse, random flagrant sex just because
• 1:10:02
  it's like not that out of the question in the genre itself.
• 1:10:06
  So it's just going to happen sometimes.
• 1:10:10
  That being said, I don't love this mechanic, but probably not
• 1:10:16
  for the reason that a lot of people think.
• 1:10:19
  I don't love this mechanic because.
• 1:10:21
  Wait, can I get can I? Well, so you you kind of
• 1:10:24
  explained it, but. I told you already, yeah.
• 1:10:26
  Oh, OK, I thought there was more.
• 1:10:29
  No, I mean, that's amazing. I also don't love it either,
• 1:10:31
  which is funny considering me because it feels kind of clunky.
• 1:10:39
  That's kind of similar to what I yeah.
• 1:10:40
  Like it feels, I get what the point is, right?
• 1:10:44
  We, we talked about it a little bit before, but I like it.
• 1:10:52
  It doesn't feel slapdash. It feels like like the the
• 1:10:55
  writer had a clear idea on what they wanted, but it it's sort of
• 1:11:00
  this odd, it sort of exists in a vacuum like nothing else.
• 1:11:09
  It doesn't commingle with the rest of the game that much,
• 1:11:11
  yeah. It just it's just it's an odd
• 1:11:14
  stand alone mechanic that I mean, you you literally said it
• 1:11:17
  one of the editions of the game don't have it.
• 1:11:18
  So that kind of tells you how relevant it it.
• 1:11:20
  Or yes, so there's a version. The rest of the rules.
• 1:11:23
  There's yes. There's a version of Apocalypse
• 1:11:25
  World called Apocalypse World Burned Over, which is meant to
• 1:11:28
  be the PG13 version of the game. So it's a little less like
• 1:11:33
  there's less cursing. They take out the sex moves.
• 1:11:35
  It's it's less explicitly violent, stuff like that.
• 1:11:41
  My my thing with the sex moves is, yeah, actually not that
• 1:11:44
  different from what you're saying.
• 1:11:45
  They they feel a little slapped on like towards the end of the
• 1:11:49
  design and they don't integrate that well.
• 1:11:51
  And some of them are just fucking boring.
• 1:11:55
  So some characters have cool ones, for example, the Brainer.
• 1:11:59
  When you when Brainer has sex with someone, they, they get to
• 1:12:04
  do a deep brain scan of that person, which is a move that the
• 1:12:07
  brainer has that lets you basically read their mind and
• 1:12:10
  like pull memories out. That one's cool because you
• 1:12:14
  it's, I believe the exact wording is that you get a deep
• 1:12:16
  brain scan for free. I think it is.
• 1:12:19
  Now I gotta see if I can find it real quick.
• 1:12:21
  Oh yeah. When you have a character of
• 1:12:23
  sex, you automatically do a deep sprain scan run on them whether
• 1:12:26
  you have the move or not. That's the other thing.
• 1:12:28
  If you don't have it, you still do.
• 1:12:29
  This roll plus wheels is normal. However, the MC chooses which
• 1:12:33
  question the other player answers.
• 1:12:35
  So it's like you get this little bonus of a move you may or may
• 1:12:40
  not have. That one's kind of a cool
• 1:12:43
  interaction, but then the battle babe's sex move special is if
• 1:12:48
  you and another half character have sex, nullify the other
• 1:12:51
  character sex move, whatever it is, it just doesn't happen.
• 1:12:54
  That one sucks. It's just like you just
• 1:12:57
  completely like ignore that mechanic and they're like and
• 1:13:00
  you ignore it on both sides. You ignore it for the battle
• 1:13:02
  babe because she doesn't have one and you ignore it for the
• 1:13:04
  other player because you're turning theirs off.
• 1:13:08
  Went went chopper special is another one.
• 1:13:10
  If I remember correctly, if you another character of sex, they
• 1:13:15
  immediately change their sheet to say plus 3 hex with you.
• 1:13:17
  They also choose whether they give you a + 1 or -1 to your hex
• 1:13:21
  with them. That's like whatever.
• 1:13:23
  Like OK, you know like some of them are cool and some of them
• 1:13:27
  are fucking lame and that's my big problem.
• 1:13:31
  My other problem is that technically rules is written,
• 1:13:35
  they don't apply to MPCS, which feels like a missed opportunity
• 1:13:40
  in my opinion. Oh, I didn't even notice that.
• 1:13:42
  Yeah, technically they only apply PC to PC, which means
• 1:13:48
  they're going to happen not as often, and it feels like a
• 1:13:53
  missed opportunity to not be able to use like, use sex as a
• 1:13:56
  manipulation tool against NPCS. Also, you know.
• 1:14:00
  Right. Well, so you know what's funny
• 1:14:01
  and not to bash on this game, but I think a game that really
• 1:14:06
  handled this well, this specific mechanic is Monster Hearts.
• 1:14:10
  Because not only does it, well, yeah, I mean, yes, but like, not
• 1:14:13
  only can you can you engage in your sex move with another NP
• 1:14:19
  with an NPC, the strings mechanic is so deeply interwoven
• 1:14:23
  with characters banging because you're horny, like, you know, 17
• 1:14:27
  to 21 year olds, right? Like it very specifically says I
• 1:14:32
  give up all. And strings and monster hearts
• 1:14:35
  are, are sort of narrative threads that you hold on people.
• 1:14:40
  They're they're they're it's it's like it's an abstracted.
• 1:14:46
  I have this over you so I can get you to do what I want.
• 1:14:50
  It's it's some of that manipulation stuff which I feel
• 1:14:52
  like Pop World misses out on. Yes, whereas monster hearts the
• 1:14:56
  the the strings themselves are so deeply entwined.
• 1:14:58
  Like I know the the vampires 1 is is about leading people on.
• 1:15:01
  You don't like you get them to want to have sex with you, but
• 1:15:04
  you don't smash. And if you do, you lose all of
• 1:15:09
  your strings on everybody because given the power you hold
• 1:15:14
  over everyone, because now someone knows the truth of what
• 1:15:17
  you're like. Yeah, it got a little.
• 1:15:20
  Too close to you? No, yeah, that Monster Hearts
• 1:15:22
  did a a much cooler version of the sex mood thing, which makes
• 1:15:26
  a lot of sense because it cares more about that relationship
• 1:15:29
  stuff than Apocalypse World doesn't like.
• 1:15:31
  Apocalypse World treats it as like a, it's like a tool, which
• 1:15:33
  it is, whereas Monster Hearts focused on it more, which makes
• 1:15:37
  sense. So yeah, I, I don't love it's
• 1:15:41
  implementation. I don't take it out in
• 1:15:43
  Apocalypse World, but it also just doesn't come up that often.
• 1:15:47
  I will say 1 little like minor adjustment, I guess I would say
• 1:15:55
  I make on it is that, and, and a lot of people do this, is that
• 1:15:58
  rather than it being explicitly sex, it can just be, you know,
• 1:16:04
  our two characters have like a date night and spend a lot of
• 1:16:08
  time together over the night. And then like, you know, maybe
• 1:16:11
  sleep it like sleep over someone's house, don't
• 1:16:14
  necessarily bang, but like stay there or, or some people word it
• 1:16:18
  like basically what I'm saying is people adjust it to be rather
• 1:16:21
  than just a sex move, it could be like just intimate hanging
• 1:16:25
  out togetherness in general. Right.
• 1:16:28
  It it, it, it almost could be called like an intimacy move or
• 1:16:33
  something because yeah, it doesn't necessarily have to
• 1:16:34
  pertain to. If I remember correctly, I mean,
• 1:16:37
  I could probably check this right now.
• 1:16:39
  I'm pretty sure Urban Shadows calls it an intimacy move.
• 1:16:46
  I'm going to see if I'm going to see if I could really fast open
• 1:16:49
  this shit up and try and find it.
• 1:16:51
  I'm going to try. Hold on.
• 1:16:53
  OK, let's all right, the hunter. Let's see.
• 1:16:56
  I have to see if I can find it. And for a question, Park gear,
• 1:16:58
  blah blah, weapons. Urban Shadows is an apocalypse
• 1:17:02
  world hack. That's for modern fantasy.
• 1:17:05
  Yes. It's called an intimacy move.
• 1:17:08
  Yeah. See.
• 1:17:09
  Yeah. Because in in Urban Shadows, you
• 1:17:12
  have drama moves, which has to do with the setting of that
• 1:17:15
  game. But yeah, one of them is your
• 1:17:16
  intimacy move. Intimacy move.
• 1:17:18
  So for the hunter, when you share a moment of intimacy,
• 1:17:21
  physical or emotional, with another person, ask them a
• 1:17:24
  question. You must answer it honestly.
• 1:17:26
  They will ask you a question in return.
• 1:17:27
  Answer it honestly. Or mark corruption eruptions of
• 1:17:30
  mechanic in that yeah so yeah. So basically apocalypse Rogue
• 1:17:37
  got the ball rolling on that idea did it not great.
• 1:17:40
  And then other games were like, wait a minute, now I can do this
• 1:17:42
  better. So yeah.
• 1:17:48
  Also funny you mentioned the the strings thing with the vampire,
• 1:17:51
  because the vampire in Urban Shadows, when you share a moment
• 1:17:56
  of intimacy, tell them a secret about yourself or owe them a
• 1:17:59
  debt. Either way, they enter your web
• 1:18:02
  and owe you a debt. So leaning into that one.
• 1:18:08
  Yeah, this is a sex moves thing. Yeah, take it or leave it.
• 1:18:14
  I mean, you can also just fucking remove it.
• 1:18:16
  I and I some of the playbooks special moves in Apocalypse
• 1:18:21
  World kind of do work with NPCS so or yeah so I will.
• 1:18:27
  I have still treated sex with an NPC as counting personally, but
• 1:18:33
  not all of them work. Only some of them do.
• 1:18:36
  Some of them are worded to be a little more PC specific.
• 1:18:40
  Which man? I I it's a weird place to put
• 1:18:43
  this. It.
• 1:18:45
  Is worth mentioning. Serif really wants to run
• 1:18:47
  Monster Hearts and reading this made me want to run.
• 1:18:52
  Reading this book made me want to play Monster Hearts, which
• 1:18:55
  makes and I know Sarah listens to this.
• 1:18:57
  Hurry up and run the fucking. Game.
• 1:19:00
  I mean I'm 100% down to play monster.
• 1:19:02
  Hearts I want to live my inner edgy vampire dreams.
• 1:19:05
  Monster Hearts In terms of the echelon of Powered by the
• 1:19:10
  Apocalypse hacks that people always talk about, Monster
• 1:19:13
  Hearts is very high on that list every time.
• 1:19:15
  I'm not surprised at all, yeah. It's it's one of the ones that
• 1:19:19
  comes up. It was also one of the pretty
• 1:19:21
  early Powered by the Apocalypse acts.
• 1:19:23
  Not the earliest, but pretty early.
• 1:19:27
  Is the earliest dungeon rule. It's the one I always see
• 1:19:30
  that's. That's like dungeon rolls, the
• 1:19:35
  earliest one I know of. I don't know if it's the
• 1:19:39
  earliest, but it's really, it was very early and you can kind
• 1:19:43
  of tell Dungeon World's an early one because it it, it has some
• 1:19:47
  clunkiness in the translation from Apocalypse World to Dungeon
• 1:19:50
  World. So yeah, I don't know.
• 1:19:56
  Now we have, I mean, now power be the apocalypse is fucking
• 1:19:58
  everywhere. We got an Avatar game that was
• 1:20:00
  powered by the apocalypse, so shit's everywhere now anyway.
• 1:20:08
  Go back to where we're. So yes, we're technically in the
• 1:20:11
  character creation chapter. It brings up a whole bunch of
• 1:20:13
  like. Your moves and your stuff and
• 1:20:16
  mentions the special moves. Like we said, it does mention
• 1:20:19
  vehicles and prosthetics. There are rules for vehicles in
• 1:20:22
  this game to live out your Mad Max life.
• 1:20:24
  Technically nobody starts with a vehicle guaranteed except for
• 1:20:31
  the driver or and the chopper. But you can ask your MC if you
• 1:20:36
  would like a vehicle and if you do it gives you some rules on
• 1:20:38
  how to make a vehicle. It's pretty straightforward.
• 1:20:41
  Basically, vehicles have stats their own their own stats that
• 1:20:46
  they compare when you're like if you're driving against another
• 1:20:51
  vehicle, you compare the stats and that dictates dictates the
• 1:20:57
  bonus you have. So if your speed is +2 and
• 1:21:01
  another car's chasing you and their speed is 1, then when you
• 1:21:04
  roll you roll with a + 1 because that's the difference.
• 1:21:10
  Any other thing? Oh it does mention prosthetics
• 1:21:12
  very briefly in character creation also, but there's not
• 1:21:15
  really rules for prosthetics, they're mostly just looks you.
• 1:21:20
  Can I could have swore like? It has some very.
• 1:21:23
  Minor weapon and shit like that. I don't think so.
• 1:21:29
  Or well sorta so it you can have a strength bit to the prosthetic
• 1:21:39
  and then you can have like a weakness and stuff there.
• 1:21:41
  It's got like fictional tags to it but it doesn't have like
• 1:21:44
  super hard mechanics to prosthetics.
• 1:21:46
  Got it. Then obviously you go around do
• 1:21:52
  your introductions, you have hex questions.
• 1:21:55
  When you do character creation, these are always a fucking
• 1:22:00
  headache. Basically, the way the hex
• 1:22:04
  questions works is everybody has questions on their sheets.
• 1:22:08
  So you start with one character and they go around the table and
• 1:22:13
  ask whatever their questions are.
• 1:22:16
  And then the characters that you're asking like the question
• 1:22:20
  to, they have something on their sheet that kind of says how they
• 1:22:23
  respond. It's really not that hard but
• 1:22:26
  people always get fucking confused on this.
• 1:22:30
  Why did that is because I didn't.
• 1:22:33
  I don't know, I, I, I don't know in in Apocalypse world burned
• 1:22:37
  over. He simplified it drastically.
• 1:22:39
  I forget exactly who he did it, but he simplified it down.
• 1:22:42
  So to give you an example, I'll read off the hex questions for
• 1:22:46
  the Angel. This is when you're this is
• 1:22:48
  during character creation. Everyone introduces their
• 1:22:51
  characters, blah blah blah. Go around for hex on your turn,
• 1:22:55
  ask 1-2 or all three of these questions.
• 1:22:57
  So you say, which one of you, which one of you do I figure is
• 1:23:02
  doomed to self destruction. And then, you know, the brainer
• 1:23:06
  character says me. The angels then writes down on
• 1:23:10
  their sheet for the brainer character -2 hex with that
• 1:23:14
  character. Then another question, which one
• 1:23:17
  of you put a hand in when it mattered and helped me save a
• 1:23:20
  life. And the gun lugger says, oh, I
• 1:23:21
  did that. Obviously you're also supposed
• 1:23:24
  to kind of flesh out, you know, the story behind the questions.
• 1:23:28
  And then the the Angel writes on their sheet +2 with the gun
• 1:23:31
  lugger, right? For every other character that
• 1:23:37
  if you that you didn't ask a question, you just write a + 1
• 1:23:41
  because the Angel is kind of friendly with everybody on
• 1:23:45
  everyone else's turn, answer their questions as you like.
• 1:23:49
  Now, the Angel doesn't have any stipulations because they're
• 1:23:52
  kind of the like they're homies with everybody.
• 1:23:55
  So they don't they just answer however they want.
• 1:23:58
  But some of the characters like I believe the brainer, let's
• 1:24:05
  see, where is it? Oh no, wait, what?
• 1:24:09
  I was going. To say I don't feel like I saw
• 1:24:13
  anyone that had like negative. Oh, am I confusing?
• 1:24:17
  I might be confusing this with first edition.
• 1:24:21
  That might be what I'm getting confused with.
• 1:24:23
  I think I liked it. I think I might have liked it
• 1:24:25
  better in first. Edition.
• 1:24:27
  Because of this, let me double yes, let me let me pull it up
• 1:24:31
  real quick. Hold on is now now I'm not
• 1:24:34
  totally remembering yes OK so 1st edition did this and I
• 1:24:40
  thought this was interesting. OK so going back to the Angel.
• 1:24:45
  So it's the same it's the same initial questions and then it
• 1:24:48
  says for everyone else, you know, plus one you're an open
• 1:24:50
  book on others turns you try not to get too attached.
• 1:24:55
  Whatever number they tell you, give it a -, 1 and write it next
• 1:25:00
  to their character's name. Because so, for example, they,
• 1:25:09
  they say to you, oh, you know, like the like taking the Angel
• 1:25:14
  question, one of them put a hand in what mattered and helped you
• 1:25:17
  save a life. Tell that player, Oh, that's
• 1:25:20
  right. That was the other thing about
• 1:25:21
  they were they, they used to work in reverse.
• 1:25:24
  So you used to it wasn't a question you told the other
• 1:25:28
  player. So the Angel would say one of
• 1:25:31
  them put a hand in when it mattered and helped you save a
• 1:25:33
  life. Tell that player +2 hex.
• 1:25:36
  So the Angel said. Gun lugger, you helped me save a
• 1:25:39
  life, right, +2 on your sheet. Oh, OK, so and then like the
• 1:25:45
  question more like the. Well, so here's the thing.
• 1:25:48
  The game still encourages you to discuss it with each other, but
• 1:25:52
  the idea is that the Angel, the Gun lugger, knows the Angel
• 1:25:55
  better because they helped the Angel save someone's life,
• 1:25:58
  right? Then when the other player says
• 1:26:01
  to the Angel, OK, you write +3 with +2 with me on your sheet,
• 1:26:07
  the Angel says OK and then subtracts one from it because
• 1:26:10
  they try not to get too attached right?
• 1:26:13
  So the numbers move around more in character creation in the in
• 1:26:18
  first edition. That's what I was talking about.
• 1:26:24
  I kind of like those better, but people got really confused.
• 1:26:29
  You know, that's fair. Another example.
• 1:26:32
  So the battle babes from first edition go around again for hex.
• 1:26:36
  On your turn, tell everyone plus one hex.
• 1:26:38
  You put yourself out in the public view on others turn.
• 1:26:41
  Choose the character you trust the least.
• 1:26:43
  Whatever number that play that player tells you, ignore it and
• 1:26:46
  write plus 3 hex next to that character's name.
• 1:26:49
  I like that. I like.
• 1:26:51
  That ignore it. For everyone else, write
• 1:26:54
  whatever number they tell you next to their character's name.
• 1:26:56
  So that's what I mean. Like, so a lot of those fun
• 1:26:59
  those stipulations were were the back and forth was fun.
• 1:27:02
  So I liked them. But everyone got confused about
• 1:27:04
  how it worked, so they didn't. He dropped it in in second
• 1:27:09
  edition. That's what I was talking about.
• 1:27:12
  So yeah. Or like the brainer, this is
• 1:27:15
  another one. Go around for hex on your turn,
• 1:27:18
  tell everybody -1 you keep yourself secret on others.
• 1:27:22
  Turn one of them has slept in your presence, knowingly or
• 1:27:26
  unknowingly. Whatever number that player
• 1:27:28
  tells you, ignore it. Right.
• 1:27:29
  Plus 3 hex next to that character's name and said
• 1:27:31
  because you've watched them sleep.
• 1:27:35
  Yeah. And everybody had a couple of
• 1:27:38
  like questions like that. So I said there's no reason to
• 1:27:42
  go back and play first edition. I guess that's maybe one reason
• 1:27:48
  I liked, I liked the way those hex questions worked.
• 1:27:52
  They it is easier now, but I thought the dynamic back and
• 1:27:56
  forth, the way the way it worked in first edition was fun.
• 1:27:59
  So yeah, you know, that's how it goes sometimes.
• 1:28:03
  It do be that way sometimes. But anyway, that's that's a long
• 1:28:08
  winded yappety yap about hex. Hex is like I said, it's the
• 1:28:14
  history with each other and the game is relevant does care about
• 1:28:18
  it. Once you finish character
• 1:28:21
  creation, that's when you then do stat highlighting.
• 1:28:24
  So you go around on the table basically whoever has the
• 1:28:26
  highest hex on your sheet. So if the gun lugger has I'm the
• 1:28:30
  Angel, the gun lugger is the highest hex on my sheet.
• 1:28:33
  I say to the player of the gun lugger, which one of my stats do
• 1:28:36
  I highlight? And then the gun lugger picks.
• 1:28:38
  And then you say to the MC, what's the other stat I
• 1:28:41
  highlight and then the MC picks. And what this does is when you
• 1:28:44
  roll a highlighted stat you get XP.
• 1:28:49
  So the the two ways you get XP in this game is roll a
• 1:28:51
  highlighted stat and roll your you know get your hex 2 + 4 or
• 1:28:58
  -3 those are the 2 main ways you get XP.
• 1:29:01
  There's a couple other sideways like for example the seduce or
• 1:29:03
  manipulate move said if you go along with what the person does
• 1:29:06
  mark XP. So there will be moves every now
• 1:29:08
  and then that tell you mark XP. But the the highlighting stats
• 1:29:11
  and the hex score are the 2 main ways that you get XP.
• 1:29:19
  And the point of highlighting stats is basically the the
• 1:29:25
  player and the MC in question are the ideas you want to
• 1:29:30
  encourage a certain kind of behavior.
• 1:29:34
  So if you're looking at the gun lugger character and you're
• 1:29:37
  like, I really love it when the gun lugger character just
• 1:29:40
  fucking blows shit up, then highlight their hard because
• 1:29:43
  that's the stat they used to blow shit up generally.
• 1:29:46
  And it encourages them to blow shit up more because they know
• 1:29:49
  they're going to get rewarded for it.
• 1:29:50
  And so it's one player does it and the MC does it.
• 1:29:55
  The game also says as the MC don't just pick their lowest
• 1:29:59
  stat to screw them over every time.
• 1:30:00
  In fact, it encourages you to do the opposite and generally pick
• 1:30:03
  their best one. You don't have to.
• 1:30:06
  But yeah, character creation, by the way, in this game, I I know
• 1:30:12
  I breezed through it really fast.
• 1:30:14
  Character creation in this game is really fucking fast.
• 1:30:17
  It seems like, well, super fast. That really doesn't surprise me.
• 1:30:20
  Most Powered by the Apocalypse character traders are fast
• 1:30:23
  because it's a playbook. Like, you don't.
• 1:30:26
  You don't. It's all right there.
• 1:30:27
  You get 2 stat layouts and go, do you want this one or this
• 1:30:30
  one? Yeah.
• 1:30:30
  Do you want this skill or this skill?
• 1:30:32
  You want this gear or this gear? Like it's really designed to be
• 1:30:35
  like you put the book down, we're going.
• 1:30:38
  No, it's no. Everyone sits there for an hour
• 1:30:41
  and goes, well what? What do I want to put this 12
• 1:30:44
  in? They don't.
• 1:30:45
  Give a fuck about your 12. It does not.
• 1:30:48
  In possible world you get 4 possible arrays to pick from.
• 1:30:53
  But yeah, literally there's literally on every playbook
• 1:30:56
  there's a section that says creating and then it says the
• 1:30:58
  name of the playbook. So creating a hard holder gives
• 1:31:01
  you some names, gives you the stats, tells you what gear you
• 1:31:03
  start with, tells you what about improvements, tells you what you
• 1:31:07
  look like, says you get all the basic moves and you get
• 1:31:11
  whatever, whatever moves you get from your playbook tells you
• 1:31:17
  your history questions, boom, bang.
• 1:31:20
  A couple of the playbooks do have like special rules that
• 1:31:23
  they have to pick from. For example, the gunlugger has
• 1:31:25
  to decide on their their specialty weapons and the hard
• 1:31:30
  holder has to pick a couple of questions about their hold.
• 1:31:33
  But it's a list. It's on your character sheet.
• 1:31:36
  You go down the list, boom, bang, done.
• 1:31:39
  So yeah, character creation zoom in this game pretty fast.
• 1:31:43
  I mean, obviously it'll take a little bit longer if somebody
• 1:31:46
  doesn't totally understand like what numbers mean what and
• 1:31:49
  stuff. But yeah, goes quick.
• 1:31:53
  Rarely had a problem. Probably the only the ones that
• 1:31:58
  take a little longer are like the hard holder and the Maestro
• 1:32:00
  D because you have to make decisions about your
• 1:32:02
  establishment and your hold, you know, which are yeah, a little
• 1:32:07
  bit of a bigger decision. But other than that, yeah,
• 1:32:13
  character creation. And then it gives our master of
• 1:32:17
  ceremonies. So you know, the the the real
• 1:32:24
  magic in this game is kind of via the master of ceremonies
• 1:32:28
  chunk of the book, because it tells you how to let the game or
• 1:32:36
  like run itself in a way. I was going to bring that up.
• 1:32:42
  So character creator is about 80 pages or or honestly not even
• 1:32:50
  like it is because there's several pages dedicated to the
• 1:32:55
  playbooks and shit. So like but that shit doesn't
• 1:32:58
  count right? You know the character rules for
• 1:33:00
  a player? Not much.
• 1:33:02
  Basically nothing. This book is accounting for
• 1:33:06
  advanced fuckery about 280 some odd pages.
• 1:33:12
  There's a very good reason that only the first let's, let's be
• 1:33:16
  gracious and say 60 or so are actually related to like, you as
• 1:33:19
  a player. Yeah.
• 1:33:22
  Yeah, yeah, the MC has the the magical juice for sure.
• 1:33:29
  And if yeah, if you're a player, you do not have to do a lot of
• 1:33:31
  reading to be done. Once you get to the master
• 1:33:34
  ceremonies part, you can stop reading.
• 1:33:36
  You're good if you're not running.
• 1:33:40
  So the magic of the MC, the this game, the way the MC chapter is
• 1:33:48
  written is it's very strict rules.
• 1:33:50
  And say it basically it tells you if you follow these rules,
• 1:33:55
  this game will give you magic, but you got to follow the rules
• 1:34:00
  so much. So to give you an example, you
• 1:34:04
  have your agenda and there's three bullet points on your
• 1:34:07
  agenda. Make Apocalypse World seem real,
• 1:34:10
  make the characters lives not boring, and play to find out
• 1:34:14
  what happens. Play to find out what happens,
• 1:34:16
  being the most important of those three in my opinion.
• 1:34:20
  And it says everything you say you should do to accomplish
• 1:34:24
  these three, no other. It's not, for instance, your
• 1:34:27
  agenda to make the players lose or deny them what they want, or
• 1:34:31
  punish them or control them or get them through your plan.
• 1:34:33
  Pre planned story parentheses do not pre plan a story.
• 1:34:37
  And I'm not fucking around. It's not your job to put the
• 1:34:41
  characters in double binds or dead ends or yank the rug out
• 1:34:43
  from under their feet. Go chasing after any of those
• 1:34:46
  and you wind up with a boring game that makes Apocalypse World
• 1:34:48
  seem contrived and you'll be pre deciding what happens by
• 1:34:51
  yourself, not playing to find out.
• 1:34:56
  That's that. That little paragraph is really
• 1:35:00
  the chunk, the meat of how you should run the game.
• 1:35:03
  Play to find out. Don't try to do, don't try to
• 1:35:06
  fuck the players over. Don't pre plan things.
• 1:35:09
  Let the flow happen. It will give you fucking magic
• 1:35:13
  shit. I know it sounds like I'm
• 1:35:14
  talking it up and it when you again, when you read the book,
• 1:35:18
  the magic is not obvious, it's not clear, but when you run the
• 1:35:22
  game, it just it just fucking happens.
• 1:35:27
  I will really. Does someone who's not played
• 1:35:29
  Apocos role but someone who played a couple sessions of
• 1:35:31
  Dungeon World? You feel that magic as a player
• 1:35:33
  too right? Like I talk about this a lot
• 1:35:36
  when we talk about the the PBTA games.
• 1:35:38
  We were in the one shot Josh ran for us.
• 1:35:40
  My character was like a Arabian nights Prince character with a
• 1:35:44
  bladed whip. Very Prince of Persia.
• 1:35:46
  That was kind of the point. And we were ambushing some orcs
• 1:35:51
  and my character snuck up a tree and did the like spider man web
• 1:35:57
  them up but used the bladed whip and basically made like a
• 1:36:04
  garrotte guillotine and just took the orcs head off.
• 1:36:06
  And the simplicity of OK, I scramble up the tree.
• 1:36:10
  OK, Defy danger. All right, cool like a rocky and
• 1:36:13
  see in the guy. OK, you're so you're this isn't
• 1:36:16
  defy danger. This is AI can't remember what
• 1:36:17
  the other one is. It was like I.
• 1:36:18
  Forgot what I had to do but yeah.
• 1:36:20
  And then probably just happens. It just, it not only does it
• 1:36:24
  just happens, it happened and it had real effect, right?
• 1:36:27
  The orcs went from, oh, we're going to fight to oh God, is
• 1:36:30
  that Jimmy's fucking head? What happened?
• 1:36:33
  Yeah, yeah. And, and of course someone's
• 1:36:38
  going to argue that you could do that with any game in like to
• 1:36:40
  some capacity you can. But Apocalypse World and many of
• 1:36:44
  the Powered by the Apocalypse games are built so well to do it
• 1:36:49
  that it it flows naturally. Apocalypse World is the least
• 1:36:53
  stressful game I have ever GM Ed in my entire life.
• 1:36:58
  It is so easy to run this game. It it almost runs itself.
• 1:37:04
  You kind of just nudge things in the right direction like, and I
• 1:37:09
  know that sounds almost a little silly, but it's true.
• 1:37:15
  It it is the lowest, it is the least stress.
• 1:37:18
  It's the easiest game to prep for.
• 1:37:22
  It all just flows and as long as you keep coming back to your
• 1:37:27
  agenda and your principles and your moves as the MC, it will
• 1:37:32
  just keep working. Basically, as long as you don't
• 1:37:34
  try to fight the game, it will work.
• 1:37:38
  And there's not an easy way to convey what I mean by that until
• 1:37:44
  you play it. But when you play it, you will
• 1:37:47
  feel it. And this applies to other any
• 1:37:49
  other Powered by the Apocalypse games that adhere close to
• 1:37:53
  Apocalypse World's design philosophy.
• 1:37:55
  You will feel it. Like I'm sure Monster Hearts
• 1:37:57
  will have the exact same feel almost like no doubt.
• 1:38:02
  So that you you kind of just got to try it because I know like
• 1:38:08
  sounds like I'm maybe talking a little crazy, but I'm not.
• 1:38:12
  I promise. Do without what you will, I
• 1:38:16
  suppose. I do, yes.
• 1:38:22
  I want to play this game. My my, my hesitation not comes
• 1:38:29
  from not wanting to play this game, it's just that I want to
• 1:38:32
  play Monster Arts more. It's fair, but this game seems
• 1:38:36
  like a really good time. I mean a great a good thing too
• 1:38:39
  about I, I don't know if this is the case for Monster Arts, but
• 1:38:41
  another thing that I really like about Apocalypse World is this
• 1:38:43
  is a great game to do really short campaigns and still feel
• 1:38:46
  satisfied. Yeah, well, so that was the
• 1:38:49
  whole thing about Monster Arts. Is that like the school thing is
• 1:38:53
  a big part of the game, but you are by no means supposed to sit
• 1:38:56
  through every second of school, right?
• 1:38:57
  You your characters? No, of course not.
• 1:38:58
  The the schooling in Monster Hearts is like school in
• 1:39:01
  Persona. It's supposed to be quick but
• 1:39:04
  informed things about the game. So like one of the best things
• 1:39:07
  in Persona is when you're in class and you're the characters
• 1:39:09
  are texting to each other. Yes, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:39:12
  Because it's an interesting way to shift how characters
• 1:39:15
  communicate with each other, and because this is something I've
• 1:39:18
  learned about with having Lancer be the game I'm running, having
• 1:39:24
  phones. In a game, yeah.
• 1:39:27
  Is I? I argue that anyone who says
• 1:39:31
  long distance communication in DND breaks the game, that is
• 1:39:34
  fucking cap. It actually makes the game so
• 1:39:37
  much more enjoyable because it just gets there's so many
• 1:39:42
  problems. Yes, there's the present.
• 1:39:44
  Way it can be it, it doesn't just.
• 1:39:46
  Solve everything and then there's nothing, right?
• 1:39:48
  Because a character's phone can get stolen, your comms can get
• 1:39:51
  hacked. Like you just have to shift the
• 1:39:53
  perspective. But having that tool is so much
• 1:39:57
  more interesting than not. Well, I think the reason people
• 1:40:00
  say it for D&D is because the sort of, you know, the, the, the
• 1:40:03
  wacky woo Hoo fantasy setting, often a lot of stuff that
• 1:40:07
  happens has requires a certain degree of knowledge being
• 1:40:12
  missing. For the, the, the, the, the
• 1:40:15
  plot, quote UN quote to, to flow and work.
• 1:40:17
  So that's why the long distance communication can sometimes be a
• 1:40:20
  problem. But if you know you're in a
• 1:40:21
  setting where characters have phones, then you're planning
• 1:40:25
  around that fact. You're aware that fact.
• 1:40:26
  You're not. You're not banking on the
• 1:40:28
  characters not knowing something 'cause you know they have phones
• 1:40:30
  or the Internet, right? The the caveat I will mention to
• 1:40:33
  my own point is I do understand the telepathic communication
• 1:40:36
  thing because it's completely safe and no one can do it unless
• 1:40:41
  you can read minds. But like, that's a very niche
• 1:40:43
  thing, having someone pickpocket your character's cell phone and
• 1:40:49
  you're like, oh, fuck. And then, you know, the the
• 1:40:52
  like, text your character's girlfriend.
• 1:40:54
  Hey, meet me at this time. And now your character has to do
• 1:40:56
  the oh, no face. Yeah, so.
• 1:41:06
  The those first three bullet points are your agenda, right?
• 1:41:09
  So it's what you need to what you're trying to achieve.
• 1:41:13
  Then the game tells you always say what the principles demand.
• 1:41:17
  The principles are going to be on the next page, what the rules
• 1:41:19
  demand, what your prep demand and what honesty demands.
• 1:41:24
  So if you have a character who doesn't fight people, doesn't
• 1:41:29
  you know, is a big Sissy boy, he's just a wuss.
• 1:41:32
  He doesn't. He's not trying to get it.
• 1:41:33
  He's not trying to stab nobody and then another.
• 1:41:36
  You know one of the PCs does something to him and fails their
• 1:41:40
  role. Don't have the little shit
• 1:41:43
  eating loser character stab that PC in the stomach.
• 1:41:47
  That's not what honesty demands. That's not what your prep
• 1:41:49
  demands. That's not what you establish
• 1:41:52
  that character is. That's not who that MPC is.
• 1:41:54
  They wouldn't do it. So don't just try to like, don't
• 1:41:59
  try to hit your players with a gotcha.
• 1:42:01
  That's not what honesty demands. That's kind of the the crux of
• 1:42:04
  that one for me. That's the way I go Look at it
• 1:42:07
  personally. Your principles, if you're
• 1:42:14
  playing this quote, if you're playing the game as the player's
• 1:42:18
  adversary, your decision making responsibility and your rules
• 1:42:21
  oversight constitute a conflict of interest.
• 1:42:24
  Play the game with the players, not against them.
• 1:42:28
  So the principles in in line with that.
• 1:42:31
  Barthforth Apocalyptica. Address yourself to the
• 1:42:34
  characters, not the players. That second point, address the
• 1:42:38
  characters, is something that I just use in every game forever
• 1:42:41
  now because of this game. I you know, it's funny.
• 1:42:46
  I do that as well. Yeah.
• 1:42:48
  And it just seems natural. I don't know.
• 1:42:50
  It's intuitive. You better start doing it.
• 1:42:52
  Yeah. Make your move, but misdirect.
• 1:42:56
  Make your move but never speak its name.
• 1:42:58
  Look through crosshairs. Name everyone.
• 1:43:00
  Make everyone human. Ask provocative questions and
• 1:43:04
  build on the answers. Respond with fuckery and
• 1:43:06
  intermittent rewards. Be a fan of the players
• 1:43:09
  characters. That bullet point has been
• 1:43:11
  brought into every other game in existence forever that that so
• 1:43:15
  many games take that one. Be a fan of the players, think
• 1:43:19
  off off screen too, and sometimes disclaim decision
• 1:43:23
  making. So to briefly explain them,
• 1:43:27
  Barthforth Apocalyptica is just put your put the grime and the
• 1:43:33
  nasty and the stank on everything.
• 1:43:35
  You know the the example it gives out among the wrecked
• 1:43:38
  cars, wild dogs fright for territory with each other and
• 1:43:41
  with the rats, and one of the breeds is developing A
• 1:43:44
  protective inner eyelid of blank bone.
• 1:43:47
  If you get too close, you can hear the click, click when they
• 1:43:49
  blink. That kind of shit.
• 1:43:51
  Just make it nasty, make it stanky, make it apocalyptic.
• 1:43:56
  Y address the characters, not the players is pretty
• 1:44:00
  straightforward, right? Say, Marie, where are you this
• 1:44:05
  morning? Not Julia, where is Marie this
• 1:44:08
  morning? That's kind of the that that
• 1:44:11
  crux of a that main that distinction.
• 1:44:15
  Make your move, but misdirect. Of course, the real reason why
• 1:44:18
  you choose a move exists in the real world.
• 1:44:20
  Somebody has their character go someplace, somebody misses a
• 1:44:22
  role, somebody hits a hits a role that calls for you to
• 1:44:25
  answer, blah blah blah. Real world, you know real world
• 1:44:29
  reasons. However, misdirect.
• 1:44:30
  Pretend that you're making a move for reasons entirely within
• 1:44:33
  the game's fiction. Maybe your move is separate
• 1:44:36
  them, for instance, but never say you missed the role, so you
• 1:44:38
  2 get separated Instead, say you try to grab his gun.
• 1:44:41
  This was the P CS move, but he kicks you down while they're
• 1:44:44
  stomping you. They drag damson away.
• 1:44:47
  The effect is the same. They're separated, but you've
• 1:44:48
  canonly miss misrepresented the cause.
• 1:44:54
  Canonly. Canonly what?
• 1:44:57
  Cane canely? What word am I?
• 1:45:00
  What is that word supposed to be?
• 1:45:01
  Hold on, I just realized what page?
• 1:45:04
  Hold on what page am I looking at?
• 1:45:06
  Fucking 83 quick and clever and shrewd or in a manipulative way.
• 1:45:12
  I don't I canly CANNLIY no sorry CANNILY.
• 1:45:21
  Point being, you you. You did the separate them move
• 1:45:24
  on your G Ms. move list, but you made it not immediately obvious.
• 1:45:29
  That flows immediately into make your move but never speak your
• 1:45:32
  name. Maybe your move is to separate
• 1:45:35
  them, but you should never just say that.
• 1:45:37
  Instead, say how Foster's thugs drag one of them off and Foster
• 1:45:41
  invites the other to eat lunch with her.
• 1:45:44
  Cannelly. Like, uncannily, it's just.
• 1:45:47
  OK, maybe your move is to announce Future vadnais, but for
• 1:45:52
  God's sakes, never say the words Future Vadnais.
• 1:45:56
  Instead, say how this morning, filthy, stinking black smoke is
• 1:46:00
  rising from somewhere in the car yard, and I wonder what's
• 1:46:02
  brewing over there. Look through crosshairs.
• 1:46:08
  When your attention lands on something or someone that you
• 1:46:10
  own in MPCA feature of the landscape, material or social,
• 1:46:13
  consider first killing it, overthrowing it, burning it,
• 1:46:15
  blowing it up, burying it in poison ground.
• 1:46:19
  Basically everything is under threat.
• 1:46:21
  Everything is looked at through cost errors.
• 1:46:23
  Don't just assume there's a status quo and everything is
• 1:46:25
  safe. The game repeats a lot.
• 1:46:26
  There are no status quos in Apocalypse World, so don't just
• 1:46:31
  assume anyone's like good and safe unless the PCs really
• 1:46:35
  fucking go out of their way to do that, which they can.
• 1:46:37
  And sometimes they can sometimes do that.
• 1:46:41
  I think there's actually even a advancement on some of the
• 1:46:45
  playbooks that lets you like swipe a character away to safety
• 1:46:49
  or something like that. Forget, or maybe it's one of the
• 1:46:54
  advanced basic moves. I think it's one of the advanced
• 1:46:57
  basic moves. I should figure out about those.
• 1:47:01
  There's like upgraded versions of the basic moves that let you
• 1:47:04
  do crazier shit. Name everyone, make them human.
• 1:47:13
  That one's pretty straightforward.
• 1:47:14
  Like make everyone a name. Relevant NPC.
• 1:47:19
  The game literally says even if an MPC has a single line on
• 1:47:26
  screen for two seconds, give them a name.
• 1:47:29
  Ask presonative questions, build on the answers.
• 1:47:32
  You know, start simple. What's your living space like?
• 1:47:35
  But as play proceeds, ask for immediate and intimate details
• 1:47:40
  of the character's experiences. You know, fucking dig in there.
• 1:47:46
  Respond with fuckery and intermittent rewards.
• 1:47:49
  As in, and this one's really important, as in fuck with, not
• 1:47:53
  fuck over. This is like when you Barth
• 1:47:57
  Apocalypticon to someone's answers, but do it all the time.
• 1:48:01
  So it's like, mess with them, don't give it to them for free,
• 1:48:05
  but don't fuck them over. If they succeed and did the
• 1:48:09
  thing, then they did the thing. This is going back to the
• 1:48:12
  partial success idea and all that.
• 1:48:15
  Be a fan of the character player characters, you know, make their
• 1:48:20
  lives not more, not boring, does not always mean or does not
• 1:48:25
  mean. Always worse, sometimes worse.
• 1:48:27
  Sure, of course, Always, definitely not.
• 1:48:31
  Be a fan of them. Be interested, see where they're
• 1:48:33
  going. Let them, you know, achieve
• 1:48:36
  something and then take it. You know, sometimes take the
• 1:48:38
  thing away or move it around or whatever.
• 1:48:40
  But but be a fan. Be curious, interested in what
• 1:48:43
  the player characters are doing, don't just be like your mission
• 1:48:46
  to kill them or whatever, because if that was the mission
• 1:48:49
  it'd be really easy to do so. Think off screen too.
• 1:48:55
  I do even need to think in between sessions and shit
• 1:48:58
  sometimes. Disclaim decision making.
• 1:49:02
  This one is one of the ones where I kind of mentioned how
• 1:49:04
  the game plays itself in a fashion, and I think some people
• 1:49:06
  are going to have a hard time with this.
• 1:49:09
  The game gives you four key tools you can use to disclaim
• 1:49:12
  responsibility. You can put it in your MP CS
• 1:49:15
  hand. You can put it in a player's
• 1:49:17
  hand, create a countdown, or make it a stakes question.
• 1:49:21
  I'm just going to briefly go over these because they're
• 1:49:24
  relevant. Put it in your MP CS hand.
• 1:49:27
  Just ask yourself, in this circumstance, is Birdie really
• 1:49:30
  going to kill her? If yes, she dies.
• 1:49:32
  If no, she lives. Yes, this leaves the decision in
• 1:49:35
  your hands, but it gives you a way to make it with integrity,
• 1:49:38
  right? You established how the MPC is.
• 1:49:41
  Would they do this, Yes or no? You've disclaimed the decision,
• 1:49:45
  put it in a player's hand. Is literally say to the player,
• 1:49:48
  would this happen? Would they do this?
• 1:49:50
  What's the situation? Create a countdown clock?
• 1:49:54
  Yes. So I, I, I, my brain turned off
• 1:50:02
  for half a second, but I, I really want to go back to the
• 1:50:04
  respond with fuckery and intermittent rewards because
• 1:50:08
  this is important to me personally.
• 1:50:13
  So the one, the the example that this one gives is the Marie
• 1:50:16
  makes it super clear that Roark to Roark that she doesn't care
• 1:50:20
  who she kills, but bring back Joe's girl NBC back to her live
• 1:50:22
  for questioning and examination or something.
• 1:50:26
  And then it goes, here's where I fuck around though.
• 1:50:28
  He's beating the shit out of her.
• 1:50:30
  Marie has access to her brain because always given the
• 1:50:33
  characters always give the characters what they work for.
• 1:50:35
  But she's comatose. Her back is broken and her face
• 1:50:38
  is smashed in. Yeah.
• 1:50:41
  So that's a you read that that's an extreme case.
• 1:50:46
  And I think it's it's giving you an extreme case on purpose here
• 1:50:49
  because it does say at the end of this.
• 1:50:52
  And I think this is really important.
• 1:50:54
  Intermittently, though, give the player exactly what she hoped
• 1:50:58
  for. Yeah, sometimes they get it.
• 1:51:01
  Yeah, it could well, because it gives you it's like the most
• 1:51:04
  extreme case of, well, she's not dead, but the game then it it it
• 1:51:09
  immediately acknowledges that and not using the exact words,
• 1:51:12
  but acknowledges that it's an extreme case and at the same
• 1:51:17
  time also saying like also just sometimes give them what they
• 1:51:20
  need. This is important to me because
• 1:51:22
  this is, you know, I've said it a million times.
• 1:51:25
  I, I have been the victim of this is just the like, this is
• 1:51:30
  just the standard. There is no it's always this
• 1:51:33
  extreme and always and there's never the just reward bit.
• 1:51:38
  As someone who is personally triggered by.
• 1:51:40
  This. I'm screaming it till the
• 1:51:42
  hilltops for everybody else. Fair enough.
• 1:51:53
  No, I don't hold on. I got to find where I was at,
• 1:51:55
  where the principles, oh the disclaimed decision making is
• 1:52:00
  that. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you
• 1:52:02
  all like that, I just. No, you're just no, I mean, it's
• 1:52:04
  yeah, it's worth mentioning. It is it is an important thing
• 1:52:07
  to like focus on because a lot of people will.
• 1:52:10
  I think if you read the book very like non consciously like
• 1:52:15
  you just kind of reading through it, you might get the impression
• 1:52:18
  that the game is all about like fucking the players over and
• 1:52:20
  it's like not. No, it's.
• 1:52:22
  It's not, and it very specifically says that it's not,
• 1:52:26
  hence the. Statement.
• 1:52:28
  Master of ceremonies in training need the media literacy to
• 1:52:30
  understand that it's very specifically saying it's not,
• 1:52:33
  and it's giving you these extreme examples to recognize
• 1:52:35
  that this is the far end of the spectrum.
• 1:52:37
  That is it is it is that sentence of fuck with, not fuck
• 1:52:42
  over, yes, right. That is, that is that big crux
• 1:52:45
  'cause you are fucking with them for sure.
• 1:52:50
  Back to the disclaiming, put it in your player's hand.
• 1:52:54
  Like I said, give it to a player.
• 1:52:55
  Create a countdown clock. Basically, you make a countdown,
• 1:53:00
  you make a clock like like the character's health is tracked on
• 1:53:04
  the clock and you start making a countdown.
• 1:53:08
  If the the example it gives is if the if this character gets to
• 1:53:14
  12 on the clock, she dies. Take it up every time she goes
• 1:53:18
  into danger and jump to 9 if she's in the line of fire.
• 1:53:20
  This leaves it in your hands but gives you a considered and
• 1:53:22
  concrete plan instead of leaving it to your whim.
• 1:53:25
  So basically it's like I'm not 100% sure if this character
• 1:53:28
  should die in this situation. I'm going to make a clock.
• 1:53:30
  If the players let the clock tick over she will die.
• 1:53:32
  If they don't though, they could potentially save her.
• 1:53:36
  And then lastly make it a stakes question.
• 1:53:39
  And this I, I fucking loves the stakes questions in this game.
• 1:53:45
  The stakes section in in the threats chapter is, is after
• 1:53:49
  this part, but it says basically you go, you put a question down
• 1:53:52
  and say, will this happen or whatever the example it gives, I
• 1:53:55
  wonder, will doe live through all this?
• 1:53:57
  Now you've promised yourself not to answer it yourself.
• 1:54:00
  Yes or no. She lives or dies whenever it
• 1:54:03
  comes up. You must give the answer over to
• 1:54:06
  an MPCA player. The moves or a countdown.
• 1:54:09
  No cheating. So basically, if you put it down
• 1:54:11
  as a stakes question, you're not committing to any kind of answer
• 1:54:16
  in the moment. You're committing to it getting
• 1:54:19
  answered in the future in a specific way.
• 1:54:23
  And this is one of those things that's going to feel a little
• 1:54:28
  unintuitive for like new GMs to this game because the idea of
• 1:54:34
  putting down a question and not answering it yourself, but you
• 1:54:37
  do kind of answer it yourself, but not the way you originally
• 1:54:40
  were going to answer it. Like it's not immediately
• 1:54:42
  intuitive. But once you get the hang of it,
• 1:54:43
  the stakes questions are really cool because it does really feel
• 1:54:47
  like you as the GM are giving yourself a little surprise,
• 1:54:51
  right? Like you're giving yourself a
• 1:54:52
  little present in the future. Like, I don't know what's going
• 1:54:56
  to happen here, but I'll be excited when I find out, you
• 1:54:58
  know, and you can apply and this the idea of a stakes question, I
• 1:55:04
  think you could apply to pretty much any game.
• 1:55:06
  It'll work fine. So yeah, those are those are
• 1:55:12
  your principles. And then the last big thing that
• 1:55:17
  you as AGM have in terms of moment to moment, I should say,
• 1:55:21
  are your moves. Now moves are kind of funny
• 1:55:27
  because some people get a little hung up on moves because they
• 1:55:31
  think, oh, the MC moves means I have to do one of these things
• 1:55:35
  and then they go, Does that mean I can't just wing it?
• 1:55:39
  I can't just free flow it and just respond?
• 1:55:44
  Here's the thing, when you're just just winging it and just
• 1:55:48
  responding on the fly, you're already doing the moves that are
• 1:55:52
  listed. You just don't know it because
• 1:55:57
  if you look at the moves real carefully in this game and you
• 1:55:59
  think about how you respond as AGM in situations where you're
• 1:56:03
  playing this game or any other game, you do these all the time.
• 1:56:08
  So really you are just free flowing.
• 1:56:10
  It's just giving you a list if you're unsure or you want to try
• 1:56:14
  and steer in a certain direction in the moment to, you know, for
• 1:56:19
  the for the drama basically. So your moves as an MC are
• 1:56:23
  separate them. Capture someone, put someone on
• 1:56:27
  a spot in a spot, trade harm for harm, which is to say a player
• 1:56:32
  takes damage and the MPC takes damage.
• 1:56:34
  Announce off screen vadnais, Announce future Vadnais.
• 1:56:37
  Inflict harm as established, which is to say hurt the player
• 1:56:41
  in some way. Take away their stuff, make them
• 1:56:45
  buy, activate their stuffs. Downside, tell them the possible
• 1:56:49
  consequences and ask. Offer an opportunity with or
• 1:56:52
  without cost. Turn their moves back on them.
• 1:56:55
  Make a threat move. And after every move, say, what
• 1:56:59
  do you do, Isaiah? I'm sure you have noticed.
• 1:57:03
  I say, what do I, what do you do?
• 1:57:05
  Every time, without fail. On reflex now.
• 1:57:08
  Yes, I again don't having not read this book.
• 1:57:12
  I also do the What do you like? I think you might have picked it
• 1:57:16
  up for me to be honest, but I don't know for.
• 1:57:17
  Sure, I, I might, but it, it is all sorts of very intuitive,
• 1:57:20
  like, what do you do, you know, like it?
• 1:57:22
  Yeah. Yeah, but you'd be surprised how
• 1:57:25
  many people don't do that. That's true.
• 1:57:29
  You'd be surprised. So brief to go over most of the
• 1:57:33
  most of the moves make pretty lot like you could just read the
• 1:57:35
  sentence and go oh, separate them, capture someone, put
• 1:57:39
  someone in a spot. Those all make sense.
• 1:57:40
  Trade harm for harm is just the idea that you know the the
• 1:57:44
  player shoots the NPC for two damage 2 harm, the NPC shoots
• 1:57:49
  them back for two harm. It uses the word as established
• 1:57:54
  harm. As established just means the
• 1:57:56
  harm you've taken minus your armor.
• 1:57:58
  That final number is the as established bit.
• 1:58:02
  Announce off screen Vadnais is like something's going on but
• 1:58:08
  nobody was around to see it type situation or they don't know.
• 1:58:11
  Announce future Vadnais is like oh I know something bad's coming
• 1:58:16
  take away their stuff make them buy inflict harm.
• 1:58:18
  Those ones are all obvious activate their stuff's downside.
• 1:58:22
  A lot of things in this game will have tags and those tags
• 1:58:28
  will give you like literal downsides to them.
• 1:58:34
  So for example the gun lugger might have a saw and off shotgun
• 1:58:38
  and one of the tags it has is reload.
• 1:58:42
  So the gunner might be in a gunfight and they, you know,
• 1:58:46
  they, they blast a dude and they get a 7 to 9 on their roll, they
• 1:58:51
  succeed and kill the guy. But then they, they go to shoot
• 1:58:54
  another person and there's no ammo in their shotgun.
• 1:58:57
  They have to reload. So now you say, oh, you don't
• 1:58:59
  have an ammo, you can't shoot them.
• 1:59:00
  What do you do? Gun lugger.
• 1:59:02
  And the gun lugger might like dive to cover to try to reload,
• 1:59:04
  or they might try to punch the dude in the mouth and then
• 1:59:07
  reload. Or they might grab a different
• 1:59:08
  weapon but they have to do something else because there's
• 1:59:11
  no ammo. Another great example is that
• 1:59:14
  the Hocus their followers have have.
• 1:59:22
  Wow God what do they call it? A want I think is what it's
• 1:59:25
  called. Basically if the hocus is not
• 1:59:28
  taking care of his people, bad shit can start to happen to them
• 1:59:32
  because their people are getting like you know, they're crazy
• 1:59:34
  cultist types they could get to get out of hand.
• 1:59:38
  So activating their downside could be whatever their want is.
• 1:59:43
  Now you have to deal with that problem.
• 1:59:46
  I'm trying. What do they call it?
• 1:59:48
  Because they have surplus. Oh, yeah, it is want.
• 1:59:51
  That was right. Yeah.
• 1:59:51
  They have surplus fortune and want and want is, you know,
• 1:59:57
  usually bad, something weird and bad.
• 2:00:02
  Where are the fucking? Where are the examples?
• 2:00:05
  Your followers. Yeah, your followers aren't
• 2:00:08
  really yours, more like. More like you're theirs want
• 2:00:12
  judgement instead of desertion. So it's like if you fuck up,
• 2:00:16
  they're going to be like maybe you're a little bitch and you
• 2:00:19
  can't be our leader anymore. Tell them the possible
• 2:00:26
  consequences and ask player, would you like to jump off the
• 2:00:30
  roof? You're going to hurt yourself.
• 2:00:32
  Yes or no. That was pretty straightforward.
• 2:00:34
  Offer an opportunity with or without cost.
• 2:00:37
  Turn their move back on them, which it basically you tried to
• 2:00:41
  do something, it backfires in some degree and make a threat
• 2:00:45
  move. Threats are the thing that
• 2:00:48
  happens in the background. That's your main preppy thing
• 2:00:51
  that you do as AGM. So it's funny because I was
• 2:00:55
  like, where the fronts? Oh fuck.
• 2:00:57
  Yeah. Were they just renamed?
• 2:01:00
  Yeah, funny thing about that. Everyone calls them fronts.
• 2:01:04
  You will hear people online always use the phrase fronts.
• 2:01:08
  Yeah, they're called threats in second edition and and 1st
• 2:01:11
  edition actually also still uses the word threats in some places.
• 2:01:16
  Threats. Threats are fronts.
• 2:01:19
  Had a feeling. I yeah, I've played more of
• 2:01:22
  second than. Well, actually I don't know if
• 2:01:23
  that's true. Maybe it's been 5050.
• 2:01:26
  Like yeah, they used to be called fronts in first edition.
• 2:01:29
  They are now called threats I think because fronts.
• 2:01:34
  I don't know, I think maybe confused people a little bit the
• 2:01:36
  wording like it wasn't 100% clear it probably.
• 2:01:39
  Did this, this this annoys me on a personal level because fronts,
• 2:01:45
  if you know what that means, is really intuitive.
• 2:01:49
  A war is fought on multiple fronts, multiple front, multiple
• 2:01:52
  avenues of conflict. Yeah.
• 2:01:54
  So when, when you are dealing with a character's fronts or, or
• 2:01:58
  a settlement's fronts, it's not just what are directly
• 2:02:01
  threatening them. It's more than that, right?
• 2:02:03
  A front is, well, we've got, you know, we're going to use The
• 2:02:06
  Walking Dead. OK, Well, we're dealing with the
• 2:02:08
  Whisperers, but also we're on a food shortage and also the flu
• 2:02:11
  is coming through. Like the food shortage is a
• 2:02:15
  threat, but it doesn't feel right calling it a threat.
• 2:02:18
  It isn't a conflict you have to deal with though.
• 2:02:21
  Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I think that's also, I
• 2:02:27
  think it was a degree of a little bit of a degree of
• 2:02:31
  confusion and also, yes, rewriting them to be threats
• 2:02:35
  because not every threat is a front, but almost every front is
• 2:02:39
  going to be a threat. Oh, see, my I'm, I'm on the
• 2:02:43
  inverse because in my head, yeah, like all yeah, all threats
• 2:02:50
  are fronts, but not every front is necessarily a a forward
• 2:02:55
  facing threat, I guess is what I was.
• 2:02:58
  Well, the game wouldn't use it. Does threaten your existence,
• 2:03:01
  but it's not. There's not a gun to your SO.
• 2:03:03
  I prefer fronts, but. Well, so the game does say that
• 2:03:07
  threats are not necessarily gun to your head type situations
• 2:03:11
  either. They can be a little more like
• 2:03:17
  threats in the way it talks about threats in second edition.
• 2:03:19
  They can be a little more in the background, not an immediate
• 2:03:23
  thing. So the food thing would be weird
• 2:03:27
  to call it a front, but it is a threat 'cause it couldn't slowly
• 2:03:30
  become a problem if you're running out of food.
• 2:03:32
  So I think that's part of it too, I suppose.
• 2:03:34
  And the word, the word, the thing too is fronts in first
• 2:03:39
  edition, that you had a front and then threats were the type
• 2:03:43
  of front essentially. So there was, there was, there
• 2:03:50
  was the front itself. And then the threats were part
• 2:03:53
  of the front. So there was a little more of
• 2:03:56
  like a hierarchy build to it. And I think at some point he
• 2:03:59
  decided to just say the threats are the thing.
• 2:04:02
  There's no need to necessarily put them under the front box.
• 2:04:09
  Like the hierarchy to them was slightly.
• 2:04:10
  You get what I'm saying? Yeah.
• 2:04:11
  Yeah, I get it. I think I still prefer fronts,
• 2:04:14
  but I I understand the reasoning.
• 2:04:17
  I don't. I don't think I care either way.
• 2:04:19
  I think I'm all right with them either way.
• 2:04:21
  It's just a slightly different organization to be honest.
• 2:04:25
  And at the end of the day, the threats still shake out pretty
• 2:04:29
  similar. So all that's to say, threat
• 2:04:34
  moves are moves that come from a threat specifically, which can
• 2:04:38
  are special moves that when you create threats, you will decide
• 2:04:42
  on. Well, this is interesting.
• 2:04:49
  Well, we're, we're at two hours now.
• 2:04:53
  It did not get as far as I thought, probably because I do
• 2:04:58
  be yapping brother. I do be yapping on this game as
• 2:05:01
  I thought I might. So I guess we're going to have
• 2:05:04
  to do an unplanned Part 2. I had a.
• 2:05:06
  Feeling I didn't think I thought I could summarize because I know
• 2:05:12
  this game really well. So that that's that's where
• 2:05:16
  that's where you fucked up Capitan because you can
• 2:05:21
  summarize the game well, but this game is does not do well to
• 2:05:25
  be summarized. Maybe, maybe, or maybe I just
• 2:05:29
  don't want to summarize. It no I.
• 2:05:31
  Want to get into the bitty gritty?
• 2:05:32
  Is part of it right? Like.
• 2:05:33
  Yeah, well, so I think this game is not built like other games.
• 2:05:36
  And in fact, this game was sort of a methodology in which to
• 2:05:39
  think about how games should be thought of now, right?
• 2:05:42
  So it presents a lot of thoughts in what D&D brain players would
• 2:05:47
  consider to be abstract and therefore require a level of
• 2:05:50
  the. Abstraction it also, it also
• 2:05:55
  changed people's thinking so much that it started like a
• 2:05:58
  whole new movement. So that's.
• 2:05:59
  What I'm saying? Yeah, started a whole fresh wave
• 2:06:05
  of design that is still permeating to this day, Sir.
• 2:06:11
  Like, we've we've we've cooled down on games being straight up
• 2:06:15
  powered by the Apocalypse games, but the fingers of Apocalypse
• 2:06:19
  World are fucking all over the place.
• 2:06:22
  I see it constantly. It's crazy.
• 2:06:26
  So yeah, I guess we're going to yeah, I guess we're going to do
• 2:06:31
  it Part 2 because there is some other things I want to mention
• 2:06:34
  because there are there is some other stuff like the the latter
• 2:06:38
  half of the book does go into broadly GM stuff.
• 2:06:41
  But there is things that be that can be player relevant that I do
• 2:06:45
  want to like mention and bring up.
• 2:06:48
  So yeah. Also I do want to talk about
• 2:06:51
  threats because obviously it's one like the the fucking
• 2:06:54
  mechanic. So yeah I fucking follow us on
• 2:07:03
  the social medias so you know when we post Part 2 lol.
• 2:07:08
  Yes Sir. Yes, Sir.
• 2:07:10
  Actually this is good because I I I only read pretty much up to
• 2:07:15
  that point anyway so. Yeah, there you go.
• 2:07:17
  More time and I can maybe talk more next step.
• 2:07:20
  And not saying you talk too much, I just felt like I didn't
• 2:07:22
  have a lot to say. I knew.
• 2:07:24
  I mean, I knew I was going to yap on this game.
• 2:07:25
  It's my favorite game where I knew I was going to yap on it.
• 2:07:28
  Fair enough. You know, all right, that has
• 2:07:32
  been us. Barthforth Apocalyptica on your
• 2:07:37
  grandma. Bye.
• 2:07:38
  Bye. That was a lot.
• 2:07:41
  All right. Peace, motherfuckers.