Apocalypse World: campaign
Apr. 17th, 2014 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calissaAs I mentioned previously, Sahaquiel has started running a new campaign utilising the Apocalypse World system. We played our second session last weekend and our first session two weeks before that. Sahaquiel has been so super excited to get started that he has put off running the final adventure of the D&D campaign we've been playing for the last few years.
Speaking of which, two other players from that campaign have carried over into this one. We had a fourth player who was completely new to RPGing--and who totally rocked the first session--but he had to withdraw due to family commitments. The second session had just three players (plus Sahaquiel as MC) and we are still debating as to whether to find a replacement player
Most of the first session was used for character creation and worldbuilding. Players discussed their preliminary thoughts on classes they wanted to play and character ideas. Then we moved on to discussing the campaign setting. It was clear right from the start that all the players wanted an urban setting--derelict skyscrapers, abandoned cars and street gangs. What really surprised me was that the other players wanted to play on Earth rather than in a fictional setting. Not only that, but they had a specific place in mind--New York City.
This amuses and bemuses me. Is it a sign of pop culture's hold over our imagination that we choose to destroy a city that has been destroyed so many times prior on screen? Why can't Australia be epic enough? The two other players have both visited NYC but are hardly familiar with it. Our ideas of it are likely mostly stereotypes and the city as we imagine it is likely unrecognisable to a native, even without shifting it 50 years into the future and adding aliens. Is that very distance somehow necessary? If it was somewhere we were more familiar with, would we get too bogged down in accuracy?
As the title suggests, the premise of Apocalypse World is that 50 years ago some kind of apocalypse took place. That specific length of time means that there are a few people for whom this is within living memory, but mostly not. Exactly what the disaster was can be left pretty sketchy--to be explored more within the game or not, as players choose. In our case, it was decided that some kind of faerie-like alien descended on the Earth to enact their own version of the Wild Hunt. No one is quite sure whether they've now left Earth or not but either way they have left scattered pieces of technology behind.
Our intrepid adventurers live with a couple of hundred other people in a walled-off Central Park. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has been converted into accommodation and the Museum of Natural History serves as a kind of market place. Most of the grounds have been turned into farmland. Beyond the walls roam various gangs; the flamboyant Broadway gang are slavers and the Empire State crew are rumoured to be cannibals.
Having established our setting (or at least the broad brush-strokes), we began to hammer out our characters. The cast is as follows:
Fiasco is a 21 year-old black male originally from Harlem. His class is called the Gunlugger--if you need some serious firepower, this is the guy to come to. Not only does he have the biggest guns around, he knows how to use them. He even enjoys it, though he also has a conflicting desire for peace, quiet and a good basketball opponent.
Snow is the silver fox of the group. In his late forties, he is handsome, cold and deadly--the group's resident Battle Babe. He also has no memory of his past.
Last but not least is Mahb. Those of you reading my drabbles will have met her already. She's a 17 year-old of Asian decent who favours a gothic loli style of dress. She's the group's Brainer or psychic.
Another stipulation of the game is that the apocalypse left behind something known as the psychic maelstrom. It can have a physical manifestation or be completely psychic. Players can tap into this maelstrom to divine things. Mahb, naturally, does this better than the others. But while a person can peer into the psychic maelstrom, so the malestrom can peer into the person.
The remainder of the first session and all of the second session were devoted to a day in the life of these characters--mostly interacting with the residents of the park and defending the walls from an attack by one of the gangs. It was far from dull. However, tomorrow will be our third session and that's when things will start to become really interesting.
Speaking of which, two other players from that campaign have carried over into this one. We had a fourth player who was completely new to RPGing--and who totally rocked the first session--but he had to withdraw due to family commitments. The second session had just three players (plus Sahaquiel as MC) and we are still debating as to whether to find a replacement player
Most of the first session was used for character creation and worldbuilding. Players discussed their preliminary thoughts on classes they wanted to play and character ideas. Then we moved on to discussing the campaign setting. It was clear right from the start that all the players wanted an urban setting--derelict skyscrapers, abandoned cars and street gangs. What really surprised me was that the other players wanted to play on Earth rather than in a fictional setting. Not only that, but they had a specific place in mind--New York City.
This amuses and bemuses me. Is it a sign of pop culture's hold over our imagination that we choose to destroy a city that has been destroyed so many times prior on screen? Why can't Australia be epic enough? The two other players have both visited NYC but are hardly familiar with it. Our ideas of it are likely mostly stereotypes and the city as we imagine it is likely unrecognisable to a native, even without shifting it 50 years into the future and adding aliens. Is that very distance somehow necessary? If it was somewhere we were more familiar with, would we get too bogged down in accuracy?
As the title suggests, the premise of Apocalypse World is that 50 years ago some kind of apocalypse took place. That specific length of time means that there are a few people for whom this is within living memory, but mostly not. Exactly what the disaster was can be left pretty sketchy--to be explored more within the game or not, as players choose. In our case, it was decided that some kind of faerie-like alien descended on the Earth to enact their own version of the Wild Hunt. No one is quite sure whether they've now left Earth or not but either way they have left scattered pieces of technology behind.
Our intrepid adventurers live with a couple of hundred other people in a walled-off Central Park. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has been converted into accommodation and the Museum of Natural History serves as a kind of market place. Most of the grounds have been turned into farmland. Beyond the walls roam various gangs; the flamboyant Broadway gang are slavers and the Empire State crew are rumoured to be cannibals.
Having established our setting (or at least the broad brush-strokes), we began to hammer out our characters. The cast is as follows:
Fiasco is a 21 year-old black male originally from Harlem. His class is called the Gunlugger--if you need some serious firepower, this is the guy to come to. Not only does he have the biggest guns around, he knows how to use them. He even enjoys it, though he also has a conflicting desire for peace, quiet and a good basketball opponent.
Snow is the silver fox of the group. In his late forties, he is handsome, cold and deadly--the group's resident Battle Babe. He also has no memory of his past.
Last but not least is Mahb. Those of you reading my drabbles will have met her already. She's a 17 year-old of Asian decent who favours a gothic loli style of dress. She's the group's Brainer or psychic.
Another stipulation of the game is that the apocalypse left behind something known as the psychic maelstrom. It can have a physical manifestation or be completely psychic. Players can tap into this maelstrom to divine things. Mahb, naturally, does this better than the others. But while a person can peer into the psychic maelstrom, so the malestrom can peer into the person.
The remainder of the first session and all of the second session were devoted to a day in the life of these characters--mostly interacting with the residents of the park and defending the walls from an attack by one of the gangs. It was far from dull. However, tomorrow will be our third session and that's when things will start to become really interesting.
