Tagged: D. Vincent Baker
[Actual Play] Apocalypse World, Session Two
In Actual Play, I write a bit about a game recently played. These posts are part reflection on the session, part system commentary, and part recounting of the events that happened ‘in-game.’ In my Apocalypse World actual plays, I draw back the veil a bit and try to let you in on my meta-commentary on how the game sessions go, and what I think the system is doing for us while we play. Sometimes I bold phrases, and that’s because I’m trying to point out something the game tells us to, usually using a ‘move’ that the game book encapsulates in that exact phrase.
Just joining us? Read up on Session One and the characters here.
What Happened
Unity gets interrupted by Tao, again, who always interrupts him while he’s meditating to announce future badness , and Tao says there’s literal smoke on the horizon towards Kree. Some jerk named Roark who smells like smoke tries to start a fight with Lars in the bar. Lars pawns off the fight on one of his gang members. Unity goes hunting for his gang members, and Vigilance acts like it’s a bad idea. Anyway, Unity tracks down a bunch of his guys at Waystation bar, and there’s Roark beating the snot out of two of Lars’ guys. Unity makes them back down by shooting into the air, to great effect. Roark decides to chat with unity, who quickly figures out that Roark was the one who burned down the nearby farm. So, Unity tells him to head out from Purpose and go burn down Caryard or Boilin, and to not come back. Then Unity gets his guys together and starts the walk towards Kree. Back in Waystation, this weedy guy called Pierre sidles up to Lars and says he knows some sweet salvage. Lars tells him to go die, but wheedles the location of the salvage out of him anyways. Salvage is this recently burned down farm, so Lars and his boys grab their bikes and go roaring off to Kree (past Unity’s boys) and run off (nearly run over) a couple early defenders of the burned farm. They scavenge everything they can find, knives, food, and bounce before the cavalry show up. One of Lars’ guys thinks it’d be a hoot to run down and kill the defenders, but Lars puts his foot down on that particular idea before it can take root.
[Actual Play] Apocalypse World, Session One
In Actual Play, I write a bit about a game recently played. These posts are part reflection on the session, part system commentary, and part recounting of the events that happened ‘in-game.’
Apocalypse World is a clever game by Indie game designer D. Vincent Baker. Since this is an actual play post, I’m mostly going to lean away from various commentary on the system and its merits or disadvantages. Suffice to say, it’s smart, nontraditional, highly narrative, collaborative, and begged to be played. Not to mention that as someone who appreciates a nice turn of phrase and clever use of tone, Vincent Baker can carry both off with admirable aplomb.
Apocalypse World has a very specific set of interestingly collaborative rules based around the first session. So, with a bit of fiddling about and very little preparation (per the book’s instruction), I set off and gathered players for the game. Probably not the ideal players, in fact. I got some of my oldest friends, guys who usually stick to straightforward, non-narrative games. Because A) You go to war with the army you have, and B) I want to know if anyone who has played an RPG can pick up this type of system, run with it, and have fun.
The Modern Southern Gamer 