We're Not in Parcher's Anymore... (Apocalyptic Dispatches from Parcher's Pt. 3)

Not gonna lie, this is my inspiration for the look of the Beast...

Last session ended with Parcher dying from a nasty 'pede bite, so technically, the PCs aren't in Parcher's Hardhold anymore (Still going to use the Parcher's tag though, so that these dispatches are linked together). I wanted to shake things up as we started our fourth session and saw on my quakes threat countdown that we were due for another seismic event, plus I wanted to force the question right away and up front for Man, whether he'd become the hard holder or not. The easy way to do this, seemed to be another set of Love Letters, so I whipped up a fresh batch. (Reminder to my players not to peek).

Bringing a Hand Grenade to a Tire Iron Fight (Apocalyptic Dispatches from Parcher's Pt. 1)

First, a reminder, please consider supporting my 2016 Extra Life campaign. It's not often that I get to put my nerdy hobbies to the cause of good, so donations do mean a lot to me. Thanks!

So... last month I started a new Apocalypse-World Campaign, taking the second edition rules out for a test drive, and got to run a second session this last Saturday. For this particular campaign, I went in blind, not having any ideas what I'd run until the players chose playbooks and created their PCs, and so I ended up having the following to toy with (a note, Parcher is the Hardholder NPC I created once it was clear there wasn't a Hardholder PC to run the joint):

• Pinky - The Chopper
• A woman with a busted face, wiry body and kind eyes. Wearing combat biker wear and a grotesque prosthetic leg with lots of straps, buckles and a complicated harness.
• Has 2 harm gang medium savage mobile 1-armor, vulnerable to breakdown. Notable gang members: Winkle, Goldy, Stinky, Gary (the new Guy), Larry, Harry and Barry. Gang can call her Half-Pint, but no one else can.
• Left Man bleeding and did nothing.
• Has a side-car for Thirteen to ride in.
• Just coming back to Parcher's Hardhold on day 130.
• Ming - The Driver
• An older Asian woman with a fine-boned face, sad eyes and a slim and frail body. Wearing an immaculate windbreaker suit. Also has a comfortable, hand-built, prosthetic leg with a complicated harness.
• Has a Buggy that is fast, pristine, luxe and cramped.
• Has been with Firefly for days on the road.
• Also just coming to Parcher's Hardhold.
• Man - The Gunlugger
• Concealed gender, battered old armor, a dull face, sad eyes and a stringy body.
• Carries a silenced sniper rifle, a shotgun and a shit-ton of knives.
• Got Ming out of some serious shit and used to ride with Pinky's gang until they abandoned him in Parcher's Hardhold. Now serves as Parcher's enforcer and sometimes bodyguard.
• Firefly - The Battlebabe
• A woman with a girlish face, merciless eyes and a slim body, clad in display wear with high boots.
• Wields a long-bladed sword staff.
• Does odd jobs for Parcher, as well as Twice, who runs a club in the hardhold.
• Has fought shoulder to shoulder with Man. Trusts all the PCs but Pinky, who she thinks she can take in a fight.
• Thirteen - The Child-Thing
• A girl with a pretty face, wise eyes and a child's body, clad in scrounge wear.
• Always hiding from the Wolves of the Maelstrom, perversions of birth, who look like beasts under their disguises but they have empty holes for eyes and they only howl when their nature is revealed.
• She has a radio that speaks only to her, and her den is a crooked, labyrinthine set of interconnected tunnels and boltways with ways into basically everyone's spaces, even if they've taken pains to close them off.
• She thinks Ming and Man might be Wolves of the Maelstrom.

Fair warning... plenty of foul language below the cut...

True Tomb of Isidore Philokrates - Notes and Loot

Here for your edification are the notes I ran my planned Extra Life session, The True Tomb of Isidore Philokrates off of...

• Notes/Adventure Outline
• Loot Given out in game 
• I printed these so that when I gave treasure to the PCs they could only see the front and had to decide if they wanted to risk opening it to see the potential consequences.
• PC Love Letters/Magic Items
• The live-tweet stream for the game.
• The map I based the dungeon on, Dyson's Crypt of the Child Kings

Thanks again to everyone who donated to my Extra Life page and all of the players, as well as James and the Ginger Giant for organizing the event.

Grim World + Love Letters & Extra Life Thanks

Last Saturday I ran Grim World as a "pre-Halloween" one-shot game, which was a lot of fun and a few caveats. I'll provide a review below, but my biggest caveat was I put out a large invitation to 10+ players, thinking, as I often do, that I'd be lucky to get the four players I'd need to run... Instead, and much to my surprise, I ended up with 8 players (and 7 PCs, since there was some question if the 8th player would be able to attend so he shared a playbook with his GF) and as I always do when I run really large groups of players, I felt like I didn't do the best job of giving each PC a shot in the spotlight and let things get a little more chaotic and bogged down than I liked. But that's all on me and not on the players.

Speaking of, thanks to the incredible generosity of the players, Christy and I managed to raise $135 for Extra Life between the two of us.  I'm now over 75% to my goal (as of 10/28/2015) and if any of the players from the Grim World game want to go back and retroactively ask for any of the rewards I was offering, you certainly can. If you are a regular reader of the blog and haven't pitched in any support for the Extra Life campaign yet, we're nearing the end, with a little over two weeks left, so I hope you'll consider a donation, even if it's just $5.

Click here to skip the Grim World Review and go straight to my further thoughts on Love Letters...

Manifold Regards - Adapting Apocalypse World "Love Letters" for Numenera (or any system, really...)

Apocalypse World was one of the first RPG systems that was opinionated, that is, the designer had an opinion on the 'proper' way to play, instead of just handing over the rules. This translated through in the AW Agendas and Principles:

    Agendas

        Make Apocalypse World seem real.

        Make the players’ characters’ lives not boring.

        Play to find out what happens.

    Principles

        Barf forth apocalyptica.

        Address yourself to the characters, not the players.

        Make your move, but misdirect.

        Make your move, but never speak its name.

        Look through crosshairs.

        Name everyone, make everyone human.

        Ask provocative questions and build on the answers.

        Respond with fuckery and intermittent rewards.

        Be a fan of the players’ characters.

        Think offscreen too.

        Sometimes, disclaim decision-making

These will be useful context for the Love Letters concept, which was introduced in the optional rules section of AW (called 'Advanced Fuckery' instead of Optional Rules, natch). In the AW book, they're not even called Love Letters, just presented as custom moves for "Catching Up, Setting Up", all opening with "Dear Hardholder" (Hardholder is one of the playbooks, so think of it as the D&D Class or Numenera Type), then presenting something that occurred between sessions of play as a Move. For those who don't know, Moves are the basic bit of Apocalypse World system mechanic, where you roll + a Stat, on a 10+ its a success, 7-9 is a success at a price or with a complication and 6 or lower is a failure. And the letter closed "Love and Kisses, Your MC" (MC=Master of Ceremonies, the AW GM title). 

You can see some good Apocalypse World Love Letters written up at No Ordinary Obsession, if you need some examples to peer at. What I want to talk about is why (and how) to use them in Numenera (or any other game really).