Apocalypse World

Apocalypse World, by Meguey and D. Vincent Baker, was first released in 2010, towards the tail end of an Indie RPG revolution centered around the online forum The Forge, which the Bakers were an active part of. This was an era that was marked by a movement toward self-publishing, enabled by new web technologies including print-on-demand sites like lulu.com. The proliferation of games meant TTRPGs that could be smaller and more focused than something like an AD&D, whose core spanned three separate books.

This period of innovation leaves its mark on Apocalypse World, a game much more narrative (my students offered the term "cinematic") in approach than Dungeons & Dragons. Playing this game back-to-back with AD&D really allows students to feel the seismic shift that occurs in TTRPGs in the 2000s.

Thanks to Meg and Vincent Baker for allowing me to distribute material from Apocalypse World in this way. Most of the material in the packets is from handouts available on apocalypse-world.com. The first sheet of the Emcee packet, introducing the scenario, was written by me for this exercise. (I also drew the yacht.)

The warlord Jad lives in a fortified yacht with his gang. He collects twentieth-century artifacts, including a water filter that will allow Union Hold to survive. The players – a Battlebabe, Brainer, Savvyhead and Skinner – need to retrieve it, whether via negotiation or subterfuge.

Prep:

• Several days to a week before running the game, ask for volunteer Emcees – different students than DMed AD&D, preferably. I think this is a starting GM experience for someone who has never GMed before. Again, you'll need one Emcee to every group of 2-4 PCs.
• Make the AW Emcee packet and AW Playbooks pdfs available to students. I told students to come in on the day of play with their two top choices for which playbook they'd want to play. Unlike in AD&D, PCs are welcome to look at the Emcee packet. Apocalypse World does not rely on secret information in the way AD&D does.
• Print the packets on the day of, one of each per group. It works best if the playbooks are printed double-sided, front and back.

Running:

• Split up Emcees, assign 2-4 players to each. Hand out materials. Make sure each group has a bunch of d6s – again, I like to have extras on hand.
• Have PCs pick their playbooks. Note that they've been pre-filled out: each character has access to the playbook moves that are marked by a star.
• Point out that each playbook has two stats "highlighted" with a red star. In a standard game, making a roll with each of these stats would earn the player an experience point, which they can eventually cash in for playbook improvements. During this exercise, PCs should treat them as minor goals: Try to hit both of your character's highlights before we finish. In general, I tried to pick one for each playbook that played to the character's strengths and one that played to a weakness.
• I like to remind Emcees that Apocalypse World isn't about traps and gotchas in the way AD&D is: Point a gun at the PCs, but ask what they do in response before pulling the trigger. Also, remind students about safety mechanics in play (I used the X-card for this class).
• Put 45-60 minutes on the clock and get started! I used an image of the doomsday clock which I periodically updated with the remaining time in the class.

Discussion:

• I like to open discussion by presenting a quote from D. Vincent Baker. What are the paradigms of a game like AD&D and how, if at all, do we see them shift in Apocalypse World?

In 2001 I was almost 30 and I gave up on designing rpgs. I'd signed up to playtest a game for a then-midlevel publisher....The game was bad. It was a modern-day monster hunting game and it was both mechanically absurd and morally grotesque. The bigger problem was, everything I couldn't stand about it, I could suddenly see clearly in every rpg on the store shelf. This is going to be hard to believe, here in the golden age, but you know how there are rpgs without to-hit rolls? RPGs without experience points, character classes, point buy [character generation]? In 2001, there weren't....Anyhow, I had a moment of clarity: this field I was trying to enter into, rpg design, was horse shit. Pure formula, derivative, racist, sexist, homophobic, useless.

• This scenario features a single "setting page" by me, but Apocalypse World is otherwise free of the setting reference material that a game like AD&D is so rich which. Where does the setting of the game come from? Who creates it?
• An unmodified 2d6 roll has a ~42% chance of a "miss" outcome in Apocalypse World's system, a ~42% chance of a "mixed success," and a ~17% chance of a "full hit" or full success. How do these odds shape the narrative experience of the game?
• Apocalypse World refers to its character archetypes not as "classes" but as "playbooks." Is this a superficial difference? What do you think is the meaning behind it?
• Every playbook has a "sex move." Many of them are transactional, and include coercive or ambiguously-consensual elements. What do you think is the intent behind including these.
• The structures of Apocalypse World form the basis of many other indie TTRPGs, referred to as "Powered by the Apocalypse" or "PBTA," about subjects like pro-wrestling, teen vampires and Thirsty Sword Lesbians. What about this system do you think makes it so suitable to supporting such a wide variety of other games?