I'm here wheelin' and dealin' for the Marmot.  I'll swap you an existing limited playbook!  I'll give you, gratis and hoping for nothing but smirks in return, the Agent:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13772998/agent_v1_2_sm.pdf

I'll trifoldify and PDFicise your own playbook into official-seeming format, or put a character of your design in another Madu mashup* which may be charitably referred to as a "comic" —



*See also the stunningly successful¹ Mouse Empires at BWHQ.

So there it is, deal of the century.  Tastier (and better for you!) than a slab of trash-roasted citydog with a side of rat-on-a-stick.

~Gary

[1] Not actually.

Rifts, for all its warts, had some moments of beautiful lunacy.  I have slightly fewer than 33 of its artisan-typeset volumes kicking around (only slightly) and I am unashamed to display them.  I can't say much more at this point than I wholeheartedly support the idea.

I do think that some of the gonzo wonderful was the bright mirror of things that made Rifts suck (wildly disparate power levels, I'm looking at you).  How to tease out that beauty from the festering stuff, hm.

~Gary

The Rasputin move in action!  Plus, cartoon rake: 2-harm hand area yardwork messy.

Here's a thread on story-games:

http://story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=13879&page=1

And another on the Big Purple.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?569866-Trading-Apocalypse-World-LE-Playbooks

Have fun with those -- getting the Faceless gave me the best avatar I've had in a long time.

~Gary

elkin, I really like your decision tree.  That's going to inform my first session.  The organizational part of my brain wants to codify that in a flowchart, while the easygoing part accuses me of wanting to gild lilies.

As it stands, I'd figured on asking the who's-in-charge question, and tossing down the Hardholder, Maestro D', and Operator playbooks (with the Chopper and Hocus set aside if none of the first set provoked glee).

Next, "Who's the badass?"  and asking Are you the enforcer?  The opposition?  The zapgun for hire?  while putting forth the Gunlugger, Faceless, Battlebabe, Chopper (if not used above) and offering the Touchstone as an alternate.

"Who's the go-to?" accompanies the Angel, Savvyhead, Driver, Skinner, and Quarantine -- with an appropriate 'why' for each.

"Who's the thorn?" and offer up Brainer, Hocus, Hoarder, and Touchstone & Skinner if not previously snagged, and again with the 'why'.

The go-to and thorn groups are loosely based on a broad measure of how useful or inimical I think the playbook can be to the other characters, from moves to specials to NPC influence.  Stipulated that any playbook can be bad fucking news in a bottle to any other playbook.

Running AW in the near future for some people as yet unfamiliar with it, and in one of the con-game prep threads I saw a suggestion for dispensing playbooks that I really liked, and hope to take advantage of: "Who's the one in charge?"  Whatever player says so first gets the Hardholder, etc. tossed down in front of her.  "Pick one of these."

What I'm interested in is how many and what kinds of categories the ever-expanding selection of playbooks might fall into.  Who's the badass?  Who's the troublemaker?  Who's the go-to guy?  Who's in charge?  Who's the jackbooted thug?  Who's the rebel?  Does the Hoarder qualify as a scary psychic mindfucker?  Can the Chopper be the one in charge?  Is the Touchstone the thorn in everyone's side?

'Course I have my own ideas, but I'd be glad of some input.

~Gary

The faces and eyes I imagine seeing on the Wildcard:

Blank face, grinning face, rat face, weathered face, sweaty face, florid face, sour face, quizzical face, tired face.

Cold eyes, hungry eyes, twitchy eyes, beady eyes, calculating eyes, squinting eyes, guileless eyes, hooded eyes, moist eyes.

But that's just me.  A very cool playbook!

I find AW very satisfying for PbP -- while it's not as immediate as facetime, as MC in the above-mentioned Red Sands game (/blush) I have some time between posts to consider NPCs and threats and fronts, and really barf forth, with the ability to reread and edit for maximum punch. 

For further RPG.net perusal, there's DannyK's AW game, A Town Called Gaga, which really put me on to Apocalypse World.  As mentioned, you need to be registered on the Big Purple to read it.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?533407-Apocalypse-World-quot-A-Town-Called-Gaga-quot&daysprune=365

Control has issued an update.  Rumors of typos and clumsy wording are to be considered evidence of hostile personality intrusion.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13772998/agent_v1_1.pdf

High praise!  The non-jokey part is if you see something broke or that provokes head-scratching by all means point it out.  I am very serious about kidding around.

Once again I find myself possessed of the need to make mashups.  With little further ado, I have been authorized by Control to release unto you

The AGENT



http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13772998/agent_playbook1.pdf

>>You may experience intermittent static in the next few hours.

It occurs to me now it should have been The MYSTERY AGENT.  Ah well.

I may publish a collection of the limited edition playbooks later...

I'd love to see that.  Like, pay-money-for-it love.

~Gary

Dang, that is SWEET.  I love the shaded relief, not to mention the town names.  What'd that get made with?

~Gary

I'll toss out links to the updated maps for said game, above:

Overview map 1.1: www.unflinching.org/images/map_1_1.jpg

Barnum's Block: www.unflinching.org/images/block_155.jpg

For those with interest, these are Sanborn fire maps of San Francisco, ca. 1890 grunged up and "annotated" in Photoshop.  For pure random urban streetgrid goodness those maps are fantastic -- copious and free out there in Internetland.

~Gary

Joe Haldeman, Worlds Apart.  Earth after a war disease is introduced that kills everyone past puberty.  Some of it's kind of Haldeman-meandering (which I like but isn't everyone's brandy & coffee) but the parts that are gritty and visceral are really striking.  Language not as clipped and spare as Gibson, less bombastic than Stephenson.  Kind of that clinical vibe that Stephen King sometimes gets.

Come to think of it, same author's Accidental Time Machine is good too.  A scant third of the novel is set in a post-apoc theocracy, very hocus and hardholderish.

~Gary