Actual Play - Apocalypse Galactica (10/22/2011)

[seannittner]

GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Xander Matthews, Antonio Morton, Eric Ullman, and David Gallo
System: Apocalypse World (Hacked to BSG)

Signing up to run this game was a bad idea. Two weeks after Big Bad Con, I was going to have a BSG hack of Apocalypse World ready for showtime? Well, foolishly I thought I could port playbooks over and just change the

Comments

[ext_848986]

Sean,

FYI: Eric Ullman was the 4th player, not Matt Klein.

This version was so good. I'm glad you're going to go back and polish it, but you should know that what you put together was fantastic.

I thought you handled character creation okay (and I think that Eric and I were both familiar with AW). You're right - between the love letters and the Battlestar there are a lot of playbooks. But it was all fantastic! I can't imagine not having any of those elements.

I thought the order you did everything was good. A couple of the document formatting issues made it a little more confusing, so I think if you can fix that (e.g. bold the 'Pick 2 out of 3 of the options below' on the love letters & Battlestar playbooks. Maybe put the empty selection boxes so they can be checked off?) then it will help.

I think your idea of cutting the love letters down to make it more digestible could work. Maybe the opening paragraphs of the love letters can be transposed as the flavor/descriptive text on the playbook like what the AW playbooks have? Also, maybe take out the roll and the selection of plot hooks and just use those as possible existing fronts for the convention game?

I think it's amazing that the only civilian was the first to level up. It really shows that the game is just as much about the social/political moves as it is the fighting.

I would have loved to see the clocks come into play more. I still think they're a good idea, maybe let those clocks (since they are also existing fronts) guide the hard moves. The oxygen clock should have advanced in the first scene alone. Then the fiction could have been adjusted so that we needed to get oxygen scrubbers repaired instead of the FTL or the weapons. Just an idea.

Loved how Hx was handled. I think I may use this for Dungeon World instead of how bonds are now. It was really great. I would maybe even go a step further and define 2 relationships Fiasco-style so there is some more possible character interaction.

For a longer game, I might favor cylons being advanced moves so they don't go to the first 2 people to advance. I like the cylons as playbooks. I can't stress this enough. This was such a great way to handle them.

It was a toss up between this game and Smallville: Crimson Skies as best game of the con. I'd love to play this one again, and I think I'd really like to run it too. I might try to run it at one of the LA Strategicons next year. I wish I lived up north so we could play more games together!

Thank you for all your work, and thanks to Karen who put a lot of work in to this hack. I am really looking forward to seeing the polished version.

[seannittner]

David,

Thanks, I'm really glad you had such a good time. Remus and Lorna were to total rock stars of the group. Your interactions were just awesome, even before revealing! As soon as Lorna revealed, the game instantly felt like it was an episode right out of the show. Especially given the setup she had done BEFORE revealing.

Yeah, I think the clocks will be a good optional component. Want to run a game based on love letters? Do that and focus on the specific and immediate threats they present. Want a more pickup style game? Advance a clock and talk amongst the group about what that means. Want to run a long term game (or feel comfortable with lots of disparate threats)? Do both.

There were formatting issues for sure, especially in the love letters, they were copied into In Design literally 30 minutes before I had to get on the road, so I printed them out with very little cleaning up. Next time they will be much easier to read.

Yay, my game tied with Paul's! That is a huge compliment for me, Paul is a fantastic GM.

P.S. Woops, sorry Eric. Mistake corrected!