What has changed from Apocalypse World
Originally published at Sean Nittner. Please leave any comments there.
Some things have just been renamed but are otherwise identical:
- Weird has been renamed to Faith
- Front has been renamed to Crisis
- Other minor flavor changes to reflect the setting of BSG.
Some things have changed on a mechanical level
Hx is assigned differently. There are default values between each playbook and PCs. When creating characters, the player can change one of those to +3 and explain why they care about the other PC (I butt up against, I command, I don’t trust, I am in love with, etc).
Hx can be highlighted like a stat to mark experience for helping or interfering.
There is an improvement option called “Reveal yourself as a Cylon” and a Cylon playbook the character then takes. When say “reveal” I mean to the players. The characters find out through play. Also, nobody is going to tell you what to do as a Cylon. If you’ve seen the show, you know what to do. If not imagine you’re self as a double agent working for the other side. Maybe you’re a sleeper agent who just realized that all along they were trained to betray the people they love, or maybe you’ve been hiding it all along. Either way, even though the humans will call you a machine, and hate you for your very existence, you feel just as much as they do, and the bonds you’ve created with them are very real to you, even if they reject you. Play that up.
Most of the playbooks have been cobbled together with moves from the Apocalypse World playbooks, but some moves have been created using those moves as a template or inspiration. If you’ve played Apocalypse World, you’ll recognize most of them.
Since there are MANY leader characters (Commander, CAG, XO, if/when I create the book, and potentially the President, Captain and Pilot) I have make the Hardholder’s “Leadership” move into a Basic move. (Note to self: So far nobody has used it, so I’m thinking about removing it.)
I’d changed the special move to read “when you share an intimate moment” instead of “when you have sex”. The reason for this is that I realized there needed to be a bonding move, like that from the Regiment or Companions (other AW hacks) and I didn’t want to add another layer onto the game. After reviewing them I realized that the “special” moves where exactly what I needed. The specific intent of these moves is that they are triggered regardless of intent. Which means they may (and should) go off without people always intending them too.