Originally from SomethingAwful Poster Thanqol: THREAT FOCUS in Apocalypse World
I found the entire post really damn interesting, and can see these not only as “faces of a front”, but you could even take each and use them to jump-start your play of any character in the setting. It’s not a far stretch from villain to hero.
“While a lot of ink is spilled on the topic of the playbooks and the player moves there’s less general discussion about Threats and how to handle them. In part this is because the players are encouraged to discuss their mechanics openly and frequently but the MC has the specific directive to ‘make their move but never speak its name’. I’d like to cross that line by doing a series of essays on the MC’s most powerful tools: Threats. I did this for my own online group but I’ll share it here too.
Here are some universal principles for Threats:
1. Everyone is a Threat
2. Threats are not good people, but they can be made to be good people
3. There are always two choices: The obvious option and the worst option.”
I will post the examples given as replies to this post, as they each are fairly long.
WARLORDS
Fear not the tyrant; fear the tyrant’s wake.
The Warlord is the only peer of the player characters. She has vision. She has a plan for the future. She has power, the intention to get more, and the will to use it. She is intelligent, brutal, driven and deeply social. She can look the players in the eye and demand they kneel. And the Warlord will ask for that because, no matter her incarnation, she always threatens the same thing: the players freedom.
When designing a Warlord the first questions that should be asked is what her vision is, and what the players’ role in that vision is. This vision serves as the Warlord’s animating force – she should always be working towards it. If the players accept their role in the Warlord’s vision then she shall pass them by unharmed – if they contest her vision then they face the full force of her intellect.
WHY USE A WARLORD?
The Warlord offers you something you don’t get anywhere else: Active resistance. All the other threat types are passive, incoherent or stupid – the Warlord is the threat that can make a plan and follow through with it. They can not only actively push back against the players and reshape the world in their image, they can co-ordinate their offensives to hit where the players are weak. The Warlord is the brain that lets a Front think, plan and dream.
A Front without a Warlord is not capable of deliberate action. Worse, a lot of PC types are capable of hermit-crabbing into unoccupied Fronts and making it their own. If a Hocus catches a mob of Brutes without their Warlord then they’re the Hocus’ Brutes now. If you’re putting together a Front and there is no Warlord then the fundamental scarcity of the Front has to be sufficiently threatening just by its existence.
Warlords within a player’s organisation are the critical nodes. They can allow powerful, effective action at a distance and co-ordinate the players’ Brutes in their absence. However, they are also the potential failure points and if they die or go rogue then the organisational structure can collapse. Start these tame Warlords with the exact vision that the player assigns to them and have them hold to that against all reason. That way, if the Warlord is tempted into betrayal, it’s because the player changed and not because they did.
A WARLORD’S CRAP
You can give your Warlord whatever you want! They can have as many dudes as they need, it’s great! However you should really keep in mind their victories and defeats and make them big and impactful. Here are some rules of thumb I use:
– A Warlord should never go anywhere with less than 15 dudes. They don’t have to be immediately visible.
– A minor defeat should mean that the Warlord has to abandon one current plan or resource. A major defeat should cripple the Warlord’s operations until they can secure something valuable enough to recover.
– If a Warlord has a valuable asset, like a nuke or fleet of cars, then they should have some obvious way of sustaining that – like a gas refinery or a weirdo technician.
WARLORD TYPES
WARLORDS
Fear not the tyrant; fear the tyrant’s wake.
The Warlord is the only peer of the player characters. She has vision. She has a plan for the future. She has power, the intention to get more, and the will to use it. She is intelligent, brutal, driven and deeply social. She can look the players in the eye and demand they kneel. And the Warlord will ask for that because, no matter her incarnation, she always threatens the same thing: the players freedom.
When designing a Warlord the first questions that should be asked is what her vision is, and what the players’ role in that vision is. This vision serves as the Warlord’s animating force – she should always be working towards it. If the players accept their role in the Warlord’s vision then she shall pass them by unharmed – if they contest her vision then they face the full force of her intellect.
WHY USE A WARLORD?
The Warlord offers you something you don’t get anywhere else: Active resistance. All the other threat types are passive, incoherent or stupid – the Warlord is the threat that can make a plan and follow through with it. They can not only actively push back against the players and reshape the world in their image, they can co-ordinate their offensives to hit where the players are weak. The Warlord is the brain that lets a Front think, plan and dream.
A Front without a Warlord is not capable of deliberate action. Worse, a lot of PC types are capable of hermit-crabbing into unoccupied Fronts and making it their own. If a Hocus catches a mob of Brutes without their Warlord then they’re the Hocus’ Brutes now. If you’re putting together a Front and there is no Warlord then the fundamental scarcity of the Front has to be sufficiently threatening just by its existence.
Warlords within a player’s organisation are the critical nodes. They can allow powerful, effective action at a distance and co-ordinate the players’ Brutes in their absence. However, they are also the potential failure points and if they die or go rogue then the organisational structure can collapse. Start these tame Warlords with the exact vision that the player assigns to them and have them hold to that against all reason. That way, if the Warlord is tempted into betrayal, it’s because the player changed and not because they did.
A WARLORD’S CRAP
You can give your Warlord whatever you want! They can have as many dudes as they need, it’s great! However you should really keep in mind their victories and defeats and make them big and impactful. Here are some rules of thumb I use:
– A Warlord should never go anywhere with less than 15 dudes. They don’t have to be immediately visible.
– A minor defeat should mean that the Warlord has to abandon one current plan or resource. A major defeat should cripple the Warlord’s operations until they can secure something valuable enough to recover.
– If a Warlord has a valuable asset, like a nuke or fleet of cars, then they should have some obvious way of sustaining that – like a gas refinery or a weirdo technician.
WARLORD TYPES
• Slaver (to own and sell people)
Example: Mr. House (New Vegas)
The Slaver is an excellent choice for an internal, political or mercantile Warlord. They view the world through a transactional lens and are happy with ceding short term power if it suits their long term interests. They can often be genial and friendly because they are not possessed of the same uncompromising obsession as some of the other Warlord types. But be sure, their vision is a world where everyone is in their pocket.
Putting people in collars and bomb vests is the most obvious form of slavery, but the more insidious partner is desire. Drug addictions are an obvious lever for the Slaver to use, but so is control of necessities like food and water. The Slaver spends most of his attention identifying critical resources and controlling them, and raising the price until people are in his debt. The Slaver also extends his tendrils so he is difficult to violently uproot, encouraging a peaceful confrontation.
When confronted the Slaver is often surprisingly ready to make concessions – he’s a businessman. If he is forced into a deal he doesn’t like he’ll smile, agree, then stab you in the back the second he sees an opportunity.
Key moves:
• Claim territory: move into it, blockade it, assault it.
• Buy out someone’s allies.
• Make a careful study of someone and attack where they’re weak.
• Slaver (to own and sell people)
Example: Mr. House (New Vegas)
The Slaver is an excellent choice for an internal, political or mercantile Warlord. They view the world through a transactional lens and are happy with ceding short term power if it suits their long term interests. They can often be genial and friendly because they are not possessed of the same uncompromising obsession as some of the other Warlord types. But be sure, their vision is a world where everyone is in their pocket.
Putting people in collars and bomb vests is the most obvious form of slavery, but the more insidious partner is desire. Drug addictions are an obvious lever for the Slaver to use, but so is control of necessities like food and water. The Slaver spends most of his attention identifying critical resources and controlling them, and raising the price until people are in his debt. The Slaver also extends his tendrils so he is difficult to violently uproot, encouraging a peaceful confrontation.
When confronted the Slaver is often surprisingly ready to make concessions – he’s a businessman. If he is forced into a deal he doesn’t like he’ll smile, agree, then stab you in the back the second he sees an opportunity.
Key moves:
• Claim territory: move into it, blockade it, assault it.
• Buy out someone’s allies.
• Make a careful study of someone and attack where they’re weak.
• Hive Queen (to consume and swarm)
The Hive Queen is the emergent animus of her people. Other Warlords have people they use; the Hive Queen is her people. She embodies them. She serves them. She enables all their worst impulses and directs their collective will. She sates their hungers and offers them nothing higher than that.
The Hive Queen is not a patient Warlord. She identifies what she wants, strikes at it, and then becomes still until she has finished digesting it. When she is fat and bloated she can be generous and friendly. When she is hungry she does not negotiate. Her followers tend to be insular, and she may spend a lot of time whipping them into a frenzy in secret, but when it comes time for her to emerge and strike she does not give her opponents time to prepare.
When beaten, the Hive Queen capitulates entirely. Her devotion to her people overcomes her pride and she is prepared to beg for mercy. When on the ropes the Hive Queen will search wildly for allies and fight like a cornered lion.
Key Moves:
• Attack someone suddenly, directly, and very hard.
• Seize someone or something, for leverage or information.
• Claim territory: move into it, blockade it, assault it.
• Hive Queen (to consume and swarm)
The Hive Queen is the emergent animus of her people. Other Warlords have people they use; the Hive Queen is her people. She embodies them. She serves them. She enables all their worst impulses and directs their collective will. She sates their hungers and offers them nothing higher than that.
The Hive Queen is not a patient Warlord. She identifies what she wants, strikes at it, and then becomes still until she has finished digesting it. When she is fat and bloated she can be generous and friendly. When she is hungry she does not negotiate. Her followers tend to be insular, and she may spend a lot of time whipping them into a frenzy in secret, but when it comes time for her to emerge and strike she does not give her opponents time to prepare.
When beaten, the Hive Queen capitulates entirely. Her devotion to her people overcomes her pride and she is prepared to beg for mercy. When on the ropes the Hive Queen will search wildly for allies and fight like a cornered lion.
Key Moves:
• Attack someone suddenly, directly, and very hard.
• Seize someone or something, for leverage or information.
• Claim territory: move into it, blockade it, assault it.
• Prophet (to denounce and overthrow)
Example: The High Sparrow (Game of Thrones)
The Prophet has a vision and her vision is that you are wrong. There is nothing constructive to her, no brighter future or five year plan – she is defined by her opposition. She arises naturally from a group of Brutes who feel like they have been slighted and begins to escalate and co-ordinate their opposition. Alternately, a Warlord who has been peacefully deposed can sometimes become a Prophet – especially if anything goes badly on the new ruler’s watch.
The Prophet does not want open battle. She wants a long, drawn out period of instability. She wants her people marching around on the streets shrieking her message. She wants to avoid throwing the first punch for as long as possible so she can provoke the authorities into striking first. Some Prophets are actually quite happy to be martyrs if that is what it takes – after all, their vision is not about their victory but their opponent’s defeat.
When Prophets demand concessions they ask for a little at a time – less than they actually want. Then they take their minor victory back to their mob and announce that they are making progress. The Prophet is exalted but the war is not won, and so the Prophet’s power grows.
Key Moves:
• Make a show of force.
• Make a show of discipline.
• Offer to negotiate. Demand concession or obedience.
• Prophet (to denounce and overthrow)
Example: The High Sparrow (Game of Thrones)
The Prophet has a vision and her vision is that you are wrong. There is nothing constructive to her, no brighter future or five year plan – she is defined by her opposition. She arises naturally from a group of Brutes who feel like they have been slighted and begins to escalate and co-ordinate their opposition. Alternately, a Warlord who has been peacefully deposed can sometimes become a Prophet – especially if anything goes badly on the new ruler’s watch.
The Prophet does not want open battle. She wants a long, drawn out period of instability. She wants her people marching around on the streets shrieking her message. She wants to avoid throwing the first punch for as long as possible so she can provoke the authorities into striking first. Some Prophets are actually quite happy to be martyrs if that is what it takes – after all, their vision is not about their victory but their opponent’s defeat.
When Prophets demand concessions they ask for a little at a time – less than they actually want. Then they take their minor victory back to their mob and announce that they are making progress. The Prophet is exalted but the war is not won, and so the Prophet’s power grows.
Key Moves:
• Make a show of force.
• Make a show of discipline.
• Offer to negotiate. Demand concession or obedience.
• Dictator (to control)
Example: Edward Sallow (New Vegas)
The Dictator is here to stay. All his plans are based around the society he wishes to create – one where everything flows to and from him. He is both proud and cautious – while he will not back down from a fight he will choose his fights very carefully. The Dictator frequently emerges from Brutes with a high sense of self preservation. He does not like losses – losses mean anarchy, and the Dictator always has an eye turned towards his potential rivals.
The Dictator is easy to satisfy – simply obey his commands and salve his pride and he will focus on the enemies outside his power. However, the Dictator must respond to challenges to his authority as these are existential issues for him. He is prepared to make deals but will not accept anything lower than 51%.
A Dictator’s sense of order attracts extremely devoted followers, and the Dictator tends to have a very resilient command structure with capable lieutenants he can trust missions to. While the Dictator’s caution can make them seem weak, it also transforms an uncoordinated mob into a skilled, disciplined fighting force.
Key Moves:
• Outflank someone, corner someone, encircle someone.
• Make a show of discipline.
• Attack someone cautiously, holding reserves.
• Dictator (to control)
Example: Edward Sallow (New Vegas)
The Dictator is here to stay. All his plans are based around the society he wishes to create – one where everything flows to and from him. He is both proud and cautious – while he will not back down from a fight he will choose his fights very carefully. The Dictator frequently emerges from Brutes with a high sense of self preservation. He does not like losses – losses mean anarchy, and the Dictator always has an eye turned towards his potential rivals.
The Dictator is easy to satisfy – simply obey his commands and salve his pride and he will focus on the enemies outside his power. However, the Dictator must respond to challenges to his authority as these are existential issues for him. He is prepared to make deals but will not accept anything lower than 51%.
A Dictator’s sense of order attracts extremely devoted followers, and the Dictator tends to have a very resilient command structure with capable lieutenants he can trust missions to. While the Dictator’s caution can make them seem weak, it also transforms an uncoordinated mob into a skilled, disciplined fighting force.
Key Moves:
• Outflank someone, corner someone, encircle someone.
• Make a show of discipline.
• Attack someone cautiously, holding reserves.
• Collector (to own)
Example: Dante Wallace (The 100)
The Collector is the most selfish Warlord. Her vision of the future is about herself and the things she possesses – people are simply disposable tools to her. She is a black hole, a sucking pit that valuable resources vanish into. When she requires something she gathers assets suited for that particular task and discards them afterwards.
The Collector is defined by her desires and her desires should frequently point her at the players and their friends. While the Collector is not generous she should identify people who have fallen on hard times and quickly move in with job offers. When she decides to add someone to her collection she snatches them without hesitation and demands that they play out whatever part she has imagined for them.
The Collector is aware that she is unpopular so she tends to be extremely well defended. She only emerges from her fortress when she wants something and withdraws the second she has it. Due to her indifference to the outside world, the Collector is most capable of atrocity – when threatened she can unleash some ancient terror from the World Before without reservation and then sift through the ashes for valuables.
Key Moves:
• Seize someone or something, for leverage or information.
• Make a careful study of someone and attack where they’re weak.
• Buy out someone’s allies.
• Collector (to own)
Example: Dante Wallace (The 100)
The Collector is the most selfish Warlord. Her vision of the future is about herself and the things she possesses – people are simply disposable tools to her. She is a black hole, a sucking pit that valuable resources vanish into. When she requires something she gathers assets suited for that particular task and discards them afterwards.
The Collector is defined by her desires and her desires should frequently point her at the players and their friends. While the Collector is not generous she should identify people who have fallen on hard times and quickly move in with job offers. When she decides to add someone to her collection she snatches them without hesitation and demands that they play out whatever part she has imagined for them.
The Collector is aware that she is unpopular so she tends to be extremely well defended. She only emerges from her fortress when she wants something and withdraws the second she has it. Due to her indifference to the outside world, the Collector is most capable of atrocity – when threatened she can unleash some ancient terror from the World Before without reservation and then sift through the ashes for valuables.
Key Moves:
• Seize someone or something, for leverage or information.
• Make a careful study of someone and attack where they’re weak.
• Buy out someone’s allies.
• Alpha Wolf (to hunt and dominate)
Example: Darth Vader (Star Wars)
The Alpha Wolf is the biggest and the baddest. He is individually the most powerful dude in the Apocalypse and is so widely feared that he has developed a following of hangers-on and sycophants. He doesn’t need them. They’re like fog to him. He simply goes about as he wills, takes what he wants, and indulges in his impulses and the roving band of howler monkeys imitate his strength and charisma. If you kill one in front of him he’ll laugh.
The Alpha is pure ego. He is the strongest and wants others to know it. He operates for his own amusement, releasing prisoners and hunting them down himself. He doesn’t just want to win, he wants to dominate – to rub his foes’ faces into the ground so that they know that he beat them. A narrow loss can be just as dangerous to an Alpha as a decisive one.
While the Alpha doesn’t care about his followers, when he chooses to use them he uses them decisively and to support something he himself is doing. The Alpha leads from the front and will use his followers to distract or encircle his foes so he can deal with them himself. The Alpha does not negotiate, but he might offer his enemies the chance to grovel before him.
Key Moves:
• Outflank someone, corner someone, encircle someone.
• Attack someone suddenly, directly, and very hard.
• Make a show of force.
• Alpha Wolf (to hunt and dominate)
Example: Darth Vader (Star Wars)
The Alpha Wolf is the biggest and the baddest. He is individually the most powerful dude in the Apocalypse and is so widely feared that he has developed a following of hangers-on and sycophants. He doesn’t need them. They’re like fog to him. He simply goes about as he wills, takes what he wants, and indulges in his impulses and the roving band of howler monkeys imitate his strength and charisma. If you kill one in front of him he’ll laugh.
The Alpha is pure ego. He is the strongest and wants others to know it. He operates for his own amusement, releasing prisoners and hunting them down himself. He doesn’t just want to win, he wants to dominate – to rub his foes’ faces into the ground so that they know that he beat them. A narrow loss can be just as dangerous to an Alpha as a decisive one.
While the Alpha doesn’t care about his followers, when he chooses to use them he uses them decisively and to support something he himself is doing. The Alpha leads from the front and will use his followers to distract or encircle his foes so he can deal with them himself. The Alpha does not negotiate, but he might offer his enemies the chance to grovel before him.
Key Moves:
• Outflank someone, corner someone, encircle someone.
• Attack someone suddenly, directly, and very hard.
• Make a show of force.
GROTESQUES
And as in men’s bodies, so in government, that disease is most serious which proceeds from the head.
Grotesques are loners. Keep that in mind whenever you think about them: they’re alone. They have no friends. They have no family. Nobody likes them. They wander the earth, or squat in their pits, broken minds running in circular thoughts they cannot give voice to.
Anyone who you would describe as a unique individual in Apocalypse World is probably a Grotesque. A lot of player characters are Grotesques.
Grotesques all have their impulse put in terms of cravings. A craving isn’t a rational, deliberate desire – it’s a fucked up obsession with something you know you shouldn’t want. It’s a low, nasty impulse that animates a Grotesque and hurls it bodily around the room without its consent. A Grotesque may hate what it is, or revel in it, but ultimately it’s not in control of itself. It’s fundamentally broken. It’s possessed by its craving as surely as by any demon.
When creating a Grotesque, keep the isolation in mind whatever it does. A lot of the Grotesque’s moves are about trying to communicate in fucked up ways because ultimately the poor bastard is a person – and people just want to be loved.
WHY USE A GROTESQUE?
Grotesques are a vector for the true threatening Weirdness of Apocalypse World to shine through. They’re your vector to weaponise the Psychic Maelstrom and shove it into everyday life. Grotesques are also your opportunity to create really complicated and scary opportunities – a Grotesque can and should possess unique skills, gear and knowledge paired with a deranged willingness to help. Mad scientists, evil doctors, awful death-cult assassins are all excellent Grotesques to decorate your world with.
If a Warlord is a front’s brain, the Grotesque is its mouth – a pit that beautiful things go into and awful things come out of. It is capable of metabolising resources fed into it, or barfing forth awful creatures and secrets. Add a Grotesque to your Front if you want the fundamental scarcity behind the Front to be able to communicate its true nature.
A front without a Grotesque isn’t able to express itself. Warlords don’t discuss their secrets and Brutes only know the stories that they’ve been told. They’re people that can be dealt with but you’ll never understand who they are, really. You’ll never know what the Warlord is afraid of or what lines the Brutes won’t cross if there isn’t a Grotesque outside the circle, defining it by their exclusion.
A GROTESQUE’S CRAP
The Grotesque’s move list is all about kidnapping people, taking them somewhere secret, and doing awful things to them. This process of abduction, revelation, transformation is how the Grotesque communicates so it is worth thinking through exactly what their lair looks like.
Grotesques are also uniquely vulnerable because of their isolation. Kill one and the world breathes a sigh of relief. Operating without backup or fire support, a single Seize By Force against a Grotesque is usually enough to kill it outright. As a result Grotesques should – unless they have a custom move to make them particularly dangerous combatants – avoid fights at any costs. An allied Landscape can give the Grotesque an escape vector or nearby Brutes can be sacrificed to buy time for it to escape. The second the Gunlugger rips a fist free of the handcuffs it’s time to leave.
A good Grotesque should have something valuable. Not only does this give them something to bargain with, which helps with the fragility, it gives them something to really exhibit the nature of their obsessions with and something to ruin or destroy. Something particularly fun to give a Grotesque is an Ambassadorship – the Grotesque is free to engage in it’s awful provocations knowing that it is protected.
GROTESQUE TYPES
GROTESQUES
And as in men’s bodies, so in government, that disease is most serious which proceeds from the head.
Grotesques are loners. Keep that in mind whenever you think about them: they’re alone. They have no friends. They have no family. Nobody likes them. They wander the earth, or squat in their pits, broken minds running in circular thoughts they cannot give voice to.
Anyone who you would describe as a unique individual in Apocalypse World is probably a Grotesque. A lot of player characters are Grotesques.
Grotesques all have their impulse put in terms of cravings. A craving isn’t a rational, deliberate desire – it’s a fucked up obsession with something you know you shouldn’t want. It’s a low, nasty impulse that animates a Grotesque and hurls it bodily around the room without its consent. A Grotesque may hate what it is, or revel in it, but ultimately it’s not in control of itself. It’s fundamentally broken. It’s possessed by its craving as surely as by any demon.
When creating a Grotesque, keep the isolation in mind whatever it does. A lot of the Grotesque’s moves are about trying to communicate in fucked up ways because ultimately the poor bastard is a person – and people just want to be loved.
WHY USE A GROTESQUE?
Grotesques are a vector for the true threatening Weirdness of Apocalypse World to shine through. They’re your vector to weaponise the Psychic Maelstrom and shove it into everyday life. Grotesques are also your opportunity to create really complicated and scary opportunities – a Grotesque can and should possess unique skills, gear and knowledge paired with a deranged willingness to help. Mad scientists, evil doctors, awful death-cult assassins are all excellent Grotesques to decorate your world with.
If a Warlord is a front’s brain, the Grotesque is its mouth – a pit that beautiful things go into and awful things come out of. It is capable of metabolising resources fed into it, or barfing forth awful creatures and secrets. Add a Grotesque to your Front if you want the fundamental scarcity behind the Front to be able to communicate its true nature.
A front without a Grotesque isn’t able to express itself. Warlords don’t discuss their secrets and Brutes only know the stories that they’ve been told. They’re people that can be dealt with but you’ll never understand who they are, really. You’ll never know what the Warlord is afraid of or what lines the Brutes won’t cross if there isn’t a Grotesque outside the circle, defining it by their exclusion.
A GROTESQUE’S CRAP
The Grotesque’s move list is all about kidnapping people, taking them somewhere secret, and doing awful things to them. This process of abduction, revelation, transformation is how the Grotesque communicates so it is worth thinking through exactly what their lair looks like.
Grotesques are also uniquely vulnerable because of their isolation. Kill one and the world breathes a sigh of relief. Operating without backup or fire support, a single Seize By Force against a Grotesque is usually enough to kill it outright. As a result Grotesques should – unless they have a custom move to make them particularly dangerous combatants – avoid fights at any costs. An allied Landscape can give the Grotesque an escape vector or nearby Brutes can be sacrificed to buy time for it to escape. The second the Gunlugger rips a fist free of the handcuffs it’s time to leave.
A good Grotesque should have something valuable. Not only does this give them something to bargain with, which helps with the fragility, it gives them something to really exhibit the nature of their obsessions with and something to ruin or destroy. Something particularly fun to give a Grotesque is an Ambassadorship – the Grotesque is free to engage in it’s awful provocations knowing that it is protected.
GROTESQUE TYPES
• Cannibal (craves satiety and plenty)
Example: Doug Stamper (House of Cards)
The Cannibal is an addict. It only feels whole when it is engaging in some offensive debauchery, and eating human flesh is just the start. It could also be a serial killer or have an awful fetish (or even just be as simple as drinking). While it’s easy to put a Cannibal on the outside, Apocalypse World doesn’t make good detective story. No, the best place for a Cannibal is to pick a NPC who occupies a critical position and have them secretly be one. The hold’s doctor is a good choice, as is a farmer or administrator.
The Cannibal then uses the position of trust and influence he possesses in the player’s organisation to indulge his vices. He does an excellent job for the players, is preternaturally considerate and skilled – so when it’s revealed that he can’t get off without carving pentagrams into peoples’ backs people will have to think about if that’s really something they’re going to fire him for.
The Cannibal might agree to try and get his addiction under control – and with the help of the players he might even manage it. But he’s only got to fall off the wagon once.
Key Moves:
• Insult, affront, offend or provoke someone.
• Offer something to someone, or do something for someone, with strings attached.
• Put it in someone’s path, part of someone’s day or life.
• Cannibal (craves satiety and plenty)
Example: Doug Stamper (House of Cards)
The Cannibal is an addict. It only feels whole when it is engaging in some offensive debauchery, and eating human flesh is just the start. It could also be a serial killer or have an awful fetish (or even just be as simple as drinking). While it’s easy to put a Cannibal on the outside, Apocalypse World doesn’t make good detective story. No, the best place for a Cannibal is to pick a NPC who occupies a critical position and have them secretly be one. The hold’s doctor is a good choice, as is a farmer or administrator.
The Cannibal then uses the position of trust and influence he possesses in the player’s organisation to indulge his vices. He does an excellent job for the players, is preternaturally considerate and skilled – so when it’s revealed that he can’t get off without carving pentagrams into peoples’ backs people will have to think about if that’s really something they’re going to fire him for.
The Cannibal might agree to try and get his addiction under control – and with the help of the players he might even manage it. But he’s only got to fall off the wagon once.
Key Moves:
• Insult, affront, offend or provoke someone.
• Offer something to someone, or do something for someone, with strings attached.
• Put it in someone’s path, part of someone’s day or life.
• Mutant (craves restitution, recompense)
Example: Two Face (The Dark Knight)
The Mutant is an excellent Threat to transition existing NPCs into. You thought that you killed Rolfball in that car wreck? Guess again – he crawled his mangled carcass out and slunk back into the hold, obsessed with vengeance. If the players whacked a guy who didn’t deserve it consider bring them back as a Mutant, or turning someone who cared about them into a Mutant.
The Mutant doesn’t just want to settle the score, though. Its obsession has gone further and broken it as a person. Maybe the Mutant wants to hold an elaborate show trial for its victim, acting out the roles of both prosecution and defence. It wants to kidnap its victim and disfigure him so they know how it feels. The Mutant can still show signs of who it used to be but it’s all messed up – like they put their personality in a blender and all the good, evil, and psycho ran together in a horrible mess.
The Mutant knows that it has been wronged. It wants to communicate how it feels by inflicting its agony on someone else.
Key Moves:
• Display the contents of its heart.
• Seize and hold someone.
• Ruin something. Befoul, rot, desecrate, corrupt, adulter it.
• Mutant (craves restitution, recompense)
Example: Two Face (The Dark Knight)
The Mutant is an excellent Threat to transition existing NPCs into. You thought that you killed Rolfball in that car wreck? Guess again – he crawled his mangled carcass out and slunk back into the hold, obsessed with vengeance. If the players whacked a guy who didn’t deserve it consider bring them back as a Mutant, or turning someone who cared about them into a Mutant.
The Mutant doesn’t just want to settle the score, though. Its obsession has gone further and broken it as a person. Maybe the Mutant wants to hold an elaborate show trial for its victim, acting out the roles of both prosecution and defence. It wants to kidnap its victim and disfigure him so they know how it feels. The Mutant can still show signs of who it used to be but it’s all messed up – like they put their personality in a blender and all the good, evil, and psycho ran together in a horrible mess.
The Mutant knows that it has been wronged. It wants to communicate how it feels by inflicting its agony on someone else.
Key Moves:
• Display the contents of its heart.
• Seize and hold someone.
• Ruin something. Befoul, rot, desecrate, corrupt, adulter it.
• Pain Addict (craves pain, its own or others)
Example: Zazz (Gotham)
The Pain Addict is the perfect warrior. Creepy, unsettling, deadly, and the left hand of a powerful Warlord, the Pain Addict is a view into a corrupt and powerful organisation. Either as a torturer, brainwasher, assassin or super-soldier the Pain Addict is unleashed by the Warlord when it is time to send a message that He Is Not Happy. The Pain Addict will helpfully explain this to his victims while he’s putting out their eyes.
The Pain Addict is a notable leader of a specialised group of Brutes on loan from the Warlord. Acting under him they ambush the players where they are least expected and fight in an unnatural, oily style. I personally keep the Pain Addict moving and fighting until it takes 5 harm, even if limbs are blown off in the process.
While the Pain Addict is a deadly enemy it is not a true leader, and if it is confronted by a dedicated resistance it will melt away. He should also be a genuine believer in whatever its Warlord stands for and never return to him empty-handed.
Key Moves:
• Attack someone from behind or otherwise by stealth.
• Seize and hold someone.
• Display the nature of the world it inhabits.
• Pain Addict (craves pain, its own or others)
Example: Zazz (Gotham)
The Pain Addict is the perfect warrior. Creepy, unsettling, deadly, and the left hand of a powerful Warlord, the Pain Addict is a view into a corrupt and powerful organisation. Either as a torturer, brainwasher, assassin or super-soldier the Pain Addict is unleashed by the Warlord when it is time to send a message that He Is Not Happy. The Pain Addict will helpfully explain this to his victims while he’s putting out their eyes.
The Pain Addict is a notable leader of a specialised group of Brutes on loan from the Warlord. Acting under him they ambush the players where they are least expected and fight in an unnatural, oily style. I personally keep the Pain Addict moving and fighting until it takes 5 harm, even if limbs are blown off in the process.
While the Pain Addict is a deadly enemy it is not a true leader, and if it is confronted by a dedicated resistance it will melt away. He should also be a genuine believer in whatever its Warlord stands for and never return to him empty-handed.
Key Moves:
• Attack someone from behind or otherwise by stealth.
• Seize and hold someone.
• Display the nature of the world it inhabits.
• Disease Vector (craves contact, intimate and/or anonymous)
Example: That Guy What Gets Bitten In The Zombie Movie (any Zombie Movie)
The Disease Vector was a person first. She had a life, a family, a future. That person is dead – something terrible climbed inside her and hollowed her out.
God help you if you try to tell her that.
The Vector clings to the life and duties it once had. It is obsessed with proving that it hasn’t changed, proving that it’s still a person – see? – just as good as anyone else. The Vector’s craving for assurance and normality, her ongoing refusal to accept the fact of her condition, her focus on her bright shining future puts everyone at risk.
If the gun is taken to the Vector, she might defend herself – or she might do it pre-emptively, or someone might step in to defend her. A Vector is at her best when it’s someone loveable, someone who’s loss would alienate multiple other people – and whoever does what needs to be done will draw everyone else’s hate.
Key Moves:
• Display the contents of its heart.
• Put it in someone’s path, part of someone’s day or life.
• Steal something from someone.
• Disease Vector (craves contact, intimate and/or anonymous)
Example: That Guy What Gets Bitten In The Zombie Movie (any Zombie Movie)
The Disease Vector was a person first. She had a life, a family, a future. That person is dead – something terrible climbed inside her and hollowed her out.
God help you if you try to tell her that.
The Vector clings to the life and duties it once had. It is obsessed with proving that it hasn’t changed, proving that it’s still a person – see? – just as good as anyone else. The Vector’s craving for assurance and normality, her ongoing refusal to accept the fact of her condition, her focus on her bright shining future puts everyone at risk.
If the gun is taken to the Vector, she might defend herself – or she might do it pre-emptively, or someone might step in to defend her. A Vector is at her best when it’s someone loveable, someone who’s loss would alienate multiple other people – and whoever does what needs to be done will draw everyone else’s hate.
Key Moves:
• Display the contents of its heart.
• Put it in someone’s path, part of someone’s day or life.
• Steal something from someone.
• Mindfucker (craves mastery)
Example: Coach Morceau Oleander (Psychonauts)
The Mindfucker is incapable of trust. That is its defining feature. It might be a wonderful person but it has to be able to know for sure. Its paranoia winds up alienating those who he needs the most – alone at the top.
The Mindfucker is deeply lonely but it has a vision. Usually, it is capable of interacting directly with the Psychic Maelstrom itself – its obsession with control means that it has made progress towards controlling the uncontrollable and the impossible. If it has collected or constructed the right subordinates then it can coordinate them without any hint of the infighting that would usually mar such a group. The Mindfucker brings unity and stability through sheer awful force rather than trust or negotiation.
If appropriately tended to, a Mindfucker can dwell perpetually in isolation, working through its operatives. If it perceives anything that might be a threat its paranoia forces it to act, pre-emptively, before the initiative is lost.
Key moves:
• Attack someone face-on, but without threat or warning.
• Seize and hold someone.
• Display the nature of the world it inhabits.
• Mindfucker (craves mastery)
Example: Coach Morceau Oleander (Psychonauts)
The Mindfucker is incapable of trust. That is its defining feature. It might be a wonderful person but it has to be able to know for sure. Its paranoia winds up alienating those who he needs the most – alone at the top.
The Mindfucker is deeply lonely but it has a vision. Usually, it is capable of interacting directly with the Psychic Maelstrom itself – its obsession with control means that it has made progress towards controlling the uncontrollable and the impossible. If it has collected or constructed the right subordinates then it can coordinate them without any hint of the infighting that would usually mar such a group. The Mindfucker brings unity and stability through sheer awful force rather than trust or negotiation.
If appropriately tended to, a Mindfucker can dwell perpetually in isolation, working through its operatives. If it perceives anything that might be a threat its paranoia forces it to act, pre-emptively, before the initiative is lost.
Key moves:
• Attack someone face-on, but without threat or warning.
• Seize and hold someone.
• Display the nature of the world it inhabits.
• Perversion of birth (craves overthrow, chaos, the ruination of all)
Example: Monobear (Dangan Ronpa)
Some people are just born bad.
The Perversion is a great option to keep in mind when looking at your existing Threats. Look at any one of them and ask yourself, ‘what if they were secretly a Perversion?’ If they are, well, that’s simple. It’s not that they’re an emotionally conflicted Dictator trying to bring order to the wasteland. No, they’re just a nightmare demon aping that emotional conflict while fully planning to drive the entire thing directly into Hell. Maybe they know. Maybe they don’t. But the truth is that they’re just going to make the worst decisions imaginable ten times out of ten.
Putting a Perversion on the table is the worst thing you can do as a MC. There are no redeeming features to this thing. Any compassion, understanding or second chances given to it are wasted. Worse, it is capable of imagining sweeping, long term evils. The very existence of a Perversion in the setting indicates that there is something profoundly wrong with the world – it is a direct symptom of the Apocalypse, a vector for the Psychic Maelstrom’s hate, the gasping horror of humanity’s extinction.
Ideally, the Perversion is in a situation where the status quo benefits it. Perversions don’t jump out of bed and do fifty jumping jacks to pump themselves up for a busy day of evil. They are winning, right up until the moment someone makes them lose.
Key Moves:
• Ruin something. Befoul, rot, desecrate, corrupt, adulter it.
• Display the nature of the world it inhabits.
• Put it in someone’s path, part of someone’s day or life.
• Perversion of birth (craves overthrow, chaos, the ruination of all)
Example: Monobear (Dangan Ronpa)
Some people are just born bad.
The Perversion is a great option to keep in mind when looking at your existing Threats. Look at any one of them and ask yourself, ‘what if they were secretly a Perversion?’ If they are, well, that’s simple. It’s not that they’re an emotionally conflicted Dictator trying to bring order to the wasteland. No, they’re just a nightmare demon aping that emotional conflict while fully planning to drive the entire thing directly into Hell. Maybe they know. Maybe they don’t. But the truth is that they’re just going to make the worst decisions imaginable ten times out of ten.
Putting a Perversion on the table is the worst thing you can do as a MC. There are no redeeming features to this thing. Any compassion, understanding or second chances given to it are wasted. Worse, it is capable of imagining sweeping, long term evils. The very existence of a Perversion in the setting indicates that there is something profoundly wrong with the world – it is a direct symptom of the Apocalypse, a vector for the Psychic Maelstrom’s hate, the gasping horror of humanity’s extinction.
Ideally, the Perversion is in a situation where the status quo benefits it. Perversions don’t jump out of bed and do fifty jumping jacks to pump themselves up for a busy day of evil. They are winning, right up until the moment someone makes them lose.
Key Moves:
• Ruin something. Befoul, rot, desecrate, corrupt, adulter it.
• Display the nature of the world it inhabits.
• Put it in someone’s path, part of someone’s day or life.
I notice you didn’t give an example for hive queen, did Jason Cordova not imediatly spring to mind?
I notice you didn’t give an example for hive queen, did Jason Cordova not imediatly spring to mind?
I think he’d be more a killer queen, as he’s dynamite with a laser beam.
I think he’d be more a killer queen, as he’s dynamite with a laser beam.
I know SA’s forums aren’t always guest-friendly, but can you post a link to the thread (or whatever). G+ isn’t super for walls of text, especially walls of text one may wish to reference in the future.
I know SA’s forums aren’t always guest-friendly, but can you post a link to the thread (or whatever). G+ isn’t super for walls of text, especially walls of text one may wish to reference in the future.
Yeah, that’s why went with the multiple comments on the original post. usually whenever I send someone a direct link to a thread they get the paywall.
Thinking back I should probably just make this a document on Google Drive and post it up from there
Yeah, that’s why went with the multiple comments on the original post. usually whenever I send someone a direct link to a thread they get the paywall.
Thinking back I should probably just make this a document on Google Drive and post it up from there