38. barf forth apocalyptica

I went back and forth between trying to cover all the principles in one mad post and tackling them each individually. For now, I’ll take them on one by one, primarily because this collection is about Apocalypse World as a text as much as it is about it as a game.

So let’s make with the text:

Barf forth apocalyptica. Cultivate an imagination full of harsh landscapes, garish bloody images, and grotesque juxtapositions. In Apocalypse World, when the rain falls it’s full of fine black grit like toner, and all the plants’ leaves turn gray from absorbing it. Out among the wrecked cars, wild dogs fight for territory, with each other and with the rats, and one of the breeds is developing a protective inner eyelid of blank bone. If you get too close to them you can hear the click-click when they blink.

Generally, I think the order of the principles is significant, and of course specifically, this principle is A-number-one. Everything you say as MC while playing Apocalypse World should have a little barfed up apocalyptica on it, right? Making a move but misdirecting? Smear some apocalyptica on it. Making an NPC human? Don’t forget to coat her with apocalyptica. Responding with fuckery? You bet your ass that is some apocalyptic fuckery you are putting down.

What I love about this particular passage is the way it gets down to the cause-and-effect details of the apocalyptica being barfed forth. The plants’ leaves are grey because they have been absorbing the toner-like grit that poisons the rain. The rats’ eyelids make click-click noises because they are developing a protective inner eyelid because of the poisoned environment. It’s an unspoken lesson in daydreaming to create an internally logical world, one with cause and effect, because that internal logic is the root of playing the Fiction when you are the MC of AW. We will see this reliance on a world with its own internally consistent logic as a recurring motif in these principles, and it is subtly alluded to from the first principle, the principal principle, if you will.

I know that it doesn’t need saying, but I am going to say it anyway because I never promised you original, insightful, or stellar commentary: “barf forth apocalyptica” is an inspired phrase in every way. The crassness of “barf” juxtaposed with the properness of “forth” and the academic obscurity and pretentiousness of “apocalyptica” is like Apocalypse World in a nutshell; it’s like having Shit head and Venus in the same crew together. It is itself a “grotesque juxtaposition.” Barf suggests an uncontrollable and sloppy spewing of details that might have been a conscious decision at one time but the autonomic system has kicked in and has spun out of control. Barf captures the messiness and unsanitary conditions of the post-apocalyptic world in which our poor heroes are struggling. When the players hand you a bit of fiction and you barf up apocalyptica on it and hand it back to them, they should say, “Ewwwww.” In a book full of brilliant and memorable phrases, this one is among the most brilliant and most memorable.

In a game in which the fiction is king, it is only proper that the first principle is the thematic guide for what your fiction should look like. Give your players those details to visualize and grab onto and they will have their characters sliding through your muck and swinging from your jungle gym of apocalyptic imagery in no time. You won’t need to ask, “Cool, what do you do?” because they will be to busy wrestling with the fictitious circumstances you have piled upon them.