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If you're playing a flashback episode in Apocalypse World to learn something about the characters' past relationships, would you call that a Hx crawl?
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Something I've learned from reading +Jason Morningstar's Grey Ranks and Night Witches: awesome ways to make weariness and stress felt in an RPG.
It's one thing to create a weariness or stress track and let that number or set of markings guide the player in the playing of their character. It is another thing entirely to have those moments of weariness and stress have impact in the fiction so that the character is changed or impacted in a lasting way, so that the player will necessarily bring it into her conception and portrayal of that character. Grey Ranks doesn't need a weariness track because the grid tells you where you are, and play makes it painfully clear where you've been. The game has a built in death spiral that will slowly push your character to darkest corner. You can play your character however you want, but that bone-deep weariness is cooked into the fiction, and even moments of levity and hope will unavoidably sit on top of those experiences. Being Marked in Night Witches works the same way. Marks are essentially a one-way weariness track, but instead of just checking off boxes towards your doom, each check is accompanied by a slice of fiction that has worn at the soul of your pilot. As a player, you feel that moment, and as a group you acknowledge and see that moment. In both games, the horrors of war go beyond merely mechanical elements to become woven thoroughly into the fiction. |
Jason D'AngeloRPG enthusiast interested in theory and indie publications. Archives
April 2023
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