13. Playbook overviews

I lied when I said in my 2nd post of this collection that the 8 sentences that open Apocalypse World make up the entirety of its discussion of setting. The thing that I overlooked then is the important point that characters are setting. A list of possible characters in any RPG is itself a note on the setting of the game. That list says, “these are the things you encounter in this world.” For example, let’s look at the overview of the Angel:

When you’re lying in the dust of Apocalypse World guts aspilled, for whom do you pray? The gods? They’re long gone. Your beloved comrades? Fuckers all, or you wouldn’t be here to begin with. Your precious old mother? She’s a darling but she can’t put an intestine back inside so it’ll stay. No, you pray for some grinning kid or veteran or just someone with a heartshocker and a hand with sutures and a 6-pack of morphine. And when that someone comes, that’s an angel.

This tells us a ton about the world of the game. First we know that there are medics in this world and that they are angels. We know that this is a violent world, where you are likely to have your “guts aspilled.” We know that religion is not a big source of comfort in this world (“The gods? They’re long gone”). We know that this is a world of betrayal (“Your beloved comrades? Fuckers all). We know that this is a world with heartshockers and one in which morphine comes in 6-packs.

Brainers tell us that there are “weird psycho psychic mindfucks” in Apocalypse World.

Choppers tell us that “the Golden Age Past did leave us two things, enough gasoline, enough bullets.” This is a land with Bikers, gangs, and plenty of ammunition.

Drivers tell us that “the infrastructure of the Golden Age tore apart. Roads heaved and split. Lines of life and communication shattered. Cities, cut off from one another raged like smashed anthills, then burned, then fell.”

Gunluggers tell us that “Apocalypse World is a mean, ugly, violent place. Law and society have broken down completely. What’s yours is yours only while you can hold it in your hands. There’s no peace. There’s no stability but what you carve, inch by inch, out of the concrete and dirt, and then defend with murder and blood.”

Hardholders tell us that “there is no government, no society” here, and that the hardhold is the unit of social organization, that “anyone with a concrete compound and a gang of gunluggers can claim the title” of hardholder.

Hocuses tell us cults have replaced organized religions as we understand them, and that the best working theory “is that these weird hocus fuckers, when they say ‘the gods,’ what they really mean is the miasma left over from the explosion of psychic hate and desperation that gave Apocalypse World its birth.”

Maestro D’s tell us that there are establishments in Apocalypse World, though establishments unlike those we have today.

Savvyheads tell us that there are technicians who tap into the psychic maelstrom to do their magic.

Skinners tell us that “even in the filth of Apocalypse World, there’s food that isn’t death on a spit, music that isn’t shrieking hyenas, thoughts that aren’t afraid, bodies that aren’t used meat, sex that isn’t rutting, dancing that’s real.”

We know, in short, what religion is like, what government is like, what transportation is available, what kinds of money-making opportunities there are, what kinds of weaponry and gangs here are, how people interact with the psychic maelstrom, and that there is still something resembling hope. Characters are setting and setting determines what characters are possible. If you keep out certain playbooks in your game of AW, you might be saying that these things don’t exist in our Apocalypse World.

I love that this quick overview of the characters (pages 16-21) precedes the full playbooks so that you, the reader, can understand the scope of the world in which each individual playbook exists. To top it all off, the writing is sharp and amusing, and the text reinforces the tone of the game. This is a part of the book I have come back to enjoy many time over.