24. Hx in Playbooks

Today we delve into Hx as it appears on the playbooks of the 2nd edition of Apocalypse World. To give us something solid to discuss, let’s look at the Driver’s Hx:

Everyone introduces their characters by name, look, and outlook. Take your turn.

List the other characters’ names.

Go around again for HX. On your turn, ask 1, 2, or all 3.
Which one of you once got me out of some serious shit?
For that character, write Hx+1.
Which one of you has been with me for days on the road?
For that character, write Hx+2.
-Which one of you have I caught sometimes staring out at the horizon?
For that character, write Hx+3.

For everyone else, write Hx-1. You aren’t naturally inclined to get too close to too many people.

On the others’ turns, answer their questions as you like.

At the most basic level, determining Hx is the moment in character creation to tie your characters together and to build up a bit of the world surrounding them by sharing stories about the past. Notice that players are not prompted to get together and work out how their characters met. Only one player is responsible for the fiction at any given time. “Which one of you once got me out of some serious shit?” The player who says, “I did” is then going to detail what that shit was and how it all went down. The answer to the question tells us who these characters are, how they relate to each other, and how they fit into their particular Apocalypse World.

Importantly each player has a say about their character’s past. It is the asking player’s right to choose which of the three questions she wants to ask. Maybe she doesn’t like the idea of her character having been in serious shit out of which another character had to bail her—then she doesn’t ask the question and it never happened. She only has to choose one of the three questions, though she can opt for as many as she likes. Similarly, the other players have the right to choose which questions they want to answer. If you can’t picture your character being in a car for days on end with the Driver, keep mum and let someone else jump in there. But then again, the question prompts you to examine who your character is—is she the kind of person who stares out at the horizon? You wouldn’t have thought about it before, but yeah, it turns out she is that kind of person. Even if someone else answers first, you’ve learned a little bit about your character. The Driver may not have caught you, but it’s something you think your character has done in the past. This system of questions preserves the agency of each of the players in deciding the past of their characters.

The other thing that the Hx questions do is that they tell us how the character understands and is aware of other people. You might think that you would better know the person who saved your ass than the person you went on a road trip with, but not the Driver. Save her ass, you get Hx+1. Spend some time on the road, you get Hx+2. For the Hx+3, the Driver doesn’t have to have even talked to the other character. For another character, seeing someone staring at the horizon would tell them nothing, but for the Driver, it tells her everything. And for everyone else, the Driver gets an Hx-1 because “you aren’t naturally inclined to get too close to too many people.” These aspects of the Driver’s social behavior are baked right into the playbook in the same way that the sex move tells us how the character deals with intimacy. In fact, the inclination to not get close to people is echoed in the Driver’s sex move:

If you an another character have sex, roll+cool. On a 10+, it’s cool, no big deal. On a 7-9, give them +1 to their Hx with you on their sheet, but give yourself -1 to your Hx with them on yours. On a miss, you gotta go: take -1 ongoing, until you prove that it’s not like they own you or nothing.

The Driver has huge commitment and intimacy issues and hates to feel tied down of bound to another individual. The best the Driver can hope for is that an encounter is “no big deal.” As soon as someone gets through their defenses and gets to know them (gaining a +1Hx with them), the relationship starts to suffer. So, no, the Driver is not “naturally inclined to get too close to too many people.” Hx serves the dual functions of being mechanical (by being a stat that affects helping or interfering and a means by which experience is gained and improvement made) and of being character-defining color.

The Savvyhead understands broken things, and the stranger and more broken you are, the more she understands you. The Skinner is so used to being desired, the she gets -1Hx with those who are in love with her. The Angel is a creature of hope; if you are “doomed to self-destruction” she cannot wrap her head around you and gets an Hx-2 with you. The hardholder needs to know people and anticipate their desires and potential machinations; she starts out knowing everyone at no less than +1. All the playbooks’ Hx’s tell us how the character makes sense (or doesn’t) of the other people of Apocalypse World.