77. It’s Coming from Inside the Hardhold!

So I’ve been thinking about threats in Apocalypse World lately, as you may have noticed, and in gathering my thoughts about Brutes, I took a look back at the “essential threats” that you create “after the first and second sessions.” Those threats are:

• For where the PCs are, create it as a landscape.
• For any PCs’ gangs, create them as brutes.
• For any PCs’ other NPCs, create them as brutes, plus a grotesque and/or a wannabe warlord.
• For any PCs’ vehicles, create them as vehicles.
• In any local populations, create an affliction.
• What kind of threat is the world’s psychic maelstrom? (102 & 107)

So the thing that strikes me is that the essential threats are all anchored to the PCs. I realize that’s obvious when you’re looking at it, but in my mind you were also creating things exterior to the PCs as threats. Of course, you do create things exterior to the PCs as threats, but those things are not essential threats. The grotesque and the wannabe warlord are not external to the PCs but are chosen from among the NPCs “belonging” to the PCs. You can make up all the external gangs and warlords you want, but this wannabe warlord comes from the NPCs connected to the PCs, presumably referring to the ones created by the various playbooks and character moves.

The drama of Apocalypse World comes first and foremost from the community of characters that surround the PCs. Your essential threats are the landscape you stand in, the gangs that follow you, the NPCs that maintain your workspace or patronize your establishment, the vehicles you operate, and the populations you mingle with. With friends like these, who needs external threats? You can play out the entire game just watching your immediate surroundings explode and implode. I love that.