Listen to this episode here.
Apocalypse World 3rd edition is on Kickstarter right now. In many ways, it hasn’t changed much. In many ways, it's a whole new apocalypse. So I thought it'd be fun to have on the Bakers and go through a playbook - the Brainer in 2e vs its equivalent the Brain-Picker in 3e - and ask them about every single change on the sheet, from updating the basic moves all the way down to a single name on a single picklist.
Further Reading
Apocalypse World: Burned Over 3e on Kickstarter and a preview of The Brain-Picker
Apocalypse World 2e handouts, including the Brainer
Designing a seduce or manipulate replacement on the Dice Exploder Patreon
Preview the Bakers’ seduce or manipulate replacement on their Patreon
Socials
Meguey and Vincent on Bluesky.
The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com
Our logo was designed by sporgory, our ad music is Lilypads by Travis Tessmer, and our theme song is Sunset Bridge by Purely Grey.
Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show!
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Transcript
Sam: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Dice Exploder. Each week we take a tabletop mechanic and market height on the wall. My name is Sam Dun Ald and my cohosts today are Meguey and Vincent Baker. If you're listening to this show, you probably know The Bakers. They've put out innumerable killer games from mobile suit firebrand to under Hollow hills.
And of course, apocalypse World, the eponymous Apocalypse in Powered by the Apocalypse that is powered innumerable Indie Darlings since its first publication in 2010.
today, right now, apocalypse World is back on Kickstarter for a third edition. Oh my God, I cannot wait. In many ways, it hasn't changed much. It's still the same apocalypse world it's always been, but in other ways it's different. Some edges have been sanded away, new edges have been filed on. It's a whole new apocalypse.
And I thought this would be a great moment to have the bakers on and just check in on a bunch of those changes from updating the basic moves all the way down to a single name on a single pick list. I started with the second edition Brainer Playbook, the first playbook ever designed for the game, and a topic. This show could easily do a whole episode on itself. And I figured for every change to the third edition brainer playbook, starting with the name, I just asked them one by one, why?
Why change this? And Meg and Vincent did not disappoint. They spoke so much of how this new edition is a continued reaction to their children. Apocalypse World started as a game designed in part to accommodate their needs as new parents at the table. And this new edition is in so many ways meant to accommodate the needs of those now grown kids.
But it's also a reaction to the new world those kids live in and that we all live in. And of course, it's a chance to go back and just tinker some more. God, I've never felt more empowered to tinker with Apocalypse World and every game I bring to my own table than after this interview.
One last warning. Before we get into this, I try on this show to do a pretty good job explaining each mechanic before we talk about it, but I kind of dropped the ball on that one in this interview. If you're not already familiar with Apocalypse World, it might be helpful to open up the free second edition play sheets and or the third edition preview rules for the brain picker while you listen. There's links for both of those in the show notes.
Okay, let's get into it.
Thanks to everyone. Sports dice explode on Patreon. And here are Meguey and Vincent Baker with the brainer and the brain picker.
Sam: Meguey and Vincent Baker. Thanks so much for being on Dice Exploder. It's so lovely to have you.
Meguey: It's great to be here again. Thanks so much for having us.
Sam: I'm curious to hear y'all, just get outta the way up top, like how you are thinking about this in terms of edition numbers and lineage and like the name of the game. We have Apocalypse World First Edition that comes out in 2010, I believe second edition is 2016. And then burned over has been a project that has been going on from like 2021 there was a release through now and like, what's the relationship between third edition and burned over?
Vincent: Well, so there was the burned over hack book, which it was in 2021. If you, if you say so. That has been in really active development this entire time. This game, which we're calling Apocalypse World burned over the third edition of Apocalypse World, really, really merges, the work we've been doing with burned over with second edition it really makes sense to consider it the third edition.
Meguey: Yeah, you're gonna recognize it, if you have played Apocalypse World and you played Second Edition, this isn't gonna be entirely strange, new, different in unrecognizable ways, but it is different. We are talking about different things, doing things a little differently.
Sam: Yeah, that all. Matches exactly my experience reading over the preview copy y'all sent to me. so the other kind of framing I wanted to put around this conversation is Vincent and I dug up this old article of yours from 2015, which must have been while you were working on second edition that I has really stuck with me after I read it for the first time a few years ago.
It's called a Pragmatic Theory of Play Testing and essentially the like thesis of this piece is my pragmatic theory of external play testing is that you play test your game to try on conversations about it, and you talk about like, how you're never done making a game exactly. And like when you decide to publish that is you saying, okay, the conversations that I'm currently having about the game are the ones that I'm willing to keep having forever about the game. Right. Um, I think this is so, practical. It's so helpful. It's such a good framing.
I was talking to a friend of mine about it, and they were like. God, what a cynical thing to say too, and I dunno if I agree with that, but like, there's just so much practicality in that sentiment and I really like practicality on this show, so I wanted to put that into the air too.
There's some specific conversations about Apocalypse World in this piece that I can see you poking at in this third edition and be like, I don't wanna have that conversation anymore. Right. Um, so I wanna put that into the air and then come back to that idea as we're going through the interview here.
But, okay the framing I wanna have around this conversation is to look at the brainer playbook. My understanding is also, this was like the first playbook you wrote for Apocalypse
Vincent: Yeah. Yeah. The brainer. Yeah,
Sam: and so I thought it'd be interesting to see how the second edition BRAINER is changing in the third edition.
And the place I wanted to start there is with the name, it's called The Brain Picker Now instead of the Brainer. And I saw a lot of that in here of just small changes in vocabulary or wording throughout the documents. And I'm curious to hear you talk about okay, some of those are just like clarifying individual sentences or whatever.
But this is, there's a lot of these playbooks that are recognizably the same playbooks, but that feel really different. Like the battle babe is also the volatile now, and I kind of especially see how that one is maybe like clearer in a way, but brain picker and brainer feel really similar to me. So
Vincent: Yeah. One of the and this isn't consistent and I don't really know why. But one of the reasons is to just to keep the playbook straight in the conversation. So I think I went back to the angel at the last minute. It was called the medic for a while, and that just didn't have the flavor. I tried to find a new word that would have the flavor of angel, but nothing did.
But so the brain picker. I don't know. I don't know the reason. I don't know the reason it feels right.
Meguey: I mean, part of it is I think that there's a piece that's different with the gear for the brain picker versus the brainer.
Vincent: Is there,
Sam: Mm-hmm.
Meguey: stay through development?
Sam: So it is the thing that you're getting at here that the renaming is in part to, keep distinct, the like second edition playbook and the third edition playbook.
Meguey: That's part of it. But I also think that there's a difference between we have the phrase. Oh, I need to pick your brain about this, or let me pick your brain. Oh, I we'll just, and it means something that is not nearly as invasive as it sounds. It just means I really wanna know, like I need to get the info.
And that's a different thing and a kind of a slightly different drive than the brainer. Just in terms of what you're, perception of it is going, and like the brain picker could be just someone who's really nosy and wants to find out all the information and get all the news or it could be someone who's like, where it's a physical description, which is horrifying.
Whereas the brainer always gives this little bit of an overlay of I don't know. The whole violation gloves thing, and the in brainin puppet strings thing, there's a little bit more weird in the name of the brainer. I think even if it's just flavor, then brain picker.
Sam: Uh, it's interesting. I hadn't even thought of the pun, the puns very
Meguey: Yeah.
Sam: Yeah,
Vincent: yeah, one of the candidate names for the angel was the bone picker. And um, that didn't stick, although it stuck in one of the fantasy versions.
Meguey: So there was a
parallelism between brain
Vincent: I. think there was a brain picker and a bone picker for a little while, and then the angel went back to being called the angel, but the brain picker stayed.
The brain picker.
Sam: Interesting. So you've changed up some of the moves here also. I noticed like throughout there were a lot fewer of the use a stat, like another stat kinds of moves and fewer just take a plus one to a stat kind of moves.
I personally love that, like I think Apocalypse World in my experiences really thrived when every character has more weaknesses and that those moves often took away some of those weaknesses. even as characters are also like extremely good at some things. But I'm curious to hear from y'all, what was the motivation behind fewer of those moves?
Vincent: Yeah, that's exactly it. It's the two sides of that, one being that it strengthens your character with no extra flavor and the other being that there's no extra flavor. You're both, you have fewer weaknesses and it's also boring and they're dull moves to choose.
Like I, I will stand by the choice to include them. They do is they point to the basic moves. Oh wait, no. The stat substitution moves. Or the bonus anyway, whatever. Yeah. They're out. Who cares? Nobody will miss them.
Sam: I mean the, The big value I always saw in them was that like when you have a player who's like, uh, I don't know, plus one's that it was a nice sort of out to like, not have to think too hard about it, which sometimes, especially in a game with this much text is a helpful thing to have.
Meguey: I also think that like I really have always, at least in our home games and any games that I've been running for more than a one shot con game, you can hold on to those improvements till you feel like it's right.
So I really hear what you are saying there it's an easy like, I, I don't know what improvement to take. I guess I'll take this one. But I also really love encouraging people, like just hold on till it feels right and then just take it when it feels right.
There's another piece that maybe comes in a different place, but it feels like it attaches to this about advancement that what we've done with burned over is reexamine and refine all the improvement and advancement cycles so that nobody gets left behind of like, oh, I, everybody else is already taking plus one to every stat, and I'm still sitting here. So we wanted to, not that, you know,
Sam: Yeah. So when you're talking about that, are you talking about highlighting stats or are you talking about other systems? I mean, Highlighting stats was one of those initial conversations back in that pragmatic theory of play testing piece that got called out. And I know I have had a lot of conversations over the years, but I have this vivid memory of a conversation with Aaron King, where I was like I hate highlighting stats. I find it so annoying. They were like. Why it's so easy. Then we sat down and did it and I was like, fine. You're right. It's easy.
But like, something about like feels annoying to me and I, I feel like that's a sentiment and a conversation that I saw a lot with highlighting stats and I was curious to hear from y'all what, it sounds like there was a proactive reason for
Meguey: Yeah. Yeah. I.
Sam: one too.
Meguey: I love highlighting stats as an mc um, there's, oh, I really love as an mc being able to follow one of my principles of be a fan of the characters and follow what's interesting. And so for me, I really love being able to say, huh. I, I notice you have a minus one. Cool. I want, I wanna see that happen. You know, I, I love that. I think that's cool. But, in all the development in burned over there's other, again, very practical, pragmatic play testing based reasons why we're doing this differently. And do you wanna speak to that Vincent?
Vincent: Oh sure. It's about the larger system of advancement, right? Not just about highlighting stats. Highlighting stats is a little bit implicated, but when we designed burned, or when we designed Apocalypse World, we designed it for our peers and our peers are eighties and early nineties kids who were at the time, in their mid thirties, late twenties to mid thirties. Now those people are in their late forties and mid fifties. And sort of the audience for this third edition are our kids and their peers who are in their twenties and thirties now approaching their thirties. Our kids.
Meguey: is not to say it's not, it is also for our
Vincent: Yeah, I mean, of course.
Meguey: The first Seeds of Apocalypse World burned over because our youngest was 12. And it's like, I wanna play Apocalypse World. And we're like, we're not, that
Vincent: No, no. You, you may not. But so that you know, us eighties and nineties kids, we are accustomed to a certain amount of unfairness. We're able to tolerate some unfairness that as we're watching these younger people um, play our games and play them very intensively, they aren't comfortable when someone else is being a little bit left behind. Meg was saying about being left
Sam: Mm-hmm.
Vincent: and so there was this particular time when one player who was the shyest player was playing a savvy head, which is the savvy head is designed to hang back until the right moment when they come forward with the really the brilliant idea and they really have their time to shine.
I love to play the savvy head. I love to be the player who just hangs back and watches and doesn't really get super engaged. Like I'm all the way engaged, but I'm not proactive until suddenly something clicks for me and I'm like, oh my God, I have the solution to this problem and so I'll leap in and, have my moment to shine.
But in first and second edition, that means that I am falling behind in advancements the whole time just because I'm not rolling dice as much. Um, just because, I'm playing slower and quieter. And for me that's cool. Like I don't care. long as I have my moment to shine. But watching this younger group play it they became anxious that this one player was being left behind in the advancements.
And so we had to go back and redesign experience and improvement to make sure that was more equitable. And as fun as highlighting stats is, I also like highlighting stats. It's a casualty of that redesign process. It wasn't the culprit, but it contributed to the problem a little bit. And then there wasn't exactly space for it in the redesign.
Meguey: And I do think it's to their credit, like the folks who are now, 20 to 25 who were at the time, 12 to 27
Vincent: Yeah, no these kids are almost 30
Meguey: Whatever, the younger yeah. The 12 year old in particular is about to turn 20. The thing that I think really is to their credit is a word you just said, Vincent, which I think is really true, which is about there being some equanimity, they're further along. Generationally. Then our generation was at their same age, even though we were working toward the same thing of Hey, everyone should have the same ability to go forward with their imagination and with their, like they should. It's not cool if we leave people behind who maybe. I don't wanna be left behind. Because it's a big difference between sitting back and being like, this is cool. This is what I wanna play, and getting left behind when you don't want to.
Sam: We're talking about advancement here and looking at these new little XP bubbles by the stats on the playbook, I wanna talk about the new stat. We got rid of hot and we've got aggro now, which is a really I immediately saw this choice and my reaction was like, agro is such a good addition of a stat. I'm so mad that hot is gone, like hot as a word. It just felt like it balanced out the other words here so well. And I don't know, I'm curious even just starting there in terms of that like balance of words for stats, like I what was going on here with swapping out the stat.
Vincent: All right. That
so,
Meguey: uh.
Vincent: Yeah. So our little 12-year-old comes to me and says, dad, I wanna play Apocalypse. Can I play Apocalypse? And I say no, you can't play Apocalypse. but I can't say no to this kid. Right? And so part of the process there was this game has a little bit different relationship to violence. The violence plays out a little differently. It's a little less grotesque, I wanna say a little less maybe visceral in the violence.
But the other thing that went and I was eager to make this change. Like seduce or manipulate is my least favorite basic move from Apocalypse World. I have come to actually dislike it pretty solidly
Sam: Why?
Vincent: Because that mode of seduction and that mode of manipulation, really the better. we've made a bunch of romance games since then. we've made a bunch of, games about. flirting, about romance, some even about sex. although I'm kind of shy about that kind of thing.
and the way Apocalypse World treats it in seduce or manipulate is so sort of. first drafty. So sort of like I'm, I have this stab at it that really does not do what I want it to do. Really doesn't handle it with any complexity or any, I mean, it's better than role to seduce from, GURPs or whatever.
But it's still, it's still just a first stab
Meguey: Can I answer also?
Vincent: yeah, please.
Meguey: I think one of the things for me, one of the issues is when I think about the seduce or manipulate move, I'm thinking about different instances. Different things you can do that I'm not thinking about them as, oh I'm either seducing or manipulating you. My character is seducing slash manipulating yours. And I feel like just because of language, that has been the way that it, that has played out and that is the way that conversation therefore plays out.
Where my idea for that move would be different to, to delineate am I trying to be attractive and seductive and inviting to you or am I trying to be manipulative and canny and machiavellian to you, but in the way that language works it's hard to separate those two out in that one place, and therefore it becomes cloudy.
And given an opportunity to make it clearer, we've taken that opportunity a lot of different places in various other games that, you know, we could list a couple of them. The most recent being In Dreaming Avalon, which is basically a kissing game that's super fun. And so I think that's a reason for that to fall out and figuring out what goes in its place.
How do we handle that part of the conversation instead?
Sam: Yeah I found, so I got this play test draft last week and then a few days ago I ran a one shot of it to just take it out and give it a shot. And my experience both in the reading and then while I was running it, my initial reaction was where's my seducer manipulate? Change is bad! But like I the longer I thought about it, the more I really felt like I agreed with you Vincent, that oh yeah.
You know, seducer manipulate, like, never really had the juice for me. Like it, it always, it felt like it was I think a first stab at it is a good way to describe it. But I also felt like in third edition here, without it, I felt like I was missing the feeling of characters having a move they could make that was more about, um, like the move that is about like putting a carrot in front of another player or the move about being a sub to their dom.
Right. Like to, to like to, to engage in the like the arenas of engagement of Apocalypse World from that position of weakness and like what power does uh, uh, like appealing to other people's authority like Give you.
And I, like that's still in the conversation of the game, right? Like you don't even need a move necessarily to play in that kind of space. But I was curious if you had other places that, Meguey, Miguel, you were just talking about like. We're, we're letting the things that used to be in seduced and manipulate be elsewhere, and I'm curious if if those things In particular you see elsewhere in, in the new design.
Vincent: My, my sort of. Stern line on that is that it's in read a person and it's how could I get you to blank?
Sam: Totally.
Vincent: That is sort of the essential move of seducer manipulate. But what that is missing is the idea of someone who's charismatic or someone who's hot, or someone who's provocative in that way. That sort of has to then come into that move from the surrounding environment, right? Like if I say, how could I get you to, to blank? You have to remember that I'm hot or charismatic or provocative so that's a really interesting hangup in the game, right? That's a really
Sam: Yeah.
Yeah.
Vincent: challenging problem. Um,
Sam: It's, I was also thinking about how much I love the move go agro, which is now called confront someone presumably, so that you don't have the move named after the stat Um, but, uh.
Vincent: it's actually called, it looks like this is a slightly, it's now called, I'm renaming things at the, at the 1159 mark. Um, it's now called Get in someone's face.
Sam: oh, I like that better.
Yeah, I think that's great because confront someone doesn't have the same spice to it that I feel like go Agra did.
But I love that move because. It takes a social dynamic and it makes you speak out loud. What is your leverage? Like it makes you, and it makes you commit to following through if the person you are getting in the face of demands that you follow through, right?
So you've got some skin in the game. You set the stakes and seducer manipulate never felt like it made you set stakes in the same way. But I also I don't know how to design the move that is the, like mirror to get in someone's face from the manipulate subby side.
But like, I do want that move, I want the follow through of that,
Vincent: have been talking about, me and Tovey especially, but I've been involving everyone in this conversation, we've been talking about practically nothing else for the past three or four days is that precise problem.
Meguey: Like you and me and Elliot in the car yesterday, were talking about it like, how do we do this? What do we
do? Yeah.
Vincent: You heard it here first. This is, you can break this news. Um. One of the stretch goals for the campaign is gonna be to update the second edition playbooks and release them adapted, but with hot intact, with the sex moves intact. And we are,
Sam: I incredible.
Meguey: I loved that gasp.
Sam: You may Well, it made me go um, gosh, am I gonna have to went and played the one shot of this on Monday at my, like local RPGs meetup and then by the end of the night had a campaign set up and now I'm like, am I gonna have to wait to play the campaign until I get those playbooks?
Like, but I'll, uh, anyway, I
Vincent: I think, here's my prediction. I'm doing Johnny Carson with an envelope to my forehead. My prediction is that people are not gonna like the classic playbooks as much compared to the new ones because of things like the stats, substitution moves, and because of things like that. These are in many ways much stronger playbooks.
Sam: yeah. I completely agree. Like the more I have sat with this, these documents, the more I have felt like. Okay. All of my hangups are either about seduce and manipulate or about stuff that's really easy to fix and that I could just like, I can just put the sex moves back in if I want them.
You know, Like it's really not a big deal. And I think there are so many other things about these playbooks that are so much stronger.
Vincent: Yep. And so as we've been talking about that process of updating those playbooks, there needs to be a seducer manipulate back in, but I don't want it to be, I don't want it to be old seducer, manipulate, like, has to be a new
Sam: yeah,
Meguey: We have to figure out what it actually means to be attractive in that way to create I, I really like your language. What does it mean to be vulnerable to another person in that way that is enticing and attractive and sexy and seductive because you are in control and. Vulnerable. You know, you are, You are creating a space for something to happen. That's pretty hot,
Sam: Yeah, absolutely. The power of vulnerability. this is something I have in a a game I'm designing right now that's a, like a John Wick kind of inspired game where like mostly you're just like, fighting each other and into violence or whatever, but the only way to heal in the game is to go be vulnerable with someone.
But when you do, they get to choose whether you take even more damage or whether you recover. And that's just the way that it
Vincent: Yeah. because you have to be actually
Meguey: Yeah.
Sam: Exactly right. And so the it's always a risk to be vulnerable, but it is also the only way to get certain things. I think that's a, that's my take on it.
Future Sam: Hey, future Sam here. After recording this interview, the bit you just listened to about seduce and manipulate really stuck in my head. And within a couple hours I'd gone and designed my own version with friend of the show Lady tabletop of an updated seduce and manipulate.
We recorded that conversation, which is now over on the dice, explode Patreon, along with the final move we came up with Butter Someone Up. You can head over there and listen to that conversation if you're interested. And then also between recording this and publishing it, the Bakers did the same thing on their Patreon. Their move is called Catch Someone's Eye, and is also super interesting.
I loved comparing our two different takes on updating Seducer Manipulate after hearing us talk about them here, and maybe you will too. I don't know. Whatever. There's links in the show notes. Okay. Back to the interview.
Sam: I wanna ask about a couple of the other moves here. We also have a reason with someone, which in my mind is the, like current replacement for seduce and manipulate.
Vincent: that one also changed.
Sam: tell me about what it is now as
Vincent: Oh, no I, I changed some words. What it says now is you say what you'll do and what they'll do, or you say what they'll do and what you'll do. you Make a deal or you offer a deal. You offer
Meguey: Yeah.
Sam: yeah. this is another move where this is totally a thing that is happening like every session of Apocalypse World, like you are in a charged situation, you've read the other person, and now it's like time to negotiate, basically.
And I'm curious. what do you think is gained by bringing dice in to that conversation?
Vincent: Oh, that's a great question. Um.
Sam: I read this move, I was like, yes. Role playing. I guess we're rolling dice about it now and like there is like a benefit to that. There's, especially when you're negotiating with an NPC, right? I think that there's a lot of value in like, uh, I don't know what to decide as an mc, so let's roll reason with someone.
But I also especially when I was playing this out, like it really felt like something where it was like, yeah we, we will roll the dice here and like the dice do a thing, but also in a second edition, this would've just been a conversation between an NPC and a pc.
Vincent: Yeah, the um, that's interesting. there's that circumstance where the NPC is reasonable. The PC is offering a reasonable deal, right? Is offering a, is the whole thing, is actually reasonable.
In that situation, there is not much difference between rolling for it and just talking it out. But as you move away from that very reasonable situation to when we are enemies meeting on opposite sides of a bridge, and I'm like, okay, look, just, we'll put our hands up. We'll pass each other on the bridge. This is from that show. What's the name of that show? Fallout. There's that moment that really calls for dice, I think.
If there's anybody who's conflicted, if there's anybody who's being reasonable in bad faith, if there's anyone whose motives aren't clear I think the move will really clarify those situations.
So I do expect to have that conversation once in a while where it was like, why is this even a move? Everybody was just being reasonable. and I'm like it's a move for when everybody isn't being reasonable. But being reasonable is the way you wanna proceed anyway.
Sam: Yeah. That's a good answer.
Okay, so the last uh, I guess not the last, so, okay. So the, the next.
Meguey: The next.
Sam: The, the other big new move here is try something challenging, which is a move for situations where like I found this useful in the one shot that I played. Like someone wanted to set up some home alone trips in an air traffic control tower and cool.
Great, that sounds challenging. Let's see if you can pull it off. But it also feels like a. It feels almost like a skill check. Uh, And I'm curious about the addition of bringing that in.
Vincent: so yeah, so that's exactly what it is.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Meguey: Yeah,
and I feel like, I feel like that's one of the things that comes out of, um. early exploration of what this game might look like back, eight years ago with our youngest and the other young people, like what did they want this, to me, this move has always felt like one of the clearest moments of really listening to what the young people who play in our Baker house band, game lab, also known as our living room every week. What they wanted, like what they were asking for in terms of game design and like all the time that we spend, driving them around with the kids talking game design.
This is one of the moves that to me, feels most Tovey or Elliot or any one of the, our bonus kids saying, I wanna be able to try a thing. You know?
Vincent: Yeah, yeah, we've had that conversation for uh, 15 years now. People saying well, but what do I roll if, if I'm not sure whether I can set up the
traps in the air traffic control tower,
Meguey: Yeah.
Because they want that element of random, the like charge of, maybe I can't maybe I can, and I don't know if I can, and I'm really okay with whatever happens. 'cause I know that as a player I will have agency in the situation and I'll be able to help figure out how that comes out. And I'm ready for it. I'm excited like
Vincent: The, The way that move works, I don't know whether I can or I can't, but how much can I accomplish? Um,
Meguey: Because it's really no fun to rule dice and nothing
Sam: Yeah, It feels like a really interesting counterpoint to me to like the place where OSR play has evolved into where I think a lot of I've heard y'all even talk about this, that I feel like Apocalypse World came out of a lot of conversations around more tra play and like pushing forward in this particular direction.
But I feel like the kind of, like Mausritter is a game that I've been enjoying a lot. I've got an episode about that coming out probably next week when people are listening to this. And that's a game where you're never rolling diced to try something. But the game is so much more and the culture of play that game is coming from is so much more about, yeah, the way that we do that is we just talk it through in elaborate detail and then maybe some enemies make a saving throw. Maybe they don't. Maybe we just, how good of a description were your home alone traps?
And I, I feel like this is a, a step further away from that. Not necessarily in a bad way, but just in a way where I feel like those conversations have evolved a lot in the last 15
years.
Yeah.
Meguey: Yeah.
Sam: I'm curious, I, I set up this whole framing of what conversations have you had about the game in the past and like how are you gonna update them with this edition? And I'm curious, we talked about the conversation that you have had about the lack of a take on a challenge move in this game.
But I'm curious what, through play testing here, what is the conversation that you've been having around the existence of one? Is that creating a new
Vincent: No, like I'll say to the, I'll say to the kids, Hey, have you taken on a challenge? Have you tried something challenging? Is that something that happens in your games? And they're like, yeah. It's sure, of course. And I'm like, do you have any? And they're like, no. We tried something challenging. We found out how much we accomplished. It was fine. So like.
Sam: yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so the last like main change in the basic moves is you now have backed someone's play and interrupt someone as the HX moves instead of help or interfere. And these, the goal that these moves are accomplishing feels very similar to the goals in the previous editions, but the execution is pretty different and I think better. I think these are really Good.
Meguey: Awesome. That's great. That's like the whole point of doing an
Sam: Totally right. Um, but I, I'm, I'm curious to hear you talk through like the way that these moves look now and what you like about the changes in them.
Vincent: Backing someone's play is the really easy one where just instead of giving them a plus one to the role. So one of the questions that always went on in helping someone is, can I roll after they've rolled? Do I give a plus one that's retroactive? And I helped, but a plus one wouldn't make any difference so it doesn't matter.
and so this is all just adding options to helping. For those cases where getting plus one choice is really better than, like really more appropriate than getting plus one to the role or having an opportunity to roll that you didn't have before. I think that's one of those options in there. Right?
Sam: Yeah. The options listed here are they get plus one on their roll. Great. They can ask plus one question or choose plus one option. Also very smart. They get plus one harm, plus one armor plus one si or another plus one as appropriate. I think in a previous draft of these rules, you can get plus one hold if your move gives you hold, like that kind of thing too.
All of that, it's so smart. 'cause there was this like weird hole in like. yeah, I'm trying to help you, but you rolled an eight and now you got a nine and that doesn't mean anything. really love what these two.
Meguey: Good.
Vincent: So that's easy. Interrupting someone and I'm looking at this file on the screen here and it takes up a lot of real estate. I could use those, I could use those words talking about something else. Um,
Meguey: No.
Vincent: so interfering with someone just gave them a minus usually. And that had the same problems. Sometimes you couldn't interfere with someone and it would make a difference. And people rarely did it. And I, I suspect people will pretty rarely interrupt other PCs. But one of the things about interrupting someone is that it is a consent and communication tool. what you might call a
safety tool, like, I'm really reluctant to call them safety tools. They're communication goals.
Meguey: Yeah.
Sam: I have a whole episode about this. Yeah.
Vincent: But to put it in the context of the larger conversation, the conversation in role playing, right? We're talking about safety tools, we're talking about that conversation.
you know, and a Lot of the times what I want for my comfort and my consent and my communication, what I want to enjoy the game is a way to well in this case, interrupt without breaking out of the game to do it,
Vincent: And other times, breaking outta the game is really appropriate. And so this move interrupts someone really designed to give everybody just a little more oversight on everybody to make sure everything is continually cool as play proceeds.
There's this idea of a highly interruptible move. And some of those are moves that sort of logistically would take time. But mostly the highly interruptible moves are moves where someone might actually not enjoy this particular application of that particular move. Yeah. mean?
so the highly interruptible moves. You're supposed to give everybody a chance to interrupt if they want to, and if you don't give everybody a chance to interrupt, they still get to re retroactively, right? They can say, oh, I really would've interrupted that.
Sam: Love what? The highly interruptible says about the moves like flavor fully as much as it is this like logistical and mechanical like flag that you were putting in there.
But I also, yeah, for me, the way I think about having a move, like interrupt someone is that like, I just like having this button on the controller. I can do this if the button's not there. But it's nice when I'm looking at the sheet to have the button right.
Meguey: I think that's a really great way to look at it. Like I don't, in all the times of play that I've seen or heard or, been involved with, I don't remember that move being used. More than once or twice. And like one of the times I remember was used is because it was funny, but definitely it's that thing of having it there on the page it supports an atmosphere of communication and consent and like that continual consent. Like you don't just start at the beginning, you like, yes, I'm yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh, not that bit. Exactly, exactly.
Sam: Yeah.
Vincent: move we adapted it from Under Hollow Hills, and I've seen it in Under Hollow Hills a lot. Like a normal amount. Like, not like,
Meguey: It's a different, yeah, it's a different game, but yeah.
Vincent: But it works the way we want it to and under Hollow Hills, and it works the same way here.
Meguey: Yep.
Sam: Moving on, we, I keep saying we're done with the additional basic moves, but it's still, it keeps being not true. The other, like the, I don't wanna spend a lot of time on this, but like, you changed barter from like an amount of barter that you
Vincent: Oh yeah.
Sam: from a resource
Meguey: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Sam: And I think this is just like brilliant. It's a, it seems like an obvious strict upgrade. I hate tracking like uh, stuff, but like, it's so easy. It's like when the resource matters, you roll to find out where you're at with it. Like, I think the, the randomness of that is really fun too. The flavor of the brain picker here, having to choose one of their scavenge options of like how they're getting by in the community.
I, I love the way that that takes barter and turns it into a relationship, like with the community. There's just, there's so much here that's so smart.
Meguey: I think you'll find a lot of stuff threaded through with barter that does that those weaving threads of community in a different way than Apocalypse World. Prime did.
Sam: Yep. I want to, talk about some things that are missing from the playbook that like used to be in this section. in particular, like, I mean, I guess I just mean the special moves, right? The
Vincent: Yeah. The.
Sam: it feels to me like especially talking with you here that you took these out 'cause you were trying to make a game that you're 12-year-old could play, and that like adults Could play with teens.
Vincent: Yeah, and you could, you could play with your cousin,
Meguey: Yes.
Sam: Totally.
Meguey: your family and like family members and things like that, I also think that there's some stuff about the broader conversation around sex and relationships and romance in games that is very different than in 2010. Because when we wrote Apocalypse World in 2010 and put Your gender can be different on the character sheet. you might be concealing your gender from people on purpose. You might have a gender that is considered transgressive in your society. Like when we did that and when we put special moves that were about like how having sex for your character changes like it impacts how they view the world, how they interact with other people. Like those were like brand new. That was unheard of.
And now we're 15 years later and Thirsty Sword Lesbians
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Meguey: Monster Hearts exists. A billion games have come forward to talk like for the Queen exists. The star crossed lovers exists, like all these things that take on and talk about talk about the sort of that part of the conversation so we can focus on other things a little bit.
Vincent: Including a bunch of. That we've.
Meguey: Yeah, absolutely. My favorite of course right now is in dreaming Avalon, but there's definitely a lot of other games that we've made that talk about like where we talk about these topics that are.
Sam: So do you feel like in second edition or first edition even, like you, you were putting those things in just because you felt like you needed to remind everyone that context exists in roleplay games at large, and now you can pull it out or like 'cause it, because you know, I think about, I think the loss of these, or the removal of these is gonna be a widely discussed part of this edition.
Meguey: I think so too. Yeah.
Sam: people being like, finally I can play this game with my cousin. Like I don't have to feel uncomfortable like looking at that move on my sheet and from a lot of people being like why are you being a prude? Like, why are the bakers being prudes about And like, I don't think that, like, that's the least generous version of that argument, right?
But a lot of people are gonna miss these moves.
Meguey: I'm sorry. I'm like, let him come at me with that. I'm I am like, and I have been very clear. I'm a certified sex ed teacher for seventh to 12th grade. I've created curricula for 18 to 25 year olds. I've done create a curricula for parents who are dealing with their teenagers sexuality, and for parents who are dealing with their zero to five year olds sexuality in the light of how do I do this right? How do I talk about bodies? How do I talk about how hygiene, how do I talk about body image? How do I talk about your uncle is marrying a guy when I'm fine with it? How, what do I do? How do I do this?
That's all good. That's fine. And like we're living in a place right now where there's a lot of really scary stuff going on for all, all of our, like trans specifically, but all of our queer friends and family and colleagues and people out there in the world. And this is all really important.
And the decision of when and where to talk about that. You know, I totally respect that. People wanting to play a game but not wanting to feel awkward about it right now in this economy. I totally get that.
I also think that it's easy to put oneself in a narrow little section of one's identity and once we've raised the conversation, raised the topics it's also fine to be like, all right, let's talk about something
else now for a bit. So people might really be like, oh, man, okay. Put them back in your game.
That's awesome. I would love that.
Please but that means that what that means, like people who are upset with this move, which they may be one of the things I really hope that happens there is the conversation about custom moves.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Meguey: And thinking about, okay, what does it mean, what do, and am I saying this for my harrier, the way my Harrier special move works? Or am I saying this at my table? This is the special move for the volatile period. Whole stuff.
Like those are really cool conversations because one of the things that those point to specifically is you can't tell by looking.
Sam: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Vincent: It would be interesting if the real estate on the sheet were infinite to
Sam: That, I was about to say this also that like, it, it feels like another reason you're taking these out is there's already too much of these playbooks, right? There's so much and like, I don't know what else to cut.
Vincent: But I was gonna say to have you choose your scavenge if you choose between your sex moves, um, if every playbook had, it'd be so ridiculous if every playbook had three and you choose between them. Or if there were a zine that had 10 sex moves and you could add one to your.
Meguey: Don't tell about the.
Sam: oh, I can't wait for that either. Incredible. Yeah. 'cause I.
Vincent: As far as I know, that's an idea that I just had just now, and apparently we.
Sam: Well, I was gonna call out that it should happen Also I, I want to, I wanna just jump back very briefly. I, I was giving a very disingenuous version of the argument that's like, where's the well, what's, what happened to the sex moves before? And I, I do feel like, You know, when I look at their removal, one of the things that, the conversation that you, I think you had a huge handed starting around sex and romance in games by including them in the original game, and like Alex Roberts and Biwa just did a whole series on dice exploder about sex and romance in games. They did a whole episode on these moves and the monster hurts moves.
And one of the things that they were talking about in there is every game like has the opportunity for sex in it, like human beings have sex. Like the apocalypse here is still gonna have sex in it. So like why are we taking out that part of it?
You know? But I think the argument for, You, you're absolutely right. Get that shit back in there. It is like a good one. Like I, and like it doesn't have to be the thing that is front and center, like the wider conversation, everything that y'all are saying. I just wanna make sure that I said that out loud so that no one came for me.
Um, or fewer people came for me. Um, Okay I wanna get to a couple of the like specific new brain picker moves. The first one here that's new is eerie presence, which triggers when you enter into a nonviolent situation and then it establishes who's here and what do they think of you.
I found this move really interesting and then loved that there's what, half a dozen moves that sort of trigger in like similar circumstances for various playbooks. This seems to be a genre of move that you are interested in having a conversation about, and I'm curious to hear what you're expecting from that conversation and from these moves.
Vincent: Oh, what am I expecting from the conversation about them?
Sam: or like why, why include them? We can have the easier question. Yeah.
Vincent: I was prepared to say that I needed to replace all those stat substitution moves with something. And so this is a new, like you say, a new genre of moves that a lot of different playbooks can have One.
There's a moment I find when I'm running a game. There's the big version, which is that we finished character creation, we're all sitting down, and then we have to somehow make this leap to start playing, right? And someone has to take the lead, and it's me, and then we have to build that momentum. But then there's a miniature version of that every time we start a new scene or move into a new location or move into a new situation.
And I think about that moment. A lot and how to carry the playgroup through that moment and make those transitions and building that momentum easier. And so in a way, they're like a miniature version of a beginning of session move. They say, okay, here we go. We're in a new situation. This is the kickoff of this new situation.
Sam: Yeah.
Yeah.
you describing it that way makes me think of the classic like D&D moment of you walk into a bar and I describe the bar and the guys playing poker in the corner and the man sitting alone in dark shadow. And the player's going, who else is here?
And I'm like, ah, I guess there's like a goblin at the bar. And they're like, we love the goblin now. And they run over like talking to the goblin, right? Like, and it, it does feel like this is a move that is prompting you to make the goblet at the bar or make the guy in the cloak in the corner look more interesting, and to have a relationship with you already. I feel like these moves are really compelling for
Vincent: Yeah like they're there to provide prompts and everybody wants something interesting to happen.
Sam: Yeah. Totally. Um. You also have this move for the brain picker. This is gonna be such a brain picker specific question called the maelstrom manifest. You can unleash the world's psychic maelstrom as a destructive physical force.
This move played a big part in the ending of the one shot of this that I ran, where the brain picker just like tore open a hole in reality to destroy a giant beast. And it feels so different from the old brain picker to be, this is such a like, forward like destructive weapon that the brain picker felt so much more fragile before.
and now the brain picker has this feel to me then I guess maybe they did, the brain had before of like low power, like they can't do the middle of the road, right? They can be weak or they can be too strong. And then it is not a lot like in between. And this kinda like plays into that.
But I'm curious like what the thinking was behind giving the brain picker such like a powerful physical button to press.
Vincent: I don't remember. I remember adding it to the playbook, but I don't remember other than going.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. Like I was about to ask is it just that it's cool as hell? That's a great answer.
Meguey: It really is like, I think it's part of it. It's part of like when you were talking earlier about the interrupt move. Because just said about the brainer right, because the brain pick Has this kind of weird situation going on, and like other things that they can do, the deep brain scan and the, embrace the maelstrom and the rest of it. And the rest of it. And then down here at the bottom in a little two line, not so as you'd notice is like, oh, and you can change reality in like a wild way and things blow
Sam: got a nuke on your back. Don't even worry about it. Like,
Meguey: Nobody worries about it. It's just, it's like, it's in your pocket. You, you know, whatever, you know, oh, doesn't everybody have a, transmogrification device in their backpack?
and like also, it's one of those things where if someone decides to take that move, they're gonna fucking love it.
Sam: yeah.
Meguey: You know? Are. Yeah.
Sam: Okay. I wanna talk about gear because the brainer had a bunch of cool gear and the brain picker has a whole bunch of cool gear, like you really like expanded. I don't know if there are any that are the same, maybe a couple, but like you've got 8, 9, 10, like much more expansively described options here for brain picker gear than the brainer had.
And I was that just cut? Was this another one that it was just like, this shit's cool, we wanna write some cool braider shit.
Vincent: Yeah.
Meguey: I think that's definitely true. And then there also starts to be a layout issue of by the time you're on a second page, you're like heck, let's fill the page, you know?
Sam: Totally. Do you both wanna like pick a favorite new piece of brain picker gear to just like talk about
Meguey: Bubble prism.
Bubble prism. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Vincent: that a thing?
Meguey: Yes, it's right there. A glass device that allows you to converse with a strange, unliving entity, a perpetual non-person who is eager to help you but has a vacant unlearning point of view. It's an advisor and gives you insight, but reme remind the mc to create it as a pinpoint threat.
So I love gear that is also a threat. I love gear. Anything to do with insight. I love it. Like I, I love the one that has an array of people and you can use them to, as a aery.
Sam: Yeah. Is this the one that has like a bunch of people in Cryos
Meguey: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like All that stuff, I love all that stuff. I think that's cool. So, I'm very fond of the bubble prism or Babel
Sam: Yeah, I was reading in this bubble prism also, but it's a babble prism. It's like you've got a little chat bot, right? Like it
Vincent: it is
Meguey: you have a scrying glass that will tell you things that are not necessarily useful.
Vincent: looking back at it, that is straight up me complaining about ai.
Sam: Oh, a hundred
Meguey: Right, but it's also, it's a
Vincent: Oh yeah. No pinpoint threats are a pain in the.
Sam: All right. this next one is tiny. You changed one of the names on the Brain Picker playbook. It used to be Smith and now it's South. Is that because South is a much cooler name than Smith?
Vincent: I don't remember.
Meguey: I'm,
Sam: Uh, I, I don't know what compels me to ask about details this small,
Meguey: love it. I am so flattered that you're paying that level of
attention. I think that's awesome.
Sam: decisions that small is such like an important part of polishing art and making art, like really compelling, I feel like, and so I, I don't know like, in some ways that decision is so small that I am, I wanna know what compels you to care to like,
Vincent: Like why? Why did I care about that?
Meguey: I mean there's,
Vincent: Why did I leave Jones?
Sam: Maybe Smith And Jones were too plainly similar, and you get to keep one of 'em, but yeah.
Meguey: and well, it, you know, there's, there's the whole, dogs in the vineyard, Joseph Smith, history of it,
right? And like, maybe not
Vincent: Oh, I would be shocked if I were thinking about
Meguey: Ah, you think about weird things sometimes.
Vincent: I do. You got me. Good question.
Meguey: think one of the things is when you have a chance to reexamine every piece of your art and say how do I make, what do I wanna do so that this feels fresh or different?
Or, how do I. Make it more that's part of it. And so why not reexamine the name lists
and see if there's a difference?
Vincent: It's so strange because Smith Smith was such an important name on the brainer list.
Meguey: Yeah. But South is so much cooler. Part of it is that we had different, sort of Rubrics for naming conventions for the different playbooks in Apocalypse World versus Apocalypse World. burned over third edition.
Sam: Tell me about that.
Vincent: We.
Meguey: Oh. Oh, hell yeah. I forget all of the details of it, but when we were writing it, there was a thing of like, okay, e every name on this for some reason is one syllable.
every name on this playbook is a character that Vin Diesel has played. Every name on this playbook relates to cars in some way. like, there was one, one we did that, I had something about vowel consonant sounds and used like soft consonant sounds. I don't know.
We, we did some funky little fun, creative in-house things with the original playbook, nameless so that they felt cohesive to us um, that they would be, that each table would have. A distinctive mix. Like we didn't just put the same name list in all the playbooks because that wouldn't create that uniqueness. because when we give people the directive to speak to the characters, use the characters names, they need to be distinct enough so that everyone at the table can tell who you're like, who you're talking about. And if you have like, I don't know, snow and dust and, lake, in one name list.
And, iMerit and I don't know some other Vin diesel name.
Vincent: Those were Rutger.
Meguey: Oh, those are Rucker. How, or sorry, VIN Diesel, not you. Rucker. Hower. Right. then, you know, they're distinct enough, right?
Vincent: So check me on this. Is there another playbook that has Smith in its name list? And I had to choose who got it
Meguey: It's
possible.
Vincent: because
Sam: can, I can find that out.
Yep. That's
Meguey: Yeah, because it's a battle babe.
Sam: It's a battle
babe name?
Vincent: Who is it in? Burned over.
Sam: Uh, It's the volatile.
Vincent: Okay.
Meguey: Yep. That's why.
Sam: Great God. I love that. We got like some incredible answers here. That also a really practical one
to cap it off.
Meguey: the way it
Sam: Yep. Yep. Okay, so then you changed a bunch of like visual description stuff of characters into first impressions. I, this is another one where it's I've just, this such an obvious strict upgrade. It's like, I looked at this and was like, of course, like, it's so good.
Like, um, and you know, I, I'll miss the like kind eyes, calming eyes, like the list of all the eyes, like all that stuff was like, great. But this also just feels, this feels so practical in a way that the previous descriptions did not. And I love the pra practicality of that.
Vincent: I've had mixed feelings about this particular change, but, so I'm glad to hear that
Sam: Hmm.
Vincent: out.
Sam: what feels mixed to you?
Vincent: Oh, well I miss the kind eyes and the, the thoughtful eyes and the, you know,
Sam: stuff. Yeah.
Meguey: but we also just put a lot of that in under Holly Hills,
Sam: okay then we've got, we have HX questions that have changed and my impression reading these sort of across playbooks was that the second edition HX questions were much more like specific in terms of the relationship that they were defining with someone. And the burned over third edition ones are much broader, right?
Like on the brainer playbook we have, which one of you has slept in my presence knowingly or unknowingly? And in the brain picker we have, are any of you actually honestly uncomfortable hanging out with me?
And like those both like point in a similar vibe, right? And I can do a lot with both of those questions, but they are like, there's a different scale that they're operating at and I'm curious about that change.
Yeah.
Meguey: I think for me, that just hearing those two, that is directly to the, centered versus you centered as part of it, you know, one, it's like, who among you has done this thing versus, hey. I, I'm kind of weird. Aren't any of you actually sketched out? Um, and also, it's another step back of, uh, even less coloring on another person's character sheet, you know, because by saying, who among you has slept in my presence? I'm decreeing a thing, you know, yes or no, have you, or not by having a more open-ended, like, are any of you actually sketched out, it's just a different way of, of, um, investigating the, interpersonal
Sam: Yeah. Vincent looks very ponderous right now.
Vincent: I can't remember.
Sam: Yeah.
Vincent: look for any given example, I could probably figure out why, and I seem to remember that as I was drafting the burned over playbooks I was standardizing them in a different way than the second edition playbooks had been standardized. But I don't remember the details of that process.
Sam: Yeah,
okay. So hard zones. Um, Hard zones were the thing where when I read these I was like, I can't imagine MCing apocalypse world without hard zones. How did anyone ever do it? Like these, I think are
I should say up front, these are like biomes basically. They're like a list of locations within a. You know, The vault and everything is underground or like the snowy wastes and it's a bunch of arctic apocalypse kind of stuff or whatever. And then a bunch of descriptive locations within that kind of biome.
These feel so helpful in it. It's almost like a names list, it feels of like when I need an idea, here's one, I can just point at it and then I don't have to spend the energy thinking
Meguey: totally. And you can also like, you can Okay. This is the hard zone we're starting in, but also like pulling from other names, lists. As the game goes on, if there's like an idea, you're like, Ooh, I'll pop that idea. And this is good. And a lot, and like these came largely from games That we ran. the frozen waste one is a game that I ran. poisoned lands is a game that I ran. I, I think there, isn't there like a drowned world one that I ran? Yeah, so those three are games that I ran and the is like, this is the apocalypse, this is the setting, these are the pieces, this is the stuff. So you know, now it can be yours.
Vincent: The other cool thing to me about hard zones is that it gives playbooks the opportunity, like the Xer or the, what is the one that has a dog.
Meguey: The restless.
Vincent: restless. The restless. that's right. So it gives the opportunity for them to bring new hard zones into play with them. So like the X Earth Yeah. um, in orbit as a hard zone. And, the restless has, this other weird, you know, the hard zones within the hard zones or the hard zone between the hard zones or whatever it says.
Sam: Yeah.
the final sort of like big mechanical change that is sort of very lightly on these playbooks and that is much more present in other parts of the document is game changers. Uh, There is a game change, so an improvement that the brain picker can take in the advanced improvements section is to unlock a game changer and.
The way I would describe Game Changers is basically end games for a campaign of Apocalypse World. And not all of them end the campaign, but all of them fundamentally change the campaign. One of them is end the campaign, one of them is a new mc steps up and takes over. One of them is you dig up a bunch of mechs from underground and now there are mechs running around. Stuff like that.
I love these. I think these are also fantastic. I think a, again, to put in the language of conversations, I think a conversation that should be present in way more games, including Apocalypse World very early on in play, is how's this whole thing gonna end? What are we doing here? Like, where are we aiming as a group as we play? Um, And I love the way that these do that, but I'm, I would love to hear you talk about where they came from and what you were hoping for from. Them.
Vincent: Well, one of the things that we do a lot when we play games including Apocalypse World from the beginning, from the first in-house campaigns, is that we would end them with Epilogues and we would go around and everybody would talk about their character after the game ends.
And
Sam: Mm-hmm.
Vincent: We do that with a ton of the games we play just for the heck of it, and so I wanted to include that in the rules. 'cause it's not in Apocalypse World to do that, but it's something we always do. But,
But that's not like a rule that you have to end with Apple logs.
Sam: Yeah.
Meguey: Yeah.
Vincent: And so that is part of the impetus for those. Part of the impetus for those is that I had these rules for mechs and I wanted to include them 'cause they're rad.
Meguey: Yeah, that's
what I was gonna say is that part of this, part of the game Changers thing is like, okay, this is a way we can do this thing that isn't like also, having to write a whole entire new other game. Like, okay, but let's just. You're still playing. Apocalypse World burned over just now There's me.
Okay. Just roll with it.
Sam: Yeah. I, I Love how many of the decisions you've talked about making today are born out of. Ah, it seemed cool as
hell.
Meguey: Yeah. I mean, why else do it? Right? Like why
Sam: mean,
Meguey: do it? That's
Sam: it's like accommodating your children or because it sounded cool as hell. Like those are, like, those are the two things that are at the root of this uh, edition. It sounds like they're great things
Meguey: Yep.
Sam: root.
Meguey: Yep, yep, yep.
And like there's one other, like the one other thing we haven't talked about which is just that the state of the world has changed. You know, when we wrote Apocalypse World, there was one thing going on, and now there's something else going on. So we're responding to what's going on.
Sam: Yeah. It's really interesting to me. I know you've talked a lot about how much the design of Apocalypse World was inspired by your need to accommodate your friends, having kids and you having
Meguey: Us, me, us us having kids. Yeah. No, no. None of our friends had kids when we, when like, it was like we, we were the ones with the, the baby that we had to get to, you know,
Sam: It's fascinating to hear how much of this edition is a continued response to your own children.
Vincent: Yeah.
Meguey: Yeah.
Sam: Yeah.
Meguey: That is really freaking hilarious, isn't it? And like in that
Sam: That's someone's thesis right there is what
Meguey: right. Yeah. I, I, I hope so. one of the things that's interesting in light of that specifically is that Tovey, our youngest, who's about to be 20, the end of the year, When they were the infant, they were the, the little tiny baby that we were working to accommodate most, when we were playing and developing and writing.
apocalypse Worlds, you know, they were five years old when Apocalypse World came out. they. Kid that was 12 and wanted to play Apocalyp World with like their older siblings were and we're like, now we're gonna do this other thing instead.
But Tovi is also the one who's writing the demon tree with Vincent, and Tovey's game design is astonishing and surrealist and phantasmagorical, and it is, I could not. I couldn't design that. I'm not, that's not the type of designer I am, just because of the way my brain works and the things that I think about and what I have been steeped in.
So not only are we continuing to, react a little bit to what are the needs of our children and the needs of our bonus children, and, uh, how do we, Put our art forward in response to that and response to what's going on in the world. But it's also interesting to see that we're also trailing our children a little bit. You know, is, Tovey is designing something that is so different and so, impressive to me. And it's way beyond this in a way, you know, like the stuff that's coming out and from the demon tree is just like, wild, makes this look so tame in so many ways.
And I, I just love that because it means that we have, succeeded in one of our primary, underlying like principles for. For personhood, for parenthood to create and hold this space for young people to come into themselves in that way. and damn. That's cool.
Sam: Yep. I'm getting emotional thinking about it. Um. I've been, I've been thinking a lot lately about, my sister is having kids. she's younger than me. I don't have kids. My cousin, who I'm very close to, also just moved with her family to Minnesota where I often visit and has three children between the ages of two and eight, and the oldest one just got into playing. D&D and is
loving it. And I'm thinking a lot about mortality as my grandparents are passing away, I'm thinking a lot about children as those children are becoming real people that I have a real person relationship with and not just a blob relationship with. And I'm thinking about role playing games is a, a medium for connection with those people.
Yeah.
Meguey: Totally.
Sam: Uh,
it's
it's it's beautiful to just see the way that children and adults influence each other.
Yeah,
Meguey: Yeah, it's super cool. And like that, like puts uh, another piece of the apocalypse world burned over, which you, we had mentioned way back at the beginning, an hour and a half ago about violence. Right. And why the approach to violence is different. and that ties in, a little bit for me with this idea of wrestling with mortality. and the way that it's different for an 8-year-old or an 18-year-old, or a 28-year-old, or a 58-year-old. You because we have to, approach and encounter and, wrestle with
Sam: Yeah.
Meguey: mortality over and over and over and over and over and over in the course of our lives.
and, I think part of it, with Apocalypse World burned over and how violence is dealt with there kind of reflects that for me, another way of thinking about what is going on, and how we want to make, things have consequence. it needs to matter, when a character moves to violence.
So I think it's, yeah, it's interesting.
Sam: So wanna end here on the thing that I started with of what conversations were you tired of having about Second Edition and what conversations are you excited to have about third edition?
Vincent, you look like maybe you're burning out. Well, I mean, it's so. Conversations I'm really tired of is the conversation about, PBTA is for this and it's not
Vincent: for,
Meguey: Oh
right.
Vincent: and I don't know if this, third edition apocalypse or is gonna move the needle, but I think that trying something challenging, tackling a challenge, I think that that is a bid for contradicting some of that conventional wisdom.
You know what I mean?
Sam: Totally.
Vincent: but like under Hollow Hills is the real bit at changing that or the wizards grim more even or the firebrand games. but that's the conversation I'm most tired of and that's the conversation that I, I'm not sure how to tackle, how to change.
Sam: Yeah.
Meguey: yeah, I mean I, one of those things is that the further you are from our living room. The easier it is to forget that powered by the Apocalypse means at its most basic, that you found something inspiring. In Apocalypse World
Vincent: Well, my favorite thing to say is that what really unites all the PBTA games is that in some way or other, they're contradicting Apocalypse World,
like their, their answers to apocalypse or out
Meguey: Yeah, that too. But that's an inspiration. That's an inspiration. They're like
Sam: Game design is a conversation.
Meguey: Yes,
Vincent: But what's valuable to me about them is not how closely they resemble Apocalypse World, but how interesting they are in contradicting Apocalypse World.
Meguey: Be fun.
Sam: I think we'll call it there. this was on the one hand like pretty detailed and comprehensive. And on the other hand, just in scratching the surface, barely I cannot wait for people to get their hands on this. I can't wait to get my hands on whatever the final version of the text ends up fi.
It's fascinating to hear. It's still in development a little bit.
Meguey: and
Sam: I mean
Meguey: like, how.
Don't check us. Oh my
Sam: Who, who could ever stop tinkering, you know, like, it, it's just the fun part, you know. but I, I really appreciate y'all's time. It is such a pleasure to get to talk with y'all. Uh, thanks for being here.
Vincent: you so
Meguey: Thanks. This was really fun.
Sam: Thanks again to Vincent and McGee for being here.
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