Anyone played this yet? I've almost gotten a game with it twice, the second time got all the way to character creation, but both times real life got in the way.
Overall I think it's got problems, but honestly it's getting progressively easier to run as the comic fleshes out the setting. The changes in the new edition are also good. Hopefully it'll be strong enough to run confidently by the time the final version is released.
Anyway, here's the most recent PDF.
It's a cool comic, but too bad they chose Apocalypse World as a base for the RPG. Could have been something good.
It actually fits the comic's tone pretty well unlike most AW hacks. Though I could see them doing it in a totally different system like that one Wuxia d6 game.
I've always felt it was a huge mistake for the artist to use what they're worst at (faces) for the cover.
I'll be honest, I haven't played many RPGs, but Apocalypse World doesn't seem that bad. When I was setting the game up, it didn't strike me as an absolute garbage fire.
What do you feel makes it shit?
It's just the WIP cover. ABADDON said he's making actual art for the finished version.
Bring me a bottle or two, me lad.
It tries to push 'fun' too hard. And not just general 'fun' as you and I would understand it, but 'le fun xD'. It's one of those lazy, instant gratification type rpgs designed to pander to entitled players. The idiosyncratic terms are confusing too and really only distance the rules from the narrative.
I agree with the weirdly named rules, I just wrote out a bunch of shorthand/translated versions for the players and myself instead. It's a little cringy to say the full thing and more than a little annoying.
I don't mind the first part too much though.
Careful user, you're entering the territory of the dread Meme World hack.
Aside from Aggro, they're pretty normal names for the moves. I guess you could make an argument that something like hardholder is a little esoteric, but honestly, wouldn't "lord" be worse?
>I do think Baker likes his own terminology a tiny bit too much, but it's mostly in internal descriptions of how the rules go. In the play examples.
>It tries to push 'fun' too hard. And not just general 'fun' as you and I would understand it, but 'le fun xD'. It's one of those lazy, instant gratification type rpgs designed to pander to entitled players.
What did he mean by this?
Ironically, that fits entirely within K6BD perfectly as it follows the central mantra of the story.
I really wish they would have fluffed out the LORE a bit more for the game, but I guess that's the point.
Personally I love a lot of the ideas about the setting, even though it's gonzo and actually pretty simple once you get done to it. Every since I read the rulebook I had a strong idea for a character in my mind that I've always wanted to play since I read it, which is always what I consider a good benchmark for interesting games/settings.
Likewise. Thankfully it seems like an area of the setting is gonna get more fleshed out each arc. This one seems largely about devils and the underworld in general.
You know what, speaking of which, tell us people about your characters that you want to play in Broken World. I'll start with the name I got off the Angel Name Generator that made me stat it within minutes.
>9 Horned Moon Ascends to Analyze the Wicked.
>Angel Master.
>Nominally a pacifistic heretic, but one who's decided to chronicle the great battles of history, usually by being at them. Basically a wartime reporter meets the Dalai Lama.
>Armor is busted as fuck from centuries of camping out in the middle of battlefields and not going back to heaven because fuck those guys.
>Helmet has big crescent moon horns.
>tell us people about your characters that you want to play in Broken World
Mine was a Demon of The Refined archetype. He's a red demon, the type that is hairy with a red mask and is not usually very calm. The idea was he'd be good with guns and his noble pursuit would be a very weird whacky board game specific to throne. I'd imagine something like chess but with a stupidly shaped board and 16 pieces. If he loses the game, he goes into a beserk rage.
My idea for his backstory is an elderly human woman who owns a guild but never had children basically summoned a demon to be her son by proxy. He's huge and strong, but quiet and very serene and refined. That is until he loses his game, or tiny little things like cracked teacup or misaligned button on a servant's vest set him off and he pulls out a pistol from his robe and shoot someone in the face. His entire character is basically 'red demon that is supposed to be a kind and honorable son but is really just a demon under a thin mask of refinement'. Which I think fits the comic pretty well.
Wanna know a secret? You can make almost anything with Mutants and Masterminds, including KSBD.
M&M actually works really well for KSBD in particular.
>It tries to push 'fun' too hard.
Only fa/tg/uys would see this as a sign of a bad RPG.
Apocalypse World is not bad to play what it's good at - a wacky 80s style grindhouse games with a lot of shooting and random things happening. It makes the game roll but you need to really try hard to make it do anything else reasonably well. It also sets expectations for players and they do have ways to transform any situation in the same clusterfuck that it normally is. It good at what it does but it's not a very big niche.
So for KSBD it is good for playing one aspect of insanely large world - adventures of a bunch of miscreants getting into troubles. But if you want to play something else or some of the players have concepts relying on more grand approaches to the setting it won't very good.
I like it! Reminds me of an old Batman comic I read once about the Penguin, where he was totally civil and polite for most of the time, but the second someone insulted or mocked him in any way for a panel or two he was drawn as a monstrous caricature of himself , usually lasting until he has beaten the offender to death with his bare hands.
Why is the art so tumblr?
What do you mean? I don't see any fat people or red noses.
There's a woc with a sidecut tho
I don't mind the system, but don't you think it's possible to make a game too fatuous?
You've got to temper 'fun' with challenge and adversity, and humour with seriousness to give something meaning outside of a shallow romp.
I think her hair is just tied weird, rather than it being a side cut. Another character in the comic has hair the same way.
>if it's not a straight, white person with a completely ordinary hairstyle it's tumblr garbage
Fuck off, m8.
Well, there's a certain amount of seriousness inherent with the setting. Moreover, it being a "narrative" game, I feel the challenge is more supposed to be a product of the stories the GM and players decide to tell. Now, your mileage for that may vary depending on groups, and I don't really know how well it works out in reality, but I can get where the creators are coming from in that respect.
Well, protag is barista and her main sidekick is tranny, so there's that.
I think Apocalypse World-type games in general tend to be quite 'shallow' due to their inherent mechanics. It's very hard to differentiate challenge, so one solution always ends up about as good as another. Meaning you might as well go with the action that makes the best story rather than the action which would be more effective.
For K6BD, that's not so bad. It's a very high-power, kung-fu movie type setting. But I think the system definitely lends itself more towards fun one-shots rather than a campaign.
She has scars all over left side of her head so of course she will try to cover them.
Are you telling me you played AW in situations in which shooting was basically the same as talking to people or building shit?
I read a bit of it, and Im not in love with the way it straps everything down into nine classes.
The mechanics are fundamentally the same.
10+ you win and get kudos.
7-9 you win with a complication.
2-6 you fail and GM fucks with you.
There is literally no difference between building something, talking to someone, or shooting them.
>if it's not a straight, white person with a completely ordinary hairstyle it's tumblr garbage
That's true though
She T H I C C
I don't like broken world much, but I'm thinking about playing Blades In The Dark using Throne instead of Doskvol. Fuckton of criminal gangs? Check. Corrupt law enforcement? Check. Weird magical shenanigans? Check.
We'd be following a small gang not unlike the one Allison is gathering now, instead of a holder of a key.
How is Blades in the Dark? I'm not too familiar with the system but it seems cool.
I picked up a copy and have been reading it over the past few days. It's less like PbtA than most people think. Relatively speaking, it's much more complex and integrated - it's a rules-medium game masquerading as a rules light game. If you want something mechanically heavier than PbtA but that is clearly descended from its design sense, Blades is the game for you.
I like it much better than regular pbta, the mechanics are much more pleasant to me. The standard setting is pretty much a thinly disguised dishonored, which I dig, so that helps too.
I recommend reading it.
By far the best PBtA inspired game besides the original Apocalypse World. Fairly deep mechanically, in spite of being narrative.
I want to put my dick in Beggar Knight!