Episode 1
Before the Apocalypse: Apocalypse and Character Creation
The kickoff of our Before the Apocalypse set-up mini-series. Join us as we determine the delicious flavor of our specific apocalypse, create our two main characters, and begin fleshing out their shared history.
Somehow, this one is mostly about monkeys and beans.
Check out more details about the system we play, Apocalypse World: Burned Over, at:
https://lumpley.games/burnedover/
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Socials, Merch, Free Music, and Other Stuff: https://linktr.ee/oopsall
Transcript
Let Hey, everyone, thanks for listening.
:I wanted to say right up front that these first couple episodes are purely optional.
:If you don't care about character creation, mechanics, or how we generated the setting, you can go ahead and skip these first two episodes.
:Episode 0, Splash, Splash, Boom!
:has a solid recap of the decisions we make in these first two episodes, and we begin playing a short session to get our feet wet.
:The main story starts in episode 1, Snort and Scorpions.
:So either of those two episodes are equally good jumping off points.
:If you keep listening to this episode, you'll really get to follow along the whole journey of us starting from step zero.
:I love listening to that kind of stuff, so I hope some of y'all will too.
:See you on the other side of the intro music.
:Love you, bye!
:Bye!
:Welcome to Oops!
:All Apocalypses, a show where we explore the collapse of society by playing a fun tabletop role playing game.
:I am your host and master ceremonies, Stu Masterson.
:And I am Brady McAdonna.
:And I am Jacob Cecil.
:We're here to play Apocalypse World, a game that kind of spawned the powered by the apocalypse craze that has taken over every single genre possible.
:This is the original, focused on a post-apocalyptic society.
:We have a collection of various tabletop role playing games experience represented at this virtual table.
:I've dm'd Apocalypse World, Monster of the Wheat.
:I have backed basically every Kickstarter of anyone making any powered by the apocalypse game.
:And I also have an extensive history dming and playing in Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, all the good regular ones, and also World of Darkness games, Vampire and Masquerade, Chronicles of Darkness.
:Big fan of all those dming and playing.
:But my favorite is coming back to Apocalypse World.
:Let's throw it to Jacob.
:All right, so I...
:To make me look a little bad here, I've got a good bit of RPG experience.
:I started with Pathfinder.
:Started that probably mid-high school.
:Played that almost exclusively through college.
:Got introduced to D&D fifth edition after I graduated.
:That kind of started me into a deep dive where I just went into a lot of different RPG systems.
:Some like Lancer, Demon the Descent, Vampire.
:You've also played in my Monster of the Week game, which is probably your favorite thing you've done.
:To be honest, it's up there.
:It's definitely up there.
:I very much enjoy that.
:And Jacob is also an excellent DM.
:I know a lot of people who he's their favorite DM.
:Very good at doing nice, creepy things.
:To give you more credit, you've DM'd a little bit of that one game that I played in.
:What game did you play in?
:That you started right before you moved.
:Oh, gosh, God.
:Yeah, that's another system.
:I really like Tales from the Loop.
:I love it.
:It's my favorite Stranger Things style of game for all people interested in that.
:I've also backed almost every single thing on Kickstarter, and I've played literally none of them.
:Okay, and Brady, what is your tabletop role playing game experience?
:I've played D&D like eight times.
:I love it.
:And I've never contributed to a single Kickstarter campaign.
:That's how he knows he doesn't deserve to be in this podcast.
:You are much stronger than all of us, being able to avoid the allure of Kickstarter.
:I'm weak.
:But I do.
:I've subscribed to many Patreons, so they've got me just not in the role playing game category.
:But Brady also, me and Brady play fun improv games all the time.
:That's the only thing we do.
:I'm very confident, despite his extremely limited experience, is going to contribute greatly to this.
:I'm a storyteller, Stu, just not in the way that you are.
:That's deep.
:Apocalypse World in particular is focused on scarcity.
:It's obviously a post-apocalyptic society.
:You're trying to get by.
:You're trying to thrive in your own way.
:There is just not enough there.
:So what we're doing is exploring those difficulties each of our characters are going to have.
:There's also crazy, fun, excitement and violence and all sorts of things like that, that you'd see in a movie like Mad Max or Book of Elias.
:Or you guys got any other apocalyptic movies to throw out there?
:No.
:Those are the two.
:Book of Elias.
:On the spot, I can't think of any apocalyptic movies.
:That's it.
:Mad Max and older Mad Max movies.
:No, we've got the Blade Runners and the...
:Oh, Blade Runner?
:I guess that kind of cyberpunk, you got to kind of figure out, was that post-apocalyptic?
:I mean, technically, it's pretty dystopian.
:But I think...
:That opens up a lot of doors here.
:When you think about scarcity, maybe scarcity of work, and that's why they made the clone people that do all the work.
:Yeah, the biggest one is probably Wall-E, which is scarcity of...
:That's a good point.
:How did I not remember Wall-E?
:So yeah, we're going to be doing a Wall-E live play where each of us is playing a different type of Wall-E.
:I think there's a Wall-E and a Wall-B.
:Yes.
:So what we're doing today is a session zero.
:This is basically figuring out our characters, our setting, what we want to play through in all of the other sessions we're doing.
:So if that is not interesting to you in any way and you don't care about rules and you just want it right, then you can go and skip to a future episode where we actually kind of kick off and start playing.
:Honestly, a lot of the fun of the Apocalypse World style games is the character generation, which is not something you can say about most RPGs.
:It's not the boring stuff where you crunch numbers and stuff.
:It's actually the kind of roleplay in the character creation.
:And we're also, spoiler, going to play another fun game to help build the setting, Dekuuma, which I will talk about when we get to that section.
:We're playing a particular release of Apocalypse World called Burned Over.
:It basically is a reworking of a lot of the main character archetypes defined in Apocalypse World and streamlined some of the rules and kind of takes out some of the more mature elements defined in Apocalypse World, first and second edition.
:So the first thing we have to do is choose our Apocalypse.
:This is done through selecting what hard zone is in play when we start.
:This can change as play goes on if any major events occur, but this is basically the flavor of Apocalypse that you're dealing with.
:So as we mentioned with our dozens of examples of Apocalyptic movies we mentioned, I believe, we have so many.
:At least 30.
:Yes, at least 30.
:I'll cut out most of them except Wall-E and Book of Eli just to streamline the process.
:They're the best ones after all.
:And I listed at least half of them, but they were so obscure that we just didn't...
:Brady is much more knowledgeable about Apocalyptic movies than us, apparently.
:We just didn't think that you guys would get them.
:They're a little underground, you probably haven't heard of them.
:Wait, Planet of the Apes.
:Planet of the Apes!
:That's a real good one.
:We could all be monkeys.
:That could be our apocalypse we choose right now.
:Sorry.
:Was that offensive?
:Monkeys aren't apes.
:I don't think they know the difference.
:I think in the movie they actually have them interchangeable.
:I think there's like chimps and gorillas.
:I think they also have like the little capuchin monkey, I think is the scientist.
:Is this in the original movies?
:Are you talking about the remakes?
:That's a great question.
:I don't know.
:All I know is that of the originals, the fourth one is the best.
:Is that the one where they...
:Don't ask me what it's called.
:Is that the one where they blow up the world?
:Yes.
:Yes, it is.
:With the monkeys on it?
:Uh-huh.
:So what you find is there's like the top of the ground monkeys who look like normal monkeys, and then there's the core of the earth monkeys that are like radiated and look scary and spooky.
:That is so relevant.
:I'm going to interrupt your relevancy right now with what we're doing because one of the potential hard zones, and I know from us talking it's probably our favorite, is the bottomless vaults, which is an apocalyptic world that is all beneath the surface of the world, just like those monkeys in Planet of the Apes 4.
:So this is clearly a front runner, as we could all play our favorite monkey characters from these games.
:I believe Curious George was in it.
:With all the associated physical deformities.
:Yes, like Curious George, yeah.
:Basically, what these different hard zones you choose from or you create your own, they give you kind of the flavor of your apocalypse, and they also give you some set locations that you can easily add into your world that are honestly all incredibly interesting and makes it very difficult to choose.
:When I started, I definitely was leaning more towards choosing a more traditional apocalypse, which is what they call the Scorched Wastes, which is just a world that was blown up.
:But there are also a lot of very exciting ones.
:There's a fully overgrown world where plants just run wild.
:I think that was one of your favorites, Jacob.
:Yeah, I just love the idea of a jungle ocean, just trees so dense that you're on the tops of them in an ocean-like setting.
:Except it's plants and trees.
:I just think that's cool.
:I think it's interesting and underexplored.
:But I think we decided that was too visually interesting for a podcast.
:Yeah, that's very true.
:That's actually, yeah, that is very true.
:You don't have a lot of faith in my description of ability, I see.
:That's correct.
:Another top choice we had was the Drowned City, which is a completely flooded world, basically, where just the tops of skyscrapers poke over the ocean.
:And that one seemed incredibly fitting because I have an ocean engineering degree, which is a real thing done at me.
:And if I remember correctly, I believe Brady went to fish school.
:I did go to fish school.
:Really?
:I will not elaborate.
:No, it's called the Marine.
:I'm actually wearing my high school sweatshirt right now.
:Gosh, you guys are so much cooler than I am.
:So that one is definitely very interesting, and especially the specific locations they pulled out.
:There's an island that was once the university library, probably the fish school Brady went to, where on the uppermost stories the book survived.
:There's the sea road where traders and refugees come from far away from distant sunken cities or even from dry land, which I can't even imagine there being dry land in this apocalypse.
:Don't get excited.
:We're not doing this one.
:We are doing the Bottomless Vaults, which, as we mentioned before, is based on Planet of the Apes 4.
:It actually says that in the playbook here.
:Yeah, it's in the text.
:It says, based on Planet of the Apes 4, come up with your own monkey-based locations.
:Now, there are some very interesting locations in here that we will talk about in depth as we go through kind of our setting creation coming up shortly.
:The short version of it is all of it is deep underground, beneath the surface of the Earth.
:It gives us a much more creepy, spoopy vibe, which I normally lean to anyway when I'm running a game.
:I was very excited for this to be different and more action packed and burnt and in the sun, but we somehow ended up back where I'm comfortable.
:Also, where Jacob is very comfortable, Jacob loves spoopy, scary, creepy things with too many arms.
:I love Lovecraftian shit.
:I love dark, dingy, crawling to the bottom of an unknown void kind of thing.
:Yeah, that's going to come up a lot.
:And this is most importantly, the dankest apocalypse of these options.
:So in Apocalypse World, the characters, which we are going to construct live action in this recording, are all defined through playbooks.
:So playbooks are kind of analogous to classes and other RPGs, where it's what gives you kind of your stats and the different things you can do.
:But in PBTA games, they are all tied heavily to archetypes.
:So the types of characters you would see come up in the media that the game is built on.
:So in this case, in apocalyptic media, you would see particular archetypes.
:So there's like the character who is the biggest badass.
:There's the creepy cult leader.
:There's the person who's running the only working bar in 100 miles.
:And you can play these characters.
:And when you play them, an important thing to remember is that you are now the epitome of that archetype.
:Whatever choices you make with your character is basically the truth for this setting.
:So I gave a few examples, but none of those are overlapped with what Brady and Jacob are choosing.
:Would you like to describe your playbook first, Brady?
:The playbook that I've selected is The Bloodhound.
:The description follows, Here in the ashes of the burned world, Strange things dwell, strange forces move.
:What seems solid real is illusion.
:What seems impossible must be true.
:Any whose mind still lights with curiosity must see that it's so.
:So this character that I'll be playing is a sleuth, a mystery solver, much like Sherlock Holmes or Columbo, or more recently Benoit Blanc from the Knives Out mystery.
:Love that dude and his glass onions.
:It's a good time.
:I haven't seen it yet.
:I saw it.
:Oh, Knives Out.
:You would love Knives Out.
:They were both quite good.
:And I hope that my character follows suit.
:I will literally quit right now if you do the accent now.
:Which accent?
:Oh, no.
:Does he have two accents?
:Well, I listed like three different characters that all have different accents.
:Because I could do the Colombo accent.
:I was about to say, I would love if you did Colombo this whole podcast.
:But I could also do that Southern Trial.
:Oh, God.
:Please don't.
:You were in Alizamah too long.
:Or not long enough.
:So this is like the person trying to tie together a bunch of different mysteries and figure out what's going on.
:They have like a really cool mechanic about they have kind of a series of mysteries that they either believe or don't believe.
:And we'll go into detail on what these are through actual character creation.
:But their whole thing is trying to get to the bottom of these mysteries.
:And I would say you didn't hit on the kind of a little bit crazy connecting ideas with strength part as much.
:Is that going to be a part of your character?
:I'm going full Pepe Silvia.
:Okay, full Pepe Silvia with this.
:There is no Pepe Silvia.
:I was really hoping that would be your answer, so I'm glad it is.
:Jacob is playing a very different character.
:Probably, maybe.
:We actually don't know.
:Would you like to describe your playbook?
:My character is called No One.
:And I guess since Brady started, I will read what he has to say here.
:The sun is the killing eye, and the wind is the grindstone.
:Creatures fetch up in the allay of things, in the shade, scorched and scoured.
:They are no one anymore.
:They are from the worst of nowheres.
:Where are you going?
:They say.
:Away from the sun, out of the wind?
:Am I here?
:The No One is no one.
:It gets kind of as we play the game, create my own backstory.
:So I didn't have very many ideas for what I wanted to play, and this character feeds into that.
:Every session, he has the ability to have a flashback.
:It's either based on how I roll at the start, I can either control when I have the flashback, or Stu can interrupt anything I am doing and give me a flashback to something that has triggered a memory of my past.
:Yeah, it's very exciting because there is in your past something that caused kind of this creation of your new personality, your new ideas, there's something that caused you forgetting your previous life.
:And I don't know it, you don't know it.
:I don't know it for sure.
:Yeah, and we're going to come up with it as we play.
:So if you ever hear me dropping hints or describing visions in some ways, it's not because I have written down on some paper, oh, here's his past.
:It's shit I'm coming up with, and all of that will eventually tie together into something hopefully very satisfying for what your backstory is.
:And the fact that he can interrupt me at any point during the session, slap one of those visions in, I imagine will probably be at the most inconvenient times and probably feed into whatever is going on.
:Almost certainly.
:It's cool.
:You do get some control over your visions, which I think, again, will go into this in a little more detail, but you get to basically tell me a rough outline from a list of things that you see in your vision, and then I get to turn that into however I interpret that line at that moment.
:Oh, and trying to tie it into either other visions he's had or the current things going on in the story.
:So you have a little bit of control.
:If you decide you want to go in some particular direction, you can start pushing it there.
:And of course, I will always push back in some way, because that's a little bit of my job, is to throw you off balance.
:But yeah, I'm very excited about that character.
:Me, I am playing every other character that you guys will interact with in some way.
:Hopefully dozens of them.
:My job here, though, is to make your lives, your characters' lives, not your players' lives.
:Your characters' lives difficult and exciting and full of action and dangerous.
:But one of the key tenets of Apocalypse World is that I am always going to be a fan of your players.
:I want you guys to do cool things and succeed.
:I just want them to be exciting in the way it happens.
:And that's why I throw this danger at you.
:So now we're going to go through the character creation process.
:So what each of you are going to do, it's in this system, it's laid out very straightforward.
:There is a page on your playbook that basically step by step walks through what you need to select.
:Let's start with Brady playing a bloodhound.
:So I know you've already figured out your name.
:Would you like to give your name?
:Sure.
:My name is Book McCready.
:Book for short.
:First name Book, last name McCready.
:My pronouns are he, him.
:And that's really all I have so far.
:All of these playbooks have some starting moves you can select from.
:They give flavor to how your character acts in certain situations.
:And a lot of times they're going to be tied to particular die rolls.
:But these are the things that basically separate what you can do from what everyone else can do.
:Everyone has access to a series of basic moves that I'll go over a little bit later.
:And then there are also some standard moves related to like vehicles and things like that, that anyone can also do.
:But the moves given to you by your playbook are unique to your archetype and let you do things no one else can do.
:So the Bloodhound gets the start by selecting one Bloodhound move in addition to interrogating reality.
:Do you want to read off what interrogating reality does?
:Absolutely.
:At the end of the session, choose one of your mysteries.
:Tell the MC that you'd like to market true or false.
:They must choose one of these answers.
:Go ahead and market true.
:Go ahead and market false.
:Or for now, you'd better not market either way.
:They can also allow you to choose another mystery and ask again if they like.
:Mysteries are a key component of this character, so we'll spend some time talking about those.
:But this is how you start kind of figuring out that truth in the world through all the stuff you're piecing together.
:Ideally, the mysteries you start asking about are things that are coming up in the story, right?
:So you're going to have a whole list of things to choose from.
:And technically, according to this movie, you can ask whichever one you want, but that's when you might get in a case where I say you better not market either way.
:If it's related to something you've been going after, you've been exploring, you've been trying to connect some dots, that's when I'm going to be able to tell you the absolute truth of that.
:In addition to that, you can select one more Bloodhound move when you create your character.
:Is there one that has jumped out to you?
:It seems exciting and fun.
:So here's the deal.
:I think for my character, I'd really like to go for a Hercule Poirot vibe, where we're not necessarily, you know, we haven't studied all 86 different varieties of tobacco, but we are really good at reading people.
:And so there's two that kind of jump out to me for that, and there's stern presence and compassionate presence.
:And I think for my character, I'm going to choose compassionate presence, which will compel NPCs when we meet in private to share things that they are ashamed of or that they're holding on to, if I ask.
:So there's a couple very key words in that.
:One is in private, right?
:So that's very different than stern presence, which I'm also going to read out here to compare it.
:So stern presence is when you enter a situation, roll plus hard, and that will let you know if there are people who have intentionally lied to you, betrayed your trust, or intentionally sown confusion, or if there's anyone that needs your help, which is also a beneficial thing.
:But that is basically when you enter a situation, you come into a room or you come into a tense scenario, you would be able to learn those things.
:But what it sounds like you're leading towards is when you're able to pull off someone in private, and that doesn't necessarily mean you have to bring them back to your room or around the corner into the alleyway.
:That can be in a bar, you go to the corner, and you're talking to them.
:You're able to make this role and potentially get more information from them.
:I like it.
:I think it's a good choice.
:And says a lot for your character, choosing compassionate over stern.
:In Apocalypse World, you have a different array of stats you can choose from.
:Most playbooks, which we're throwing to the wind because we have someone playing a very odd playbook, but in most playbooks, there's kind of a main stat that they are particularly good at.
:So as a bloodhound, that is sharp for you.
:So you are smarter than most people.
:You also get to choose what other things you're pretty good at or what things you're bad at.
:And that's based on a pretty selected set of your stats in an array.
:Is there one that you have chosen or one that jumps out to you?
:So originally, I was hoping to be plus one weird, because I think that would introduce some very fun and cool situations.
:But based off of the move that I just selected, I think cool might serve me the best.
:Yeah, so you have an option there that gives you plus two cool as well as plus two sharp, which is pretty powerful.
:But then you are also minus one aggro.
:Yeah, you're also plus zero weird, which means you're just normal weird, which in the apocalypse is still pretty weird, honestly, but plus zero weird.
:But then you have minus one to both aggro and hard, which means fighting is not your thing.
:Picking fights is not your thing.
:Threatening people is not your thing, which is fine.
:Cool is a very important stat.
:Actually, it comes up a lot.
:One of the kind of generic basic moves is act under pressure, and that is plus cool.
:So if something is happening to you and you need to be able to succeed on something under an intense scrutiny or under an intense situation, you're going to act under pressure.
:And fighting anyway, when you do do battle, I said do do, when you do battle, you are usually going to be rolling cool as well because you are going to both be attacking someone and acting under fire at the same time.
:So it is still beneficial to have plus cool in those situations.
:Yeah, I think that handicap might actually lead to some some really fun encounters as well.
:So I'm going to go that route.
:I'm going to go aggro minus one, cool plus two, hard minus one, sharp plus two, and weird zero.
:Unique to your playbook is you have no weapon.
:That's nice.
:You'll be able to find stuff to hit people with and things like that.
:But to start with, you have no distinct weapon.
:Some of the other classes can get things as crazy as rocket launchers and grenades and tripwires and bear traps.
:But you get nothing because you're all about that mental game.
:You get a few options with your gear.
:Would you like to go through those?
:Your gear is technically probably the most complicated because mysteries are part of your gear.
:That sounds exciting to me.
:There's one mystery that I know that I want, and that is that my character was told and firmly believes that the surface of the planet is completely fine, totally livable.
:For that reason, he wants to find out why we're underground.
:Yeah, that is a mystery you're able to select from a pretty large list of mysteries, filling out any that you care about.
:You can ignore ones you don't care about.
:And then you can also create up to three of your own.
:So that one is one that you're creating yourself, right?
:Yep.
:So that one that I just wrote down is this surface world is fine.
:I like it.
:And you believe it, obviously.
:Definitely.
:We'll see if that's true or not.
:For each mystery, you get to choose either I believe or I don't believe, and then eventually you will learn if it is true or false, or you die before then.
:So should we go down and should I pick whether I believe or don't believe each one of these?
:You can do as many as you want.
:Some may not be relevant to you or you don't care.
:But you get to and you can do it at any time.
:You can wait till something like that comes up and then decide if you want to believe or don't believe it.
:So I would say if you are unsure about any of them, I would just leave them blank for now.
:But if there are any that you want to play into, I would go ahead and make a choice for it.
:The one that jumps out at me is they burned the world on purpose out of vast spite and malice.
:And I'm going to say that's sort of related to the mystery that I chose, and that I think my character believes that we were tricked to go below ground.
:I like that.
:I think that fits very well with your other mystery.
:So you're going to...
:You do believe that in some way.
:You believe they intentionally drove people underground.
:Excellent.
:I like it because in my mind, so this is kind of a two-tiered apocalypse, and obviously feedback from you guys is definitely appreciated.
:I've just kind of thought of this while going through this process.
:So there are these vast cities and things underground right now in the world you're living in, but they are also dilapidated, collapsing.
:People aren't living in these vast cities.
:It's a spread out society, everyone trying to survive.
:So something made there be fully intact cities underground at some point that worked, right?
:I was just about to say that implies the existence of these cities in a functional state.
:Yeah.
:So at some point, either there were functional underground cities for some reason, or the entire earth was encased in an extra layer of crust.
:Which is honestly also a pretty cool idea.
:Both are cool ideas.
:Again, like I'm saying, I don't have an answer for these yet.
:We're going to come up with answers as we play.
:But that implies that there could be two apocalypses that kind of led to the situation.
:Maybe something that pulled people underground, or maybe they just liked it down there.
:I don't know.
:And then something that caused these underground societies to collapse, either violently or over time.
:We don't know yet.
:We don't know.
:I like it, Brady.
:You don't have to go through every mystery you choose right now.
:If they ever become relevant in some discussion we're having, I think it would be interesting for you to go.
:Oh, yeah, I definitely believe this one.
:Time travel is possible.
:Right when, right when Jacob's character dies, and that's the only way you can get it back, you go, I believe time travel is possible.
:We've got to go back.
:We have to go back.
:We're going to retcon and say time travel is possible.
:This may tie in a little bit to your first impression, which we're saving for the end, but do you have any gear that you would like to detail?
:So your gear options or the things you have as gear are your mysteries, which we've talked about.
:Clothing you detail, including at your option a piece worth one armor.
:So one armor is pretty weak, but that basically means any attack that would damage you and the armor you detail would be effective against.
:You'll be able to reduce that damage by one.
:I added a lot of qualifiers there, but usually you'll be able to reduce the damage by one.
:Say you have a flak jacket on.
:If someone comes up and tries to stab you in the neck, that flak jacket's not doing anything.
:I'm going to say your armor is not effective.
:There are also some weapons that deal armor piercing or ignore armor type things.
:You basically get to look what you look like.
:Okay, so definitely wearing like a long coat and some kind of chunky leather boots.
:But beyond that, like maybe just some T-shirt and some normal pants, whatever you would wear below ground, I would say.
:Yeah, it's a pretty consistent temperature down here most of the time, but it's a little chilly.
:Okay.
:A little chilly.
:Definitely.
:Write that down.
:Underground is chilly.
:We've got it.
:And then, Stu, can I...
:Am I allowed to bend the rules a little bit?
:And...
:Always, literally always.
:And I think that my piece worth one armor should be a cane.
:And I think that that cane should be used defensively when needed, only at utmost need, but just...
:Yeah, no, I like it.
:And I will say that will be fairly useless against bullets.
:Yeah, I think that's fine.
:But yeah, in a kind of hand-to-hand situation, that could absolutely be worth one armor.
:I like it.
:Very stylish.
:And then, you know, if you try to sweep the leg, I've got the cane.
:Oh yeah, can't sweep the cane.
:That's what my mom always taught me.
:So those are your main things to select from.
:You've chosen your gear.
:You've selected your stat array and got your starting moves.
:So let's move over to Jacob.
:Who is creating a No-One, which is either going to be way easier or way more complicated.
:I don't know.
:It could be both.
:So the only real...
:Initially, I had kind of picked a completely different playbook for my initial idea for the character, but I think this one sounded more interesting, and that's why I picked it.
:But the only concrete thing that I know about this character, prior to going into the character creation here, is that they are obsessed with going deeper underground.
:Why?
:I don't know.
:And I think that will play very interestingly with Brady's character.
:Yeah, who pretty much wants the opposite.
:Not necessarily to escape, but definitely wants to confirm his suspicions that the above ground is great and probably eventually get people up there, right?
:Absolutely.
:I want a pina colada on the beach.
:Yeah, and you cannot have those underground.
:No pina coladas.
:Okay, so as a no one, I think even before we go into all the things on this character sheet, and you can tell me to hold off, you're still trying to figure it out based on what you do.
:But I think an important aspect, since you have forgotten your history, is how long ago do you think that was?
:Do you think it was right before we're coming into action, or do you think you've had a few months, even a couple of years?
:All that still would make sense.
:I think it's been a while.
:I think it's been at least a couple of years, because how I envision this character is that they kind of have a little role in their little community, their little post-apocalyptic underground community, as somebody who scavenges things from underground that seem useful for the community, and brings them back to everyone.
:And I imagine that in order to have something like that built up, they must have lost their memories a long time ago.
:So I think it's been at least a couple of years since they lost their memory.
:I like it.
:I think that also gives some breathing room to have kind of a starting relationship with Brady's character, who from now on I will accurately call Book.
:Speaking of accurately calling you something, have you come up with a name yet?
:So I'm looking through the list of names, and Ocean is calling me because it seems like something that you wouldn't see in an apocalypse.
:And also it's gender neutral, so I don't have to decide my gender right now.
:I like it.
:Ocean is a really pretty name.
:If we didn't have those things here, like if we were underground, I would absolutely name someone Ocean.
:Yeah.
:Everyone's like, what the hell is that?
:Wouldn't you like to know?
:Sounds pretty.
:You are Ocean.
:We got Ocean and Book.
:So the no one is also unique, and like I mentioned previously, normally a particular playbook has one stat they are good in.
:Like Book is good at investigating, so all of his arrays he got to choose from are plus two sharp.
:The no one, you don't really know who you are or who you were, so you can pretty much choose any stat to make your main stat.
:The only one you cannot is cool, because no no one is that cool for some reason.
:No.
:It may be useful to wait until you choose your moves to choose your stat array, unless you already have a good idea of that.
:I think I have a decent idea of what I would like to go to for my stats.
:Okay, let's hear it.
:So I don't imagine this character is a very aggressive individual.
:I imagine they're kind of complacent with whatever situation they're in right now.
:It's kind of empty-ish.
:So I don't think they're very aggressive.
:So first one, the first stat spread, it kind of balances out with what Brady picked, but I think that's boring.
:So I ended up going with the second spread listed here, which is aggro minus one, cool plus one, hard plus two, sharp zero, and weird plus one.
:So I think that all fits for the vision I have, which is somebody who's very stoic and calm, doesn't really push the buttons very much, and is unsure of where they are in this society.
:We will not be winning any fights.
:Yeah, that is true.
:So Ocean is very...
:he's got plus two hard, so he can dish it out if he needs to, but he's not very aggressive, he's not good at threatening situations, things like that.
:You have selected an array that is very strong and hard, and then pretty good at everything else except being aggressive.
:I really like that combination, because normally people who would want to be very aggressive would want to have a very high hard, but you're kind of playing a different type of character who doesn't want to be aggressive, avoids those situations.
:It probably has implications on whatever their backstory is and why they're so tough.
:Yeah, were you maybe too aggressive before, and you're pushing back against that, or were you just in a lot of really bad situations and had to toughen up?
:We've got a strong silent type and a weakling.
:On top of that, you also get to choose two No One moves, but you also, all No Ones, start with the Visions move.
:Would you like to explain that?
:Yes, the Visions move is the reason I picked this playbook, because it sounded so cool when I read it.
:So basically, at the start of the session, I make a roll, and based on the results of that roll, I essentially give Stu hold, which is kind of like a point system kind of thing.
:If I roll really well, I only give him one hold.
:If I roll really poorly, I give him a lot more hold.
:At any point in the session, Stu can spend one of those holds to interrupt me and give me a vision.
:He can use one to either tell me that the next transitional phase of the game, I'll have a vision, and then I can describe who I was with and see where I was during that vision.
:But he can spend two holds to screw me over entirely and interrupt any action I'm doing and telling me a vision comes right now.
:And this one doesn't specify the whole where I am and who I'm with.
:So I think at that point, he can be anything.
:You could be dangling over a volcano holding on to a helicopter, and I can make you have a vision.
:Yeah, so at any point, it could be a very critical scene, and I was like, oh, triggers flashback.
:And I could essentially be comatose while I remember that for a few seconds.
:And Brady's like, wake up, snap out of it.
:What's going on?
:Hitting them with a cane.
:Do you want to, since that's kind of your vision move, do you want to talk about visions a little bit?
:So whenever I have a vision, I can essentially have a list of two things.
:I have a list of places and a list of people.
:When Stu gives me a vision, he asks me to pick basically one from each of these lists.
:He cannot, I pick either one place and one person.
:And it's a long list of them here.
:For example, for places, it's like a labyrinth, underground chamber, a place where stars are visible with impossible clarity, a pile of corpses, a place of human compassion, whatever that means.
:For people, it's things like someone, a person I loved, who I wish to see again, and then a person who I loved, to my faith was misplaced, or someone indolent, or a person of impeccable cruelty.
:These are really fun because you may not know who these people are when you're having the vision.
:And I almost certainly won't know who these people are when you're having the vision.
:But as you have more and more visions, there may be some continuity between them, or there may not be, and you have to connect some dots.
:But it's a lot of very interesting things, basically from the MC perspective, to peel back what's going to happen here, is I'm going to have to just immediately act on whatever place and person he says, whatever description he has, and I'm going to try to throw that together in some interesting, probably upsetting way.
:Probably nothing good.
:Yeah, probably not good for most of these, at least.
:But from that, we're going to start learning about his backstory and also through some of your later improvements, you start kind of getting a little hints of your past based on some things you find, which we'll actually talk about when they come up and play, I think would be more interesting than going through it right now.
:Because they're kind of crunchy right now.
:Yeah.
:OK, so that's the move you start with, Visions, no matter what.
:You also get to select two from this list.
:The ones you can choose from are Dirty Fighter, which basically means you hurt people more, on Fortune's Tides, which means you have psychically good luck.
:You have Ongoing Revelation, which means each time you have a Vision, you get more experience.
:And you have Road Refugee, which means you get a car.
:It's not a super good car, but you get a car.
:I am definitely picking the one that gives me a car, because that one sounds awesome.
:Initially, I was going to pick Dirty Fighter, because it seemed pretty fitting that I don't get in a lot of fights, but when I do, I fight pretty hard.
:But I really also like this Fortune Tide one with the psychic good luck, considering I have plus one weird.
:I think that's an interesting choice, too.
:I think I'm going to pick on Fortune's Tide, because I like the implications of having no memory and having suddenly awoken some kind of strange psychic connection.
:I think that's the one I'm leaning towards the most, because one, metagaming-wise, it seems a little bit more useful than just getting one plus one harm, because there's other playbooks that give you that ability, or something very similar.
:This one seems a lot more niche and specific to this class and not something I can easily replace.
:Metagaming-wise, it sounds a little bit more interesting, but purely from a character standpoint, I like the idea of having no memory but suddenly having weird powers.
:It's very cliché, but I like it.
:So you get to pick two?
:So we definitely get the car?
:We definitely get in that damn car, baby.
:OK, great, because I hate walking.
:We get in the car.
:It's not really a car.
:Yeah, we're going to have to talk about this for a while.
:We're underground, very deep.
:We're about to get more into the actual setting and kind of what this underground apocalypse looks like in any way.
:But I would let you have a normal car.
:There are massive tunnels that connect kind of different areas or different little pieces of society that cars can definitely travel in.
:But that also doesn't superfit your concept you've talked about yet, where you're really trying to get further, deeper underground.
:You're collecting a lot of things, but your main job isn't delivering them to other places, right?
:You are collecting them for the good of your society or your little encampment, whatever we come up with, and to figure out more things.
:So you basically get the worst car you could have in the game.
:It's guaranteed poor looks.
:This thing can't look good.
:That doesn't mean it can't look interesting, and it doesn't mean I won't like how it looks, because I almost certainly will.
:But it also gets two weaknesses and one strength.
:Before we even get into those specific weaknesses or strengths, do you have an idea of what this would be?
:What type of vehicle would let you kind of traverse underground or ground or spelunk?
:There's also water here, could be water related.
:So we kind of lift in the veil a little bit.
:We talked about this a little bit prior to the podcast.
:And one of Stu's ideas was like a little machine that had little hooks that basically would shoot into the walls and kind of like lift itself up so it could like descend into tunnels and like achieve itself from tunnels.
:And I really like that idea.
:So like a very I visualize it as a very slow Spider-Man type web slinging where you basically have this.
:I was picturing a pretty massive vehicle that just cranks along these cables that are shot out and connected into walls, probably always having like three points of contact and just like moving along.
:Yeah, I was I was thinking either something like that or like almost like a three wheeling bike looking thing like has that little things that shoots out, whatever the technical term for that is, things that shoot out.
:I will say I will let you have ignoring two weaknesses, one strength, whatever you're about to choose.
:I will let whatever vehicle you're choosing right here also at least be able to traverse normal roads in some way.
:Maybe not at full car speeds.
:But I'll let you if you got to travel long distance, you two can hop in this bad boy and cruise along.
:The only thing I was going to ask is do you want a vehicle that has mining equipment on it so that you'd be able to burrow deeper without having to find a crevasse?
:Oh, I think so.
:Well, I guess that kind of climbs into the lore of this world a little bit here.
:How is it mostly accessed?
:Are these tunnels that are like long suites of tunnels that have been completely unexplored?
:Is it like a cave system?
:How do you picture it?
:I think we're going to be able to find any of those situations underground in this apocalypse, but at least the way I've been picturing now is more of just these labyrinthine tunnels and massive chambers that people certainly have not been able to explore entirely.
:They're just from the sense of, one, dangerous, because there's lots of very dangerous things here that you'll find, but also there's just not a lot of people.
:So there's no way society could re-explore this entire world in any reasonable amount of time.
:But drilling through something will get you somewhere, right?
:Yeah, exactly.
:But no, I do view it like there's obviously going to be a lot of claustrophobic moments, but I've never viewed it as a particularly cramped, enclosed society.
:I've always kind of had these pictures of these massive caverns and these winding tunnels, but not like, oh, we're stuck in this mine.
:Let's figure out a way to get out.
:I'm not saying we won't get stuck in a mine at some point.
:Oh, you'll get stuck in mine.
:Yeah, probably like a uranium mine, though, not like a fun, mythological mine like a good dwarf.
:I was about to say, I think in that case, yeah, I'm going to go, I think it'll be a car frame.
:Imagine like a buggy.
:Like buggy size.
:So a little spot in the back that it can fit some belongings, maybe can fit two people.
:But that goes with the first weakness, which I'm picking, which is cramped.
:So it's not a comfortable thing at all.
:It's a it's a we could both ride it, but we're not going to have a great time being stuck in there.
:Your knees will touch a little bit, right?
:What is the second weakness?
:I think for the second weakness, I'm going to pick sloppy.
:Sloppy.
:That's a fun one.
:So when you picture sloppy, paint me a word picture of sloppy.
:I'm picturing this thing is a hunger junk that's held together piecemeal with like scraps like scrounged up and kind of like modded myself, but I'm not very good at it.
:So it's kind of falling apart and I constantly have to like fix it.
:Yeah, I'm picturing like you can do these very cool different things that can drive on ground with its wheels or can be kind of cranked along.
:But the mechanism between like switching the engine between turn wheels and crank is just like some haphazard lever.
:You got to jangle through a series of years.
:There's five different pedals and three of them are a clutch.
:Yeah, something like that.
:I like it.
:Okay, I like sloppy.
:And I also really like that you started with your weaknesses.
:That says a lot about you as a person.
:I think that makes it more fun.
:Yeah, those are the fun ones.
:I really appreciate it.
:And then you get one single strength.
:What's this thing good at?
:I think this thing is...
:There's two I'm leaning towards.
:I'm leaning towards...
:I'm gonna go with rugged.
:Rugged.
:That seems incredibly fitting.
:What was the other one?
:Just curious.
:Off-road, but I'm realizing, I don't know if that necessarily applies.
:Yeah, I'm gonna give you off-road for free.
:I'll say that one, especially since it can literally traverse the sky in a not very effective way.
:You got off-road.
:Not very fast, but...
:Yeah, rugged fits, so it can probably...
:This thing, like you said, is a hunk of junk, so it's got some random stuff welded all over it, and no one knows the important part to shoot, to take it down.
:Yeah.
:Your kind of pigeon-holed into it looks poor, but I think we should take that as it looks scrapped together.
:Besides that, you can make it look as cool as you want.
:Poor and cool aren't opposites, is what I would say.
:I agree with that.
:So you said it kind of has a buggy frame, so you got wheels on it?
:Yep.
:Three or four wheels.
:Let's go three.
:Three wheels would make it more easily climbing.
:Two in the front, one in the back?
:Yeah, we'll do that.
:You're inside, it's cramped.
:What does your vision look like?
:What's your glass like?
:So you said this is a big rugged thing, so I'm picturing like thick glass, thick frame.
:Kind of like a bulldozer is what I'm imagining the interior is like.
:Oh, beautiful.
:So like, you know, no real solid walls, just like lots of like thick poles and beams.
:So you can, it's an obstructed view, but you got a good 360 view, so you can navigate when it's in crank mode.
:Yep.
:And then it's got a little, imagine it's got like a little storage compartment in the back, kind of like a little, imagine it's kind of like a little pickup truck looking back.
:Like a little El Camino, or what's that very ugly pickup truck, but the tiny nubby back?
:The Cybertruck?
:Like a...
:But imagine that it doesn't have like a hood or something over that, and it's like just got like a net that I hook on each side that keeps everything strapped down.
:Okay, I like that vehicle.
:Two more very important questions.
:This thing got a tape deck, CD player, and you got a Zune Velcro to the...
:It's got whatever junk of junk music it's found, so imagine it's got multiple different...
:It's got probably like a light...
:I love the idea of having an outdated Zune that uses to play some music, but also like a CD player.
:Like a Walkman wired up to something.
:Yes, like nothing that's actually like wired into the machine, just like various MP3 slash CD player devices that I have welded into it to make it so that way I can at least listen to music.
:Beautiful.
:And then final question, you got a name for this thing?
:You want to name this something?
:It's got a lot of character.
:I feel like it's really your guys' third party member at this point.
:I don't want to name this thing.
:Let's go with Spider.
:Spider.
:Spider.
:I like it.
:It is.
:It climbs walls.
:Yeah, it shoots webs.
:Goes across.
:I like the idea that my character really wants to know why it's called Spider, and I don't find out until we are falling down a ravine, and all of a sudden shit just starts spewing out of it.
:Okay, that is my new favorite character, Spider.
:So thank you for creating him or her or them.
:As the know one, you got your visions.
:You got your cool vehicle you picked out.
:You got your psychic powers.
:You also get to get one scrounged weapon, which are some of my favorite choices for any playbook, with number one with a bullet coming in as a brick.
:I think I'm going to go with shovel.
:I was pretty sure you're going with shovel.
:As much as I love brick, I think shovel fits your character so well that you got to go with shovel.
:The shovel is two-harm hand-range, so I do notice this says a broken rake or shovel.
:That could be taken as two ways.
:Is it a broken shovel?
:I think it's a functional shovel.
:I want it to be a functional shovel.
:I don't think I would be carrying around a broken shovel.
:Yeah, well, I guess where it breaks would depend, but yeah.
:Maybe it's broken a little bit at the handle, and I've duct-taped it together a little bit.
:Yeah, I'll say that counts as a broken shovel.
:Okay, now that you guys have kind of got some ideas for your characters, you can think about the type of dude who would want to be.
:Let's give some first impressions.
:This is basically how someone would think of you upon immediately laying eyes on you.
:And they give a recommended list in each of the playbooks, but you can obviously come up with your own or anything you like.
:For my first impression, I think I want to come across as kind and nitpicky.
:That's a good combo.
:Kind and nitpicky.
:So what do you think someone looking at you like?
:Obviously, you can have kind eyes.
:That's an easy one.
:What do you think someone sees from you and they think you're nitpicky?
:Are you like too well put together?
:No, I think that my character is like a real...
:like he has no poker face.
:So when people kind of interact with him, they see like, you know, any amount of disapproving glance is very apparent.
:Ocean, the no one, what's the first impression when someone sees you?
:I'm lost, weary, and wide-eyed.
:I am picturing an adorable abandoned kitten.
:Lost, weary, and wide-eyed.
:I like that combination also.
:That fits kind of not knowing what's going on with your life, but still being very inquisitive, because I think it's very interesting that both of your characters are inquisitive in different ways.
:You don't even know why you're inquisitive, but you want to discover more.
:You want to go down why Book, a lot of it is related to him trying to come up with truths and figure out, okay, why do I believe this?
:And is it actually true?
:And how to get out of this godforsaken cave.
:We haven't even talked about how bad the cave is, and you already went out.
:Okay, there's a couple things more that are unique to your characters, but I think we're going to figure out kind of the history between you guys first before we decide what your living space is, unless you want to just go ahead and decide now.
:You want to live separately or together or anything like that?
:Anything jump out to you?
:I feel like we live separately.
:I was going to say the same.
:I just feel that.
:Maybe in the same society.
:I think if anything, Ocean lives in his fucking car.
:Okay, yeah, let's move in that direction.
:You guys can choose a living space and incidentals that you detail that are suitable to your personal needs, your scavenge, this particular heart zone, and the moves you selected.
:So we don't have to go through all of this right now, but the two things I would like to know is kind of a rough description of your living quarters.
:We're going to go into more detail on the actual society you guys are in in a second.
:And then also you may notice on your main page of your playbook, there is an option for your scavenge.
:I would also like to know what you choose for that.
:So let's start with book.
:Okay, so my my mental image of where I live is like this kind of dank cave with like just really bare furnishings, like maybe a mattress or mattress pad on the ground, lots of blankets, like trying to insulate as much as possible.
:And I'm definitely collecting water from the ceiling.
:It's just constantly dripping from the ceiling, and I got one bucket on the ground, and I'm constantly trying to move the bucket to catch as much water as I can, and I'm never quite getting enough.
:It's a very specific image.
:I like it.
:Yeah, it's very striking.
:You did say cave.
:So you like a bear?
:Are you like a bear who lives in a cave?
:Is that a thing you do?
:Without a doubt.
:OK, so like I will say, you all certainly have the option to have some sort of housing.
:It can be like it's not going to be the penthouse of a beautiful suite, but you can have a shack, you can have a small building, you can have a room in an office building.
:So I think you would like to be in a cave.
:I definitely have a door.
:OK, now we're getting somewhere.
:Bears don't have doors.
:That's one of the things that I learned.
:Sorry, I should have specified.
:I am a human.
:I just live like a bear.
:OK, human, but like a bear, but with a door.
:Maybe just like a long, a deep cave.
:Not super deep, but barely habitable.
:But I've got a door and I'm protected.
:I'm not just hanging out.
:OK, I think that tracks.
:So I think that answer will tie into your choice for scavenge.
:If you look at your scavenge options, you have two choices.
:Pretty much every playbook has two choices.
:Not all of them, but pretty much.
:And one of them, usually you are kind of more wealthy.
:And one of them, you are living more bare bones.
:If you are elite power gamer trying to 360 no scope everyone, it may seem very silly that there's one option that's just straight up better.
:But the way this game works, one, you should never just choose the better option.
:It's going to all the game will run better and be more fun.
:If you choose the option that fits your character more and that you think is more interesting.
:But also, when you have more stuff, you have more things that I can attack, more things that I can put my crosshairs on and try to take away from you.
:There are certainly downsides to having.
:Yeah, I'm certainly conflicted on this one, because one thing that I know about my character is that he loves to collect stuff.
:Specifically, like, as his name suggests, books, anything, anything that's written.
:Like he wants to hoard information.
:I don't think he's very materialistic, but I know that he's trying to gather books and written media.
:And I think that I like the idea of him being able to outsmart and manipulate people to get that.
:But I think that that might be that that might be a different direction.
:So I think I am going to keep going to be in keeping with my dwelling in that I'm going to have barter minus one.
:But I do think that I still like to collect stuff.
:I'm just not very good at it.
:And an important thing to note is that this is not permanent.
:Your barter will change with your situation.
:This is just kind of where you're starting out today when we talk to the fun, exciting action.
:So the one you are selecting is to you, only the truth has real value.
:You don't seek material power or comfort and are satisfied merely to survive.
:You have barter minus one.
:So that basically fits very well what you described.
:You have your little happy cave.
:You got the things that you do care about, which seems to be collecting books or written media.
:But what do you think you do to kind of survive?
:Do you sell some of the things you do scavenger?
:Is your primary job a scavenger or is it providing services to people?
:Yeah, I think I'd like to be that person in town that people don't go to unless they really need help.
:So we're like not sort of a detective situation, but more of a problem solver.
:And I think that those services are how I trade, how I barter.
:So people know you're smart.
:Absolutely.
:Is what you would say.
:OK, people know you're smart.
:Do people like you?
:Obviously, this changes on a person by person basis.
:There will be lots of people who like you, and there will be lots of people who want you dead.
:But would you say, would Brady say people like Book?
:I think that people, I don't think that people think about him very much.
:That is way sadder and way better.
:I like it.
:That's a good answer.
:Unless they need me, I am not in their head.
:I'm not Bell.
:I'm not running through the village saying, hide everybody, you know, grabbing apples, reading books.
:I am skulking around.
:Let's move over to the person I would have been more expecting to be in a cave, which is Ocean.
:You're crossing out maybe Bear.
:Write that down, write that down.
:So I kind of imagine living conditions.
:I think due to my services of like scouting around and bringing things back up that are useful for the people, I think I don't have like a negative relationship with the people in this settlement that we stay.
:I think I'm kind of viewed as having some use.
:And so I don't think I'm like an outsider that's living in a cave or anything like that.
:I would quickly like to point out that you do not have an option for your starting barter.
:Yes, I don't have a good name.
:So I don't have a good name to trade on.
:So I don't think my wares, I get the good prices or anything like that.
:I think I'm pretty much constantly living day to day.
:I'm getting nickel and dimes.
:Definitely jump in if I'm reading too much into anything.
:I don't want to make any choices for your character.
:But it seems like the things you do collect are not necessarily focused on what is important or useful to people.
:No, not at all.
:No, they just collect things they think are neat.
:So a lot of it is just like scrap and junk that's kept outside in a pile.
:But some of that, sometimes that may overlap, like they may, you may think it's neat and someone wants it.
:So that's a thing.
:So I bet the way you survive, you could have a very inconsistent income.
:Every once in a while, you find something real nice.
:You're okay.
:I'm not going to have to hibernate in my cave this winter.
:Which goes with my own fortune's tide, because it actually raises my barter from negative two to negative one.
:Oh, that's true.
:Yeah.
:So I think that ties in very well.
:Yeah, with your luck and kind of the feeling you get for an item, you find something, you go, this speaks to me.
:And you're right, that is a rare item.
:That is something useful to someone else.
:I think it's also a really fun concept that like you might find something that to other people would be super valuable, but you sell it for a pittance because you don't see what people say.
:I have no use for it.
:I just pick it up and like, what the heck is this?
:Canned food?
:What's that even for?
:You can't eat a can.
:So you live more more in society, it sounds like.
:Yeah, but I don't I don't I'm not like I don't have any neighbors or anything, but I live close enough to trade and I'm sure my little shack that I have, which I'm sure it's dingy and not really well put together.
:It's no cave that's dripping water, but I have a spot that I can at least park my vehicle and do maintenance on it.
:Since most of the upgrades and stuff I've done myself.
:What's your clothing look like and that can include a option that is worth one armor or a piece of clothing or pretty poor armor?
:I imagine them having to wear pretty protective gear, kind of like maybe like padded biker gear.
:Not necessarily because they think they're going anywhere dangerous, but they got to do a lot like scrounging through the caves and things fall in their vehicle that they got to be protected from.
:Yeah, and tetanus is a big danger.
:So heavy padded clothes, probably like a thick jacket, probably shoulder, elbow pads and knee pads.
:I kind of had some like, I have mental images of you guys already, but you a big dude?
:Am I a big dude?
:I feel like I have to be.
:I think I have to be tall.
:At the very least, I think I have to be tall and stocky.
:That's how I was picturing you.
:Yeah, a gentle giant.
:Yeah, I was definitely picturing a gentle giant.
:With a shovel.
:Yeah, a shovel strength.
:And a death machine.
:Yeah, it doesn't kill people on purpose.
:Okay, I think have we hit everything on the character sheets except HX, the history?
:I think so.
:The only other thing that I wanted to add is I think my character, as like the keeper of knowledge, I feel like people go to him as like, instead of Google, they're just like asking him shit.
:And I think it would also be cool if people, like if I end up, like if I'm a little on cash, I'm like, yeah, I guess I'll tutor your kid or whatever.
:Okay, let's deal with the HX moves, which are representing your history.
:So history is a very important stat.
:It ties with how you interact with the fellow characters.
:And in our particular game, some of the important NPCs, since there's only two of y'all, but basically how this normally works is you go around and ask each character a particular question that is listed at the bottom of your playbook.
:Let's start with Book.
:Sure.
:I'm Book McCready.
:I use he, him pronouns.
:I'm kind of rangy, I think, and I'm wearing sort of a long coat and chunky boots.
:And my outlook is that the surface world is fine, and we shouldn't be down here.
:All right, my name is Ocean.
:I'm settling on he, him pronouns.
:The worst two, but...
:Because I think it's a good contrast between a name like Ocean.
:That's what I'm deciding.
:But he is tall, pretty stocky, wears kind of like a heavy jacket and thick pants and boots, kind of like a biking attire with arm pads and knee pads.
:I imagine their outlook is that there's something underground.
:There's something deep underneath us that we must find.
:I love it.
:I love it.
:Okay, let's do the history moves.
:Let's start with Book.
:Okay, Ocean, can I count on you to tell me the truth whenever I ask, no matter what I ask?
:I think so.
:I don't think Ocean has much to hide.
:Okay, that's interesting because no matter what, I was originally going to say no.
:No matter what.
:I was originally going to say no, I don't believe you.
:But that answer kind of flipped me, and I think I'm going to say yes, I believe you.
:I don't think I have enough to lie about in my life.
:You may learn that you were a good liar.
:Maybe that will change as I grow and learn about my past, but at this point in time, I think Ocean doesn't have much to hide from people.
:So I have one question.
:And since there's only one other player, this question is directed at you, Book.
:Which one of you have shared your own food with me?
:I guess you could theoretically answer, you haven't shared your food with me.
:No, I'd share some food with you, especially because I trust you.
:It's good that we decided that first, but I trust you, and I shared some of my bushes baked beans in a can with you.
:Oh, it's my favorite.
:It's a big thing in this world to share food because it's like, it's scarce, right?
:It's not.
:And especially someone like Ocean, where they don't, you don't know their history, you don't know what they've done, you don't, they don't know what they've done.
:So I think it was probably a pretty touching moment when you got those baked beans.
:Not a Blazing Saddles moment.
:I feel like our characters kind of needed each other.
:Like you are the handyman guy.
:People come to you to do stuff.
:Or maybe, maybe some of those things.
:You find a lot of stuff, and you don't know what any of it is.
:And you're like, hey, man, what is this?
:What can I sell it for?
:And I'm like, hey, man, those are baked beans.
:We should split those fucking baked beans.
:We should just eat those right now.
:I will buy them off you and eat them with you.
:I like that being our catalyst event.
:Totally, totally.
:It was literally me bringing something to you, and you're like, those are beans.
:Let's eat those right now.
:Let's eat them.
:New thing, Ocean can't read.
:I don't think Ocean can read.
:You could have forgotten how to read, yeah.
:Forgot a lot.
:I'm adding that, writing it down.
:Ocean can't read.
:Thank you so much for listening.
:I think since this is our setup episode, the best thing to plug would be Apocalypse World by Vincent and Meg Baker.
:And really, any game made by them, they make some of the best RPGs.
:Next episode, we will be playing Dekuuma to help build our setting and some more relationships between the characters and NPCs and fleshing out the rest of our setting.
:All the artwork and the logo is made by Brady McDonough, and all music and editing is by Stu Masterson.
:Thank you so much.
:Love you bye.
