Apocalypse World: Furiosa & Convoy – Session report

I wrote summary of session for Delos, and then I decided to expand it a bit and make it into blog post. The session was one shot, GMed by me on our bi-weekly RPG event in Warsaw („Czas na Przygodę”/„Time for Adventure”).

Before you read it, I recommend looking through AW: Furiosa by Jason Morningstar (great mod for AW, you can download it here by Jason’s gracious permission: aw_furiosa), and Convoy Love Letters by Delos Adamski (you can read english version here).

Setup

I limited selection of characters, I dropped Brainer, Show and Driver – due to Furiosa’s assumptions, I figured Brainer won’t work (Furiosa assumes maelstrom is toned down), Driver is explicitly out there (but everyone can take drivers moves), and with Show I just wasn’t sure (I had some fresh players, I wanted to keep to archetypes I know better).

I changed Paradise to Eden (somehow I liked it more this way in polish).

I gave them map (you can see it below), and told navigator to mark their position, then I marked Eden on the other side.

old map

Black cross is a start point, arrow points to Eden, and red crosses are POI & combat

Navigator (Angel) „Ruth” picked that she saw map to Eden once and had to destroy it (I told players that this map won’t allow them to get to Eden without navigator), and option with brain surgery needed to get there (but it means its real, yay!).
Chopper „Hooch” rolled 7-9, and picked cannibals.
Outsider / Gunlugger „Doom” rolled 10 and went with first option (there is town where they can get supllies, but he would prefer burning it to the ground).
Hired Help / Battlebabe rolled 10 (he slept with Beta, Choppers lover/wife), he also picked being with Chopper since before.
Skinner „Titania” rolled 5 (which meant that shit got fucked up with Dremmer – which got spurned by her), and picked owner as the option of who is chasing her, but then asked me whether she can add also spurned lover – so who am I to object? :)

From the setup: Chopper was skinners friend, Outsider was in love, and Hired help was her lover. Rest of dependencies didn’t really came into play.

I marked some options on some of the sheets to speed stuff up (few bits in gang, few bits in angel).

Then we got to making cars: I gave them rig, which was mad diesel locomotive on huge wheels with tank with fuel and other resourced on the back. It was super hardcore and mega massive. Despite that Chopper selected bike for himself and left it to Beta. Skinner took huge jeep, Navigator got another truck, Doom had car, Hired had bike.

I used 1st edition playbooks, as they are in polish, but I added in:
– Furiosa rules (I omitted harm moves linked there though)
– manipulation from 2nd ed (with erasing hilights)
– fury road moves from 2nd ed
– battle moves from 2nd ed
Last two I could trigger without players reading through them, so it worked pretty smoothly.
I introduced gun combat rules from Furiosa after the first combat.

boom - gun rules from furiosa screenshot

Gun rules from AW: Furiosa by Jason Morningstar

First combat

We started with one quick vehicular combat, they were riding to the city Outsider picked and ran into small ambush – there was lot of vehicular fun with Furiosa rules, vehicles tumbling, explosions, running stuff over, I allowed skinner to manipulate someone by shouts from running vehicle into helping her. (again furiosa, so each of them had their own vehicle). Also: she almost died as Dremmer tried to ram her vehicle into head collision with one of attackers.

Then I cut them forward to arriving at town – it was pretty nicely fortified, and Beta took it to herself to negotiate (chopper and hired were late, no one else tried to stop her).
She got shitty terms, so Skinner went to try to talk – she got captured and quickly found out that boss of town was in contact with her owner – planning to trade her off.

cutouts on table

I didn’t make photo during actual play, but I laid them out to give idea on how it looks.

As they waited and deliberated I advanced clock forward, and told them they see large cloud of dust behind them – signal of cannibals closing in. That spurned them into action and they attacked the town. Some combat resulted – their main truck went through doors like butter (they rolled failure), but bits of construction tore their fuel tank. So I advanced their fuel clock. Some shooting and tactical maneuvering ensued.

Mid game

They left town with some additional supplies, new autocannon, some new recruits (Battlebabe succeeded when trying to negotiated with some surrounded remains of the towns gang) and town burning behind them (I wrapped up combat with a cut).

Then I gave them a bit of downtime, there was some talking, plotting and patching up. Beta and Dremmer (which were sisters – by chopper’s players decision) and some of chopper’s guys were talking and having laughs – skinner tried to warn chopper that this doesn’t look good, but he dismissed that.

Then they got moving again, there was last one stop and & combat before last leg of journey – old observatory. They managed to take out one element of enemies quickly (again vehicles – that took ambush right on) and take the object, get the necessary fuel and some stuff, but also get into some traps – again, I was editing aggressively and exploration was just one sharp roll.

We fast forwarded and they got good bit ahead, and they got last bit of rest and this is when stuff got really interesting. Some accusations towards outsider flied (he didn’t get hurt in the trap in observatory), but chopper shut those down.
I allowed them to change highlights, and Navigator & Skinner started looking into the maelstorm shortly after.
Navigator saw glimpses (7-9) of Skinner past & hints that she is being pursued – by she didn’t piece those together.

Almost finale

Skinner found out that during one of sandstorms, her ex-owner actually overtook them – and now they had cannibals behind them, and her owner („The Greatest One” warlord) ahead of them.
She didn’t share this, but persuaded Chopper they need someone to scout ahead.
Beta volunteered, but Chopper sent Dremmer instead – Hired help went with her. During their trip Dremmer made him offer – he takes out Chopper and becomes new boss with Beta & her & some guys behind him. Chopper is not good enough to get them to Eden.

pretend dashboard with clocks for marking

Dashboard with clocks – I can’t praise this idea enough – it works wonders.

Skinner learned about the scout party a moment too late to go with them, but she got Chopper to borrow her a bike and went after them. She looked into maelstrom, and failed: sandstorm resulted, and as a result she overtook them – unbeknownst to her. She got out of the storm and saw this other convoy on the horizon. And then there was this moment, when through clouds of dust she saw The Greatest One, and He saw Her.

As his convoy started turning around to go after her, she turned back and started riding hard back to the convoy, warning Hired & Dremmer on her way by. Hired had 7/9 cool roll, and I gave him choice – he will get away, but he has to drop sidecar with Dremmer. So he looked at her and said “I think I’ll pass on the offer.” and unhooked the sidecar.

They got to the convoy with first elements of warlords forces behind them.

Final combat

And then there was final combat and everything went to hell. Beta convinced skinner to help her, and while she (Beta) drived their main rig, skinner tried to get navigator to it – so they can leave all others behind. It failed miserably. But so did the plan of the rest of the team, to just take off in the best car (apart from rig) and leave all behind.
Most of gang died during combat, and rest of team banded together, in separate car – they wanted to run away with it, without Beta, Skinner & rest of gang, but it got fucked up due to poor roll.

I wrapped it up (it was oneshot, and I didn’t want to just kill them) with them getting away in main rig, in sort of mexican standoff, everyone aiming at everyone.

Epilogue

They got to Eden.
It was wonderful white & green island high on the rock, in the middle of HUGE crater with sand & lot of wrecks and twisted metal shaped in it. Very high, arched and beautiful white spotless marble like bridge running to it. In the middle they got stopped, and intimidated with all that impressing h-tech armor & weapons, and stuff. I just narrated this bit – if anyone tried to fight – they died. One by one they were checked (only skinner was cleared as someone with good genes), and got offer of brain chip implant for getting accepted. They could refuse and get dropped in the desert. In the Eden Skinner got 1st class citizenship, Navigator (Angel) got something in between, rest of them ended up as 2nd class citizens. We didn’t decide on what they picked – we left that unsaid.

Thoughts:

  • I love Furiosa. I just want to run Furiosa for the rest of my life now.
  • I am not sure that handing playbooks one by one works well, I tried this twice (first time with hatchet city), and each time players didn’t want to take the leader, which doesn’t always result in good choice of leader.
  • I loved that Convoy is not so byzantine as Hatchet City – the latter was too much for one shot, it was basically swamped with NPCs, Convoy got just the right amount – and it sings so well with Furiosa (although including some mention of vehicles into it, would make it even better).
  • Cutouts and that printed out dashbord and map works perfectly. it gives so much to the game, that it’s hard to imagine when you just look at that stuff.
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