Remember, Wild Bill Loves Me: In of Praise Abstract Concepts as Rules Text

 “Remember. Wild Bill loves me.”

This phrase plays over and over in my head when I think about how a game’s design influences the nature of the stories you can tell (the answer to your question is too often. I think about this way too often). 

In Apocalypse World 2E abstract concepts like Love, Idleness and Vulnerability crop up in the rulestext. It’s kind of just thrown at you in a very matter of fact and vague way. If you go looking for a mechanical explanation of what Love allows you to do in the game, you won't find anything. This requires a shift in thinking for a lot of traditional TTRPG players. Once that shift happens, and as long as you're somewhat cognitively flexible, the skill of interpretation can make for a wonderful point of emergence in your collaborative story.

Okay so where does this crop up in a game about the fall of civilization? 

AW2E has a class (called a Playbook) called The Skinner. Skinners are not people who flense the meat from hides. They are artists, the only source of beauty at the end of the world. Their exclusive Moves (for what Moves are and how they work see my first post) revolve around performance, being visually arresting and generally charismatic. Their main Stat is Hot and if they get stuck in an altercation things tend to go poorly. They are confident manipulative artists who indulge in the power others give them.

The Move we want to look at is called Artful & Gracious. In its entirety the Move states…

Artful & gracious: when you perform your chosen art—any act of expression or culture—or when you put its product before an audience, roll+hot. On a 10+, spend 3. On a 7–9, spend 1. Spend 1 to name an NPC member of your audience and choose one: 

• This person must meet me. 

• This person must have my services. 

• This person loves me.

• This person must give me a gift. 

• This person admires my patron. 

For me and for one of my players “This person loves me” sticks out of the list like a giant zit between someone's eyes. 

My friend is playing Peacock, a Skinner who’s chosen art is Sex Work, mostly in the form of striptease. Peacock has used the power of striptease to go from the local area's favorite prostitute to being the power behind the throne of one of the largest gangs in the region the game takes place in. Frequently we have to go back and review the number of people who are in Love with Peacock. This will inevitably result in the phrase “Remember. Wild Bill loves me” being spoken. Wild Bill is an NPC. He leads a gang of wild men who ride albino steroid juiced horses around the remnants of the South Bronx looking for trouble. He is a giant cowboy, he has a giant revolver, he is very violent and he Loves Peacock. I mean he really loves Peacock. Peacock runs this man's life. Anytime Peacock wants something done I hear the phrase “Remember. Wild Bill loves me”, and so Wild Bill gets to work. 

Apocalypse World is not a power fantasy though.  By design It is solidly a depravation fantasy. This kind of behavior can only fly for so long. How do you hurt the boy who has the Love of a very capable man? You use a classic storytelling strategy. Invert meaning to subvert expectation. Mercifully as we stated earlier, Love is left to the interpretation of the table. We can have a conversation about what Love is. We can talk about how Love can have dire consequences. 

Here’s the in-game consequences. Through leveling up Peacock has acquired an establishment. In the remnants of an old cathedral we have Peacock’s Playhouse, A brothel/site of public execution/place to see and be seen. It is The Spot. He also has his own followers who make up his personal staff. At the start of session he rolled in such a way that these followers were in Want of Violence.

We open the session with opening night at Peacock’s Playhouse. After the spectacular execution of some rival gang members (crucifixion and dismemberment if I remember correctly) Peacock decides to perform for their adoring audience. They call up one of the minor NPC’s who are in Love with them (they constitute a sort of hanger-on) for display of live sex. The performance goes flawlessly, until...

“Remember. Wild Bill loves me.” Plays in my head. 

His Followers are in Want of Violence.

Wild Bill is in Love with Peacock and is in Want of Violence, and is watching the love of his life have sex with someone else in front of dozens of people. These are all pieces of rules text. They are also highly abstract and subject to interpretation. The Fiction writes itself.  Wild Bill lifts Peacock’s co-star off of him and chokeslams them onto the marble stairs of the aging Cathedral-come-Nightclub. Bill pulls his massive revolver out and points it at Peacock. He is shaking and screaming.

We always hurt the ones we Love.

In the end Peacock talked his way out of the situation. Maintained the Love of a violent man, and went on to do such-and-sundry. But the seed was planted.

“Remember. Wild Bill loves me.” doesn’t mean the same thing it did fifteen minutes ago.