After a big flurry of activity, I’ve hit my first big stumbling block: Writing moves for this game.
All Powered by the Apocalypse games rely heavily on the construct called Moves – bits of game rules that get activated by certain bits of narrated fiction, ask players to roll dice and then make interesting things happen.
At first, this looked easy as pie:
Don’t Starve!
Trigger: If your survivor feels hunger or realizes that there is no readily available food within 20 meters. (Readily available means: The survivor could eat it right now without facing any immediate danger or repercussions. A bush full of fruit is available, a leg of ham in the hand of another scavenger who is eating it right now is not)
Do: Eat something or Roll 2D6 + Body
Effect: if you’ve eaten something, you have to face any consequences (ie: The scavenger is angry that you took his leg of ham and attacks you)
If you rolled the dice, check the result:
10 or more: You’re actually not that hungry – yet. Gain 1 Determination
7 to 9: You manage to ignore the gnawing in your stomach. Gain 1 Desperation
6 or less: You are starving! Take 1 wound and gain 2 Desperation
So far so good, and I managed to actually write all the Basic Moves for the player characters too, even some for the Master AI (which is what I call the gamemaster).
But writing the Moves for the individual Playbooks? I fear I need more playtesting before these come together…