Apocalypse City at A Weekend with Good Friends

This weekend (starting Thursday night my time) was the usually biannual A Weekend with Good Friends, an online convention on the Good Friends of Jackson Elias Discord. I've played in a few of these before, and now, for the first time, I ran my own game. It was the second run of my Apocalypse City concept, and it was also very enjoyable for me, as well as for the players. They found the concept compelling, even though they wished they could play more of the playbooks.

One thing I noticed happening this time is that I was able to use an interstitial break to work on fleshing out some threats based on NPCs coming from one of the players' resources. This made some dynamics a lot easier to work with, and is closer to Vincent Baker's suggestion of breaking the game down into three sub-sessions, although I wasn't able to get there. I also had to have an actual conversation about the Special Moves, explaining what I think they are meant to do, and why to me it felt like it's better to not dwell on them for a convention game. I tried allowing for enough experience points to provide opportunities for advancement, but that didn't pan out.

In terms of prep, I decided to let the players decide whether and what kind of gang or group they were, and as for the pre-existing threats, I took a bit of inspiration from my trip to Van Cortlandt and other urban parks, as well as some folk horror when characterizing the denizens of what I called Rural Experience Park.

Like the first time I ran this, it all ended in total war between the group of PCs and another gang, which they were able to eliminate. This time they were even able to make another gang join them up without killing them all, which was nice. But the park was set on fire, and would probably in the fiction be completely ruined at this point. I don't know why exactly that is. Did I make the starting situation too violent? Did I make the opposition too easily suppressed through combat? Did I not go hard enough to make non-violent alternatives more appealing? Or maybe I should run this with more playbooks that add NPCs tied to the players, or play those much more seriously when they do come up?

It could also be that, as I said in the previous post, a lot of the potential for the game is lost when it's run as a con game. Maybe it just needs the investment from the players to actually have a whole session creating characters, playing "a day in the life" for them, and then letting the MC build a compelling threat map at leisure.

Nevertheless, the affirmation that this is a premise whose appeal I can communicate to others through play made me very happy. Even if I don't go farther into this retro-futuristic 80s urban apocalypse, I hope this gave me the confidence to put more of my setting ideas out there as games for people to enjoy.

My journey after The Warriors through Van Cortlandt Park

I previously wrote of how I found inspiration in the film The Warriors (1979) for a variation on Apocalypse World's implied setting that I felt more comfortable running with. I have since read the book that the film is loosely based on, also called The Warriors, published in 1965. I will probably not take too much out of the book - it is powerful, and more raw, but also full of content that I would be uncomfortable playing with, and I am glad did not make it into the movie other than through implication.

I was, however, impressed with the further details about the journey itself, from the confab in Van Cortlandt Park, in the Bronx, back to the gang's home turf in Coney Island. So when, towards the end of my visit to New York City (where I visited MoMA, and did other things besides), I ended up with most of a day to myself, I decided to have my own pilgrimage after The Warriors.

Originally, I planned to simply take the subway up to Van Cortlandt, look around a little, see some landmarks from the film, then take the subway all the way back to Coney Island, then head back to take my bus. However, I realized that this would mean spending most of the day on the subway, with little else to show for it. So instead I decided to spend a little bit more time in the Bronx, and possibly take a detour to Queens to make use of my complimentary MoMA PS1 ticket, and then return to Midtown Manhattan to catch my bus. That is not what happened.

Instead, once I got to Van Cortlandt Park, a short search online showed me that the scene at the start of the movie was actually filmed in Riverside Park in Manhattan. Having already arrived at my destination, I decided I would walk around a bit to get a better idea of the feel of large forested wilderness sliced through by motorways that comes out in the beginning of the book.

So I walked, and walked, and saw some wildlife, and took some pictures, and continued to walk, and had to double back because you could not cross through the public golf course (first in the nation!), and then went down a path that I hoped would eventually let me cross over to a different path down, to continue with my plans.

A long while later, I found the first meaningful map I had seen in the entire park, referring to South County Trail. "South County", I asked myself? Using the GPS-powered map on my phone, I confirmed my suspicions - I had managed to exit NYC and enter Yonkers, a city familiar to anyone who had ever had to fill out a New York state tax return, or used the train through Westchester County, the County of which I was in the Southern Trail. The first way out that wasn't back was into Yonkers.

I started seeking a local restaurant that looked inviting online, when I realized that time was pressing, especially considering how far I was from my starting point now. So I took a loop through Yonkers, climbed one of its famous seven hills, and found another entrance into Van Cortlandt. This led into a bit of a maze of paths, again unmapped, which, with the help of my trusty phone, I followed back towards the subway station, and then down to Midtown, where I had to rush around to eat a late lunch and then to make it to my bus, out of breath, but otherwise on time.

While this wasn't physically too similar to the journey in either version of The Warriors, I unexpectedly found myself emotionally close to this feeling of being suddenly removed and disconnected from my "home", in this case, the area of the bus station from which I had to go back to my actual home Upstate, and rushing back there through parts unknown.

These types of accidental experiences are the ones I treasure most. You can't entirely plan them. You can put yourself in a starting situation, and open yourself catching them as they come. In life, in travel, in role-playing games.

Modern art and computer graphics

Last weekend I spent a long time at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, most of it covering their 5th floor galleries, holding their "Collection 1880s-1940s". Now that I've been in computer graphics for a while, I feel like I get a bit more of an appreciation for what many of the artists were doing, particularly the abstract ones.

Piet Mondrian's works (like this, this, or this), which used to look like a bunch of rectangles, now seem like representations of spatial hierarchies that you would see in computer graphics, like quadtrees or bounding volume hierarchies. Joaquín Torres-García's work here is a bit like a three-dimensional version of this concept, and Irene Rice Pereira's work here is like the visualization of a more elaborate one.

I've always enjoyed Vasily Kandinsky's work, but now pieces like this, this, and this, forming complicated pictures out of simple elements, have me thinking of how real graphical scenes are composed for rendering.

Even Pablo Picasso, that I've always struggled with, has made more sense to me, and I could finally internalize an interpretation I read somewhere, that he was trying to capture a single scene or moving person from multiple perspectives or at multiple times.

I wonder what other art is out there for which I can find a new understanding.

Films I watched in 2023 - Part 2

Continuing the series of short reviews of films from 2023 started here.

Nobody (2021)

Not much for me to say other than it living somewhere in the simplex between Taken, John Wick, and parody.

The Stepford Wives (2004, 1975)

I wish I had not watched the 2004 remake before the 1975 original. Lacking in any force, hateful of it protagonists, too afraid to make any real statement or let any horror linger.

The original, meanwhile, was subtle, focused, and horrific. Highly recommended.

Blade (1998)

A fun little action flick. Like with John Wick, I probably would have enjoyed it more when I was younger, and had I watched it in the cinema. A lot of tropes seen in later vampire media.

Network (1976)

Weird. Surreal. Absurd. Brilliant. A classic even though the kind of absurd, cynical, exploitative television it presaged has become standard.

Event Horizon (1997)

An effective mix of Solaris and Hellraiser.

Barbarian (2022)

Tried to be several horror movies at once, and managed it well.

The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)

A fun thriller. Lets us follow the path of two different protagonists at the same time.

Life After Beth (2014)

A very Jewish-American zombie film, which makes it both close and far for me.

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)

People definitely had faces! First silent film I've watched in many years. Unpolished in some ways, but definitely pulls you in as you wonder, with the characters, who really is the ripper?

Lady Snowblood (1973)

Dark, slow-paced and contemplative. Watched this with ads, which were quite jarring.

Films I watched in 2023 - Part 1

I watched several films in 2023, but have not really shared my views of them outside of the Good Friends of Jackson Elias Discord server. Might as well do it here. This will be the first of several.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

I grew up with the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and moreover, this film was referenced as an inspiration for a sample character in Ron Edwards` Sorcerer, so I was eager to watch this. Or, rather, rewatch it, since I'm pretty sure I did try to watch it once many years ago.

Alas, my past instincts were right. Definitely rougher than the show. Decent cast, poorly used. Writing was not terribly vibrant. I'd also watched the Whedon-written Alien: Resurrection a few months prior to that, so I felt I could safely congratulate the Buffy series writing room for the overall quality of the show. Although maybe it's motivated reasoning due to what came out about his treatment of others, especially on the shows I liked so much.

John Wick (2014)

Felt much more like spectacle than anything with underlying content. Probably would have enjoyed it had I watched it as a teenager on the big screen.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

A childhood favorite, still stands up after all these years. I had also recently rewatched The Terminator, and it was interesting to contrast them. Not many directors can be said to have caught lightning in a bottle more than once like James Cameron did with this and Aliens. The movement from horror towards more action and some levity is similar in both.

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

This used to be the Film that Shouldn't Be Named Lest It Be Spoiled By Context in certain online circles I was in. Let me just say that after a strong, unnerving start with abhorrent protagonists who really got me in the mood to watch some psychological splatterpunk, the rest of the film truly disappointed me. A complete disconnect that left me cold and bored.

Cast a Deadly Spell (1991)

A mixture of tropes and content from H. P. Lovecraft's work, with a protagonist called Harry Lovecraft. The premise of an alternate universe late 40s LA with magic being widespread but dangerous and corrupting was interesting, and built into a compelling world. There were some aspects that really bugged me, which I guess is also in line with the source material.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)

This I wanted to watch as thematic background for Apocalypse World. I ended up going in a different direction, but this was a very good film. The 2005 Disney redub had very convincing voice-acting, and I was weeping towards the end. Nausicaä herself was a very interesting protagonist, insisting on fighting for the right ends only with the right means.

Spirited Away (2001)

I thought to continue with Miyazaki works I hadn't watched by choosing this. I wasn't as taken in by it as by Nausicaä, but I did relate to Chihiro, as I used to be this obnoxious, anxious kid who kept thinking his parents and others were doing things that will get everyone In Trouble.

Strange Days (1995)

It's always interesting to look back to the 90s and remember how apocalyptic the transition to the 21st Century was thought to be. In terms of content, it takes a concept that featured in Neuromancer and a lot of cyberpunk media since - of being able to record someone's sense perceptions and then experience them yourself later - into very disturbing territory.

First Blood (1982)

A very somber film. Obviously not as much an action film as the sequels. I might have read too much into it, but I felt like it was built to give a sense that Rambo was bringing the Vietnam War to the people who were trying to suppress him, and through him, US involvement there and its consequences, down to having what I usually associate with jungle sounds in the very non-jungle-like forests of the Rockies.

Podcasts do not replace higher education

When I was in undergrad, there were a bunch of classes I was required to take. Some of them, like Discrete Math or Introduction to Programming, I took to immediately. Others, like Calculus/Analysis, I struggled with. It took me all of Calculus1 and a bit of Calculus 2 to finally understand the power of epsilon-delta proofs. That shift in thinking has served me to this day, even though I am doing very practical things.

That was a more obvious exposure to very different ways of thinking, but I also had very different professors, with very different ideas of how to teach and learn, and how to think.

These days there is a plethora of podcasts about academic and technical topics, in all fields of the humanities, sciences, engineering, and so forth. Each podcast has a whole community around it, with people forming relations and developing intellectually under the podcasters` purview. Some people might think that this is a substitute for a college degree, and with the cost of higher education being as it is these days, it's understandable that they might prefer to spend a fraction of the cost to financially support their favorite teachers.

But every field, I think, has a variety of subfields and approaches. And no single academic, not even a small group thereof, is going to give a beginner the exposure to all of these that an actual degree from a university program would. Even when these people are fully open about their own biases, they are not going to be able to present other views like someone who actually held them.

I would like to think of myself as mature enough, seeing as I have been exposed to different views in academia and outside of it, to take a contrary stance to existing podcasts. I know that I usually will listen to them, maybe immerse myself in their community, but then tire of the repetition and the limitations, and either leave or at least make sure to expose myself to other attitudes. But I worry about those who seem to fit in too well.

Science sometimes involves a lot of serious arguments about methodology, theoretical frameworks, occasionally facts. Cultural criticism can come from many directions, some of them incompatible with each other, and their interaction with cultural practice can be a bit difficult. Technology advances, changes, and occasionally old, washed-out ideas become new again, while other times the cutting edge leads absolutely nowhere.

While you will end up with your own biases and specializations, you shouldn't let yours be completely dictated by a specific choice of community that came when you were the most impressionable, and most able to understand things differently, if you were given the opportunity, or forced to.

Apocalypse City - an urban variation on Apocalypse World

I've wanted to play and/or run Apocalypse World for a very long time. There were several challenges, however. First, it's not really a game made for one-shots, which is my usual way of experimenting with new systems. Then, there were the Special Moves/Sex Moves which gave me pause. Finally, I found the implied setting difficult to relate to. I've engaged with some of the related media, but something about it just didn't click. I especially couldn't get my head around what the Psychic Maelstrom meant.

Thankfully, several things changed for me. First, Vincent Baker, the co-creator of the system, shared how he ran the game in convention one-shot slots. That gave me some confidence that such an experiment will go better than my attempt at Sorcerer. Second, I kind of understood the purpose of the Sex Moves - to express how having sex can change relationships between people, and this is an attempt to express mechanically how any given playbook's character relates to this kind of intimacy - and also took to heart that it's possible to simply not engage with that subsystem, especially in a one-shot. Finally, I watched cult classic The Warriors. The striking starting premise, the almost absurd theming of the various gangs, and the repeated intervention by the mysterious radio announcer providing a kind of Greek chorus to the events, all in the decrepit landscape of 1980s New York, came together into a premise I thought I could work with. So I took the time to read the rulebook through, spent a few years regaining my courage, and finally, last Wednesday, set up a successful one-shot, although one that has given me a lot of food for thought about how to run the next one better. I will probably go into the details further when I've run it a few more times, but I do want to explain the basic concept now.

The implied setting of AW is a wasteland with a few points of interest. The wasteland is arid, sometimes diseased or mutated. There's some kind of weirdness at the edge of thought and also at the geographical border that is mystical and/or psionic.

In Apocalypse City, I replaced these with the wreckage of a City, a barely concealed stand-in for New York City, specifically how it looked in some media: The Warriors, especially, as well as Streets of Fire, and Escape from New York. I feel like in quite a few films in the 1970s and '80s, cities like New York and Los Angeles were presented not just as victims of an economic downturn and white flight, but as downright post-apocalyptic. The Warriors in their namesake film walk around a ruined urban landscape sparsely populated by gangs. Remnants of the past are shown, and sometimes used, like public buildings, the subways, etc, but will clearly never be rebuilt as they once where. Street of Fire provides a similar perspective. Escape from New York is supposedly futuristic (for the time - 1997 is in the past for us, of course), but the issues and characters who appear in this Big Apple are very much creatures of the 1980s. The Terminator's LA also bears these themes, even if we ignore the more literal apocalypse of the future that the protagonists are trying to avert.

As for replacing the Maelstrom: the radio DJ in The Warriors knows too much, and puts everyone on edge. The idea of spooky radio appeals to me, especially since I've sampled old-time radio dramas teeming with horror and mystery - see, for example, my October 2022 project centering on The Weird Circle. It felt like a much more approachable weirdness than the Psychic Maelstrom. Spooky television could also be a good fit, especially as presented in Stay Tuned. My rationale was that the people who fled to the suburbs, and to whom media in the 70s and 80s often catered, effectively left the City entirely behind, and the radio and television broadcasts they generate are so surreal and disconnected from urban reality that they might as well be some kind of Psychic Maelstrom from beyond.

Of course, this change in setting would suggest some mechanical adjustments. So far I have not gone as far as to actually hack the game - I simply avoided playbooks that are not a good fit for this different type of weirdness, and made sure to have a starting situation and list of potential threats that were in line with this theme. But if it continues to work well, I might have no choice but to either change some playbooks or downright replace them with my own, and possibly add some more mechanical differences. I am also wondering whether I will manage to garner enough interest for a fully-fledge campaign, where AW is really supposed to shine. Regardless, I am happy to finally be back to running games, and putting some of my role-playing ideas to practice.