conversations.from: system
conversations.value: (Language warning in some of what follows.)
  
  "And no one's going nowhere 'cause the cars are all frozen,  
  They give the power plants ten days,  
  But the sky is like a dome of black metal flake,  
  And stars bleed together in phosphorescent lakes,  
  And a dead black disk slides silently overhead,  
  It's fucking beautiful is what it is."  
  - The Dismemberment Plan, 8 1/2 Minutes
  
  ---
  
  "Something's wrong with the world and I don't know what it is.
  
  "It used to be better, of course it did. In the golden age of legend, when there was enough to eat and enough hope, when there was one nation under god and people could lift their eyes and see beyond the horizon, beyond the day. Children were born happy and grew up rich.
  
  "Now that's not what we've got. Now we've got this. Hardholders stand against the screaming elements and all comers, keeping safe as many as they can. Angels and savvyheads run constant battle against 'there's not enough' and 'bullets fly' and 'everything breaks'. Hocuses gather people around them, and are they protectors, saviors, visionaries, or just wishful thinkers? Choppers, gunluggers and battlebabes carve out what they can and defend it with blood and bullets. Drivers and operators search and scavenge, looking for that opportunity, that one perfect chance. Skinners remember beauty, or invent beauty anew, cup it in their hands and whisper come and see, and don't worry now about what it will cost you. And brainers, oh, brainers see what none of the rest of us will: the world's psychic maelstrom, the terrible desperation and hate pressing in at the edge of all perception, it is the world now.
  
  "And you, who are you? This is what we've got, yes. What are you going to make of it?"
  
  - Apocalypse World intro
  
  ---
  This is a post-apocalyptic sandbox game based on the Apocalypse World rpg, with no knowledge of the original game required for play. 
  
  In Apocalypse World, there's a little bit of weird (psychics, prophets), more makeshift weapons, less food, and a whole lot of striving to survive. 
  
  Characters are members of Heirloom, a hardhold on the knife edge between peace and starvation.  They  spend their time trying to split the difference between looking out for themselves and looking out for the community. You will be good at what you do (making deals and making death), and will often have to make terrible choices. 
  
  This is a game centered on characters and relationships rather than a pre-prepared plotline. Therefore the priority is on players willing to collaborate on world building, and play real, interesting characters in a world that is trying to kill them in a myriad of ways. 
  
  As the AW manual puts it: "They're carving out their little space of hope and freedom in the filth and violence, and they're trying to hold onto it. Do they have it in them?" 
  
  For more on the character archetypes used, go to http://apocalypse-world.com and get the free download of the "Basic Player Refbook".
  
  For my part, I'll do my best to make the world real, and make it an interesting, dangerous and fun place for the characters to live their beautiful, short lives. 
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: When you’re lying in the dust of Apocalypse World guts aspilled, for whom do you pray? The gods? They’re long gone. Your beloved comrades? Fuckers all, or you wouldn’t be here to begin with. Your precious old mother? She’s a darling but she can’t put an intestine back inside so it’ll stay. No you pray for some grinning kid or veteran or just someone with a heartshocker and a hand with sutures and a 6-pack of morphine. And when that someone comes, that’s an angel.
conversations.prefix: The Angel :
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Even in a place as dangerous as Apocalypse World, battlebabes are, well. They’re the ones you should walk away from, eyes down, but you can’t. They’re the ones like the seductive blue crackling light, y’know? You mistake looking at them for falling in love, and you get too close and it’s a zillion volts and your wings burn off like paper.
  
  ￼Dangerous.
conversations.prefix: The Battlebabe:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Brainers are the weird psycho psychic mindfucks of Apocalypse World. They have brain control, puppet strings, creepy hearts, dead souls, and eyes like broken things. They stand in your peripheral vision and whisper into your head, staring. They clamp lenses over your eyes and read your secrets.
  They’re just the sort of tasteful accoutrement that no well-appointed hardhold can do without.
conversations.prefix: The Brainer:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Apocalypse World is all scarcity, of course it is. There’s not enough wholesome food, not enough untainted water, not enough security, not enough light, not enough electricity, not enough children, not enough hope.
  
  However, the Golden Age Past did leave us two things: enough gasoline, enough bullets. Come the end, I guess the fuckers didn’t need them like they thought they would.
  So chopper, there you are. Enough for you.
conversations.prefix: The Chopper:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Came the apocalypse, and the infrastructure of the Golden Age tore apart. Roads heaved and split. Lines of life and communication shattered. Cities, cut off from one another, raged like smashed anthills, then burned, then fell.
  A few living still remember it: every horizon scorching hot with civilization in flames, light to put out the stars and moon, smoke to put out the sun.
  In Apocalypse World the horizons are dark, and no roads go to them.
conversations.prefix: The Driver:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Apocalypse World is a mean, ugly, violent place. Law and society have broken down completely. What’s yours is yours only while you can hold it in your hands. There’s no peace. There’s no stability but what you carve, inch by inch, out of the concrete and dirt, and then defend with murder and blood.
  Sometimes the obvious move is the right one.
conversations.prefix: The Gunlugger:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: There is no government, no society, in Apocalypse World. When hardholders ruled whole continents, when they waged war on the other side of the world instead of with the hold across the burn-flat, when their armies numbered in the hundreds of thousands and they had fucking boats to hold their fucking airplanes on, that was the golden age of legend. Now, anyone with a concrete compound and a gang of gunluggers can claim the title. You, you got something to say about it?
conversations.prefix: The Hardholder:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Now it should be crystal fucking obvious that the gods have abandoned Apocalypse World. Maybe in the golden age, with its one nation under god and its in god we trust, maybe then the gods were real. Fucked if I know. All I know is that now they’re gone daddy gone.
  My theory is that these weird hocus fuckers, when they say “the gods,” what they really mean is the miasma left over from the explosion of psychic hate and desperation that gave Apocalypse World its birth. Friends, that’s our creator now.
  
conversations.prefix: The Hocus:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: In Apocalypse World, here’s what you’ve got, right? You’ve got a warlord slaver and his skinny fucking enforcer, raiding from their stronghold of concrete and iron spikes. On the other side you’ve got the barge people, living their short disease-crippled lives up and down the dead poisoned river. Further along and you’ve got Lighthouse, a men- and-women hunger cult gone wrong barricaded in on the edge of the breeding pit burn flats.
  You, you just want to make your way and have some freedom — but this is what you’ve got to work with. Not fucking rosy.
conversations.prefix: The Operator:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: If there's one fucking thing you can count on in Apocalypse World, it's this: things break.
conversations.prefix: The Savvyhead:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Even in the filth of Apocalypse World, there’s food that isn’t death on a spit, music that isn’t shrieking hyenas, thoughts that aren’t afraid, bodies that aren’t used meat, sex that isn’t rutting, dancing that’s real. There are moments that are more than stench, smoke, rage and blood.
  Anything beautiful left in this ugly ass world, skinners hold it. Will they share it with you? What do you offer them?
conversations.prefix: The Skinner:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: You're cool under fire, rational, clear thinking, calm, calculating, unfazed.
conversations.prefix: Cool:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Hard-hearted, violent, aggressive, strong-willed, mean, physically and/or emotionally strong. Not that anyone would say that to your face.
conversations.prefix: Hard:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: You're hot, attractive, subtle, gracious, sexy, beautiful, inspiring, exciting.
conversations.prefix: Hot :
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Sharp-witted, clever, alert, smart, perceptive, educated, skilled trained. You're two steps ahead on the minefield of life. 
conversations.prefix: Sharp:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: You're a weirdo. But hey, maybe it means you're psychic, genius, uncanny, lucky, strange, prophetic or just ... touched. 
conversations.prefix: Weird:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: You panic under fire. You make irrational decisions. Your temper sparks easily. When it comes to fight or flight, you take flight every time. 
conversations.prefix: Rash:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: You're soft-bellied. Weak-willed. Cowardly and passive. You'll back down easily, and wilt in the face of pressure. 
conversations.prefix: Soft:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Not necessarily physically: but you carry scars, either inside or out. You're awkward with people. Charming? That's just not you, honey. 
conversations.prefix: Ugly:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: You're two steps behind. You're slow to come to a conclusion. You don't notice the obvious. 
conversations.prefix: Dull:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: When it comes to the 'other' realm, you're profoundly ungifted. You have no touch with the spiritual. You're unlucky. Psychics get free rein in your head. 
conversations.prefix: Mundane:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: The world's a mess. But there's something you need to control that will make it a bit better. What is it?
conversations.prefix: A Bit of Control:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Someone's done you wrong. And you know the best way to right that wrong is with some wrong of your own. Who is it? 
conversations.prefix: A Bit of Revenge:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: There's someone (or something) that you need to look after, at all costs. Who (or what) is it? 
conversations.prefix: Look after Someone:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: You're in love with someone. But shh, it's a secret. Who is it? 
conversations.prefix: Secret Love:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: You have a secret. And if someone else finds out, it will cause damage like a rocket launcher. What is it? 
conversations.prefix: A Secret:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: “Dawn and its excesses always reminded me of heaven, a place where I have always known I would not be comfortable.” 
  - Marilynne Robinson
conversations.prefix: Crack :
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: **Checks against sharp.** 
  
  Strong hit: ask 3 questions of: is your character telling the truth? What’s your character feeling? What does your character intend to do? What does your character wish I’d do? How could I get your character to …? 
  
  Glancing hit: ask 1 of the above.
conversations.prefix: Read a Person:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: **Checks against hard.** 
  
  Play *hard*: They choose—force your hand and suck it up, or cave and do what you want.
  
  Play other *strength*: They choose 1: 
  • get the hell out of your way
  • barricade themselves securely in
  • give you something they think you want
  • back off calmly, hands where you can see
  • tell you what you want to know (or what you want to hear)
  
  Play *weakness*: Narrator's choice.
conversations.prefix: Go Aggro:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Your angel kit has all kinds of crap in it: scissors, rags, tape, needles, clamps, gloves, chill coils, wipes, alcohol, injectable tourniquets & bloodslower, instant blood packets (coffee reddener), tubes of meatmesh, bonepins & site injectors, biostabs, chemostabs, narcostabs (chillstabs) in quantity, and a roll of heart jumpshock patches for when it comes to that.
conversations.prefix: Angel Kit:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: If you’re charging someone wealthy for your services, 1-barter is the going rate for: one successful resuscitation (plus material costs); one murder executed or one week’s employment as bodyguard; one successful deep brain scan; one in-brain puppet command, upon its execution; one week’s employment as kept brainer.
conversations.prefix: Barter:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: See the wasteland! Meet new people! Kill some of them! Don't die yourself! Come back and do it all over again, even better the next time!
conversations.prefix: Experience:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Play sharp:
  Ask 3 of the following.
  
  Play other strength:
  ask 1.
  
  • Where’s my best escape route / way in / way past?
  • Which enemy is most vulnerable to me? 
  • Which enemy is the biggest threat?
  • What should I be on the lookout for?
  • What’s my enemy’s true position?
  • Who’s in control here?
conversations.prefix: Read a Sitch:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Play a strength: you have a plan and do it. 
  
  Play a weakness: you flinch, hesitate or stall: the MC can offer you a worse outcome, a hard bargain, or an ugly choice. 
conversations.prefix: Do Something under Fire (Cherry):
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: The sun is a ways into the sky, and the light is quarter done. 
conversations.prefix: Quarter Light:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: What do you want, a fucking medal or something? 
conversations.prefix: Experience gained (Lively):
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: There's not much left in the land. Even less now. 
conversations.prefix: Stuff Getting Used:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: What they used to call midday. You could call it half light, but there ain't many people left who are that sort of positive. 
conversations.prefix: Half Dark:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: You plant a command in someone's mind. Checks for weird. 
conversations.prefix: In-brain Puppet Strings:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: What do you want, a fucking medal or something? 
conversations.prefix: Experience gained (Cherry):
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: You carry all kinds of scars and mutilations, either inside or out. You’re creepy and awkward with people. Charming? That’s just not you, honey.    
conversations.prefix: Hideous:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: You’re watchful and tenacious. Your great mental fortitude gives you advantages in many situations. You are not easily discouraged, and will not fall prey to cheap tricks or melancholic fits.    
conversations.prefix: Resolute:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Apocalypse World is a mean, ugly, violent place. Law and society have broken down completely. What’s yours is yours only while you can hold it in your hands. There’s no solace. There’s no stability but what you carve inch by inch, out of the concrete and dirt. Then you defend it with murder and blood.
  Sometimes the obvious move is the right one.
conversations.prefix: The Gunlugger:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: The world’s a mess. But there’s something you need to control that will make it a bit better. What is it?
conversations.prefix: A Bit of Control:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Brainers are the weird psycho psychic mindfucks of Apocalypse World. They have brain control, puppet strings, creepy hearts, dead souls, and eyes like broken things. They stand in your peripheral vision and whisper into your head, staring. They clamp lenses over your eyes and read your secrets.
  They’re just the sort of tasteful accoutrement that no well-appointed hardhold can do without.
conversations.prefix: The Brainer:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: You’re a weirdo. But hey, maybe it means you’re psychic, genius, uncanny, lucky, strange, prophetic or just … touched.  
conversations.prefix: Weird:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: You’re two steps behind. You’re slow to come to a conclusion. You don’t notice the obvious.    
conversations.prefix: Dull:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Someone’s done you wrong. And you know the best way to right that wrong is with some wrong of your own. Who is it?   
conversations.prefix: A Bit of Revenge:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Acting instinctively, without remediation. Blindly? 
conversations.prefix: Fast :
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Self-absorbed, self-motivated, the main character in their drama. 
conversations.prefix: Isolation:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Not to attain or acquire, but to find a goal worth attaining, worth acquiring. 
conversations.prefix: Purpose:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: This hardhold's all you care about, the only place you belong and the last bit of sanity keeping you from blowing up the world. You will stand by it until the end.
conversations.prefix: Defender of Heirloom:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: In the golden age of legend, there was this guy named Maestro. He was known for dressing up real dap and
  wh'ever he went, the people had much luxe tune. 
  
  There
  was this other guy named Maitre d’. He was known for
  dressing up real dap and wh'ever he went, the people had
  all the food they could eat and the fanciest of it.
  
  Here in Apocalypse World, those two guys are dead. They died and the fat sizzled off them, they died same as
  much-luxe-tune and all-you-can-eat.  The maestro d’ now,
  she can’t give you what those guys used to could, but fuck
  it, maybe she can find you a little somethin somethin to
  take off the edge.
conversations.prefix: The Maestro D':
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: When you’re lying in the dust of Apocalypse World guts aspilled, for whom do you pray? The gods? They’re long gone. Your beloved comrades? Fuckers all, or you wouldn’t be here to begin with. Your precious old mother? She’s a darling but she can’t put an intestine back inside so it’ll stay. No you pray for some grinning kid or veteran or just someone with a heartshocker and a hand with sutures and a 6-pack of morphine. And when that someone comes, that’s an angel.
conversations.prefix: The Angel:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Sharp-witted, clever, alert, smart, perceptive, educated, skilled trained. You’re two steps ahead on the minefield of life.    
conversations.prefix: Sharp:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Soft
  
conversations.prefix: Soft:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: You’re soft-bellied. Weak-willed. Cowardly and passive. You’ll back down easily, and wilt in the face of pressure.    
conversations.prefix: Soft:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: It's easy to snap in a world gone to shit, but you'll be damned if you don't try to keep sane through it all. It also wouldn't hurt to keep those around you in the right state of mind, too.
conversations.prefix: Keep the Madness at Bay:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: In Apocalypse World, here’s what you’ve got, right? You’ve got a warlord slaver and his skinny fucking enforcer, raiding from their stronghold of concrete and iron spikes. On the other side you’ve got the barge people, living their short disease-crippled lives up and down the dead poisoned river. Further along and you’ve got Lighthouse, a men- and-women hunger cult gone wrong barricaded in on the edge of the breeding pit burn flats.
  You, you just want to make your way and have some freedom — but this is what you’ve got to work with. Not fucking rosy.
conversations.prefix: The Operator:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Sharp-witted, clever, alert, smart, perceptive, educated, skilled, trained. You’re two steps ahead on the minefield of life.
conversations.prefix: Sharp:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: When it comes to the ‘other’ realm, you’re profoundly ungifted. You have no touch with the spiritual. You’re unlucky. Psychics get free rein in your head.    
conversations.prefix: Mundane:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Even here.  You do your best to keep them all up and about, to make sure the babies live and the sick and the wounded recover.  To help the doomed die as easy as they can.  
  
  And so what if it's a losing battle?  
  
  Doesn't mean you're gonna stop fighting it.
conversations.prefix: Life Goes On:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Heirloom is priceless. It's the only respite from the endless bleak expanse outside. You see it swelling with people who realize its value, but for every useful survivor there are countless dead weights. If that doesn't change, if you don't change it, Heirloom won't be much of a safe haven for long.
conversations.prefix: You Run Shit Here. They Just Live Here.:
conversations.from: human
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Wild:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Sharp-witted,
  clever, alert, smart, perceptive,
  educated, skilled, trained.
conversations.prefix: Sharp:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Sharp-witted, clever, alert, smart, perceptive, educated, skilled, trained.
conversations.prefix: Sharp:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Checks for weird. On a strong hit, the afflicted gets measurably better. On a weak hit, the afflicted gets better, but you’re acting under fire from your patient’s brain.
conversations.prefix: Healing Touch:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: One gun. Badly kept. Tape around the handle. Two bullets. Hopefully you won't have to use it. (Who do you think you're kidding?)
conversations.prefix: Elvis' Pistol:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: There's a time to talk, and a time to shut the hell up. Here's hoping you can figure the difference. 
conversations.prefix: Getting to Know You:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Time to talk.
conversations.prefix: Getting to Know You:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: **Checks against weird**
  
  Play a cool strength: you do it. 
  
  Play any other strength: you flinch, hesitate or stall: the MC can offer you a worse outcome, a hard bargain, or an ugly choice. 
  
  Play a weakness: narrator's choice.
conversations.prefix: Do Something under Fire (Weird):
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: He's going to take some convincing. 
  
  (Play cards one at a time on this challenge.)
conversations.prefix: Tum-tum:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Hard-headed, aggressive, violent. What the world giveth, you giveth in return. And if it's somebody else paying the price, all the better.
conversations.prefix: Hard:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.prefix: Weird:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: You’re cool under fire, rational, clear thinking, calm, calculating, unfazed. 
conversations.prefix: Cool:
conversations.from: gpt
conversations.value: Been a long day.  Hell, right now it feels like it's been a 
  long fuckin' *life*.
conversations.prefix: Tired: