I just read through the Apocalypse World Master of Ceremonies Playbook by Vincent Baker because I had noticed a lot of people on Story Games talking about it, particularly adapting it to other genres. When people are so enamored with a game that they want to adapt it, and not only want to, but do, it gets my attention.
Review
Apocalypse World is set in a world much like the ones presented in A Boy and His Dog or The Road Warrior. A post-apocalyptic world where something terrible has happened. The only supernatural/magical aspect to the game is the Psychic Maelstrom, otherwise it plays fairly true to real life. Each player picks a character playbook, and you spend the first session connecting all the players together, and figuring out how they connect with the world around them.
Favorite Parts:
I love the moves, which are the mechanical bits that determine the actions that the players can take. You roll two six sided dice and then add your modifier (-3 to +3) On a 7-9, you succeed partially, but something bad happens as well, on a 10-12 you succeed. 6 and below, you fail. I love the partial success, and the fact that on many of the successes the players decide what part of the success they take.
I love the setting, but I’m a sci-fi movie junkie anyways, so that’s to be expected.
I like the fact that you can be interacting and working with other players, without even being in the same spot. The game supports a lot of non-combat actions, and rewards players with experience for that.
5 out of 5 stars ../*****
Other Reviews and Commentary
Critical Hits: Pretty in-depth review of the game.
Game Dev Blog: Commentary on areas of Apocalypse World that the author finds valuable.
Ogrecave: Discussion of how Apocalypse World and Vincent Baker says that the rules expect a certain style of GMing, a style that might be different than the typical and why that is a good thing.
Resources
Apocalypse World Limited Edition Playbook Trading Thread: A thread on Story Games where you can trade or find some of the Limited Edition Playbooks for AW.
Apocalypse World: An Introduction: A great introduction by DM Samuel over at RPG Musings going through the basics of Apocalypse World. A great place to start if you want to know more about how Apocalypse World works.
Apocalypse World Hacks
Dungeon World: An attempt to play D&D using the Apocalypse style game play. Very interesting concepts and play. They are almost done with it and are close to publishing it. By Sage LaTorra and Adam Koebel, based on work by Tony Dowler. Here’s the forum to discuss it.
Cyberpunk AW: A cool suggestion to play AW as written, just with a change in the setting to make it cyberpunk. Just change the Pyschic Maelstrom to the Internet and you’re good to go. I really like it!
Kuunari 
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