Barf Forth Apocalyptica
barf forth apocalyptica => Apocalypse World => Topic started by: Hans Chung-Otterson on September 01, 2010, 02:05:05 AM
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In between every session, I usually look back at something I did not-so-well as the MC and think, "how can I do this better?"
1. After the first session I was mainly focused on creating Fronts, & saying interesting things.
2. After the second session I realized there were no PC-NPC-PC triangles, the PCs were a whole united front, and so I wanted to do triangles better.
3. I don't think there was anything after the third session; I felt pretty good about my contributions after this one.
4. After the fourth session (tonight) I realized I need to keep falling back on my moves*, and I need to ask more questions.
You?
*I didn't look at the moves list until the very end of the game, and I felt that what I said & my contribution in general suffered. I think this was a result of (1) not looking at the moves list when it was my turn to speak, and (2) not taking time when it was my turn to speak and feeling a little overwhelmed at trying to introduce my Fronts in between what the players wanted to do--from here on out, if the players are really active and want to do things, I think I should simply let them (try to) do them, and not worry about my fronts so much. Falling back on the moves will, I hope, continue to be a natural way to introduce Fronts & complications from what the players are doing, as it was in session 3.
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I'm horribly at actually writing up my fronts. Usually I just assign a few threat types to named NPCs or interested setting bits, and some custom moves as appropriate. Actually determining a fundamental scarcity, dark future, stakes questions, countdown timers? Yeah, not so much.
People still seem to enjoy my games (I think!) so I don't feel too bad about it, but I do look at the empty front booklet staring at me accusatorially from time to time and feel the faintest twinges of guilt.
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I want to get better at starting fights and at remembering the Harm move.
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More physical description -- I tend to barf forth apocalyptica almost exclusively through NPC actions/motivations & psychic maelstrom. Need more landscapes & small perfect descriptive details.
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Sometimes my descriptions feels like the Barf Forth Minute, then we're back to the game. Need to mix it in better.
A couple of the PCs are less tied-in than the others. Makes me anxious, and want to start throwing ersatz crappy at them until an NPC sticks.
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I want to be harder with my hard moves so that Bret and Vincent will have some small shred of respect for me.
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Just 2 sessions in but I have some things to say about my experience.
After session 1 I felt I really rushed (partly because we have a limited play time) and didn't ask enough questions, felt like I didn't have enough information about the player-characters.
After session 2 I felt like I was just starting to really understand the moves and how they really do drive absolutely everything. But more than anything I need to barf apocalyptica more and really be more brutal. My apocalypse world isn't really as frightening and terrible as it should be and that has the players feeling far too comfortable. I need to shake things up and make apocalypse world seem real.
All in all, I loved doing the front homework, then in session two I totally forgot to apply a couple custom moves which totally should have applied.
I absolutely love this game and feel it's close to how I've always liked to run my games, just more structured, and in a way that I really like. It is different though in how the moves rule the world, and that's just sings to me, can't wait to play again.
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Kicking PC's in the nuts when they blow a roll is hard to do.
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Kicking PC's in the nuts when they blow a roll is hard to do.
hear, hear, brother.
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Putting NPCs in the crosshairs. I find myself getting really attached to certain NPCs, and it hurts to endanger them or kill them.
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Intermitten rewards.
I have never really understood the problem people had with dishing out fuckery... The thing where you have to remember to give them a little taste of raw unadulterated success, though - that I fail at. Not always, but often enough for it to be consistent.
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Just ran my first game at PAX, after playing about 10 sessions.
Things I need to do better:
- Remember that there's plenty of cool stuff the characters can do that's not a move. Remind the players of that too. Sometimes we were looking at the sheet and trying to figure out which move something was, when the right answer was "none." I need to just keep on pushing the fiction harder until a move results.
- Create PC-NPC-PC triangles, even in one-shots. That means giving personalities to the NPCs in the PCs gang / crew, etc. for starters, and then playing the other NPCs harder.
- Get the players talking first, before we do character creation. Maybe we should even brainstorm the world and what the characters are about before I hand out the character booklets. That would probably be better. It took us a while to hook into the fiction and get rolling.
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It really helps, I've noticed, if they're Story Gamer types who like to make their own trouble. It's also good if they hump like bunnies, at least with each others' crew NPC's.
In retrospect, I should have stressed the "you all know each other" aspect of chargen harder, it's a bit of work to get the characters connected.
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Fights, fights, and once again - fights. And, did I mentioned battles?
Also, making characters lives not boring - is not that easy for me, as it seemed for the first time.
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It's also good if they hump like bunnies, at least with each others' crew NPC's.
man, we're 4 sessions in and no fucking so far. I really want to to change that, as much as I can as MC.
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It's also good if they hump like bunnies, at least with each others' crew NPC's.
man, we're 4 sessions in and no fucking so far. I really want to to change that, as much as I can as MC.
Bring in lots of sexy/seductive NPCs? Maybe if the PCs get the idea that sex is a thing, they'll go with it. Or it might just be your players not being comfortable with sex in the game ::shrug:: If you figure out they *are* comfortable, and they're not picking up on the sexiness for it's own sake, you could always start offering bargains like "the hardholder's taken a shine to you, and is willing to pay for that fancy new workplace you want, but only if you bone him"
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Last night's game I ran into some pacing issues, mostly I think because I didn't have moves that I could put right in their faces. When things start to feel slow I can sometimes start to death spiral it. Like, crap, what can I toss into the stew pot? Umm? Shit... and then I sit there slackjawed... and it's the best game ever.
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1) Barf forth more apocalyptica. It gets to the point where I peek down at my MC sheet and see it there, and I go, "Oh yeah, need to do that." Same with "digressing occasionally."
2) Coming up with interesting things when a player misses an Open their brain roll. This one always kills me. I'm there with a blank look on my face, trying to find something to best represent the maelstrom and to be suitably weird / interesting.
3) Sometimes, I don't throw any new NPCs out there for a while! My 1st Session sheets tend to be kind of empty. And when we finally get rolling, I play the NPCs already established and rarely introduce more.
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Adding my own bloody fingerprints, at least with my current game. I've got this weird block, where I want to do that circuitous thing where I don't threaten/mess with them directly, and it means I'm not painting the nastiness on thick enough. And I'm not getting enough of the post-apocalyptic I want. Of course, 2nd session, I spent most of my time reinforcing/creating pc-npc-pc triangles.
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After the last game, one of my players was complaining, that there was not enough action.
I know my MCing sucked that day greatly. Players was 2 hours late and I got very upset. I'm not happy with my performance at all.
The main thing is, I still feel uneasy with creating scenes that include fighting, violence etc. It's not cause of some tabu. It's cause I don't know how to do this in interesting way, so I prefer not to do this.
Anyone have a good advice to that?
Sad thing is that after the last session that player said he wants to quit.