Hey yall!
Thanks so much for the help! It was all a great aid! We have now had two sessions and I think its going really well! I still dont have everyone together, but it is less of a problem than I thought it would be. Our Hocus may even be making moves to be the Big Bad of the whole game, totally derailing the threats Ive been cooking up, but the way the system works it all seems to flow. "play to find out what happens" makes a lot more sense rightnow.

But some new questions:
What if players seem to be making moves exclusively to grind experience? Like if sharp is highlighted and they just read EVERY NPC that comes into the scene, or our brainer that opens the maelstrom to send messages to another character constantly just to roll the highlighted weird. Ive warned them that once they miss a roll that I think is one of these exp-grinding-rolls I will make a very hard move against them, but with +3 weird, the brainer wont be missing often. These rolls seem to hold up the game and break the balance (bc a "hard" character cant just start goin aggro on everyone with the same lack of consequences). thoughts?

Also, Im having a hard time imagining how my threats could evolve into something truly catastrophic but still able to be addressed by the players (I havent been using the "fronts" system, it just doesnt make sense to me at the moment). The psychic serial killer that many of my players are tracking seems pretty fully realized as a threat, shes just killin folk, hard to scope that up bigger. While the group of raiders that could come into town seem like theyre either offscreen or are fully raiding the town, in which case my players seem pretty fucked. What sort of threats have yall used that can develop smoothly and preventably?

Hey everyone!
so, some friends and I wanted to try tabletop gaming, and so played a DnD campaign with an experienced DM. Then we played a DnD hack of his that was a kind of zombie apocalypse thing. But recently he got a "real job" and cannot continue DMing.
I volunteered to step up and DM a new game for my group, but didnt want to dungeon crawl, and wanted to explore some more interesting, contemporary systems. then the bundle of holding comes out, I read the AW book, and it sounds awesome. It SEEMS like a great game for a beginner DM/MC bc the book is just full of advice on how to do it and examples, but its still a very daunting thing to start so I wanna ask yall more experienced players some questions. Feel free to answer just one, multiple, or just to ignore them, and advise me in general!
How do you usually start the first session?
Do the players start together in one place? do you spend that session getting them together, or just allow them to be doing really varied things?
What are some common pitfalls for a new MC? What is something obvious to overlook?
If your player has a gang, how much control do you give them of the names and personalities and actions of these NPCs?
I find the idea of "fronts" to be unintuitive and confusing at the moment? Why use them? Is it just a tool for organizing the various dangers of your world into groups? If you have multiple, how do you get them to cohere, or do you just not?
any overall tips?

Thanks in advance!