Awesome. I dig that.

I'm not nearly as schooled in the moral ambiguity as Judd the Karl Man, so I watch eagerly to see how this plays out.

You know, how moves are like, "when you do X, roll + Y."

What triggers the roll for the sabbath meal? When I sit down to eat? When I'm offered the meal? When I realize what I've eaten and OMG it's so perfectly seasoned?

Just curious.

Cards, to me, often get looked over so that players can see their options.  I'm not sure that is what I want from the players when I am playing AW.  I want them acting as their character and us matching the moves to what they do, rather than shuffling through some cards in order to figure out what to do.

Judd, I have to say I'm not with you on that, but maybe I'm not entirely understanding. It is, after all, teh internet. Misunderstandings occasionally happen here.

My take on it: the moves define a good chunk of who my character is and what he/she can do. I choose a special move: eye on the door. It establishes that I'm the kind of guy who bails when it gets tense.

Thinking about moves like that is acting as my character. If I'm a battlebabe, I'm going to make battlebabe-appropriate moves, so I look at my sheet for cues. Isn't that why I have a sheet?

Again, maybe I'm misunderstanding. Except that Brand seems to agree with you, so that makes me think you're wrong about something.

We had the finale last night, although Terry couldn't make it. :(

As MC, I think my favorite thing is being a fan of the characters. In this game they've been an unstoppable team, sometimes bickering and at odds, but always getting each other's backs. I've had a great time watching them stomp all over trouble, and they've had a great time doing it.

That said, there's been a lot at stake. Lives on the line, including their own at times. As the MC/audience, I never saw them as invulnerable, just awesomely heroic and capable.

I was surprised at the start of the session to discover that Uncle was at 10:00 harm! She was in danger, but she did her paladin lay-on-hands healing touch and got herself stabilized again.

Once the crew dropped off Shazza to fix their water filter, they decided that it was time to address the creepy death cult in the south that was luring people away to labor on the ziggurat, filling others' minds with visions of death. The hardhold had maybe lost a third of its people to the influence of Clarion.

So they hit the market and blow their hard-earned barter on stuff. Armor, weapons. They rolled all badass and walked away like a swat team. Did I mention I love being a fan? Yeah, you guys rock.

So they load up the Dingos (with a little quick pack alpha encouragement) on the driver's new tank-boat and head south to finish this thing. When they get within sight of the now-finished ziggurat, Clarion gets inside all their heads (custom move) and learns about all their most painful memories (not unlike deep brain scan).

They find many people from the Factory waiting on the shore when they arrive, all smiling and vapid. Plus there's regular armed people watching them carefully, and Clarion is in their heads saying, it will be so good to have you with us.

And then they kick ass. Fifi snipes some guy on the machine gun, simple as that, and Kobe and Uncle charge into the holding, trying to make their way to the ziggurat as fast as they can. That's when the smiling laborers turn into psycho killing mob and swarm them. Yeah, there's Rolfball the merchant, and isn't that Ditch who worked the kelp farms? All trying to kill you with their bare hands, this huge mob. What do you do?

Again, I'm a fan, because they manage to fight off the armed guard while hardly anyone among the crazy zombie mob gets hurt. Probably was good that Fifi didn't actually use the grenade launcher, huh? The dingoes stay on the boat providing excellent cover fire. Seize + gang is something to fear when it goes well.

At one point Kobe stumbles, because there's his disappeared love interest, Fauna, among them, and she knocks him to the ground. Kobe says, I want to try and snap her out of this state she's in, because I know her and she knows me.

And holy shit of course he can do that, because that sounds so badass. Plus, if he succeeds, then he just has a new problem to worry about, right? And so he does. She almost runs into danger, but he puts himself in the way and takes the bullet for her.

Uncle gets up to the ziggurat and gets into a fierce shootout with two guys. Their bullets bounce off her new armor, but it distracts her (yeah harm move!). A pale hand strikes out from the shadowy interior of the ziggurat and grabs her by the throat. She can feel the voice of Clarion in her head: just drop that shotgun and come inside with me...

But she fights it off, and he stabs her with this wicked scary machete!

Kobe and Fifi get up to where Uncle is and open fire on Clarion, but he dives back into the inky darkness. Nobody wants to go in there, so Fifi tries to hose it down with her smg. Instead, Clarion reaches out from his strange dark protection and grabs her. She fights off his influence as well!

Then Uncle says enough is enough, drops the shotgun, draws her knife and jumps past Fifi, grappling with Clarion and plunging the knife up into his ribcage. He kind of gurgles a little, and Uncle whispers in his ear, "it's all over now."

Nobody has enough for a retirement improvement, so we do quick epilogues around the table. Uncle eventually secedes from being a hardholder and learns the ways of being a healer. Fifi buries her feelings and lives the rest of her life in violence. Kobe becomes something of a statesman, hoping to unite the surrounding hardholds in peace.

THE END

When I think of riled up mobs, I don't think about actual truth. I think about the relative truth that the mobs want to hear. "Yeah! Scapegoat! Rahh frenzy fuck kill!"

I just realized. Three sessions, and my character has never interacted with any of the other characters. That seems odd.

And my angel Buzz had no problem stabbing some guard in the throat in order to get the medicine he needed. "Of course I'm going to kill him. My hair is falling out! My skin is splotchy!"

As per the "characters are fucking hot" clause, Buzz's hair fell out stylishly, and the splotches looked kind of like tattoos.

Now that he's cured the disease, he needs to start thinking about that crush he has on basically all the dancers at Saffron's place. Will it break his heart when he learns that Saffron hooked up with Nero? Probably.

Oh, here's a thing: we got to the end of the session, and my guy hasn't interacted with any of the other characters for two sessions in a row now. It feels weird to say that people know him better or worse.