In addition, I read through that thread you linked and found some of it quite interesting.  Nice to see also that other people had the exact same problems in the exact same way. It's interesting for me to note that Apocalypse World has a more structured set of rules than it may originally appear.  When you look at a lot rules it seems kind of ambiguous and weird sometimes but then once you start too understand what the rules actually mean in play it makes a lot more sense.

Try really really hard to never think or say the word "conflict" anywhere near Apocalypse World. I mean that both in the SG jargony way and also the plain English way.

Action and consequences -- that's what you do. "Conflict" is too abstract, too movie and stage, too neat and tidy. So, don't set up conflicts between characters (even though that's fun in other games). Don't think about how this could be in conflict with that. Don't think about how you can drive the game towards conflict. None of that.

This bit is by John Harper who created the extra character sheets if I remember correctly.  Although  I definitely did not get that at all first session. I'm admittedly never going to be able to eliminate that part of myself that takes great pleasure at knowing that I am orchestrating a big surprise reveal or cool conflict when I think of them.  It's only really those situations where I see a potential conflict and think, "Oh it would be so cool if _____ happened!"  As such I admittedly have certain things in the current campaign about certain player backgrounds that I don't want them to figure out for quite a while because I thought of an absolutely amazing reveal for the climax of the campaign that would require a couple things to be hidden until then.  So far they players don't seem like they're gonna figure them out too fast so it's fine and I don't have to manipulate stuff.  Besides the fact that I shouldn't manipulate stuff.

The questions I've had the best luck with when generating situation have been "Who do you hate most in the world?" and "What scares the crap out of you?" Both were asked in the first session and both have come back to haunt players.

I also find this interesting. I may try doing something similar to this with some big hitting questions that teach my a lot about that character. I am a big fan of bringing new moves, changes, or questions to the table at the beginning of a new session just to shake things up a bit and keep the players off balance a bit.

2nd Session

Combotron and The Dragon disappear off screen and I'll talk to the players about what they were doing during that time for next session.

We start with Bristol and Terry approaching the door to the building where the psychic Grace is supposed to be.  The door is flanked by two armed guards who don't let them in and give them next to no information because they obviously have no fucking clue what they're talking about and ask if this is Grace's house when it's actually a drug den.  They get nowhere so they give up and go knock on the door across the street and are greeted by a ragged exhausted fellow who just wants to go to sleep.  Eventually they convince him that they'll be out of his hair and Terry promises that no shit will go down(Doesn't have to keep) and he tells them that it's den for those kinds of people and that you gotta know whats going on to get.  Terry and Bristol assume this means psychics and that the entire building is filled with them and that the guards are also psychic.  Thus because they don't think they can fake being psychic and terry failed his psychic Maelstrom check Terry tells Bristol that he can get them in but only if he pays him.  Bristol hands Terry a grenade as payment and then Terry strolls up to the guards not realizing that the guards just watched Bristol hand him a grenade on the street in front of them. (I love when my players do this shit.)  Eventually Terry manages to calm them and get them amicable to allowing them in by bribing them with his gold watch he found on the street. (I made my players decide what their barter was.)  This replaces it with a new problem as the guards argue over the watch.  They convince them to let them in so that they can decide who gets the watch while he's in there and he'll give it to them then but they have to leave their weapons outside. Wilhelm waits outside. They have a long extended exchange with the deskman inside who insists that they buy some product before entering the rest of the building.  They of course misunderstand and think he is offering information on Grace for payment but really he is just offering information only if they buy product leading to a funny confused exchange in vague shady speak.  The result is that the deskman finally just gives them what Grace got because they are obviously total noobies.  In return he takes a vague promise of a favour.  Now he demands that they "take" the product before entering so Bristol does so and makes Terry wait in the lobby so he doesn't have to.  Cut to Elana

Elana finds that Jeff is feeling better but still worried and realizes unless there is a big change he will eventually leave meaning she will have no horn player(This is somewhat misdirection on my part).  The show starts so they get busy.  Halfway through the show during a dance routine that Elana actually performs in she hears the horn stop abruptly. Peering through the mist and lights while she dances she just makes out his outline staring into a section of the stands.  She scans the stands and identifies someone who is looking at the band rather than the performance but can't tell who it is.  Jeff stands up and the person does too but she is in the middle of a performance and can't stop.  Jeff starts hurrying around the outside of the tent behind the stands towards the employee exit.  The person slowly moves to intercept him but is closer to the employee exit.  Elana subtly signals to the performers waiting to come on next that something is wrong but they misunderstand and think it's just jeff freaking out.  Jeff reaches the exit and rushes in. The next act starts coming on and the stranger slips in while they block her view.  She offloads the job of introducing the next act to a dancer and rushes after them.  The back tent is empty but she sees they entrance to one of the change rooms fluttering and rushes in to see the blood pouring out of the hole in jeffs head and a slit in the back of the tent.  She rushes out asking nearby employees if they saw anything but they were busy and don't remember.  She accesses the psychic maelstrom. (I reminded them so much that it existed. Finally!)  She sees herself in a big top performing with a section of the crowd vicious and hostile and as she returns to reality realizes that there is a group of employee tents where that section of stands was.  She guesses that its the middle of the 3 tents and enters the quarters of one of her top acts and friends Lady Slither. (She wears her 7 snakes and does a combo stripping and animal taming act.)  She finds inside her polite, formal, arts appreciator customer Lamprey inside holding Lady Slither hostage by using one of her snakes a noose while he aims a silenced pistol at Elana with the other hand.  Lamprey ignores the snake he's using as he bites at his arm through the leather vest. Cut to Bristol.  Dun dun DUUUN! (I love incorporating cliffhangers into these transitions way too much)


Bristol suffers slight effects from the drug and dips to a little more severe for a little bit but he's a pretty robust man so nothing major. He spends time trying to locate grace with the out of their mind druggies not being helpful.  Cut to Terry.

The deskman tries to persuade Terry to try the drug by telling him that it gets him ladies and muscles but Terry is having none of that shit.  In response Terry starts wheeling and dealing to get a job selling their product.  The deskman eventually sends his friend to go check with the boss.  Cut to Bristol.

Bristol manages to find Grace and wake her up.  Grace dazedly communicates with Bristol in a total dude bro fashion but eventually he gets the point across. (I let them get her services without paying but she might end up being more of a hindrance. ;) )  Grace shakes her head vigorously becoming slightly more lucid and starts to head out with Bristol.  Cut to Terry.

Terry is leaning against the wall and staring at the floor occasionally looking up at the deskman.  He looks up one time to see the cloaked figure staring behind the deskman and loses his shit. He bolts out the door and as he does so a gunshot goes off.  The guards outside freak out and immediately start blaming Terry for the gunshot because when they open the door the desk dude is slumped on his desk dead and the room is empty.  Terry quickly tells them that it couldn't be him because he was exiting as the shot went off and one guard goes in to check while the other watches Terry.  Cut to Bristol.

Bristol is on the stairs with Grace when he hears the first shot. He tells Grace to duck and hide and tries to identify the location of the shot.  When he can't he tells Grace to stay here and heads to find out.  He rounds the corner just in time to see the cloaked figure shoot the second outside guard in the head as he bursts through the door.  Bristol raises his fist ready to fight the figure but they end up talking.  The figure honestly imparts that he doesn't have need to go near the slavers anymore so Bristol is fine to not fight since his job is completed then.  Cut to Terry.

The outside guard aiming his gun at Terry gets anxious and jittery.  Terry suggests they go inside but the guard refuses out fear.  Terry realizes that Wilhelm isn't around so he just yells his name out loud and the guards head explodes.  He gathers up Bristol's weapons and opens the door to head inside to see the cloaked figure heading towards him so he shoots it.  The cloaked figure speeds up towards him not firing back so Terry flees across the street into the tired guys house yelling Wilhelm as he does.  The phantom gets shot by Wilhelm and moves down the street away from Terry and Bristol.  Bristol lets it go and runs into the house to find the guy telling in Terry's face.  Cut to Elana

Lamprey calmly addresses Elana who he had developed a friendship with.  Elana is very confused but he fairly quickly explains that this is his job and Jeff was his target and now that she knows he sadly has to kill her.  Elana manages to convince him not to kill her because he can trust her and he doesn't want to in the first place. He turns the pistol towards Lady Slithers head and expresses that although he can trust Elana he can't trust her.  Elana starts to convince him but Lady Slither is pissed off and not having any of it so she starts a hidden countdown with her fingers for Elana.  Lady Slither elbows him in the stomach while her snake simultaneously bites his face putting him off balance and Elana goes for the gun not wanting to hurt him but misses and gets knocked to the floor.  Lamprey says, "You shouldn't have done that." and promptly shoots the Python Hal in the head.  Lady Slither slumps the fight gone out of her and wails in emotional agony.  Elana manages to convince Lamprey to let them both live by telling him their next scheduled destinations so that he can promptly kill them off if they talk.  Lamprey calmly lets Lady Slither go and pulls the snake off of his face.(It's been there for a while at this point.)  He returns to his usual cordial friendly self and strolls out as Elana comforts her now emotionally damaged friend. (I'll be sure to use that later.)

Bristol picks Terry up and slams him so that he's hanging over the windowsill and tells him not to pull that shit again. He told him to stay inside. He'd better stay inside. The tired guy shuts up.   As they turn to leave they find the cloaked figure in the doorway again.  After a lengthy discussion where Bristol tries to figure out if Terry wronged this guys somehow while Terry hides behind him Bristol eventually shoots the cloaked figure has it shoots him.  Bristol retrieves his gear and Terry hugs him for saving him and when they turn to leave they only find a cloak and mask where the body was.  Grace pokes her head into the house and says, "Dude, I dunno who that guy was but he was fucking crazy......I can find him."

End session.

I am super pleased with this. Little do they know that Rolfball recently took over the drug market in Barrelsbottom, or that Lamprey was hired by the mild mannered butler of the slavers.   I am also excited that for the slow reveal of the Wolves of the Maelstrom who so far have just been a mysterious figure to pop in and stir shit up before disappearing in.  I've got something that will be a major twist for them already.

So this campaign started slow but we adapted pretty quick so far and I think it's going much better so I might keep up with posting these logs here as it progresses.  I'm going to paste the first two session logs that I posted in the help thread here first and then continue from there.

Just a quick update for all the fabulous posters who have been helping out.  You have all helped me realize where the problems were so I could work on changing them.

I just returned from our second session and I owe all of you a lot of thanks.  The overall quality of the campaign has jumped.  We still have stuff to work on and improve as we adapt to the system but I am incredibly pleased with the progress.

I began the session by asking the group to write down on a piece of paper their most and least favourite thing about last session and used that to spark a conversation.  I used this to talk about how different AW is and what I think we need to change as a group without sounding preachy since the conversation arose naturally from the questions.

We then spent some time changing some of the world slightly from our first world building session to fit better but mainly fleshed it out a lot.  Through this and the change in the way I introduced NPC's they have suddenly become extremely interesting dynamic.  The players seem to have grown to really like some of them even if their characters don't.  This also seemed to be exactly what I needed to get over that hump of seeing the connections between totally separate NPC's and how they affect each other.  As a result the problem of the characters not having reasons to run into each other has entirely disappeared without me forcing it.  That being said they don't know it yet.  They left the session talking about how they would never run into each other now but by chance there are 3 separate things in motion off screen that have the potential to drag some of them together.  We were missing a couple players this session which probably made it easier for me to manage but I still made sure they could be doing things off screen which I will talk to them about and decide in between sessions. 

I do feel however that I have been using the Wolves of the Maelstrom as an easy out card sometimes to create conflict.  That being said I think i've used it pretty tastefully and appropriately so far.  They have the "Appear and disappear impossibly" trait so they can pop in and out to spark conflict when things are going a little too smoothly despite my efforts. 

What makes me super excited is that the players were pretty pleased by the current little conflicts and fun moments they had this session without having any idea how much is going to happen down the road.  Beyond that we have a few super interesting and frankly fairly ridiculous settings and threats in the nearby area that we haven't even approached yet.



Considering the above mentioned success I'm going to have to apologize because I'm going to have to gush a bit.

Edit: I removed the massive AP portion of the post and transferred it to a separate thread specifically for that so that the people that are interested can look at it there and everyone else doesn't have to put up with it.
 

@Daniel

The sheer volume of moves is probably due to the length of our sessions which I think are on the long side relative to most people.  We tend to go for 6-10 hours.

As to the difference in amounts of moves the players are making.  I think that most of the players made a similar amount of moves just that most of the players just made whatever moves they felt appropriate but this particular player specifically focused on trying to maximize his experience while still making moves that made sense.

I may also have been allowing the players to make moves when not really necessary.  I will be aware of that for next session.

Thanks

Thanks guys that is indeed helpful.  I would like to say that planning plotlines is not entirely what I meant.  I suppose I misrepresented the idea.  Like I said I have difficulty coming up with NPCs or challenges on the fly so I like to try and plan a very rough idea of some of these things for each potential path I can think of that there is a fair chance of the players taking.  Also when I talked about subtly guiding the players I was talking about situations similar to the one exit mentioned but I see it ahead of time and think, "Oh wouldnt it be super cool if..."   In such situations I like to encourage the players in that direction without them knowing it.

Thanks for the help

I would like to ask a very similar question.  We played our first session with me as MC last weekend.  As little bit of background information my group has mainly been playing D&D for quite some time and have never played any game as story and character focused as I am trying to make this campaign. (I personally feel the AW system lends it self best to this)  As such they have a habit of focusing a lot on stats and optimizing them and min-maxing a bit.  Not maliciously or anything, just to get the best out of their character. 

    So last session one of my PCs used his highlighted stats a lot on purpose and improved pretty quickly and used that improvement to make another move used a lot in the situation use one of the highlighted stats so that almost everything he was doing gave him experience and ended up gaining another improvement and starting toward the 3rd before the end of the session.  Most of the other PCs barely got their first improvement if I remember correctly and one may not even have gotten it.  As such I am somewhat worried about him improving too quickly and the gap between players being a bit of a problem.

   I know that we can somewhat limit him next session by highlighting specific stats which may help.  It also seems like Apocalypse World  with a story and character focused campaign might not suffer as a result of this too much but, none-the-less I like to go into my sessions prepared so I would like to have an idea now.  He may use these improvements to keep up his momentum as well and the fact that we have a Solace in the group who can give him more experience may not help.