Hello all,

I've been running and playing in forum play of AW and its hacks for a couple years now. In my experience it's the best suited for online forum play, in mart due to the limited number of rolls required and how important each roll is (plus the fact that there's little back and forth in combat... nobody's rolling initiative, damage, etc) And how well-crafted narration really makes the game, as Munin described.

Love it!

That's a nice solution. I've had a couple child characters and it's always an awkward piece of the game system. I tried to make an if someone plays a game with you variant but that didn't go over well with the group.

When does this happen Tiresias? Let us know how it goes.

I think the heart of making the world seem real has two parts:

1) Crazy things just need to be consistent and follow some sort of understandable rule, no matter how far out there they get (And they get really far out there in AW sometimes, but don't have to).

But much more important:
2) Characters behave and feel real. Make real choices for real reasons.

The movie Promethius is a perfect example of this gone wrong. You can argue about the aliens and their motivations and technology in this movie, but what is totally broken in it is the baffling behavior of the characters. Nothing will explain why the characters in that film make the choices they do. It simply doesn't feel like real human behavior.

Tiresias.

Good luck! It's awesome that you're going to run. I've played with lin_fusan and he gives good advice.

My first AW game I ran was at a con, and I played in another MC's first experience running earlier at the same con, so I have some experience in the matter. Some of it is good practices in general for Apocalypse World, some is convention specific.

In my case, i put together a scenario for the con, providing "love letters" to each PC as a way to get the action rolling and provide both an immediate threat, and a goal for the session. You don't need a scenario in mind, and in either case I think it's best to know what the situation is, but not how the PC's might solve it. My scenario basically outlined a number of dangers (threats) to the PC's, but offered no solutions, the PC's had to figure that out.

Put the PC's in positions of authority, you don't want them asking an NPC what to do.

Don't forget the apocalyptica, describe the world and make it dangerous and threatening.

Work with PC's and a handful of cool NPC's who connect to them, a rival, a lover, a gang, a thief, a liar. You don't want to be too subtle here, NPC's have simple motivations and go all out for them at times. (But keep them real)

Players in apocalypse world typically WANT things to be super harsh, you provide incredible hardship and hope that the characters can overcome it. You're on the PC's side here, but you need to seriously challenge and yes, fuck with them. But also applaud their success and let their triumphs mean something lasting.

Focus inward. The PC's should deal mostly with people close to them. There's likely some external threat, but really you want the relationships to be intense and personal.

Explain that the game, and the playbooks include sex moves before play starts, some of them might be uncomfortable with them. I usually mention this at the end of character creation. Make it clear that the game shouldn't get explicit, but sex can happen (Though in my experience it doesn't happen that much at conventions, maybe it's the time limit or a comfort level thing)

Creating characters will take up to 45 minute to an hour, keep that in mind.

My scenario I've run several times is "Iron Road" about using a steam train to try and leave a doomed town (holding, as they call them in apocalypse world) and about who controls the train, who gets on, who gets left behind. The players play the engineer (Savvyhead) and those around her. But the details are quite flexible.

If you're interested in seeing the materials I use, i can send you some. Just let me know.

When y'all are thinking about stuff before session 1... building your aesthetic, as it says... How far do you go? For instance, if you thought I Am Legend was cool and had this vision of a holding barricaded in at night to keep the monsters out... Is that something you might try to work in? It doesn't really seem like the kind of thing that might otherwise come up, but I've never run a game, so I don't know. Is it going too far?

Now, the setting will come from somewhere... from one or more players, it can just as well be from you. If you have a strong aesthetic in mind, I say go for it, but don't write in in stone, let it flex a bit and don't force it if nobody seems to like it. Players will add nuance you hadn't thought of and bring the thing to life, you'll say "Hey, I want a dark world where monsters come out at night" and someone will say, "yeah like they get in your head and you come wandering out of the dark all possessed and shit!" Yeah... cool. Why not, take one thing and go forward from there.

Also, how much authorial control of the world do you folks hand over to the players after session 1? The example in the book is asking the players "Where DO you get your food?" And, to me, it seems clear that during session 1, the players are intended to have wide latitude with world details well outside their characters. After that, do you reign it in some, or still take a lot of opportunities to hand world-creation back to the group? If it depends, what kinds of things do you weigh?

I generally hand over setting decisions to the players when I ask, other than that they may add to the narrative but shouldn't feel like they have broad brush powers to declare thing about anything not directly in their character's control. But on occasion I will specifically prompt a player for input into something which normally would be out of their character's realm. Like, "so you deal with the Wetlanders all the time right? You know that crazy tree with all the lights up in the branches? What do you think that thing is for?" Often I phrase it like that even so... asking what their character thinks about something, not necessarily asking what it is. Lets the player contribute without setting all in stone.

I don't really imagine these questions have "right" answers. I'm just looking to see how other folks have done it or think about it. Thanks!

Yeah, no such thing as right answers, this is just how I usually do it in my games.

Super good work on the game, Sean. So much shit waiting to happen, really good work. I'm curious to hear how these evolve over the course of the campaign, I find threats and fronts change a lot as important people die and are introduced and the secret "I wonder" items turn into "I know" items and alter the world.

Vicki is very interesting, the threat of blasting the entrances to seal the mall is compelling (Though can't you just go out the emergency exit or something?) The threat of restricted access is cool, pair that with something the PC's would truly miss on one side of the door or the other.

If anything on the custom moves, i would like to see some benefit to the PC's for hitting 10+, rather than that meaning essentially nothing happens.

How long have your sessions been? Seems like a great deal of content for early in the game.

I love the names... well.. I loved them. I've played in a number of AW campaigns now, and the same names always popping up serve to confuse the hell out of me. At times, though, they add a certain level of humor or a shared consciousness "There's always a Dremmer" but often i get mixed up between ongoing campaigns. It's more of a problem with the NPC's than the PC's generally, but in at least three games now I've had a Savvyhead named Spector, and nearly every Angel ever has been named Gabe.

And let's not mention the many troubles of Specialist Tammy Jackson.