That's cool, for me it's the other way around. For me it's much easier to see how that hive queen, and those enforcers, and that breeding pit are connected, since they're in the same general area, than connecting them through the much more symbolic or abstract scarcities of the first edition.

At least I think so, we'll see when it sees play properly. :)

That sounds like great work, arakn_e! :)

Ok so what I have to improve the game after reading all theses posts:
- Make NPC behaviour simpler: if they want something, they want it now. If they do something, they do it now. If they disagree, they it now.
- ask for clear actions, reasons and motives : and hard move if it's not convincing for the NPC

And always make sure actions are described in the fiction first, and only when those actions match a move do you bring out the dice!

I find, when play and moves are confused or unclear, that it is often helpful to wait with the dice a little longer than I initially want to. To keep moving forward with the dialogue and the actions until the point comes where it is absolutely clear what move we need to roll for. Especially when it comes to judging between going aggro and manipulate, or going aggro and seize by force.

Great to hear it worked so well!

Those last couple of posts are fantastic! Agreed in full.

(Also, treating the maelstrom more strictly will probably play nicely into the topic: "a calmer apocalypse"...)

Oh yes, I agree completely! (About both points!)

Very helpful thoughts, everybody, thanks a lot!

Jonatan, those pieces of advice especially are spot on for me, thanks!

Rubberduck, that sounds like a nice level of fuckery. Thanks for pitching in!

It's been a while since I actually played AW, and I think I've figured out why. While the explosive chaos that the game breeds is fun, I started missing something... calmer, for lack of a better word.

I mean a sense of a more living world, a more functioning society, more stable relations. It can still be full of scarcity and conflict, of course, and apocalyptica, but I long for playing in a world that has some basic stability, which can then be ruptured and brought into crisis, if that's where the game takes us. I just want a change from the gasoline stinking, chainsaw whipping, free-for-all that the game always seems to pull towards.

(Yes, I know there are other games, and I've revisited Solar System for a while, but then I started to miss AW's rules even more! :) )

I can't really see anything in the hard rules that means the world has to burn by the third session, or that your old lieutenants must try to cut your heart out with a chainsaw by the second, but somehow that's what always seems to happen.

One thing I just read, that got me thinking, was a comment about the PCs' gangs and stuff as threats. I've always read that as very real threats against the PCs, and that made playing a leader much less fun for me (turning the hardholder's lieutenants against them is like taking away the driver's cars; fun at some point, but not immediately and constantly, is my feeling). But this comment pointed out that the gang might be a threat against the PCs' enemies, which, strangely, was a new way of thinking to me. But of course, just because they are dangerous and have an agenda doesn't mean that agenda needs to be opposed to the PC's!

Soooo, I wonder if anyone has any more tips on how to think, or thoughts on what makes a game of AW more explosive versus more stable (while still being interesting, but that goes without saying)?

Best,
Simon