Noofy, don't forget that you can also get great stuff by encouraging them to ask EACH OTHER questions, too, especially in the first session:

"So, everyone look to your left and ask that person a question they can answer in one word that isn't yes or no." or something similar. Get them thinking in that mode and they'll be a big help.

Jim, that's gold. So do you have some questions suggestions to write in at the bottom of each Playbook that specifically focus on this concept? I would assume that as a semi-formal step after allocating Hx? I am veering toward generalities, like Love, Hate, Need, Want, Protection, Debt, Scarcity, Violence, Healing etc... But perhaps you have more specific questions in mind that you've got the players to ask one another?

Margolotte - Its almost as if the act of questioning is the genesis for triangles, and a very powerful one at that. Thanks! This will definately focus my technique.

I'm pretty excited (rather than anxious) for the first session now, thanks for all the support everyone, it really has made a huge difference.

I've got all this apocalyptia maelstroming around in my brain, ready to barf forth at our first session in a few days, and whilst nodding along to the really great thread on Love and Kisses (from your MC), I was struck by something Arvid said:

We're from Gothenburg, Sweden, but I feel that the language of Apocalypse World (the game, not the world) cannot be separated from the game as a whole, so all the hand-outs are in english. Apocalypse World (the world, not the game) is just so american.

Which I think is awesome for a bunch of Nordic gamers to dive headlong into Americana!

For me though, I really want to pitch to the player(s) an Australian Centric 'feel' to our AW. Sorta like that montage by Tsunehisa Kimura on the cover of Midnight Oil's Red Sails in the Sunset. I will be scrabbling together (and defacing) tourist maps of Sydney, Melbourne and perhaps even the 'radback' of Alice Springs. I want to push for Character Achetypes from the Proposition, the Piano, Rabbit Proof Fence or Mad Max - which (to me) are distinctly Antipodean in their flavour.

Which brings me to my question. What feel does your AW have? What underlying cultural wreckage clings to its sordid underbelly and gives it strength? What is the bile that binds your Barf?

G'day Again,
Is anyone as excited as me about this game?! Both as a inspirational artefact for AW and a game in its own right. Freaking Awesome!
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/73369/51st-state

Thanks everyone, I feel rather looked after here! (odd for a game about scarcity and inequality).

I really appreciate Judd and Johnstone's advice on developing questions of my own, though my OP was obviously shying away from that. I especially like the idea of 'peeling back the layers' of one topic/subject/keyword. Almost like that annoying kid that asks 'Why?' ad finitum. Brilliant stuff.

On a tangent, have you folks asked a provocative question to another player in order to increase the tension? Is this commonplace? More importantly is it cool?

What I mean is, say someone pushes a move in answer to a provocative MC question. Then the MC asks a deeper question (revolving around the same issue) of another player character, effectively inviting someone else's vision of AW into the mix.

Workable?

Hey thanks Keith & Margolotte!
That's exactly the type of full sentence prompts I was hoping for!
I'm sure once the snowball starts it'll get easier, but these ideas (especially ones related to their character playbook) are great openers.
Cheers!

Feel free to add any more folks.

G'day Gang,
This is my first post after recently aquiring and digesting AW.  As a relative newcomer to the Indie Skool (oh what a releif that was after years of tactical wargaming dressed as drama drek!), and Have been adopting story game principles in all my RP since. Poison'd has been one of my favourites, as has Burning Wheel and In a Wicked Age. All in all I am psyched to run this game!

So, I have the Ist session prep all sorted,  playbooks available as instructed, and blank proformas for the Ist Session, Relationship maps and player ephemera. All good so far. In terms of MC priming, I've read the rules a few times, played out (in my imagination)a few MC moves in response to Player Moves and printed out the Agenda, Always Say and the Principles. These are all very exciting and ingenious means for me to interact with the players and thus the story!

One Principle I am having a little nervousness about (due to its inversion to the traditional paradigm of the players asking the GM lots of questions) is to ask Lots of Provocative Questions. I do understand the power and importance of this Principle in allowing the players to invest in the narrative, focus on what matters to them and provide the the means for difficult choices.

I am, however, often dumbstruck during roleplay without some sort of prompt, asking instead some lame generic 'So what to you think/believe/feel/do?'. So, with this in mind, I printed out the keywords suggested by Mikael in the rules on p.113 onto cards, with an associated picture. The idea being that when I ask a provocative question, I have to include one or more of these keywords into the query.

I have found however, that despite being better than having no prompts, these keywords still leave me a mite tongue-tied and flustered. So until I develop my MC mojo and become the slick provocateur of questioning, I was wondering if anyone had any full question prompts I could appropriate to have in fromt of me for the 1st session as I 'ask questions like crazy'?

This sort of full sentence cue that 'gets below the tip of the iceberg' or hooks 'one of those fish swimming under the water' I would find immensely helpful.
Thanks in Advance,
Noofy