Excellent!

You don't need the whole thing translated, necessarily, by the way. Sometimes just putting up one small chunk of the rules or one playbook can make for some great feedback from readers.

Sounds about right.

Currently, my plan is to just write up each NPC/faction as a threat and then make them menacing/in-your-face enough that the PCs will likely have strong feelings about them. They will have interesting relationships to each other, as well, for a variety of opportunities/options.

I can then feel out the players' interests and focus on the one they seem to gravitate to the most or feel strongest about.

One other issue:

At the end of the last session, a PC sent 5 of the Hocus's followers after the Black Teeth, a small group of mud-covered people (for camouflage) who kidnapped Newton, a star breeder who is currently pregnant, carrying the Hocus's baby (but the baby is promised to Ambergrease).

Sometimes, in situations like these, an obvious dramatic solution comes to mind (basically, an interesting MC move). Here, I'm not sure one does. I'm thinking of writing this up as a Love Letter, to better disclaim responsibility and put it in the players' hands.

How would you write such a letter? How would it be organized?

Oddly enough, a friend suggested much the same thing to me.

I balked a bit at the idea - presenting a Big Bad is just not that exciting to ME, as the MC, so I don't want to go that route. However, some kind of clear opposition might be just the ticket here, no question.

My struggle, I suppose, then, is finding some middle ground between what the game needs in terms of clarity and my own interests as an MC who doesn't want to decide "what the plot is", but, rather, to be surprised by the choices made by the players. Hmmm.

Good stuff, folks. Interesting business!

I played a (very short) second session of this game, which we treated as a "first session, part two" - the "have a fight" part, perhaps. We will save the "start of session" moves for next time, and that kind of thing; it was very much a "in media res" start, right where we left off.

Overall, the game was fun, but it also felt like a lot of work for me as the MC (I really wish I knew more about the characters and what they're into, and the players aren't always good at giving me material to work with), but they seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.

We got a lot done in under two hours, which I think was not something they're used to (but liked). They're hardcore D&D players and have never played a game like this, before, so lots of stuff is new to them. They love the playbooks and how evocative the rules are.

They keep saying they like the system a lot and comparing it to stuff they don't enjoy in D&D, which is interesting! (The usual DM says he gets annoyed sitting there while players look up their spells in their books and try to figure out what to do, for example, and that doesn't happen in this game.)

So, the game was enjoyable in retrospect, but felt a little bit difficult in the moment for me. I think we didn't establish enough connections from the PCs to all the stuff we brainstormed, so we're doing it on the fly. Apocalypse World doesn't help a ton on that front; I'm really missing having Desires or Keys or Beliefs or some other kind of orienting mechanism to work with. In a regular game, a "slow start" gives you time to establish a deeper sense of what life is like and what the characters care about, but here we're trying to move very quickly into the action, and it's proving a little challenging for me. I have to pull in GMing tricks and techniques from other games, and it's interesting to see what works well in AW and what doesn't.

If you use this setup, really emphasize the importance of creating the characters as apart of the NPCs and relationship web you've all invested in during the brainstorm/creation phase.

I got to use my idea of a flashback scene, after all, and it worked quite well. The Angel used his "healing touch" on a dying NPC, and missed the roll. No one has yet opened their brain to the maelstrom, so I asked him what it's usually like for him. He answered that he experiences reveries, or relives memories of the past, and sometimes gets stuck in them. Well, perfect: I told him he was having a nightmarish trip into his memories of his relationship with the Savvyhead, and we played out their Hx moment. I told the Savvyhead's player to play his character as he liked - either true to the "memories", or in some nightmarish, twisted fashion, and he enjoyed that. I got to introduce a scary ghost-figure who will be fun to bring back.

Afterwards, they said: "Cool! That felt like a TV show or a movie!"

So that was good.

I like the idea of a "backloaded prompt"; it seems like a solid technique.

I also find flashback scenes can really enrich my games, though, and can be more engaging for the players. Some careful framing and cutting has always made it work for me!

I wonder if you two have any thoughts on the scenario or ideas for how I might prep for session two? I'd love to borrow your brains for that purpose.

Excellent example, thanks. Very clear! (Except for the switch from Domino to Diamond, which threw me for a second, but no biggie.)

In this particular game, we didn't get much crustal-clear Hx like the example you gave, with the exception of the Savvyhead being in debt to the Angel. However, I can use this same logic to extend many of the other Hx options chosen, until we flesh them out a little more and hit paydirt. I like it!

My current musings:

Is it possible that the satellite fell because of something the PCs did (or were involved in)? If so, what might it be?

The most obvious thing to jump out at me: the Savvyhead's mucking about with time and space in his workspace (and now we're back to that juicy Hx incident again). Could that have caused the fall of the satellite somehow?