Hi,
So, we're three sessions into my first proper length AW game, and I thought I'd put together some sort of AP, because people have been asking for it, and to help me prep for session four tomorrow.
The setting is a rocky desert and we're centred on the Hardhold known as sleep, a series of caves cut into the rock of a canyon with a river running through it. At times the river is barely a trickle of water, at others it's a torrent flooding the lower caves and driving people from their homes. It's a bustling, busy, place and a focal point for trade. The town is called Sleep.
The place to be seen in Sleep is The Sapphire, offering luxury food, music and the purest water brought in special from a spring upstream. It's owned by Cinnamon, a tall man, dressed immaculately in flowing whites.
If you want something done in Sleep, the guy to go to is Sway. He's running deliveries, or brokering deals, or looking for answers about what really goes on up river.
Then there's Borroughs, not somebody you go to unless you're really desperate. They say he can see your thoughts and put ideas in your head.
Finally, during the last heavy rains the river rose higher than it ever had when the floods cleared there was a gleaming metal capsule a mile down river. The first guy to touch it was burned to a crisp. There hasn't been a second guy. From this capsule emerged Specialist Jackson, Twylla B.
So, three sessions in and the group has gelled into something of a team. Quarantine (no one remembers her name) has proven to be an effective one woman army with that assault rifle, fighting off a biker gang with a grudge against Sway. We've discovered the Saffron's (the Cinnamon's singer) best asset really is her singing voice (with a side order of maelstrom crazy). Borroughs has been carrying around the severed head of someone's boyfriend. (Dead when he found him, killed in something called a water purification plant.) Cinnamon has accidentally poisoned one powerful guest, while the intended target, Mercer, the hardholder of sleep lives to see another day.
The setting is really evocative, and we've discovered the characters through lots of extended interaction and mutual read a person.
We were missing our Brainer for session two, so at the start of session three I asked if there was anything in particular that he did during the time. In our couple of scene aside we had him going up river, finding a body and returning to the Sapphire just as things were getting interesting carrying a severed head. That worked very nicely.
I've been crazy busy so I haven't really managed to properly prep fronts, but even unprepared this game works very nicely.
We've been playing very focussed in time. All the events so far have taken place over about a day and half. I'd like to zoom out, but there seems to be a constant stream of stuff that needs to be done right now. I guess that's no big deal, but it makes the Operator gigs sort of strange as there doesn't seem to be enough time for all these gigs to be happening in.
On a related note, I still find it difficult to bring barter, resources and scarcity into play.
Lots of fun.
Adam.