Apocalypse World with 11 players

So I'm starting this campaign in two days. I'm blessed to live in a city with a large roleplayer community and I'm sick of only playing AW as one shots. The longest campaign I played in was 8 sessions long and pretty much burned out because the MC was too uptempo. I hope this campaign will have the normal life cycle of X sessions till the players have outgrown their world. My musings this far:

Practical:
-No more than 5 players per session, even that might be a bit much.
-One scheduled session per week and others thrown in when there is time and interest.
-A co-MC so it doesn't die if I'm too busy.

Fictional:
-Heavy handed Maelstrom and background stuff. 11 players with different visions might spread the image too thin to make it feel real.
-A big map, maybe 1000 km across, so characters can be off doing stuff when they are not in play. I imagine 1 missed session won't be enough to warrant a love letter, at least not a long one.
-Long stretches of in game time, a slow world speckled with times of war. This is probably the biggest challenge. I imagine the seasons will be very different to make players feel the passage of time, the Driver uses roads in the summer and frozen lakes in the winter. The Hardholders wealth in the winter is not about how well he harvest went but how well guarded the magazines have been.
-Make them buy, I hope people see how insane Moonlighting is. A cool cat can make 5-barter between scenes. Also I hope for a Savvyhead that thinks big.

Anyone want to share their wisdom on this? It need not be from Apocalypse World, any game will do. I'll be using all the extra playbooks except the Touchstone which seemed a bit unfininshed, how is it doing now?

Also, what's your experience with players who only take part in one session mid campaign? I have 11 players now but there is nothing saying there won't be 15 when summer ends. Some are my close friends and a few I don't know at all, some are seasoned roleplayers and some a completely green. Those unfamiliar with Apocalypse World have mostly played stuff like Solar System. Also some players will probably show up every week while a few only show up every other month, anyone have tricks for engaging them aside from loveletters? Does XP difference ever bother anyone in game? I figure the PCs are strong to start with and even a completely green character could help/fuck up 30 XP ones.

I have 11 players now but there is nothing saying there won't be 15 when summer ends.
Yowza, that's a lot of players; I'm glad you are planning for some to rotate in and out. Here's how I'd handle it:
-Everybody make the 1st session, and plan for it to be along one. Character creation, maps, and a Day In The Life scene for each PC, so everybody gets a sense of who's who.
-Make a relationship map that shows all the PC relationships plus NPCs as they appear. Do this in public, to start, and use bigger sticky notes. This will encourage your PCs to be connected to other PCs right off the bat, which makes finding triangles in private easier later.
-Leave room for those possible later PCs. If all the playbooks get used, you're full up until a PC dies or a player bows out. There can be only one Gunlugger, one Brainer, etc. Only way around this I can see is if two people share a role - if I knew Jennifer was able to make every other Friday, and Jake was only able to make the off weeks, and I thought they had a similar sense of things, I might let them share running a PC. Maybe the Angel is a little schizophrenic, or has memory lapses, or whatever. So what.
-Take notes like mad. Figure out who is going to be there most regularly, who also has good note-taking skills, and get them to chronicle the game, so everyone can keep track of what's happening even if they miss a session.

Also, what's your experience with players who only take part in one session mid campaign?
Just dandy. Have them make a PC ahead of time so it doesn't hold up the game (this might could be while you are waiting for the rest of the crew to arrive on game night, so some other players could help with hx and such), and don't sweat it. All the games I've played, there were plenty of reasons PCs would be coming and going. So your cousin is in town for two weeks and wants to play, cool. That PC emerges from the background of the game, and does whatever. When your cousin leaves, the PC fades back into the woodwork. Maybe you reference that PC for a few weeks, maybe put them on the Allies side or add them to a Front or whatever. No problem.

Some are my close friends and a few I don't know at all, some are seasoned roleplayers and some a completely green.
Cool! I think AW is a great game for new players.

Also some players will probably show up every week while a few only show up every other month, anyone have tricks for engaging them aside from loveletters?
Loveletters are the best, but so is reading AP of the games the missed (see "take notes like mad", above). Another good trick is to have the person who has missed the most time have the first scene (or second scene if you left off in the middle of something), and lead off with asking some questions about what they have been up to, where they are, who's around them, etc.

Does XP difference ever bother anyone in game? I figure the PCs are strong to start with and even a completely green character could help/fuck up 30 XP ones.
Exactly. If one of the players is rolling way more than other players, and therefore advancing faster, it's more an issue of getting better screen-time balance so everyone's rolling about the same.

What are you going to do if seven players show up?

Again with the "here's what I'd do"! I'd make at least a couple of them team up, figure out a close pair of PCs who are generally in the same place at the same time, to cut down on the number of groups/PCs I needed to jump between. Biggest group I've played in had the MC plus 6.

Good stuff and keep it coming! Especially good with the play reports, I can see people being like "Plunderdome burnt down, whaat? I have to be there next time and take revenge!".

Sticky notes yes! Already got myself a bunch, figure each can have an NPC name and a line about them and when Apocalypse World kills them they'll be torn up and go in a bag, whenever I'm completely lost and tired of the threats in play I'll pull one out and be like "do you remember Dogspit? no? well her children are throwing rocks at you wherever you go these days".

@bug, there is a lightning storm, act under fire or suffer 6-harm (ap).

Srsly though we schedule stuff and if someone doesn't listen I'll use Margolottes advice or have my coMC take some. Hell, if there is sufficient stuff to pull at any player could MC for a couple of people a while without studying the fronts.

This sounds totally awesome.

If I were doing this, I would make each session like an episodic tv show, where the most dramatic, important thing that happens is fully contained in that one session. Sub-plots and side-plots keep going as normal, but this way, if a player can only show up to one session in a long while, they get a full story arc, instead of the tail-end of something other players did the last few sessions, or helping to start something but then not getting to finish it because they can't show up next week.

Srsly though we schedule stuff and if someone doesn't listen I'll use Margolottes advice or have my coMC take some. Hell, if there is sufficient stuff to pull at any player could MC for a couple of people a while without studying the fronts.

Actually, that's a good idea for when you have more than 5 players anyway. Just make it clear up-front that side conversations can't have die roles without the MC having clear understanding and giving the go-ahead. It's a drag to turn from one piece of action and hear "Oh, and we totally killed that guy just now. I rolled a 10." But yes! Occasional quiet side conversation in-character! That helps stave off the feeling that you are just sitting on the couch while other people get to play. And a co-GM who knows what the fronts are to step up and oversee rolls is gravy.

@bug, there is a lightning storm, act under fire or suffer 6-harm (ap).

ok i take a debility.

that's one of the most hilarious things about this system: you have to say "rocks fall, everyone dies" five times to kill them.

I ran with 7 players at Origins, and it went pretty well. We got to figure out how the holding operated just before it was ransacked and destroyed by forces the PCs themselves unleashed (hey, it was a convention game).

My advice is, as always, try to keep players to making two Moves in a row maximum (unless everyone around the table is riveted) to keep game flow going.  Un-MC'ed side scenes are okay as long as the PCs voices don't carry into the MC's main interaction with a PC.  If you group people into factions (or just people with common tasks/ideas/goals) then they have a reason to have scenes together and so forth.  In my opinion, the more PCs, the fewer NPCs overall there ought to be.  You've got a lot of bodies off of which to bounce stories!

With a lot of people - in any RPG - good time and people management skills are your friend.

I would have a website / blog where each player can post their AP, stuff between sessions. It will help to tie things together and give folks a place to go between sessions to catch up.

6 sessions in, AW is cool.

The some cool stuff:

The Skinner Spice made all her in love suitors her followers and chose violence when they have surplus. They've been beating the shit out of each other before but my heart is almost breaking in anticipation of who will die for her love.

Saffron the Maestro'D is one step from being the sole authoritive voice in the holding and since she has more XP than all the other characters combined might switch to the hardholder playbook (current hard = 0).

The Gunlugger Happy met with the saurony figure who's been torturing everyone via the maelstrom and poison beak crows and instead of killing his ass she asked for advice on how to train the worthless militia she is leading.

The Savvyhead Chastity has an augury and it's a pack of lemures.

A quirk of this campaign is that while all players except two (woman and transgressing) are men but all characters excepts two are women.

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Fresh problem: I've found a co-MC but he's only played one session so I'm worried he won't play the NPCs that have had some serious screentime according to how I see them. Is this selfish? Does it turn out OK is the other players tell him what they are like? Should I make a relationship map and explain it all to him? Or solve it by having sessions he run take place in another location where the relationship web isn't completely contained?

Relationship map like crazy, plus make sure your coMC reads any play write-ups and notes, and understands any maps or ephemera. and I would not sweat it *too* much if your coMC runs things a bit different. Folks have days when they don't seem themselves, yeah?  Another option: hand off a couple fronts and a handful of less developed NPCs to your coMC to develop, and just agree to go lightly on the stuff you both have.

Another option: hand off a couple fronts and a handful of less developed NPCs to your coMC to develop, and just agree to go lightly on the stuff you both have.

That's what I'd do. Have them develop some interesting Fronts that co-exist with yours, but are distinct in their cast and threats.