First AW session bursts into flames...

     Recently I purchased AW, and hosted my first game last night... Didn't end well, unfortunately i think I must be doing a plethora of things wrong, I was wondering if anyone knows of a good play-by-email service or if anyone would like to start a game. I think with some more experience as a player i could more effectively MC an Apocalypse World game. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.

If you could be more specific about the problems you felt like you were having, it'd be easier to help you.

Generally, my advice is to follow what Vincent says in the book verbatim, step-by-step and as explicitly as possible. Those principles, agenda, always say and moves aren't suggestions, they're rules. John Harper has some great things to say about custom moves and hard moves on his blog that might be helpful too.

Did you follow everyone around? Did you use the work-sheet? Did you leap forward with named human characters?

Pages 125-133 are absolute gold. Read them and follow through with what's written there.

At Snail's Pace we are playing a couple of games of AW right now.  It might help you to read through how we're doing them and if you have questions, you could ask in the OOC threads.  I MC The Island and am one of the players in The Hulk.

G'day Zeke,
What Nathan says! Really. Follow those RULES. They make the game work. Also its important to get to know the players MOVES and your MC moves too. These are the reference points in the converstation for the mechanics to take effect. Read the Rules Snowball example over and over. The game flows. Just like that. Print the moves and principles and agenda stuff off and have it handy to refer to during play.

Let us know what the specific issues were (as you saw them) and I'm sure folks will be glad to help. Don't be discouraged! AW is awesome, truely. :)

Thank you guys its good to know there's a lot of helpful folks on a forum for once. I'll give you more details on what happened, honestly after reviewing the rules you guys suggested i review its a bit embarrassing.

There were two players one a driver, the other a gunlugger. They started out at a casino (which was a big mistake in retrospect), playing poker (another mistake I think). I knew there was a bit of pre-plannage but I didn't think it would mess me up as bad as it did. They won a bunch of cash and were invited to a private suite. The driver said he knew the owner, yada-yada-yada, he ends up sending them to hunt down a loan shark hiding in some ruins, (this idea was perpetuated by the driver he said something like 'hey casino owner remember that loan shark? I think we can take care of him for you.') so the casino owner sent them off to the ruins.

They killed a couple of cannibals on the way and we ended up getting into an argument about whether or not a post apocalyptic car would have headlights or not. And the group pretty much decided it wasn't going well... If you want more specifics let me know.
Thank you all very much i do need to follow the rules more closely, and re-read those sections, in retrospect i was taking some liberties with the rules i didn't even realize i was taking. And I've gotta check out snails pace thanks for the suggestion chris.

So... what was not fun?

What caused the problem?

Was it the argument about the headlights? (Because that has nothing to do with the game, or your MCing, as far as I can imagine.)

Second Christophers suggestion. It would be hard to beat Snails Pace for volumes of people running and playing Apocalypse World on a daily basis. Several live games going at once. Run back through one to the start and follow a character or two.

It can be tricky to follow the story, but concentrate on a single character and see what they go through and how.

I'm also happy to offer any advice or help, for what it's worth. I'm all over Snails Pace as well as a player, will probably stand up to run a game there some day.

Paul, i guess i did a pretty poor job explaining lol. I fucked up the mechanics of the game in retrospect, i reviewed the rules snowball type of stuff i think i've got it down better i've got another session tommorrow actually, but i've got to say the backdrop and way your supposed to narrarate the gae was great fun for us.

And octoscott, thanks for the offer maybe i'll send you a pm if i run into another issue instead of pestering the message board about it :p. I have been checking the board out it seems awesome, as well as being a good learning tool. if you ever decide to run a game over there let me know i'd be more than intersted

What players had a good time? What players had a bad time? What were the players who had a bad time's complaints? (Include yourself in the list of 'the players')

My assumptions would be that:
A) Preplanning sunk your battleship, for it is a vicious hidden monster. Its not obvious how it tends to fuck things up, but its fairly likely to put Players in a place where they feel like they should be doing something but they don't care about doing about it because the circumstances to get them moving were contrived.

B) Its possible that you guys didn't like the lack of predetermined setting details within Apocalypse World. You could probably either I) Ask your group to work with improvised setting details("Does your car have headlights Driver? Either way is cool") or II) Make up a lot of predetermined setting details yourself beforehand (I would rarely do the second option. Too little work for pay off.).

I usually take people's willingness to get into probability conversations about minor setting details as either attempts to get attention or as jockeying for nerd cred, and either discourage players from doing so or discourage myself from playing with those players.

I appreciate the advice seanbot everything you assumed was pretty much correct, the kid arguing with me is infamous for wanting the 'nerd cred' as you so elegantly put it. I ran a few DnD campaigns with him last year and the DM's guide gives good advice with dealing with in game arguements, but this kid ruined a couple sessions over it. Problem is where i live there's only a small handfull of people that play RPG's so beggar's can't be chooser's i guess. But we're taking another shot at it here soon i have a good feeling it will work out alot better this time.

     Recently I purchased AW, and hosted my first game last night... Didn't end well, unfortunately i think I must be doing a plethora of things wrong, I was wondering if anyone knows of a good play-by-email service or if anyone would like to start a game. I think with some more experience as a player i could more effectively MC an Apocalypse World game. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.

Our first attempt was rough too. Now the game rocks.

I want to focus on this:

The driver said he knew the owner, yada-yada-yada,

The Driver said he knows the owner. Then, what did you say?

I asked him how he knew the owner and he said through frequenting his gambling establishment over a period of years. So I played it off like they were old buddies (although the owner is somewhat more businesslike about the relationship) the owner came to meet with the driver about his business propisition. Just ask if that's not what you were asking.

I just think when a player reaches out and owns a piece of the scenery like that, it's a great hook and a good time to start asking lots of questions. The more info you have the more you can put your bloody fingerprints all over. So if the owner doesn't have a name he gets one immediately. "How do you know Cornflakes.""What's the relationship like?" "His enforcer, Gams, what does he think of you?" "You come here how often?" "People know to expect you here regular then." "Whose chips are you playing with today, yours or Cornflake's" etc...

That's good advice, it seems to me the major thing I was doing wrong was not taking advantage of and fully using the rules/suggestions available in the book hopefully my next session goes much better, with all the good advice I'm sure it will

Thanks Ya'll