So, with only some Google Wave play under my belt, my first in-person session of AW was as MC with two friends of mine with zero indie/story game/whatever experience (though our D&D was so drifted that it was pretty story-oriented).
At any rate, we begin play with Maji the Hocus, leader of a messianic water cult whose story is that he was cured of his blindness in a waterfall by the great water/storm spirit Marono, and with Sanjay the Angel, a wiry doctor with an appetite for knowledge who dislikes violence but acts with ruthless efficiency when it's necessary.
First off, I quickly discovered that having an Angel and Hocus wasn't necessarily the most situation-grabby combination possible, but we got some really good relationships and potential complications going, especially since Maji's player has decided that while he's pretty sincere and well meaning in his preaching, he also uses his position to sleep with his followers (and really pretty much any other women he can get his hands on). His followers move established that he suffered from desertion and growth at the same time, so I decided that one of his followers left angrily with his wife who had been sleeping with Maji, and meanwhile one of the Hardholder's simpler gang members pledged his belief and received the baptism. I can see both causing issues later on, but I really want to draw the Angel into them too.
Meanwhile, a band of gypsies who are all 'concealed gender' (flowy robes, goggles, masks, et cetera) have come into town to trade in their winnebagos and trailers and camels and what not, and Sanjay hears that medical supplies are part of their wares. When he goes to look into this, he flubs a "read a situation" roll, and his decision to make it a 'charged situation' informs my decisions on how to treat their relationship, and since he fails it hard (snake eyes, actually), I make the gypsies very off-putting and decide they've already sold their medical goods to the local hard holder, and they drive a hard bargain on the busted electric razor he eventually does decide to buy.
I get my chance to set up my first PC-NPC-PC triangle when Maji decides he wants to screw Millions, the hot young mechanic (and girlfriend of Barker, the gang leader), whilst Sanjay wants her to fix his newly acquired tech (the razor). I plan on strengthening the ties/conflicts of interest there, obviously, but it looks like it's shaping up into a delightfully unstable situation.
Sanjay goes to see the hardholder about the medical supplies, since he's on pretty good terms with the powers that be and is "the town doc". The hardholder reveals that he has a plan to use the medical supplies as leverage against the warlord to whom he has to pay tribute, and whose men have come down with a mysterious disease. He wants Sanjay to go with some of the gang to use the medicine (antibiotics) as a bargaining chip to alter the balance of power. The hocus wants to go along to proselytize and also to get some parts for Millions to make a sweet custom bike for Barker (definitely future badness in that set up). In order to secure the cooperation of the gypsies in getting some of these parts, he attempted to manipulate one into joining his faith, and the "concrete assurance" required turned out to be a miracle, as he's advertised his ability to find water.
This gave us the chance to flex the augury move, and described a pretty cool and muddy group ritual (his followers disdain fashion and hygiene) that went off great, and with some fairly loose interpretation of the augury choices, we determined that he located a large source of water well outside of town, where he plans to perform a cleansing miracle tomorrow.
At this point, it was about 5 in the morning and I was fading fast and having trouble keeping up with what was going on, so we called the session. Overall I felt it went pretty well, though at times it seemed "flat" and like I wasn't making the MC moves and principles pop the way they should. The players also weren't very aggressive about getting into move-doing situations (probably mostly my fault). And no violence! We need to fix that pretty quick next time we play. They seemed to be pretty into their characters and seemed enthusiastic about playing again (it's gonna be sporadic, unfortunately, they live about 5 hours away). Oh, and my funny voice abilities are definitely rusty. Everyone came off with a strange southern accent that wasn't quite right in most cases. Ah well.
I think with some front/threat prep a lot of stuff will come together for how to treat the next session and make it "pop" a little more.