1st Session Playtest

Hi All

we played our 1st session tonight. 4 players + MC. Had great fun.
Character generation took a bit longer than I expected, 60 mins including building a relationship map for all the treasures, accommodations, etc. However much quicker than my recent PbA experiences, which is a refreshing change of pace.
Initial situation generation was great, had priestess on a barge summoning a gibbering, franken-zombie cluster of human limbs while her acolytes threw javelins at the PCs on shore under a bridge.
Didn't leave long enough for the end of session as it is more involved than other PbA games with treasures etc.

Questions/Issues
1. In char gen it says pick one of 8 skills but only 7 are described there (warfare is missing)
2. Is it possible to help on a saving throw?
3. Am I correct that you cannot communicate with a ghost/spirit if you don't take necromancy - does this mean you can or can't have a guardian/advisor without necromancy or is it sufficient to assume the ghost will help when it can for the non-question-oriented abilities?
4. We were confused by the help rules under "Demand Something" - does this mean that only 1 character can roll or should both roll? If only 1 roll, then should it really say you cannot help?
5. Can you mark experience for Establish and Improve an estate when you only establish it? (Maybe better to use Establish _or_ Improve?)
6. Some hesitation around timeframes for Recover, Regroup & Prepare - seems to incorporate a bit of Read a Sitch which implies short time-frames but most options seem to imply longer and hence hard in fiction to choose more than one option in a short timeframe use.
7. Players felt a bit more time on worldbuilding would give them better context, maybe a longer intro paragraph than the current one on p1? (I was happy to just go)
8. Really would like name list(s) - eg people, places, cults/organisations
9. Would like some MC prompts/lists for describing magical items when examining treasure
10. Would like a MC move list to act as prompts for what happens on a miss
11. Is the idea to start with a new opening situation every time we play? (we still have a lot of mileage flowing from the 1st one!)

Looking forward to playing again

rgds
rob

Great writeup.

I can answer a couple of these:

Questions/Issues
1. In char gen it says pick one of 8 skills but only 7 are described there (warfare is missing)
6. Some hesitation around timeframes for Recover, Regroup & Prepare - seems to incorporate a bit of Read a Sitch which implies short time-frames but most options seem to imply longer and hence hard in fiction to choose more than one option in a short timeframe use.
11. Is the idea to start with a new opening situation every time we play? (we still have a lot of mileage flowing from the 1st one!)

1. I suspect Warfare is listed there by accident. It does appear later, in the "Skills" section. (Also, you are supposed to choose *two* skills, not just one.)
6. We had a bit of a discussion about this over here: http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=7471.0
11. Vincent has said that you only do this in the first session. ("You can use the random situation tables whenever you want to, but you shouldn't use them every session, no.") After that, it's up to the players to chase the Experiences they're interested in - it seems like the intent is for that, in particular, to be driving play.

Cheers!

Thanks, Rob!

1. Yeah I pulled warfare from the character creation list. I may put it back.

2. At the GM's discretion.

3. You can start with a ghost without necromancy. You can in principle make a deal with a ghost during play without having necromancy, but it may not be possible practically. There are rules for communicating with ghosts and vice versa hiding in the section about when you're killed.

4. Hm, yes. Only you roll.

5. Nope. Mark experience for establishing and improving it when you've improved it.

6. If all the player wants to do is read a sitch, use sizing someone up instead. It works fine on non-people.

7-10. Gotcha.

11. Go with the mileage! From here on, follow the characters. You can come back to the opening situation charts in the future if you need to, but it's quite possible that you never will.

-Vincent