(If you're one of my players, sod off, this topic is not for you. Spoilers!)
On Thursday night I ran my first ever game of AW (really I just want to play it, but as the person introducing it, it's my responsibility to run a game so people learn the system).
Our cast ended up as an Angel called Kash (androgynous, and with two androgynous assistants, Shigusa and Mox), a Battlebabe called Ms. Smith (with infinite knives and a silent sniper rifle), and a Hardholder called Patriach. I was glad to have a holder, because that means a reasonably solid setting for my first game, and I have to do slightly less work.
The holding, which went through a few names before we ended up on Scraphold, is a fairly rich place sitting in a dried up riverbed in the middle of some scrubland/scree. It's rich due to a combination of a market commons and a manufactory, which we determined fairly early on is actually a desalination plant, making the purest water for ages. That does mean it has a few pipes to the shore, and a set of pumps in the manufactory, and if that says anything to me it says 'vulnerable spots'.
The game opened with Pat getting only a 7-9 on his Wealth roll, so the guy whose responsibility it was to watch the foodstores, Corbett, came running in to announce that some nasty little bugs had gotten in and eaten everything. Patriach responded by telling Corbett to check if they were edible (since, after all, they were corn-fed...) but when he returned with a mouthful of bug bits and blood it turned out they were not. He also brought the unpleasant news that this kid Tum-Tum (by the way, I love having that list of names on the back of my MC playbook. Love it to bits) had seen the contents of the stores and had run off. Pat growled a bit and sent a couple of gangmembers to restrain the kid.
Meanwhile we cut to Smith wantering through the market when some guy elbowed her in the armoured stomach as he passed. She responded by stabbing him and walking on without a care. Kash just so happened to be there, though, and stabilised the guy and took him back to her infirmary. He came around briefly and was very confused, and then passed out again.
Patriach decided he'd take some water to trade with a town down the coast, Deity, that specialises in algae farming and some fishing. He got about ten gang members to escort him, loaded the truck, and took off.
It took a couple of hours of driving, but they reached Deity and waited around the edges so as not to cause too much of an upset. It didn't take long before Preen, the very old lady who runs Deity, came out to see what they wanted. Pat made the trade of water for algae without too much trouble, although Preen got him to promise to send the Angel their way. When he pressed her about this, it turned out that the Hyenas, a local gang, had come by and damaged a few people recently and they needed patching up (it was originally going to be a plague, and I might still have one be revealed there). He promised, and they left.
Back in the hold, Smith figures hey, the cat's away, and wanders up to Pat's 'Throne room' to see who's hanging about. Turns out it's the movers and shakers of the hold, plus anyone who wants to cozy up to them and a few guards. As soon as Smith walked in, a lady called Lala walked up and demanded to know why the hell she was there. Smith gave her the scary eyes, and she backed off. Smith then proceeded to find Fuse, the sort-of head of the factory workers and tell him she was 'here about that thing,' trying to get him to tell her something interesting. It didn't work at all, and he had a thug show her out.
Of course, that's when Tum-Tum showed up. He started yelling to the crowd about how there was no food, saying the bastards had stolen/eaten it all, etc, etc. The guards dragged him off, bit the damage had been done and we had a riot on our hands. Smith tried to quell it by firing her rifle in the air, but nobody paid any attention except for a guard, who twitched and shot her (fortunately it bounced off her corset, and only knocked her down). The guards seemed uncertain what to do, and Kash came running out from her infirmary. She saw the guards with Tum-Tum, who were not being terribly polite, and she ran over to deal with them. She managed to talk her way past the guards by telling to one of them (a woman rejoicing in the name of Balls) that she'd explain things to Patriach when he returned. She terrified Tum-Tum into silence, and he went back to her infirmary.
Meanwhile, Smith had risen and was ordering the guards to take control of the situation, surrounding the square, guarding the (empty, but she didn't know that) food stores, and getting the whole thing quiet enough that she could calm them down. She was even doing acceptably when Patriach came back with his new food supplies, distributed a bit of it, and shut people up.
I called the session there, so I could think about Fronts and world-building.
Now, a couple of things. Nobody has a Weird of better than -1, so it wasn't that surprising that nobody Opened their Brain. But what surprised me was that nobody ever used Sharp at all, especially our Angel who after all has a lot of Sharp. Possibly I need to mention how useful it is before next session.
Overall there was actually very little dice rolling, and for a group used to D&D that was a fairly significant shift.
Another little question we had during the game, which I still haven't settled, is the question of ownership as it applies to Hardholders. Pat took more water (it's a luxury good) than he could afford with his own barter. But, on the other hand, he didn't use it for personal gain, he used it for the holding. My instinct says that's kosher, but of course some of my NPCs may see it differently. There's nothing in the rules that I can remember to cover it.
I have a couple of little ideas - like, the Hyenas may be raiding to supply their Breeders and Den Mother with food, and there's a sinking city the other way along the coast that's rumoured to be haunted - but nothing very major yet.