Fronts - Am I doing it right?

Hey guys!

I've run my first session of AW. We have a hardholder, a battlebabe and an operator. They are all resident in New Jerk, a sprawling hub of decadence (300 inhabitants, want: hunger, disease, reprisals, savagery). The hardholder is a commander of an old fort full of savage warriors, and the hardhold just kind of grew  around that fort and the protection it offers. The operator and battlebabe are pretty much loyal to him.

I have some fronts I'm considering, but I'm not totally sure about them. Take a look:

Splitting New Jerk (Decay? Ambition? Ignorance?)
Threats: Two Moon's cult of peace and water, and the savage dog worshippers.
Dark future: People pledges loyalty to either of both groups, and tension rises until an all out war breaks out in New Jerk. Two Moon's cult fortifies in the only water supply, the dog worshippers goes amok and brings ruin to the hardhold.

Postapoc California power balance (Ambition)
Threats: A Warlord, several smaller hardholds.
Agenda: Unite the smaller hardholds and throw off the tyrrany of New Jerk, who raids/taxes the area. The influx of barter and commerce ends, and people are killed in skirmishes.

Famine (Hunger)
Threats: Raiders, drought, collapsed trade routs.
Dark future: The swelling population of New Jerk starves.

My questions:
1) You can't really beat Famine. Hunger it will always be a Want as long as New Jerk is so big. Is that a problem?
Perhaps I should rewrite it into "The famine of year X", have it be a beatable challenge.

2) When a fronts doesn't really threaten anything except the characters power and influence, is that a problem?

3) I don't really have any good NPCs to make clear stakes for these fronts. Does that mean I should stay in "first session-mode," exploring the characters, introducing NPCs? We didn't have as much time for that as I'd liked, maybe. I did like, zero prep. Just a little imagery daydreaming.

4) The regional front is basically a PCs vs Warlord thingie. Is that a problem? Can entire hardholds be threats?
 
Also, I'd like to know what it takes for an hardholder to improve on his hardhold. Does the hardholder have to buy bustling market if his hardhold is to have one, or can that happen through play? Or are you required to both reach it in play and solidify it with an improvement?

Thanks!

Hey Arvid,

   I don't have any experience running yet, just a little bit playing, but I'll throw out a couple of thoughts and then hopefully some more experienced folks will jump in and help out more :)

First off, the "My First Fronts" thread by NilsH, and Glendower's new thread (not the Hatchet City one, can't remember the name right now) have some discussion and examples of fronts that you might find helpful. And there's more scattered throughout the AP posts.

As for not being able to beat 'Famine', you could a) make it seasonal as you've said, b) accept that it's unbeatable, that's just a feature of New Jerk, or c) dream up some possibility (or be open to possibilities suggested by the players) for ways of finding more food (eating people? discovering an underground hydroponic farm? Migrating as a huge mass to the fabled valley of plenty? Who knows?) The nice thing about C) is that you can then tie that possible solution into another threat (people don't liek being eaten and fight back, the hydroponic farm has a strange fungus that poisons you, the current residents of the valley of plenty don't want a bunch of starving savages moving in, et cetera).

Oh, and on the hardholder thing, there's a place in the rules (I'm sorry, I don't have a page reference for you right now) that says that it's kind of both. It might be in the stuff and crap chapter. Basically, if a player does something in fiction that represents a mechanically significant advance, he gets it (like bolting a machine gun on to his car, or scavenging new fortifications for his hardhold and making it tall and mighty). Or if he buys the advance that would make his hardhold tall and mighty, you go 'okay, guess he dug up some fortification material'. To be fair, though, if that stuff gets taken away in fiction, it's gone.

Hope that helps!

Thanks, Jeff!

Oh, and in the very end, you touched on something I'm trying to work through as well! When can I let the players lose stuff?

There is a great piece of advice in the book that says "Don't take away the stuff that makes the PCs cool". Seeing as the hardholder is all about the hardhold, is the hardhold immune to degradation and decay? At what point does the hardhold player feel I've taken his hardhold away? Myself, I feel it should be okay to kill off half is population or smash his market, as long as it doesn't make him feel resigned or cheated on, but rather fired up to get it back.

A relevant question, seeing as my fronts are rather threats to New Jerk than to the players, but hell, they've digged in deep there.

Furthermore:
What happens if the driver loses his car?
What happens if the hardhold loses something the player bought through improvements? Should they be garantueed to have it back eventually?

.Or if he buys the advance that would make his hardhold tall and mighty, you go 'okay, guess he dug up some fortification material'. To be fair, though, if that stuff gets taken away in fiction, it's gone.

So what you're saying is, just because a player payed for it, it doesn't mean he can't lose it?

Yeah, I agree that the 'taking away stuff' issue can be a bit difficult, but it *is* one of the core MC moves (take away their stuff).

And I've been thinking a lot about the not taking away the thing that makes a character cool issue as well. I think that with that, certainly, nothing is *immune* to degradation, decay, et cetera. I think that is just an injunction to think about *why* you're taking stuff away in the first place, which should always be to serve the principles (make AW seem real, and make their lives not boring). So, if taking away even something cool would seem real and not boring, then yeah, that's what you do. On the other hand, don't exercise your ability to take things away just to do it. With the hardholder, his life would be pretty boring if you don't screw with his hardhold (I'm playing one right now, and my MC frequents these forums, so I may regret this :) ).

By choosing a hardholder character type, a player is saying "dealing with the issues of being a leader with an external powerbase is interesting to me". Now, sure, part of it is probably "it would be cool to have a gang and wealth and do stuff with that" but hopefully it also includes "I realize that shit's gonna happen to my gang, people are gonna challenge my rule, and most of the problems that affect everyone as a group are going to affect me as an individual double so".

I'm getting a little philosophical, but my main point is that the "don't take away what makes them cool" isn't an invincible decree, it's a reminder to make sure your decisions are based on what's most interesting and least boring. So, if you have spent a campaign working up a character's lucky rifle and how central that is to his identity, it better be a damn meaningful and cool event if he loses that rifle - it should just get run over by a truck because he flubbed an act under fire roll.

Which brings me back to one of the most important things about when it's "okay" to take stuff away. The rules tell you this when they say to "make as hard and direct a move as you like". It still has to follow from the fiction, but if circumstances warrant stuff getting taken away and somebody, say, fails an important roll, well you certainly can lay waste to important things - that's your permission. So, it'd be pretty damn hard and direct to say "hey, half your hold is dead!" so you probably don't want to do that when you haven't been setting that up with other moves.

As for taking away advances that characters have bought, my gut feeling is that those should be a little bit safer, but not invincible. Like with what I was saying about hardholders and so forth above, investing advances into an external thing that can be taken away, rather than a move, is saying at the same time "I think this thing is cool and want it to be part of my character" but it's also saying "I fully accept problems associated with this item, and will find them compelling, since its important to me".

All of the above is 100% my personal take on things, so take with as much salt as you find appropriate.

For the 'Famine' Front I think you just need to make sure that it has specific, concrete threats and (also) a specific, concrete Dark Future. There's some result that is going to happen if the PCs do not deal with the Famine -- that's what makes it a Front, a thing that advances on the PCs until they are well and truly fucked. So the general principle of famine probably doesn't get you very far, but a specific famine (like you said, the Famine of 1902 or whatever) affecting their hardhold or surrounding hardholds definitely does -- it's going to threaten them, it's going to screw with their lives, etc.

On the other hand, the 'power balance' Front feels pretty wishy-washy to me, though again that could be rescued by some nice, concrete Threats. Buuuuut, even if you can rescue it, you yourself have pointed out that all of your Fronts seem very hardhold-level in terms of scope -- none moreso than that one.

This isn't a problem for any individual Front (a hardhold can totally be a Threat, though more accurately it is the NPCs who are a member of the hold that are the actual threats, unless you make it like a Landscape or something) -- but in terms of the overall set of situations I would suggest trying to have at least one Front that operates on a smaller, more personal scope -- it might result in much more fruitful interactions between your Fronts, and also not make it seem like the Hardhold is the Absolutely Only Thing Worth Worrying About. A grotesque or a scary landscape or a family or social group that spans multiple hardholds -- something that will provide the PCs with opportunities that go beyond just 'maintain the status quo, maintain the status quo' -- and will really shake things up regardless of whether the PCs succeed in dealing with it.

Great feedback, guys! What do you think about these fronts?

The Ambition Front
Agenda/dark future: The people of New Jerk and the vassal hardholds starts to abandon their ruthless hardholder, in the wake of this violence and conflict breaks out, the establishment (PCs), their friends and pretty much anyone suffers for it.
Threats:
- Rolfball and his sybarite bikers, raiding the hardholds, in effect stealing what New Jerk wishes to take in taxes, and leaving hardholds frustrated with the lack of protection from New Jerk.
- A warlord seeking to unite the smaller hardholds against New Jerk
- Rustbelt, the Hardhold
- Mudkips, the Hardhold
- Sunken City, the Hardhold
- Two Moon and The Peacewater Cult, spreading the message that regime is corrupt and heading towards its own destruction.
Stakes: Will Rustbelt go to war against New Jerk? Who will find solace in the Peacewater Cult?

The Decay Front
Agenda/dark future: The people of the region fall into savagery, rejecting humanity for pleasure, savage strength and plunder.
Threats:
- The Pit, an evolutionary fucked-up breeding ground for wild dogs that fight, fuck and eat. When there's nothing to eat, they swarm the land, threatening travellers and supply routes, the weak strings that still hold a remnant of civilization together.
- An affliction, way of the hyena. The soldiers of New Jerk are savage men and women, with an unhealthy fascination for hyenas. Some of them, and some of the inhabitants have started going to The Pit to fight and eat (and fuck?) with the wild dogs.
- A grotesque mutant, a dog breeder/worshipper.
Stakes: Who joins the pack mindset? Who suffers for it? Who leaves town for it? Is this or that destroyed?

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I've saved the Hunger front til later, I think the hardholder player could get pissy if I started picking apart his hardhold right away. The players have made clear though, that they're interested in putting down rebellion and fighting the cult, so they should both be in there. Does it make sense to put them in the same front, to you?

I feel that I need to introduce more NPCs before I set stakes and make countdowns.

Yes, I suppose it makes more sense to group fronts according to fundamental scarcity and agenda, rather than according to geographics and organisations.

How about taking one of the hardholds that is a Threat from the first Front and instead/also making them a Threat in the second -- a hold that has already somehow given in to decay/savagery/hyena worship? I mostly suggest this because you have like three hardholds in the first Front, and also because I think Threat crossovers are awesome.

How about taking one of the hardholds that is a Threat from the first Front and instead/also making them a Threat in the second -- a hold that has already somehow given in to decay/savagery/hyena worship? I mostly suggest this because you have like three hardholds in the first Front, and also because I think Threat crossovers are awesome.

Yeah! I think that'll be a countdown thingie!

At first I thought crossing fronts were a problem, but now I think it's a pretty good idea - Like, how the decay of the hyena worshippers can provoke the Peacewater cult into action, or somesuch.

I know you're backgrounding the famine right now, but it resonated with me as a policy wonk...

When thinking of the Famine as a threat (or component threats, or whatever), it might be interesting to keep in mind that, in the real world, famines simply *aren't* the result of brute food scarcity, they're results of problems in food *distribution* (see, e.g., Amartya Sen's work on why democracies don't have famines).  You might have a sci-fi situation where you've literally ended up with a population too large to support on any use of the land available, but I think that's the most boring scenario (for all the reasons you implied).  A famine that's the result of not being able to get food from point A to point B, or people not feeling secure enough to farm their land, or a leader forcing folks to devote resources elsewhere, or people selfishly hoarding - it's a lot more nuanced, and gives more leverage for meaningful PC agency.

- Daniel

I know you're backgrounding the famine right now, but it resonated with me as a policy wonk...

When thinking of the Famine as a threat (or component threats, or whatever), it might be interesting to keep in mind that, in the real world, famines simply *aren't* the result of brute food scarcity, they're results of problems in food *distribution* (see, e.g., Amartya Sen's work on why democracies don't have famines).  You might have a sci-fi situation where you've literally ended up with a population too large to support on any use of the land available, but I think that's the most boring scenario (for all the reasons you implied).  A famine that's the result of not being able to get food from point A to point B, or people not feeling secure enough to farm their land, or a leader forcing folks to devote resources elsewhere, or people selfishly hoarding - it's a lot more nuanced, and gives more leverage for meaningful PC agency.

- Daniel

+1

I agree completely.