Some Game-Starting Moves

My AW game has been a few weeks off, now, so I wrote some starting moves to get everyone back into the swing of things.  I was tempted to preface all this, but I'm more curious to see what they say about the game to people who don't know much, yet.

What do you think?

Dear Kreider - our Lord and Mommy,

Things have been worse, lately, huh?  Everyone is going hungry since Collingwood scared off the traders.  Market’s been slowed down and everyone is taking more and more of those drugs you scrape together in the bowels of the hold just to take the edge off.  Maybe that part, that part ain’t so bad.  Thing is, people get hungry and start causing trouble.  Let’s see how you’ve been handling it…

ROLL + HARD

On a Miss, all this bad stuff.  On a 7-9 pick two.  On a 10+, well, shit, aren’t you just a pillar of the community?  None of this is a problem, yet.  You get a +1 going forward for your start-of-game hardholder roll.

-   Collingwood shot an innocent kid.  The family’s up in arms, screaming for blood.  Collingwood is your boy, though … isn’t he?

-   Looks like the stash is running real low.  Somebody needs to go out into the Dark Place in the Woods and harvest more of that fungus you use.


-   The Hunters are keeping the best of their catch to themselves.  They’re getting stronger and your own little army is getting anemic and sad. 

-   Gnarley and Mercer run the Hunters.  Have a word or two before this all goes downhill.

-   You’ve been getting these real bad-bad dreams about the thing the Maelstrom sent you here to dig up.  Something about that south tunnel – the one you had to stop digging ‘cause the workers were too hungry.  The Maelstrom, she pushes and you wake up sick.  Take 1 harm AP.


Little Batty,

Hey pretty girl, hey sweet thing, hey sharp-as-knives little bitch.  Hunters eyeing you up, calling you names.  Collingwood and his fuckwits all starting shit.  Your creepy pals in the Lodge making everyone right uncomfortable.  Sure are lots of reasons to lose your head, huh?

ROLL + COOL

On a miss, well, someone gets hurt who ought not to get hurt and it’s all your fault, isn’t it?  On a 7-9 pick one bad thing.  On a 10+ you keep your shit together and everybody knows it.  Take +1 forward when you want to threaten someone next, maybe they’re the ones that push you too hard, huh?

-   You got in a bad scrape with some of the Hunters, take 1 harm AP or owe Doctor Li 1 barter.

-   Your big brother, Monk (you remember him don’t you?) got himself hooked on the Holder’s drugs.  He’s on a long, dark path, now. 

-   Amy’s not getting any better.  Half her days are spent chained to her bed, screaming for blood.  What the fuck is with that girl?


Holiest Want,

How’s life up in that palace of yours?  Everybody bows and scrapes and you know just how frail that meat is.  Hear that scraping at the door?  Between the moans of the starving-t0-death?  That’s the Void.  She comes calling.  Who gets fed when the dark is hungry?  All this talk about food, you’re sure to get distracted.  Let’s see what you missed, shall we?

ROLL + SHARP

On a miss, all this happens and you’re none the wiser, sucker.  On a 7-9 only two bad things happen.  On a 10+ you are the master of the Lodge, as it ought to be, and all the Kith in order.  None of this stuff is happening yet and you get +1 to your Fortunes roll to begin the game.

-   Hugo seems … different.  She’s been missing the Prayer Circle a few days now and spends a lot of time among the Hunters and Collingwood’s fellows.

-   Nobody leaves the Kith except into the warm embrace of the Void, right?  Only, that’s what Foster seems keen to do.  Scared little Foster.  Maybe he’s not the brother you thought he was.

-   Princy, trying to impress you, got himself a gun and now he’s fixing to take that shot at Collingwood he never had.  Master gives and order, Servant plays it out, yeah?

"-   The Hunters are keeping the best of their catch to themselves.  They’re getting stronger and your own little army is getting anemic and sad. 

-   Gnarley and Mercer run the Hunters.  Have a word or two before this all goes downhill."

That should all be one move.  Gnarley and Mercer have been established as the leaders of the Hunters.  This is just to remind the Holder of that.

Each outcome might be a little too detailed?

You don't want to give too much away, you want to save something for a surprise after the player picks. Like, take "Collingwood shot a kid." I'd just list that as "Some kid got shot, his family's up in arms." And then when the player picks that one, and they're all like "oh, this is no big deal, I take care of it, easy," THEN you spring that it's Collingwood who shot the kid.

And then the player rolls their eyes, like "oh, shit, anyone but HIM."

Each outcome might be a little too detailed?

You don't want to give too much away, you want to save something for a surprise after the player picks. Like, take "Collingwood shot a kid." I'd just list that as "Some kid got shot, his family's up in arms." And then when the player picks that one, and they're all like "oh, this is no big deal, I take care of it, easy," THEN you spring that it's Collingwood who shot the kid.

And then the player rolls their eyes, like "oh, shit, anyone but HIM."

I was trying to reinstall some ideas about who the NPCs are - I feel like a lot of the first session is going to get lost in the time since we got to play.  you might be right, though.  I'll take another look.

Each outcome might be a little too detailed?

You don't want to give too much away, you want to save something for a surprise after the player picks. Like, take "Collingwood shot a kid." I'd just list that as "Some kid got shot, his family's up in arms." And then when the player picks that one, and they're all like "oh, this is no big deal, I take care of it, easy," THEN you spring that it's Collingwood who shot the kid.

And then the player rolls their eyes, like "oh, shit, anyone but HIM."

This makes me a little uneasy.  The job of the MC is not to trap the players, nor to game them.  it's just to make their lives interesting, and one way of doing that (one of the principles) is to do what honesty demands.  So holding back the truth just to spring it on them seems unneccessarily duplicitous.

If the concern is that one option is worse than others and therefore unlikely to be selected, just make sure all the options seem equally unfortunate.  Then the player gets to pick their poison.

Mostly these answers are things I would make as "moves" on failed rolls. Pitting them against the players as a 7-9 result gives them some time to plan. If I'd said, mid-stream, that Collingwood pops a kid, they wouldn't be able to prioritize. It's a way of making moves in a sort of past-but-not-over tense.