Custom beginning-of-game moves

So there's a couple of threads now of people posting their beginning-of-game writeups, and it highlighted something about them that I like/dislike.

There seems to be some variations of how these are written, and I've come to think that the best have one thing in common: They are more about advancing fiction than mechanical bonuses

In my mind, the letters to the characters are about reintroducing them to the fiction at a run, rather than from a standstill.  It's a way for them to feel like they are drawn in to what is going on, have some stake in the action, have ropes pulling them to and fro. 

So the best are things like: "on a hit, choose 1, 7-9 choose two on a miss all 4 are true" like you see in Hatchet City.  You list things about the narrative: now the player has to decide which of those things (in this case complicating for the character) are true, and it gives them something to deal/react to.  Even the opposite, positive, if you give them fictional ties you give them something to act upon, and the rewards they get are the actions they take rather than just a numerical "gain +1 forward."

In many ways, it's also to help explain what's happened in the interim.  sometimes people miss sessions, and when they do their characters tend to get sidelined.  But they are still fictionally involved in the game, they still have a stake.  In this way, you can make those intervening moments they weren't there for seem real and persuasive.

Sorry, I'm a little unfocused right now so I'm not sure how much sense that makes.  What are peoples thoughts/questions?

Sorry, I'm a little unfocused right now so I'm not sure how much sense that makes.  What are peoples thoughts/questions?

I think your analysis is bang-on.  I'd only ever write these moves for hit-the-ground-running style games or to shore up a player gap in memory caused by a long hiatus between sessions. 

As for the moves themselves, following that principle all the success and failure results should reflect things being more or less under control.  These moves need, nay, demand to be written with failure pushing or advancing the existing threats or dropping a new threat in with guns blazing.

I wrote a set with a bonus on the 10+ because I don't much like start-of-game rolls that say "Well, you're fucked.  Let's see exactly how fucked.  On a 10+ you're just regular-type-screwed."  In mine, I added a +1 to a particular roll to say "You're lucky, in the interim you managed to keep your shit together and maybe, just maybe, you scraped out a little bit of benefit for yourself."

Yes to all.

Taking a +1 from a beginning of game move is a nice way to make whatever fiction you're introducing feel concrete and useful, but yeah, should be rare.

These moves, when they include a list of choices, also help you suss out what is interesting to the player. They will probably tell you straight up which choice they are absolutely NOT going to consider picking, for example.

I used them even when it hadn't been all that long since we last played.  Once I gave them to only one of the three players because I wasn't quite sure where they might go next and wanted their input in a formal game mechanic way.  I think of them as a weird sort of hybrid kicker/bang technology.

The way I've used them and the way I've generally seen them used is to have the player roll their best stat (usually +2), so the net effect is something like this.  "Hey here's a few interesting twists your character might take going forward, some weird things they're going to have to deal with in the fiction.  Roll the dice.  There's about a 42% chance that you'll have a lot of control over the situation and get to pick exactly from among my suggestions what you want to see.  There's about a 50% chance that either you'll pick some stuff and I'll pick some stuff or maybe it'll be all on you again and you'll have a reasonable amount of input but not as much control as if you'd gotten a 10+.  There's an 8% chance that I'll pick what's going to happen next."  The hope is that the entire list will all be things that will make Apocalypse World seem real and that will make the character's life not boring.

One way you know your list was good is when the list is one thing that makes their life somewhat more complicated, a second thing that is pretty dang awful from the standpoint of the character, and a third thing that is veritably, um apocalyptic.  And they roll a 7-9 and specifically choose the third thing, the one that had the implied "and I promise you won't like it" voice behind it.  Perhaps because it was the most interesting.

I wrote a set with a bonus on the 10+ because I don't much like start-of-game rolls that say "Well, you're fucked.  Let's see exactly how fucked.  On a 10+ you're just regular-type-screwed."  In mine, I added a +1 to a particular roll to say "You're lucky, in the interim you managed to keep your shit together and maybe, just maybe, you scraped out a little bit of benefit for yourself."

Yeah, I can see this.  I think it really depends on the situation that cause you to use a beginning-of-session move:  if the intervening time was hellish, well, it's the best of the worst.  If it was relatively decent, It's a choice of just how good it was (and then a miss is bad anyway).

Somewhere on here I thought I saw a set of beginning of session moves where the split was:  "On 10+, choose 2 good.  7-9, choose one good, one bad.  On a miss, choose two bad" and the options below that were split in to good for you and bad for you options.  That might provide you with the beneficial but story driven. reaction you wanted.

Ah, here it is.  Sorry for the double post: http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=362.0