read a sitch and ambushes:

Sometimes being a fan of a PC means watching them die in a blaze of glory. It's not your job to keep them alive. It's your job to make apocalypse world seem real, play to find out what happens, and respond with fuckery and intermittent reward.

That's not a comment on the choices you made, only on the rationale. If it's logical for the gang to jump in, jump em in. But if the Gunlugger and Chopper try to kill each other, assuming this is an IC thing and not some weird OOC issues, someone may be rolling up a new dude.

It was all IC (they are good friends in real), but it was only the third session! It would have been a pity if one died so soon...

In one campaign  the game logic and roll progression resulted two PC's fighting and one had to reroll a new character only five minutes into the game. The game is wild and brutal, but that's the charm of it.

Were they carrying on so with an unstated expectation that you would save them from themselves?

They were trying a way out as players but they couldn't as characters.

They were trying a way out as players but they couldn't as characters.

Neat. I love how characters can become so real that we feel an inexorable, can I dare say narrative, pull in certain directions. My knight died last night in our Pendragon game because he just wouldn't back down, even though everyone pointed out he had every excuse to retire from the field disheartened. It led to some of the most satisfying role playing I've had. Mortally wounded, he was able to see his kidnapped sister safely home and then come before the earl to plead the case of his killer, a traitor knight who had renounced his treason after our battle and saw my kidnapped sister returned to me.

Thinking about your description, I so want to see your Chopper and Gunlugger die in a massacre, and then pick things up out of the wreckage with the NPC deputy as the new Chopper and one of the other participants as the second PC.

If the deputy survives (the chopper broke almost all his bones, and the gunlugger said he would kill him) he will become a Driver as the second character of our battlebabe :D

The situation evolved in a strange way to be honest... our Angel (a woman) seduced both the chopper and the gunlugger, had a threesome with them and made them promise to stop their childish behavior using sex as a leverage. It seems it worked out, except for the part that the Angel was the Battlebabe fiancee (well, he was using her while she was in love with him) and she had to tell him because she was feeling guilty (because 15 years before she made the same mistake and got pregnant).

Now is the battlebabe that wants to kill both the chopper and the battlebabe... but this time in cold blood, not in a heated fistfight.

I think this group is shortlived. :D

First up: Awesome. If your PCs die at each other's hands in a blaze of glory, well, that's just a fantastic end, even if it makes for a short campaign.

Second: That is a perfect opportunity to bring in a new threat that threatens them all. Offer them an opportunity at the cost of their desired revenge. If the players want an excuse to set aside the PvP, something bigger and badder than them is in your toolkit.

Or, y'know, the first one :D That's still fantastic.

I am a big fan of using Do Something Under Fire as a passive-perception/reactive-dodge type move.

E.g.,
PC: "So I take another swing at the Chopper..."
Me: "Wait, roll to do it under fire."
PC: "Uh, ok, why...?"
Me: "Roll and find out."
PC: "Sure, that's, um, a... 9."
Me: "So, you catch movement out of the corner of your eye: this guy is going to bash you in the back of the head with bottle. You can suffer that damage, OR you can block him but then take -1 on your punching."
PC: "Shite. I'll risk the -1."
Me: "OK, you deflect the incoming blow at the last minute. Now Sieze By Force, but at -1..."
etc.

 -- 77IM