Help with keeping your story alive while your players shoot it down

Okay, so, I'm pretty new to GMing in general, apocalypse world is the first full official campaign I've ever decided to run. Me and my players are on a campaign after we decided to scrap the old one, mostly because we were all shooting at each other and nothing was going anywhere. Personally, I think I could've built off of the scrap left behind, but whatever. Which leads me to the point of this post, I have a crazed Gunlugger and a messed up Quarantine mixed in with a lunatic Hoarder and a good, nerdy, shy Savvyhead. Quite the party. I'm just wondering about how, when inevitably my Quarantine and Gunlugger start shooting at things and blowing everything up (the Gunlugger has NTBFW and the really, really big guns to back it up), how do I keep my story alive and build from the ashes at the same time to weave them in? Or am I going about this the wrong way and I should be letting them blow everything away?

I say let them.

And let them do it again.

And the next time.

And the next time.

Eventually they'll look for something more than bang bang boom boom, or you'll convince them to switch systems to Twilight 2000 or something

I think the answer is to always make violence consequential.  Let them blow up stuff, then make them pay the price for their actions.  Make sure their reputations spread amongst the world's NPCs.  Use make them buy with ruthless certainty - "Kimio says, 'We no sell bang-bang bits to you no more.  You bring trouble.'  What do you do?"  Do they really want to whack their arms supplier?  And if they shoot first and ask questions later, have the answer to those questions be, "It would be great/awesome/easy/cheap.  Except you just shot the guy who could do it."

Another personal favorite of mine for players who think violence is always the answer is to figure out something they hold dear and have their indiscriminate violence irrevocably harm it in some way.  Kinda drives the point home.

The other thing you can do is focus the violence.  Give them an outlet for it and maybe it won't come out all the time.  Find a way for the Gunlugger to defend the Hoarder from some external threat.  Make the Savvyhead the one who can help fix the Quarantine's facility, and come up with an enemy who is trying to get access to all the hi-tech goods stashed therein.  This gives the players a reason to work together (which keeps them from blasting each other) and gives the more violent PCs a target.

Or just never highlight their Hard.  When all the other characters are 4 advances in and they have all of 2 dots filled, maybe they'll figure it out.

Best of all is to present them with situations or problems in which violence is demonstrably NOT the best answer.  Get at who they are as people.  Play on their pasts, their connections to other human beings (both PC and NPC), and their aspirations in ways where shooting people doesn't gain them anything, and will probably result in heartache.

And if they don't stop, then Oldy's advice is good too.  Or just be up-front with them and let them know that senseless violence is not what your game is about.  If they get it, great.  If not, shed them from the game and concentrate on the players whose play styles mesh more closely with yours.

Ahhh so be a sadistic, punishing dm about it. I like it :P but seriously though, thanks a lot, this is really going to help

Ahhh so be a sadistic, punishing dm about it. I like it :P but seriously though, thanks a lot, this is really going to help

No, no no no no. Play the game. Follow the principles. You are not there to punish your players, or manipulate them into doing what you want.

The first part of Munin's advice -- "always make violence consequential" -- is the important part. This is part of what it means to make Apocalypse World seem real. This is part of what it means to make the character's lives interesting -- because it also acknowledges that their actions are meaningful, and have power to change the world.

What it does not mean is to make everything they do turn out terribly, just because they need to be taught a lesson, or just because you think violence is bad, or to preserve some abstract 'story' of which you are the sole possessor. You are not in charge of the story; the PCs are the protagonists. If they shoot everything, then that means it is a story about people getting shot. That's what you're playing to find out about: what the PCs will do, and what sort of consequences will follow from their actions.

Obviously, most of the consequences of violence are complicated and violence directed at members of your own community is usually destructive in the long-term (and the 'long-term' in AW is usually measured in weeks.) But this is not a game of gotcha: just follow your Agenda & Principles. If you name every NPC and make them human, then part of their being human will be that they have friends or family, that they play some sort of role in the community that is often irreplaceable. THAT is what is going to make shooting them in the face a bad idea, not you being a 'sadistic GM' and just arbitrarily deciding after the fact that they were super-crucial. Decide BEFORE they get shot why they are crucial, what they do, so that if the players ask you can tell them -- so that you can tell the players that the likely consequences of murdering Dremmer is that nobody will be able to fix their shoes, or run the water filtration system, or whatever.

You are not out to 'punish' your players because you have no moral authority -- it's not your job to decide what is and is not worth punishing. Just play the world and see what happens.

Hey, for fun open up the Gunlugger playboook and look at the Hx section. Now imagine you're CrazE the Gunlugger. I'll be the GM. The other players are the Shyy the Savvyhead, Looney the Hoarder, and Messy the Quarantine.

Go around again for Hx. On your turn, choose 1, 2 or all 3:
 • One of them has fought shoulder to shoulder with you. Tell that player Hx+2.
 • One of them once left you bleeding and did nothing for you. Tell that player Hx-2.
 • Choose which one of them you think is prettiest. Tell that player Hx+2.

Pick one.

lol no worries daniel, i got what he was saying. I was just screwing around

and noclue ill play along just to see where this goes. lets say Shy left me bleeding

and noclue ill play along just to see where this goes. lets say Shy left me bleeding

Cool!

Okay, Shyy left you bleeding? How'd that happen? Were you shot or stabbed or what? Is it all water under the bridge as far as Shyy's concerned or are you keeping score?

Oh, and while we're at it, Shyy, what the fuck? Left him bleeding and didn't do anything for him? What's up with that? (go ahead and answer for Shyy too) ;)

Daniel Wood has the right of it, I'm not advocating for you to punish them just because.  Make the world feel real, and in the real world, violence has consequences.  Frequently unintended and sometimes dire ones.

But I also think Daniel and I are coming at things from slightly different directions.  When he talks about following the MC agenda (being a fan of the characters and playing to find out), that advice is predicated on the idea that all your players are on-board and on the same page with what they want to get out of the game.  If that's the case and if they make characters who relentlessly engage in violence for its own sake, then he's absolutely right - that's what our game is about and you run with it.

The huge caveat here is what to do if some of your players want more depth to the story and some just want to get their bang-bang on.  If that is the case then you have a mismatch in expectations about the game, and that needs to be addressed out-of-game more or less right away.  Be straight with your players and encourage them to be straight with each other.

I don't know who your players are or what their histories are, so in some sense it's hard to say.  But it's important to keep in mind that just because someone plays a Gunlugger doesn't mean that they're going to blast everything at every opportunity.  And further, eve if that is their first instinct, it doesn't mean it will ruin the story.  Hell, half the time you can use it to drive the story (see above about making violence consequential).

For example, I recently played in a 7th Sea game.  My character was a massive Ussuran mercenary (think kind of like a Russian Cossack) who had spent the last 20+ years fighting on both sides of the equivalent of the 30-Years War.  As a result he was extremely pragmatic and direct.  In that game system, PCs and NPCs alike are simply "taken out" of a fight, and it is up to the players to describe how.  Most of the other PCs were "Big Damn Heroes," so they would knock guys out, or wound them but not mortally, or have them dragged away by their horse, or whatever.  When I described how Nikolai "took out" an NPC it was always as no-frills, direct, and lethal as it could be.  I'm talking downright brutal.  But this was a guy who had lost friends and comrades to "defeated" foes along the way, and now took no chances.  But (and here's the important part), I didn't go looking for trouble.  Nikolai didn't start fights, he ended them.  Quickly and efficiently.  He was fiercely protective of the other PCs and very loyal to them.  But when things got hairy he was very hard to control, and that in and of itself became an important plot point later on in the game.

You'll need to make the call based on how your particular player generally rolls, but don't assume that just because he or she is playing a Gunlugger that they'll "wreck" things as a matter of course.

...and it may just be that AW isn't the game for your group.

In my view (as a relative novice) this game is about contributing to a story, not about rolling dice to do war like it's 40k with names. It may be that your group would prefer to play something else.

...and it may just be that AW isn't the game for your group.

In my view (as a relative novice) this game is about contributing to a story, not about rolling dice to do war like it's 40k with names. It may be that your group would prefer to play something else.

Maybe, maybe not. One thing you can do though is to use Hx and pointed questions during the first session to set up a complex web of PC/NPC triangles that breaks from the classic band of nomadic murderhobos. Set up the PCs as people with conflicted relationships, both with PCs and NPCs. People who trust them as well as people who hate them. People who need them, as well as people try to use them. And people they need in turn, for stuff, for info, for sex, for anything they're looking for in a world of scarcity. Then see if they're so eager to indiscriminately break shit.

I kinda noticed that you referred to it as "your" story, too. That sounds like pre-planning but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you feel like you're more invested than your players. So ask them what they're invested in. Be like, "hey Gunlugger, who do you trust around here? Who do you hang out with?" And do some scenes with them interacting with the NPCs they like, even if those NPCs are made up right then. Throw tons of townspeople at them and see who they react to best.

THEN, give those NPCs problems that can't be shot at.

If Battery has a problem with raiders killing his animals, then the Gunlugger can hunt down the raiders. But what if the animals are just sick? What if the "raiders" turn out to be starving kids in the woods? What if the raiders are one of the Gunlugger's OTHER friends? What if Battery's problem is that the Hardholder's taxes are too high? Can you really shoot your way through that?

Let the Gunlugger be a harass; that's why he chose the playbook. But also give him situations where being a harass just isn't the solution. He will probably love it, those are the best moments.

I kinda noticed that you referred to it as "your" story, too. That sounds like pre-planning

Are MCs not supposed to feel like they're part of telling the story?

Quote from: Scrape on February 23, 2014, 08:49:35 PM

I kinda noticed that you referred to it as "your" story, too. That sounds like pre-planning

Are MCs not supposed to feel like they're part of telling the story?

The way the thread is titled it reads like the players are messing up the MC's story.