Help for my first AW campaign:story focused, creating interesting conflict

Regarding Daniels comments.

I think I may have misrepresented how much I am planning and trying to lead the story.  I only mentioned the climax at all because I thought of a thing I could decide about the PCs back stories that would create a fantastic reveal for them.  A reveal that would have to happen at the climax of the story. That being said your post as well as the rest so far have helped me realize that I have my own habits that also need breaking.

Success!

I need to ask more questions and the right ones.  I also think I just need to be more direct with my players and tell them directly that they get more input in AW and need to put that forward.  They are used to being told what is happening not discussing it in a conversation.

Yeah, this asking questions and conversation thing is pretty big, fun too. Here's NPC creation in Apocalypse World (at least my favorite kind of NPC creation):

GM: So, Farley, that's a cool ride you got there. How do you keep its tanks full of gas?
Farley: I guess I must buy it from someone, right?
GM: Yeah, Tippy sells gas out of this little shack. She buys it from some scroungers that come into to town every few weeks. One of them's her cousin or uncle or something, called Rolfball...You banging Tippy for free gas?
Farley: Yeah, sometimes, I guess. It's not a big deal though.
GM: Hmmm...she still sleeping with Silo? I hear he's back in town.

Then maybe you turn to the Hardholder and ask him what he sent Silo out to do and how he feels about having him back. Stuff like that.

As to the PCs already having Hx with each other and having personal connections. The problem I have is that most of the decisions they made with respect to Hx and personality of their characters has resulted in most of the PCs being dicks who would not seek out interaction with each other with out coaxing.

That's a problem. I'd nip that in the bud right now.

• Your characters don't have to be friends, but they do have to
  know each other, and they should be basically allies. They might
  become enemies in play, but they shouldn't start out enemies (Page 101).

I suppose this would be a good time to mention that I have a learning disability in writing and aspergers (albeit high functioning).  I kind of feel like the writing inability and the social deficit from aspergers might be affecting how I MC here.  I am pretty good at interpretation in social situations. I read people well.  But that is a learned skill not a natural intuition like most people have.  I wonder whether in this case because I am creating NPCs that are not real I have nothing to read and as such have trouble figuring out how they would react to things.  These are things I work around all the time and obviously I just need to figure out how to work around them in this particular situation I have not really struggled with before.

I can understand how that might pose a challenge. I'd keep the NPC motivations very simple and straightforward. They want X, they need the PC to do Y to get it. They want Z, but the PC also wants Z. Etc. Where X and Z could be anything from food, to gas, to love, to adoration, to power.

I suppose the heart of my concern is that my players are not in the proper mindset for this kind of game and as a result the game will suffer and they will not enjoy it.

Hopefully they will. Not everyone can or wants to. But there's no real way to know short of playing. If they're willing to go into it with an open mind, you really can't ask any more than that.

A couple of things in no particular order:

Threats that don't involve shooting: Some of the best threats are actually "Landscape" threats.  As an example, in my campaign I have a number of threats based on the environment itself.  One of the Fronts is actually "The Road," because their hardhold sits at the end of 20 miles of bad, crumbling, twisty, bandit-infested mountain road.  You can't solve the fact that the only "serviceable" bridge over the river is rusting away a little more every day.  Or maybe you can (by raiding to abduct slave labor to fix it), but that in and of itself could be interesting.  Look at the Threats not necessarily as people but as things.  An idea could be a potent threat.  A scavenger brings back on old dusty tome and now suddenly the people in the hardhold who have been kept down for years start to get this "liberty" idea in their heads, for instance.

NPCs: Agreed on doubling-down on asking the players.  I love to introduce just a name or a single detail and ask the players questions.  They almost always give me better stuff than I could come up with anyway.  ;)  But for every NPC, just ask yourself what it is that they want and what they're doing to try to get it.  That will go a long way toward giving you ideas for how to flesh out the NPC more fully.

Also, I find that giving each NPC a defining feature helps.  Could be a physical feature (nervous tic in the left eye, tattoo on the forehead, etc), could some aspect of their past with the PCs (this guy dated your sister, that woman helped you out once a long time ago), could be a pattern of speech (this dude is a complete badass but it's hard to take him seriously because of his bad lateral lisp - probably why he's such a badass, come to think of it), could be an article of clothing (guy always wears spit-polished wing-tip shoes, woman wears a necklace made from an old Hello Kitty keychain, etc).  Give everyone something to show their human side - flawed, frail, weird, indomitable, funny, or whatever.  Do that and you'll have great NPCs to whom your players can really relate in no time.

I am going to try to quote in this post to make my replies easier to co-ordinate but I have never done it before so I apologize if it's not working right.

Yeah, this asking questions and conversation thing is pretty big, fun too. Here's NPC creation in Apocalypse World (at least my favorite kind of NPC creation):

GM: So, Farley, that's a cool ride you got there. How do you keep its tanks full of gas?
Farley: I guess I must buy it from someone, right?
GM: Yeah, Tippy sells gas out of this little shack. She buys it from some scroungers that come into to town every few weeks. One of them's her cousin or uncle or something, called Rolfball...You banging Tippy for free gas?
Farley: Yeah, sometimes, I guess. It's not a big deal though.
GM: Hmmm...she still sleeping with Silo? I hear he's back in town.

Then maybe you turn to the Hardholder and ask him what he sent Silo out to do and how he feels about having him back. Stuff like that.

NPCs: Agreed on doubling-down on asking the players.  I love to introduce just a name or a single detail and ask the players questions.  They almost always give me better stuff than I could come up with anyway.  ;)  But for every NPC, just ask yourself what it is that they want and what they're doing to try to get it.  That will go a long way toward giving you ideas for how to flesh out the NPC more fully.

I think in this regard I've realized that I have to break my habit of deciding all of the world building/NPC stuff.  I also have a slight concern that some of my players will use that to try and make things easier for them but that can be worked around and reduced though.

That's a problem. I'd nip that in the bud right now.
Your characters don't have to be friends, but they do have to
know each other, and they should be basically allies. They might
become enemies in play, but they shouldn't start out enemies (Page 101).

As to this, I did make sure that they started as somewhat allies.  Some of the relationships were a tad strained but definitely not antagonistic.  The problem is that they decide to play their characters as somewhat allies too each other but primarily indifferent without much reason to want to seek each other out.  My players also justify this as roleplaying their characters well and not meta gaming to force characters together.  I am alright with that perspective on meta gaming and I think this issue isn't as important anymore and I can work around it.

Hopefully they will. Not everyone can or wants to. But there's no real way to know short of playing. If they're willing to go into it with an open mind, you really can't ask any more than that.
[quote/]

They are capable of appreciating different kinds of play but currently used to the D&D style and aren't great at breaking habits.  I just need to help them along in changing their mindset so they can appreciate this great system.  I just don't want this first campaign to be mediocre as a result of their mindset because they probably wouldn't give it a second chance.

Quote

Also, I find that giving each NPC a defining feature helps.  Could be a physical feature (nervous tic in the left eye, tattoo on the forehead, etc), could some aspect of their past with the PCs (this guy dated your sister, that woman helped you out once a long time ago), could be a pattern of speech (this dude is a complete badass but it's hard to take him seriously because of his bad lateral lisp - probably why he's such a badass, come to think of it), could be an article of clothing (guy always wears spit-polished wing-tip shoes, woman wears a necklace made from an old Hello Kitty keychain, etc).  Give everyone something to show their human side - flawed, frail, weird, indomitable, funny, or whatever.  Do that and you'll have great NPCs to whom your players can really relate in no time.

This is just something I need to spend time working on getting better at. I have trouble of thinking of those features on the fly.  I will be trying the previously suggested method of making lists of possible features for characters beforehand.

I think in this regard I've realized that I have to break my habit of deciding all of the world building/NPC stuff.  I also have a slight concern that some of my players will use that to try and make things easier for them but that can be worked around and reduced though.

More than that. This is great! Let them. Everything they build to try to make life easier is just one more thing for the MC to fuck with. They have access to food, water, gas and ammo, cool! That's four NPCs that the PC now relies on. That's four NPCs with leverage.

My players also justify this as roleplaying their characters well and not meta gaming to force characters together.  I am alright with that perspective on meta gaming and I think this issue isn't as important anymore and I can work around it.

This is completely fine. It's a world of scarcity. They're going to have to work together. If you make a move like "take away their stuff" and one of them they're out of ammo, or gas or food, they're going to need to do something about that. If one of the chopper's gangs bike breaks down, he'll need to cut a deal with the Savvyhead. Or maybe talk to the operator about getting a new part, or the hard holder.

They are capable of appreciating different kinds of play but currently used to the D&D style and aren't great at breaking habits.  I just need to help them along in changing their mindset so they can appreciate this great system.  I just don't want this first campaign to be mediocre as a result of their mindset because they probably wouldn't give it a second chance.

I totally get that.

Hey, great to know you're still sticking with it. Hope the huge amount of feedback isn't overwhelming.

I am going to try to quote in this post to make my replies easier to co-ordinate but I have never done it before so I apologize if it's not working right.

I think in this regard I've realized that I have to break my habit of deciding all of the world building/NPC stuff.  I also have a slight concern that some of my players will use that to try and make things easier for them but that can be worked around and reduced though.

With regards to your last sentence; this is excellent in my view. Allow them to try and make things easier for themselves and you'll start to see exactly what is important to them/what motivates them. What's more, they'll start to establish security or a status quo. All perfectly natural things to attempt. Your job as the MC/GM is to occasionally tug or completely pull that rug from under them, as noclue alludes to above. The more they feel that they can't just manipulate everything to their liking, the more likely they'll work together.

Just as an aside, I feel this is how most D&D campaigns work except the problem is outlined at the start (be it a dungeon, a treasure to be found or a dragon). In AW, the problem is emergent and so whilst there might not be complete co-operation as you're used to in D&D, I think it'll evolve given time.

As to this, I did make sure that they started as somewhat allies.  Some of the relationships were a tad strained but definitely not antagonistic.  The problem is that they decide to play their characters as somewhat allies too each other but primarily indifferent without much reason to want to seek each other out.  My players also justify this as roleplaying their characters well and not meta gaming to force characters together.  I am alright with that perspective on meta gaming and I think this issue isn't as important anymore and I can work around it.

Sure, I agree with that too. As above, circumstances may force them to work together. As to whether or not this will forge friendships is an entirely different matter but dealing with that strain and situation of 'needs must' is (hopefully) fun and enjoyable.

Sure, I agree with that too. As above, circumstances may force them to work together. As to whether or not this will forge friendships is an entirely different matter but dealing with that strain and situation of 'needs must' is (hopefully) fun and enjoyable.

Yeah, I said they're going to have to work with each other above. I should have said they're going to have to deal with each other.

Just a quick update for all the fabulous posters who have been helping out.  You have all helped me realize where the problems were so I could work on changing them.

I just returned from our second session and I owe all of you a lot of thanks.  The overall quality of the campaign has jumped.  We still have stuff to work on and improve as we adapt to the system but I am incredibly pleased with the progress.

I began the session by asking the group to write down on a piece of paper their most and least favourite thing about last session and used that to spark a conversation.  I used this to talk about how different AW is and what I think we need to change as a group without sounding preachy since the conversation arose naturally from the questions.

We then spent some time changing some of the world slightly from our first world building session to fit better but mainly fleshed it out a lot.  Through this and the change in the way I introduced NPC's they have suddenly become extremely interesting dynamic.  The players seem to have grown to really like some of them even if their characters don't.  This also seemed to be exactly what I needed to get over that hump of seeing the connections between totally separate NPC's and how they affect each other.  As a result the problem of the characters not having reasons to run into each other has entirely disappeared without me forcing it.  That being said they don't know it yet.  They left the session talking about how they would never run into each other now but by chance there are 3 separate things in motion off screen that have the potential to drag some of them together.  We were missing a couple players this session which probably made it easier for me to manage but I still made sure they could be doing things off screen which I will talk to them about and decide in between sessions. 

I do feel however that I have been using the Wolves of the Maelstrom as an easy out card sometimes to create conflict.  That being said I think i've used it pretty tastefully and appropriately so far.  They have the "Appear and disappear impossibly" trait so they can pop in and out to spark conflict when things are going a little too smoothly despite my efforts. 

What makes me super excited is that the players were pretty pleased by the current little conflicts and fun moments they had this session without having any idea how much is going to happen down the road.  Beyond that we have a few super interesting and frankly fairly ridiculous settings and threats in the nearby area that we haven't even approached yet.



Considering the above mentioned success I'm going to have to apologize because I'm going to have to gush a bit.

Edit: I removed the massive AP portion of the post and transferred it to a separate thread specifically for that so that the people that are interested can look at it there and everyone else doesn't have to put up with it.
 

Oh man. I'm sorry. I just realized how bloody massive that thing I just posted was.  I think I'll start I new AP thread and paste this in there.  My bad.

Oh man. I'm sorry. I just realized how bloody massive that thing I just posted was.  I think I'll start I new AP thread and paste this in there.  My bad.

Heh. It was a bit of a text wall ;)

I'm glad to hear that the game is improving and our comments have helped. You're hardly alone in being a little lost after the first session. In fact, if you're not overwhelmed, my friend Colin posted this thread about his troubles the first time he GMd AW for us. It's just full of brilliant comments.

Yeah it is definitely looking up and for the rest of time any posts I leave in this thread will contain a thank you in them somewhere.  The community is very kind and receptive as I assumed they would be but what surprises me is the amount of effort reading through my longs posts and creating long responses that people are willing to put in.  It is very nice to see.

Yeah what bugged me the most is that I felt so ready before we started.  I made sure my group agreed to try this long in advance so that I could buy the rules and take time to learn them and plan a bit.  I especially felt the need to do this since it is the first time I have taken on a MC-DM role in the last.....probably 7 years.  I just fell in with a group that has a good DM so he kept doing it but its time to give him a chance to play a character.  I have been feeling the urge to focus more on story, character development, and roleplaying recently so I think I would probably refuse to DM a D&D campaign. Too many numbers to keep track of, initiative, defenses, rolles, checks. All the time.  I can not focus on the story if im keeping track of all that info.  So I put a lot of effort into listening to entire AP podcast playthroughs and check out all the rules and I found extra playbooks and ended up feeling confident enough to include them as options from outside the basic and limited.  I did at least ban the Space Marine Mammal and which ever other one is advised not to try on the first play.

Heh. It was a bit of a text wall ;)

So did you actually read it or just look at the size? If you did read it what do you think of our kinda crazy campaign?   If you didnt read it no worries.  It would be outrageous for me to expect to read it after all the help.

In addition, I read through that thread you linked and found some of it quite interesting.  Nice to see also that other people had the exact same problems in the exact same way. It's interesting for me to note that Apocalypse World has a more structured set of rules than it may originally appear.  When you look at a lot rules it seems kind of ambiguous and weird sometimes but then once you start too understand what the rules actually mean in play it makes a lot more sense.

Try really really hard to never think or say the word "conflict" anywhere near Apocalypse World. I mean that both in the SG jargony way and also the plain English way.

Action and consequences -- that's what you do. "Conflict" is too abstract, too movie and stage, too neat and tidy. So, don't set up conflicts between characters (even though that's fun in other games). Don't think about how this could be in conflict with that. Don't think about how you can drive the game towards conflict. None of that.

This bit is by John Harper who created the extra character sheets if I remember correctly.  Although  I definitely did not get that at all first session. I'm admittedly never going to be able to eliminate that part of myself that takes great pleasure at knowing that I am orchestrating a big surprise reveal or cool conflict when I think of them.  It's only really those situations where I see a potential conflict and think, "Oh it would be so cool if _____ happened!"  As such I admittedly have certain things in the current campaign about certain player backgrounds that I don't want them to figure out for quite a while because I thought of an absolutely amazing reveal for the climax of the campaign that would require a couple things to be hidden until then.  So far they players don't seem like they're gonna figure them out too fast so it's fine and I don't have to manipulate stuff.  Besides the fact that I shouldn't manipulate stuff.

The questions I've had the best luck with when generating situation have been "Who do you hate most in the world?" and "What scares the crap out of you?" Both were asked in the first session and both have come back to haunt players.

I also find this interesting. I may try doing something similar to this with some big hitting questions that teach my a lot about that character. I am a big fan of bringing new moves, changes, or questions to the table at the beginning of a new session just to shake things up a bit and keep the players off balance a bit.

In addition, I read through that thread you linked and found some of it quite interesting.  Nice to see also that other people had the exact same problems in the exact same way. It's interesting for me to note that Apocalypse World has a more structured set of rules than it may originally appear.  When you look at a lot rules it seems kind of ambiguous and weird sometimes but then once you start too understand what the rules actually mean in play it makes a lot more sense.

It's good to know that your campaign is going in the right direction. I have not read the post regarding it in particular just yet but I will get around to it soon. You're right in saying that AW has a very robust set of rules behind it. It is why I think AW is one of the best ways to learn how to GM. It gives you a very clear set of guidelines in how to actually build emotion into the game. Of course, you will want to use your own caveats to make it more suitable.

This bit is by John Harper who created the extra character sheets if I remember correctly.  Although  I definitely did not get that at all first session. I'm admittedly never going to be able to eliminate that part of myself that takes great pleasure at knowing that I am orchestrating a big surprise reveal or cool conflict when I think of them.  It's only really those situations where I see a potential conflict and think, "Oh it would be so cool if _____ happened!"  As such I admittedly have certain things in the current campaign about certain player backgrounds that I don't want them to figure out for quite a while because I thought of an absolutely amazing reveal for the climax of the campaign that would require a couple things to be hidden until then.  So far they players don't seem like they're gonna figure them out too fast so it's fine and I don't have to manipulate stuff.  Besides the fact that I shouldn't manipulate stuff.

I do also get times where I think that certain events would definitely heighten the dramatic atmosphere. In my view, if you can do this, then by all means follow through. Push to the danger that is imminent. So long as you are not forcing the PCs down roads that are out of context or don't make sense, I see no problem. One thing you should consider is that these secrets may be discovered. Hide them but only hide them as well as that NPC could or would. If Grog is a bit of a blabber mouth or gets drunk in the evenings, consider how that would impact his ability to keep a secret. If they do find out through any means, allow this to happen and see what their reaction is. My guess is, as you continue to play on, you'll have increasingly frequent moments where you'll think it'd be cool for this or that to happen.

I also find this interesting. I may try doing something similar to this with some big hitting questions that teach my a lot about that character. I am a big fan of bringing new moves, changes, or questions to the table at the beginning of a new session just to shake things up a bit and keep the players off balance a bit.

This is great. It's good to see that you are really getting into the AW style of things. You could perhaps use the answers to these questions to build fronts or use the fronts to contextualise your questions. Remember that all of these questions establish a status quo. Who is considered terrifying and who is not establishes a hierarchy for example. As the MC, it's fun to break or flip these preconceptions around.

Final point. I'm not sure what the podcast is like and I may check it out soon but if you want another source to view the game being played, there is a youtube series which you may enjoy. Click.

Here's another option for watching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xSQIfpptFs&list=PLccARXndpwfg0r2eqc5cnhuu5K0qKBzdz

The RollPlay group is sillier.  The Crossroads group is more dramatic.  Choose yer poison.