Tag: Stephen Crawford

My first foray into #Apocalypse World has been fun and enlightening.  I think my biggest take-away lesson is that the first session is crucial to setting up everything.  I think I pushed the PC’s out into the field too soon in the first session.  Then it was on me to keep bringing in action since I didn’t leave enough time for the connections to build up and tense up in the first day.  That put more pressure on me to make a story happen than it seems is intended by Baker.  It seems like it’s important to be sure that we get into the nitty gritty details of the characters’ lives and really make solid connections between them and flesh them out in the first session.  That way the tension can come from the interactions between the PC’s and how they fit in their niches.  The characters’ “home base” was another thing that turns out to be more important than I realized.  They really do need a chance to shine in their element.

In our discussion afterwards, it came up that the *World hacks all seem to have prompts built in, or settings that are clearly fleshed out before anyone even sits down at the table (you’re a team of monster hunters/adventurers/clones, etc.).  Original AW leaves that open, so that is what the first session is supposed to be for.  (D.V.B. would probably say “duh, that’s what I wrote!”, but it takes the experience of it to really understand it.)  The first session is really where the PC’s figure out how they can get what they want from each other, and the MC sees those strings and pulls on them from some angles they might not expect, or maybe sees strings to pull the PC’s might not have noticed, even though the PC’s really created them.

I think I managed to throw some interesting stuff at Clang, Beemer and Plum, and I enjoyed how they dealt with it.  I really liked the warped dreams and apocalyptica they spewed.

Now that we’ve got a better handle on the AW mechanics, I’m looking forward to see what these freaks do when they leave the tattered remains of the WalMart behind and take their show on the road!