Jonathan Walton’s werewolves post made me think of something I tried and failed to start on the AW boards a while ago: settings.
Not just playbooks, not just moves, but settings. The full-on accumulation of custom moves and system crap that help make up an Apocalypse World world.
Like a dust bowl world.
Or a forever winter world.
Or a werewolf world.
Or etc.
This would be the place where I submit my own to get the ball rolling, but…
I drink.
I still want to see your writeup for the game we got one session out of. (I also want to finish that game. 😛 )
How much of a setting can you pre-determine to avoid violating “Play to find out what happens?”
Chris Mitchell I support this idea.
Tim Jensen I think, as long as you avoid drawing maps it is ok to say, this thing, these people, that place, exist in this AW.
A lot, a lot. In fact, the worst AW games I’ve been in are when the MC (or someone) doesn’t have a strong enough mental vision of the world pre-the-first-session. I’m not deciding “what happens” or making a plot. I’m saying “there be zombies” or “there be werewolves” or “there be a space station we all of us live upon”, and then coming up with some custom moves for that.
Will the moves be good and useful in the early sessions? Mechanically, probably not. Good AW is constant playtest. But as concrete imagery? They’re awesome.
My problem, as an aside, with “cold” coming into a AW game is that there sometimes a rush to do “plot” stuff in the first session and if the MC doesn’t brake enough, the world doesn’t get the barf on it and then players have different concrete images for the game, instead of shared.
Continuing to ask questions until the fiction comes into focus solves a lot of the weak setting problems.
If it’s a problem of coming up with thematically appropriate setting material on the fly, what about a setting menu? Welcome to Chateau Apocaliptica, our specials today include symbiotic hand warmers and iced slopes with pneumatic piton guns. The main course is quick ice with quick thaws that release the cryopreseves. For dessert, core samples revealing sub glacial storage containers. You’d like to see the NPC list, here you go. The chilled survivors are on the back of your menu. What, you’d like to order something off of the watery nightmare menu, let me ask the MC – I’m sure he can whip something up…
Tim Jensen When I run AW I show up with some specific stuff I want as part of the game, including a general map of the area. I have a name list and some ideas for existing groups and tensions and themes, which come out in the pointed questions I ask. Players have something to latch onto and their choices and input change my initial ideas. It works well for me.
I like this idea so much I’m making a category for it so the concepts are findable later – ApWorld Settings. Chris Mitchell is 100% right – thinking of a great setting is not the same as pre-playing or plotting, and having a solid mental vision of what your Apocalypse World looks like does make for a much richer game. So, new category in 3…
Werewolves makes me think of The Big Bad Wolf-thing from Brotherhood of the Wolf (Le Pacte de Loup), the French movie set in the 17th or 18th Century.
Something along the lines of the Dungeon World dungeon starters?
Like a package of seasonings for your noodles.
Some thoughts on starters: DW has deep roots in D&D. World building and exploration. Lots of new things and the expectation that the GM is bringing a lot of it to the fiction. Starters give a lot of thematically related setting info so that the GM can easily roll in a stream of new elements.
AW seems more focused on isolation and scarcity. I think it’s more important to have all the players contributing to the setting and initial situation because play will continue to focus on and recycle those elements. The Dungeon Starter format could, on the other hand, be good way to prep after the first session, once you’ve got your apocalypse seeded by the players.
If I were going to make starters for AW, I’d make them about a third as long. Also, each of them would focus on a single apocalyptic aspect – open seas, flooded land, massive overgrowth, radiation, acid rain, junk heap, sky scraper, caravan, rust pox, etc. I’d include one or two specific moves, items, names reminiscent of that element (maybe 7), and some impressions that follow on from the aspect (maybe 7). Then I’d ask the players what kind of apocalypse they had in mind and pull the 2-3 appropriate starters and mix and match things from them. If someone wanted some apocalyptic aspect that I didn’t have a starter for, I’d make one with their input by asking them to expound and then tuning it between sessions. I think it’s important, though, that players have a lot of say in what kind of apocalypse they’re excited about playing in.