Well, gonna run my first Apocalypse World-powered game tonight: Monster of the Week.
Think I’m ready. The hook: A car’s driver-side door pried open with brute force. A skeleton leans out, red and gnawed and stripped of flesh.
I think that’s sufficiently “obviously supernatural” for a first MotW session. 🙂
Any advice? We’re all Apocalypse engine newbies.
As said in the book: Ask questions like a crazy.
Also – do not get stuck on your side of the mechanics. My first time with AWengine was pretty awkward since I kept on checking what I could and could not do. When they are quiet or fail a roll, hit them Hard.
Ask questions, follow your principals, and feel free to say “hold up, i didn’t hear you/i messed that one up/do-overs!”
Meg already said it, but let me reiterate: follow your principles, make your moves, make hard moves when you can (and make them count – every time dice hit the table should be a moment of risk). Almost every time I’ve had a subpar *W experience (sometimes with me as MC) it’s been because the MC was playing another kind of game with *W mechanics, instead of following the principles.
Also, since I know you’re an old indie hand, it was important for me to realize that *W doesn’t have “say yes or roll the dice.” “If you do it, you do it,” supplants that. IME, saying yes tends to make the game flabby.
Oh! Almost forgot to add that asking “what do you do?” after your moves really gets things going. It is easy to miss.
Thanks, guys!
Daniel Levine So, I’m not sure I was ever much of a “say yes or roll” GM, nor am I sure I’ve ever grokked “If you do it, you do it” as a slogan. Both tend to be those sorts of advice that people hail as revolutionary that never really clicks with me. Unsung says to roll only if you care about the outcome, not sure if that’s the same thing as “say yes,” because the answer for a boring potential roll could still be “no”. “If you do it, you do it” just sounds like sticking to what’s established in the fiction.
Meguey Baker I clicked onto the “ask the character, not the player” ethos and ending situations with “What do you do?” pretty early on in my read of AW and related games, in part because I tend to play/GM more at a remove and so I definitely noticed it as something I’d have to pay attention to.
(Plus, I get so tired of game texts that say “player” when they mean “character” and vice-versa, so it was nice to see the distinction underlined and made part of the game advice, rather than a sloppy assumed to be sorta the same without comment.)