I’d really like to try running Apocalypse World or one of its hacks as a campaign, but other commitments leave me with little time for other gaming than what I’m already doing.
How well does AW work for running campaigns on a monthly basis. Is there any issue with maintaining momentum with such games, and how might one get around that problem?
We made it work with a session every 1,5 months but we take notes and I use love letters pretty often. So obvious advices: push players to take notes and make plans for their characters, and use love letters often.
Also, when the momentum’s low, like some threats were solved or blew up at the PCs faces, don’t be affraid to fast forwards (“three years later…”) and play a second “first” session to shake things up.
Hope this helps!
We designed the game to withstand long breaks between sessions as well as folks being unexpectedly unable to make a planned session. Make sure you are familiar with the book, get your group of 3 to 5 players together, and take your time doing a really thorough First Session. It’s good if the First Session and the next couple sessions are fairly close together, a week or two, but after that, yeah, a month gap is no big thing. Especially with love letters, bridging time is pretty easy. All this is generally applicable to Monsterhearts, and Monster of the Week and Dungeon World as well.
Apocalypse World and its descendents work really well for play by forum if that’s something you’re open to.
Thanks for the advice folks, I’ll see if I can arrange things so I can run a first session and another couple sessions close together.
Marshall Miller I’d consider running via PbP, but I’ve never played a forum game that reached a satisfying conclusion. They always seem to stall sooner or later. :<