Greetings,
we had our last session and we didn’t finish! That is my fault to a big part though. We started with the Faceless escaping the Driver’s savage cult and the driver abandoning his cult and his taxi in the dessert. That was cool stuff and fitting for a last session. While that was happening the Hardholder was meeting with the hunters and others that had abandoned his Hardhold and I set up new threats and problems like crazy because that was hat was fitting to the fiction.
Meanwhile the player of the Angel told me she really wanted to go look after Blueray in this session. Problem: Blueray has been dead for 2-3 sessions now so I pointed her torwards his grave. Totally pissed she decided that this here is all crazy and she wanted to leave with her lover. We then had a couple of scenes that was me putting different characters together. Through that I kind of shifted into a Monsterhearts MC, setting up all these conversations and drama.
I don’t really know why I did that but the performances by the players were spott on that evening and I just wanted to see MORE of that. The big takeaway from that was that no one likes the driver anymore, they are all tired of his antics and crap.
The Hardholder bought better firepower for his gang but had to promise the merchant a child (yeah, I had to talk about child trade slavery… Good job Apocalypse World) and he convinced the lover of the Driver to give up her niece for that. He also heavily flirted with her and that pissed off the Driver even more.
I had no idea what to do with the Angel afterwards as she wanted to leave. So I had no idea how to deal with that to make her live interesting then. The Angel has been a bit on the backburner for the whole campaign and I am not really sure why. She has the least screen time for sure. The fact that she is played by a woman and I am kinda subduing her doesn’t help. I always want to do more with her but the other characters themselves are just a bit more engaging (this is not a comment against that player. It is against me for not helping her setting up more stuff and involving that character more). She needed a merchant that would take the two further south. I checked the list of merchant and found Raphael, apparently she and Raphael had “more then just business relations” according to my notes. So i thought of setting up a bit of a love traingle there but when asked the Angel said that Raphael is actually her sister. That character turned out was fun to play and they will be going with her the next day.
The Faceless confronted the Hardholder in the end and wanted to know wether she is his daughter or not but just as he lifted up her Mask their power went out (someone rolled a 6- in that exchange).
For the latstest session we will kick into high action now as this will be a good moment for the PaParadise Hardhold to attack them in full force. I plan to use the extended Battle Moves for that. Does anyone has experience and tips for using them as this will be our first time with them.
My big problem is still the Angel though. She will leave. It is not my job to keep her in the hardhold but to make her live more interesting. I will set a “farewell” scene to see if some of the players want to do something to keep her there but if she goes – what do i do? I could set up a few encounters on the road but that feels way to railroady to me. I could just divorce her from all the action there and play a bit with time and play scenes that go further and further into the future while the other characters need to deal with problems at the hardhold but I don’t know… I want to do right by the player but I don’t really know how. Any help?
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Oh and I also thought of writing a Mini “Danger” of how their assault on the hardhold will go, just so that I have something to say and to rely on when it happens and not just “well they are there and charging and attacking you I guess”.
In hindsight I would have loved to run the whole game with John Harper Blades in the Dark Countdowns instead of AW fronts (I know that they are very similar) but they just seem to click so good for me while fronts I can work with but it is always a bit odd. In my next game I will use them.
I think you could do interesting things following the Angel down the road and introducing new(? Or just different?) dangers. It doesn’t seem railroady to me — this is apocalypse WORLD not Apocalypse ThisPlace.
In some ways, cutting between these Giant War scenes over at the Hardhold and these “quieter” trying-to-survive-on-my-own scenes could be cool! Use them to explore how bad it is elsewhere, compare and contrast to how bad the hold is, and maybe aggressively frame her scenes so you can see a several different situations before the campaign is over.
This sounds — to me — like something similar to the end of Red Dead Redemption. You’re not playing gunslinger anymore… You’re home with your wife and son and you have work to do, and the game kind of decompresses and explores that… And then drops the hammer. I could see something similar being done for someone who wants to run away from the action at the very start of the final session.