So who’s had a bad or bland session, and why?
I’m pretty green in terms of running PbtA games, and our last mission felt a little bland/linear in the Action Phase. My PCs had driven a boat up to a mission site, where a large container ship was docked, which contained what they were trying to steal (Basically, running a modified Master of Puppets mission). The Pusher’s hardcore ex-military believers were flying helicopters over the shipping companies’ office building, strafing it with gunfire and trying to largely distract the guards. So I pretty much narrated them into the ship, below deck, they find a dead ship guard (show the barrel of a gun). Probably should’ve started with a much harder move much earlier, have them get pinned down by a crime syndicate sniper, the same group that had send people into the ship after the same objective. I guess I’m not used to the idea of always making a move when they look to me, and making that move harder, giving them less build-up before things hit the fan.
This was after around 2 hours, or 2.5 hours, of legwork, and the action phase took less than an hour? So maybe I was a bit out of it, probably should’ve taken a 5 minute break and thought about what they would run into, based on things already established (this crime organization was a threat from the legwork phase, etc). After I get their plan, just stop for 5-10 minutes and think about where I can, very early on, start applying pressure. What do you fine folks think? Anyone else run into things like this? I’m maybe a bit more used to building out a sandbox / random encounters and having that stuff throw itself at the PCs, or used to things that are a bit more freeform, so perhaps I’m overthinking how to use MC moves to make things complicated / nonlinear at the very start of a mission’s action phase.
So basically maybe I just need to commit this to heart:
partialsuccess.wordpress.com – How not to run Apocalypse World
First question: did everyone have fun?
Ehhhh. I pointed out at the end that the crew had amassed like 2 Gear and 2 Intel and didn’t need any of it for the action phase, and that I felt like I should’ve found ways to make them use that stuff up. The players pointed out that the action phase was a bit skimpy/easy. They do go in for elaborate legwork planning, so they wind up circumventing a fair amount of action phase stuff. But given that the legwork clock fills up, various groups / guards / threats should be coming up with plans of their own.
They didn’t have an actively bad time. But I think it was on the blander side.
I’m kind of a PbtA noob myself and I ran a fairly bland mission not long ago. Everyone still seemed to have fun and I learned a lot. You are clearly aware that it could have been more exciting and that’s half the battle. That means you can work on it for next time. I’d highly recommend listening to some actual play podcasts (old Friends of the Table for example) for some great guidance.
I’m definitely going to read that How not to run Apocalypse World!
Here’s a session I learnt a lot from: The characters inflitrated a hospital thinking it was some sort of plague, with the express mission to kill the patients. Actually they were clone children that the corp wanted killed. While I wanted a hard ethical choice, I didn’t build in an out for the characters — there were too many kids to take out, so they either killed them (and the players weren’t willing to) or they just abandoned the mission which meant no one got paid and everyone felt hard done by.
Take aways:
* Be free with information, even if it gives away your big reveal. If the PCs had known what they were getting in to, they could have prepared for it both in game and emotionally as players.
* Always think about an out. Even if they’d walked in blind, it would have ended on a less sour note if they could have salvaged something from the situation.