Have any of you had problems with the session-opening move?
I feel like the opening move was great to create plot churn over the first session or two, but I run ~5hr sessions with five players, and we haven’t been able to put any of those storylines to bed yet. I’m getting complaints from the group that things are TOO crazy.
I think for our fourth session I’m going to roll with Apocalypse-World-style love letters instead.
My players had the exact same complaint. Maybe only use it when the action calms. Or make it optional
Love letters can add just as much time. If you omit it, just make sure to give the PCs a makeup option for the faction they are not going to get to check off.
Yup, my players said the same thing: don’t do the rumors every session if you have enough going on. I asked my players to try to link their rumors/conflicts to what was already happening, which definitely helped contain the number of threats but still seemed to slow things down.
This has been my experience thus far:
1) The game reminds you that you can skip the move if you’re neck deep in stuff already, so take that to heart. It’s there to move the game forward, not to bog it down.
2) I’ve been pretty fortunate in that my players often revisit existing issues with the move. It’s a good indicator of things they want to focus on, and it helps give some more shape to things. Maybe remind your players of this possibility.
3) I generally think of the game like a TV show. The start of session move is for creating the situation of the week first, and adding to the metaplot second. Consequently it’s okay if B-plots get dropped at the end of an episode (for now or for keeps), and it’s also okay to trim some stuff out of a rumor and tie it onto an existing Storm, either in addition to or in lieu of focusing on it during the session.
4) And of course, once you’ve done enough situation of the week episodes, you’ll have enough Storm fuel to have an episode or three that focuses more on the overarching themes and metaplot that have been brewing. For those, you don’t need the start of session move because you already have enough to work with.
Love letters are cool, though. I haven’t used them in US, but I’ve had fun with them in other games. I don’t know how you’d write one in a way that lets the players make cool choices that create fiction without causing the same issues as the session starter move, though.
It says in the move that you don’t need to do it every session. If not than half the group is entangled in things, don’t use the move
I’ve done it once so far in three sessions, but I also think I’ve got a stronger core plot than PbtA is supposed to have.
If everyone’s having fun, Lex Permann, you’re doing it right.
As James said, the opening move can be used to introduce new plot threads, but it can also be used to spotlight existing ones too. If things seem to scattered, explicitly ask players to focus their choices on plots that are already part of your game.
Opening session move is on my opinion one of stronger points of the system.
It is perfectly fine to skip it and you also don’t have to do love letters, you can just start session with ‘hey, character A where do we find you that night?’.
I do love letters when we move time forward like a week or so and as a means to resolve unresolved tiny bits so that we can move on.
In games I run out play we make opening session move every second or third game.