Snowpocalypse aftermath.
If anything, I’ve learned a lot about Apocalypse World today. The session wasn’t a total failure, we had some fun, but I seriously need to step it up a bit. I’m not going to write a list about the things I did wrong, because it would be too long and would totally put me down.
The feedback from Tim Franzke, Aleksandra Sontowska and Eric Nieudan was great though. That’ll help me for sure in future sessions. And I’m not fucking around; it will definitely help me.
The thing is that AW is a lot different to run than Dungeon World. It’s not that I didn’t know it, I just didn’t realize how much.
We talked it over, and we decided not to have a follow up session. The game was too bland, and I as MC wasn’t very excited about continuing the game. I’d much rather start over.
Too things I need to do more in particular; ask more questions and make much, much harder moves.
I’ve MC’d a little, and to start with I found it really hard to pick a good move after every single prompt. Sometimes I felt all the cogs engage and the game just sung, but sometimes the engine stalled a little and the game felt unsatisfying. If you can get into the rhythm and internalise the Moves it’s an awesome game, which keeps me wanting to come back and run it again.
There are also some moments where you probarbly not make a move directly. When two characters just get together to talk something out they set up their own moves and you have to let them at least some of the time or they lack agency.
Oh yeah, but if people are talking among themselves that’s not a prompt for an MC move. If they tell you what they want to do, that’s not a prompt either. When they stop talking and look at you, or when they ask you what happens, or when they miss a roll, that’s when to make an MC move. And to begin with, I had problems coming up with a good one sometimes. It takes practice.
I think, basically, if the PCs know what they want to do, the game can just follow them and see how they do, until they make a mistake or run out of ideas or look to the MC to see what happens. The MC moves are there to keep the action kicking along when the players aren’t sure how to proceed on their own, I think.
Moves are brilliant and all, but since I started running *W games, I’ve always felt that they came second to my own old timer GM gut.
It’s nice to have a list for ideas when you don’t have them, it’s certainly vital to know when you have to make a move, but nothing beats the simple question: What will make the situation more interesting/tense/shitty/desperate.
My two eurocents anyway.
Eric Nieudan I both agree and disagree. I agree in the sense that move should always make the situation more interesting/tense/shitty/desperate, as you yourself put it. But the list of moves is exactly how you should do it in the current game.
One thing I’ll have to try next time I run a game is to follow this hard move clause:
If the player doesn’t groan or curse, then it isn’t hard enough.
Seriously, I just realized today that I rarely make hard moves, I only make soft moves, even on misses.
I really need to change that, but as I said after the hangout, it’s difficult for me because of many of my past experiences as a player (not in *W systems, but in general). I’ve had a lot of GM’s that did a lot of very arbitrary rulings, and I really hate that kind of thing.
While I’m afraid of doing things that would feel arbitrary, I have to embrace the fact that a miss explicitly allows me to pull rabbits (or bear traps) out of a hat. It has to make sense, but it can be something brutally hard that seemingly comes out of nowhere.
Oh yeah, and that’s why I like having these lists.
Also, Tim Franzke. I had a really hard time figuring out what to do when you missed the “Read a person” move. I should have told you to ask three questions, but instead of having Fluffy answer them, I would answer them instead, as a way of having you totally misread her. Turning the move back on them and all that.
Could have made for some fun interaction between Ethan and Fluffy.
Or do the old out a price on it trick with offering XP if Ethan acts on the wrong information. Shouldn’t be overdone though.
Laptop crashed as I was typing a lengthy bit of feedback, saying in essence that the lack of tension last night wasn’t entirely your fault.
As experienced *W gamers all of us, we can help you with making things interesting/tense/shitty/desperate. Tim Franzke did it with his well-timed backstabbing, but I could have used the gang to plant leads for you: an demanding girlfriend, a jealous lieutenant, a drunken son…
And the move I was hit with was hard enough I thought.
Tim Franzke Yeah, I think it was. The situation could have gone really out of hand for you. Somehow, with some amazing dice rolls, you pulled out of it unscratched. That was pretty fun.
Aleksandra Sontowska is still right though. Most of my “hard moves” weren’t hard at all.
Eric Nieudan Well, I don’t consider that your fault either. It would have come up if I had just asked more questions.
feel it out, though. not every group wants their faces ground into the dirt over and over again
Adam McConnaughey Well, Fluffy the Gunlugger’s player, Aleksandra Sontowska, specifically told me that she felt “cheated” because my moves weren’t hard enough.
fair enough!
I’m certain the next time to MC Apoc World, you’re gonna rock it hard, Kasper! 😀
Oh, I sure hope so! 🙂
Are you planning a new session any time soon? I also found I was being too soft in my first monster of the week game.
Well, I’m also too soft in my Dungeon World games, so I guess it really just carried over…
And as always, I plan on playing as often as possible. Except for board games, RPG’s are my only real “hobby”.
OK, not entirely true, more or less any kind of social game is down my alley 😉