First session experience : I ran my group through the Kurusawa Extraction (My first time using the system as well). It went ok although a little long. Three hours in we finally finished up the legwork phase.
Is the Legwork phase merely information gathering or can it also be used to set up what they needed in the actual extraction or should that have shifted into the Action Phase ?
Also my players did comment that a 7-9 result does not seem to have ANY success with a cost result. It felt much less deadly than other AW style games. 10+ being great success, 7-9 a slightly lesser success and 6- a failure.
Was that just me or is this happening with others?
That is an exceptionally long legwork phase from my experience. I usually spend about 45 minutes to an hour there.. and sometimes way less. They don’t need to and probably shouldn’t get everything completely sussed out in the legwork phase. Just assume that they gained some additional knowledge that the players may not know but the characters definitely would.
On the second point, how do you mean? Costs can be all kinds of things.. more enemies arrive, the alarm status goes green to yellow, all doors lock down, someone exchanges damage etc.
Legwork time should be limited by the legwork clock advancing. If the players don’t fail, then they should have all the information and tools they need. If they do, then the clock will time them out and force them into the Action phase.
Yeah, I think it’s worth calling out what a low Legwork clock gets you. It can make a big difference during wrap-up. My players tend to ere on the side of caution and stop legwork as soon as they fail a couple of times.
That is also the point. Lots of Legwork rolls and never any that triggered the legwork clock. There were very few in the moves that they triggered. I advanced it once just for the sake of “you have spent two days looking for stuff so it advances.” which felt sorta lame since all of their rolls had been 7+
Maybe I was not introducing my moves much, and maybe this is new MC awkwardness. Am I able to trigger my moves “at random” ? or must they be triggered by 6- rolls ?
I’m not an AW expert, but remember that you don’t make moves as such – they’re triggered by the fiction. And I think that advancing the clock because of passing time is perfectly reasonable – if the PCs spend two days investigating the target, that’s two days in which the target could also have been investigating the PCs…
Yeah, all your moves are triggered on their 7-9s and 6 or lesses. Don’t start doing random stuff in between because you’ll start to breed mistrust in the system which can sour a group fast.
One thing you can do though is hold a move until it makes more sense in the system. It’s not explicitly written in AW but I tend to use it in most games I run. Take a token every time you would get a hard move and then spend them when it makes the most sense or intensifies the action.
In addition to what others have said, 7-9 results that include “noise” or “unintended consequences” are a good time to advance the clocks, as well as on 6- results.
This is definitely an area that will be expanded in the book.
I hope none of this is coming out as “this game sucks” because that isnt my intent. I am just trying to get a better understanding for the game so I can give the players a good representation of the game (I dont think I accomplished that).
I think the 7-9 issue of not being success at a cost like most other AW based games we have played came out in the first play by us ONLY doing creation, get the job, & legwork. To be more specific, Observe & Research were done a few times to get facts about different aspects of the mission. Hit the streets I had the players roll on 3 different instances for different contacts they were meeting to gain more intel and details. Those 3 dont have negative consequences in the 7-9 range they just have ‘you dont learn as much’ as 10+, which could be a negative later but doesnt feel like it in the moment.
I can see that maybe because we never made it to the Action phase this could have skewed the player perception but they (and I) have a fairly positive outlook on the current status of the mission even for most of the rolls being in the below 10 range.
I just feel like I am doing it wrong :-/ Are there any AP videos or podcast out there to watch / listen to?
Not at all, William Nabors! This is useful feedback and I appreciate it.
Observe and Research don’t really have negative consequences for a 7-9, that’s true. Hit the street definitely does. Unwanted attention is a major cause of legwork clock advances, and if they always choose to avoid that option, then they’re probably taking a hit in the Cred.
Hamish Cameron True. I guess I almost see that as a non-choice (Unwanted Attention) but I hadnt considered the credit drain 🙂
I want to “get it right” for a demo game I am running for PandaCon (online) this saturday for some friends. They know it is my first game (at least when I originally set it up, and I want to not disappoint. 🙂
The Sprawl is full of choices like that. It’s one of my favourite parts of AW’s move structure: “choose this to prevent a bad thing happening”.