Author: Ryan Good

The second session went well. It was the first one where we had actual play. The players seemed to have a good time when they were involved in whatever was happening at the time, but were disengaged when people were doing things that did not directly involve them. I mapped things as we went, and that worked better than I expected it to. 

The issues, as I saw it were that we are all new to the system and getting used to a new system takes some time. 

One that I am not super clear on… is the balance between me describing things and them reading a situation. 

The way I thought I was supposed to do it is that I would give them a general description of some of what they seem but if they want to know more they have to tell me they are reading the situation. That I wouldn’t tell them to do that, they would have to tell me they were doing that. However I just read over some examples in the AW book and in one of them it has the MC asking for that roll. So now I am not clear on which way you are supposed to do it. 

Also if I ask them to make that roll and its for a stat they have highlighted, they still get the exp right? 

A few questions on making fronts. 

So the first step in making a Front is to choice a Fundamental Scarcity. For this example I am picking Ambition. Next I create 3 to 4 threats. 

This is where I get a little lost. So I have already talked to my players in the first session and we have 25 NPCs from me just asking questions and them giving me answers. This 25 includes their crews, love interests, fellow escaped slaves, local movers and shakers and a few overt dangerous types.  

Do I pick the threats from these NPCs? 

Let’s say I have two unconnected NPCs that Ambition would work for, do they both go on the same Front? Is this front for all Ambitious threats, or just ones that fit in to an overall theme? 

If I am just supposed to list threats on the front that share more than ambition, like some sort of story connection. Would I do it like… Drugulla the Hutt (this is a Star Wars game) is a threat, and then the other connected threats are his various henchmen? 

Since AW seems to be much more open with what they players can see that would normally only be for MC eyes… are the players supposed to see the Fronts? I am making up a sheet for them so that they can better keep track of the NPC’s we have in the game and I didn’t know how much information was too much information. If they can see the Fronts however, well then its pretty much all fair game. 

Ok I have been looking over a lot of books related to AW the last month or so, and I saw a move that I want to use but I can’t remember where I saw it at. The move was made after combat I believe, and it was to check to see how much fuel, supplies or ammo you used us during the fight. Do any of you kind souls remember which book/hack/playbook that might have been in? 

I have a question about gigs. 

So the player rolls for his gigs, gets a 10+ and gets paid on at least one of his gigs. Cool. 

Next time he rolls poorly and we start play at the point things fell apart. We play to see what happens from here. As MC I sort of assume that since resolving this could take a little while, and I don’t want everyone else to be sitting around watching just one guy deal with a blown mission that everyone will be involved in some way to pull the character with the blown gig bacon out of the fire. Or maybe they were in on it the whole time. 

So let’s say even though things with bad with it, they still managed to pull off whatever the gig was for. Who gets paid? The whole group that was involved or just the guy who had the gig move? 

For example let’s say that the gig is ‘murder’ and while things go sideways, they still kill the person or people they are supposed to, so the murder happened. Seems like that’s a gig that should pay out, even if it didn’t go smoothly. 

One thing that I am having a hard time wrapping my head around is how experience is earned. The issue is that if you have someone highlight a combat related stat, and there is a decent amount of conflict in a session, it seems like someone could get a few advances a session. Now that might be by design, I am not sure. Is that how it works? Or is there a limit on how many advances you can get in a single session? I’ve read things over a few times, and unless I am just missing it, I don’t see any limit. 

Enlighten me please. 

For my Star Wars game I am thinking about my players and how they tend to do things. In this case specifically about slicing (Star Wars for Hacking). 

At first I was thinking of a move like this… 

Slice: Roll+Attuned, 10, pick two; 7 to 9 pick one. 

– Make change

– Find Information

– Go undetected

But knowing my guys if they do not get a 10 they will choose Go Undetected and try again. Which means more chances for me to make it interesting. So… is that all I really need, or should I make things harder on them each time they retry? 

For my Star Wars hack we wanted species/race to come in to play and some of you directed me to the Heritage moves. I batted that around for awhile and came up with the following idea. Feedback is very welcome. 

– Each race has 4 to 6 racial moves available to them. 

– At the start of the session roll +attune. 10+ hold 2 racial, 7-9 hold 1 racial, fail 1 hold racial that the MC may use. 

– Spend racial hold at this time to select racial moves available for the remainder of the session. 

– One racial move may be a weakness.

– One debility available is to permanently remove the currently in use racial move from the race playbook.