Author: T. Franzke

This is fair game right?

Knowing the Angel just spend her last angel kit stock I told her the result of the move was that she needed to spend another stock to safe her patient.

Fair game?

I then told her she could substitute that stock with healing touch.

That is also okay right? 

Another option could be: you have about an hour to get enough bling to acquire another stock. After that he is beyond saving. Works too, right?

Greetings, 

we had our last session and we didn’t finish! That is my fault to a big part though. We started with the Faceless escaping the Driver’s savage cult and the driver abandoning his cult and his taxi in the dessert. That was cool stuff and fitting for a last session. While that was happening the Hardholder was meeting with the hunters and others that had abandoned his Hardhold and I set up new threats and problems like crazy because that was hat was fitting to the fiction. 

Meanwhile the player of the Angel told me she really wanted to go look after Blueray in this session. Problem: Blueray has been dead for 2-3 sessions now so I pointed her torwards his grave. Totally pissed she decided that this here is all crazy and she wanted to leave with her lover. We then had a couple of scenes that was me putting different characters together. Through that I kind of shifted into a Monsterhearts MC, setting up all these conversations and drama. 

I don’t really know why I did that but the performances by the players were spott on that evening and I just wanted to see MORE of that. The big takeaway from that was that no one likes the driver anymore, they are all tired of his antics and crap. 

The Hardholder bought better firepower for his gang but had to promise the merchant a child (yeah, I had to talk about child trade slavery… Good job Apocalypse World) and he convinced the lover of the Driver to give up her niece for that. He also heavily flirted with her and that pissed off the Driver even more. 

I had no idea what to do with the Angel afterwards as she wanted to leave. So I had no idea how to deal with that to make her live interesting then. The Angel has been a bit on the backburner for the whole campaign and I am not really sure why. She has the least screen time for sure. The fact that she is played by a woman and I am kinda subduing her doesn’t help. I always want to do more with her but the other characters themselves are just a bit more engaging (this is not a comment against that player. It is against me for not helping her setting up more stuff and involving that character more). She needed a merchant that would take the two further south. I checked the list of merchant and found Raphael, apparently she and Raphael had “more then just business relations” according to my notes. So i thought of setting up a bit of a love traingle there but when asked the Angel said that Raphael is actually her sister. That character turned out was fun to play and they will be going with her the next day. 

The Faceless confronted the Hardholder in the end and wanted to know wether she is his daughter or not but just as he lifted up her Mask their power went out (someone rolled a 6- in that exchange). 

For the latstest session we will kick into high action now as this will be a good moment for the PaParadise Hardhold to attack them in full force. I plan to use the extended Battle Moves for that. Does anyone has experience and tips for using them as this will be our first time with them.  

My big problem is still the Angel though. She will leave. It is not my job to keep her in the hardhold but to make her live more interesting. I will set a “farewell” scene to see if some of the players want to do something to keep her there but if she goes – what do i do? I could set up a few encounters on the road but that feels way to railroady to me. I could just divorce her from all the action there and play a bit with time and play scenes that go further and further into the future while the other characters need to deal with problems at the hardhold but I don’t know… I want to do right by the player but I don’t really know how. Any help? 

Do you players and MCs have any last minute tips for running a last session of Apocalypseworld?

Tonight’s experiment: let’s Highlight Hx

Important questions for this session of Apocalypse World: 

Will the Faceless be able to keep her hand?

How will the Driver deal with being the prophet of the weird car cult?

Can the Hardholder keep the holding together or will it crumble even more? 

What does the Angel actually want now? 

Session Report – The Driver got weird and Faceless romance 

We open the game with love letters. During that we learn that the Broken Wheel hardhold is made out of the remnants of a legendary convoy and other car related stuff. Everything there is about cars. They even have a weird car religion that can bless your car with special fuel that doesn’t require petrol. Another ritual is the dusting of a car with blessed dust that then needs to be cleaned up while wearing a bikini in order to repair and protect the car “by magic”. 

Travis has an affair with their “high priestess” Chevie.  

Travis was driving Hudson there so that their Angel Frenchboy can heal her of the northern dialect. As a thank you she promised to take him with her to Leaky Lake (Hudson and Frenchboy have an affair for a while already although we just learned that this session). Travis was out of fuel and promised to work for Garbfield and his raiders for a month in order to pay for enough fuel to get him and Hudson back.

Hudson of course was super pissed about that as she wants to get back with Frenchboy now. Both argue and Travis suggests that Hudson could poison Garbfield so that he could be free. He also promised Chevie that he would kill Garbfield for her. The manipulate move fails however and Hudson talks him down. Unsure what to do he leans down on the hood of his Taxi, starts the engine (burning his last fuel) and opens his brain. He misses the roll and the Taxi starts driving off without anyone controlling it.

 Meanwhile Jax the President of Leaky Lake has problems keeping his Gang together as one of them, Snooze, has killed the leader of the Raiders, Compact. Also Columbine killed Joe’s Girl and the gang is pissed about that. Jax misses his roll and Brace Wen, one of his second in command and widower to Compat blames him for everything and takes about half of the gang with him to live with the hunters. 

Columbine has little success convincing the spiritual leader of the hunters Maja to talk her down but gets a weird vision of the hardhold being torn apart by the swamp on the one side and smoke, oil and fire on the other side. 

Columbine is unsure what to do and uses Norman to talk to her mask. Columbine lived in a bunker for a long time and the gasmask is a relict from that time. It is all about pushign her to survive so first order of busniss is to get fed again. Columbine is hungry and food is short at the moment. She easily talks Jax into giving her access to his personal supply. Next scene we see Columbine without her mask, dancing to music and eating peanut butter out of a giant jar. She is happy for once. 

Hudson sees Travis driving of and alarms Frenchboy and then Chevie (that was a brilliant move and I loved the player for that because it opened up so much playspace suddenly). Chevie declares Travis to be a prophet or saviour or somesuch of her car based religion and they build a convoy to go and get him. 

Travis meanwhile is in his personal headspace and I interrogate him about where he wants to be. In the end he wants to be at Leaky Lake. His personal freedom is important but he needs a safe space of operation and sees himself as the president’s best man. Also columbine is important to him as she is his favorite passenger. HIS. 

Jax has some problems with his new bodyguard Rolfball (finally a chance to introduce this guy!) I play him as super overprotective. He stops the president from going down and talking with the hunters because that would be a huge security risk and they get disrupted by Seline, telling them that Starshit is there to talk to them. Starshit made an arragenement with Columbine however that she would be a referee, a neutral party at the talk to make sure no one would doublecross each other. Jax sends Rolfball to get Columbine and he sees her dancing without her mask. He is stunned as per the mask rules but then screams “Wow you are hot!”. 

Columbine puts on her mask and rushes him, putting her fingers in his eyes and threatens to blind him should he talk to anyone about it. She misses the Go Aggro roll however and he pushes up her Gas Mask and kisses her. She kisses back but then shoves him of her. He yells after her to go see the president. 

Meanwhile Hudson is in a car with Frenchboy, driven by Allowance (one of Garbfield’s raiders). The two of them have a bit of a talk with Frenchboy beating around the bush of asking if she is seeing anyone. Alowance adjusts her rear-view mirror and says “come on, if you gonna make out at least let me watch” but both do more then just make out in the back of that car. 

Of note is that Frenchboy is super sweet and gentle when touching Hudson’s burn-scars. 

Jax and Starshit quickly come to an aggreement that the quarantine should be lifted but that Starshit and his people should kill everyone of the traders that is sick or shows signs of sickness. Both agree. As they finish their talk there are a bunch of cars coming from the north. You can see a bit down in the community to see what this is about. (My players can not!) 

Travis is back at Leaky Lake without knowing how he got there. He cleans his car and when he starts the engine back on and grabs the steering wheel he feels something dragging on his soul. He quickly turns off the car and asks Gabriel to help him push it in (that means Travis sits in the car while Gabriel pushes it. She is strong but simple). 

Travis and Columbine meet back up and he tells her most of what happens. She doesn’t believe his story though and thinks he needs an angel to look after him and a lot of rest. Rolfball comes back out and puts his arm around her. Travis doesn’t like that at all and threatens to fight with Rolfbal over her. The Faceless uses Norman again, asking whom she should be going out (or whatever) with. She hears a short description of both of their advantages and disadvantages in the voice of a military briefing, coming to the conclusion that Rolfball is stronger and better at protecting himself and her and therefore should be her choice. Rolf pisses Travis of some more so he gets back into his car, starts the engine and wants to run him over. I tell the player that he has a new move. It isn’t fully developed yet but goes kinda like that: 

When you start your car and want to drive when you have no more fuel left, roll+WEIRD 

On a 10+ you get to where you wanted

On a 7-9 you get to where your car wants you 

Or something like that. Feedback is appreciated. 

He misses the roll and Rolf opens the door and pulls the Driver out and throws him against a fence there. 

Meanwhile Jax is going down again to talk to the Hunters. He tries to sneak into Brace Wen’s hut but also misses his Acting under Fire. He wakes up with a concussion, covered in mud and with his hands bound behind his back. He frees himself and walks back in just in time to meet Exit, his now second in Command. He tells the President that this was the last warning according to the Hunters and that a lot of the merchants at the north gate seem to be leaving. He thinks nothing of that and goes back up. 

Okay, back to Columbine and Rolf and Travis. Travis is pissed and reaches for his Shotgun in the car, aiming at Rolf. He misses the roll and Rolfball disarms him, aiming the shotgun at Travis directly. Columbine tries to interfere but fails her roll too! She has her hand just in front of the barrel when Rolfball pulls the trigger! She hsot goes straight through her hand, messing it up badly and into Travis (messing him up too). Columbine has enough and picks up Rolfball and throws him! Through a wall! And down the damm. 

I should mention that earlier in the day, Jax had Snooze thrown down the damm too, hoping that would appease the hunters somehow. 

Columbine is standing over Travis’s hurt body as the Convoy from Broken Wheel arrives and Chevie pulls out a Megaphone to demand that the prophet Travis should be brought to her. 

Session End. 

We are using the “when you fill out Hx, learn a secret” rule and it turns out that Jax is actually the father of Columbine. This wasn’t 100% set int stone however, we are stil ltalking about if we want that to be true or not. If then only Columbine knows, Jax hasn’t pieced it together yet.

All in all I was super happy with this session because we had weird Maelstorm stuff, wacky cults, romance and sex as well as super bloody violence. Very Apocalypse World. 

Summoning:

Players;

Hudson Regine Bernhardt 

Travis Boris Hamburg 

Columbine Philipp Neitzel 

Jax Max Külshammer 

People I talked to about the game before

Meguey Baker Tim Jensen Simone Micucci Adam Robichaud Vincent Baker Lavinia Fantini Henry de Veuve Alfred Rudzki jan w Nathan Roberts Ben Jarvis Nikitas Thlimmenos Duane Padilla Jerry Sköld 

Josh McGraw 

Because they will like it

Whitney Delaglio because Faceless romance

Alberto Muti because he just started up an AW game

Kasper Brohus Allerslev to make him jealous 

Josh Mannon because he will like it 

Sean Dunstan because

Aleksandra Sontowska because she will also like it 

When players fail beginning of session moves

Turns out the second in command and a bunch of others in the Hardholder’s gang just left because he is unable to lead and the hardhold is destined to fail under his leadership. 

cue the sad trombone music.