05 August 2010

More about Apocalypse World

I have begun another Apocalypse World game, this time as a player rather than MC. It's interesting that the experience is very different, more distinct than I had expected.

This is probably partly because I'm out of practice at just playing games, these days, almost always running things for my regular group. It's partly, too, that I built my character thinking mainly about what would be awesome but didn't spend any time thinking about who the character was and how he got there. That made positioning myself a little harder, although now I've had time to digest the game and think about it, I have a better handle on him and most importantly a plan that will almost certainly lead to chaos.

The game was shaped right from the beginning by some significant, and missed, rolls. The characters are me with a Battlebabe, a Hocus and a Brainer. We live around a bar that existed under the protection of a bike gang.

The first play-driving failure was on the Hocus's session start move, with a death and a desertion (specifically, a break with his brother) in the cult. Later, I managed to aggravate the entire bike gang and only ended that by killing their leader and taking another one hostage to walk out alive. Oh, and the brainer failed a puppet strings roll that ended with another gang member dying. So, overall it was fairly undirected chaos.

I think we maybe stepped into play a little soon, but the chaos - especially the local power vacuum - leaves us in an interesting place for the second session. We've been throwing some ideas around, and I suspect that the second game will work a bit better for all of us.

Looking forward to session two.

Regarding Apocalypse World, my high opinion stands. Very good game.