I wanna run Apocalypse World again, this time with:
• the foreknowledge of what I did wrong/poorly the first time
• players who are slightly more willing to take control
• 2nd edition, which changes a bunch of small things to make them a lot smoother
apocalypse world, mistakes I made
I made many mistakes when I last ran AW. Some concrete mistakes were:
• We made the setting too sprawling — there were several different towns, seperated by vast wastes, and different players were scattered all over, so having sessions where they interacted was hard.
• I didn't emphasise character relationships enough, and I didn't push PC-NPC-PC triangles where I should have. The supporting cast was too large.
(continued)
apocalypse world, mistakes I made
• I didn't push the pacing enough, so many sessions were way too slow, and often we had to end in the middle of a tense scene and continue it next week. I know that story games generally are pretty slow paced compared to other improvisation drama, but it felt like we were consistently spending 5 minutes on 30 second scenes, and 30 minutes on 5 minute scenes.
I feel mostly to blame for this, but the players could have taken a more active role in the pacing too
apocalypse world, mistakes I made
I think next time, I need to plan my sessions a bit more concretely.
And when I do, I should plan them as though we only have half the time available – it's always best to end a session early.
I think having session boundaries coincide with downtimes is the most needed change.
AW already pushed for session boundaries to be in downtimes, but 2nd edition pushes this a bit more by making the start of the session be when people have to pay their expenses.
(fin)