The AP report from a game I recently played with my son, Jordan, and my daughter's boyfriend, Frank. Neither had played Apocalypse World before. In fact, neither had played any sort of RPG before this game. Given that, they did a fantastic job! I originally posted this on Google+, so if you've already read it there, it's the same thing.
So, as briefly as I can, here's the AP from our game last
night. Both Jordan, my son, and Frank,
my daughter's boyfriend, are very quiet and reserved people. Jordan doesn't speak much unless he's very
comfortable and I've known Frank for years and I've only heard his voice a few
times, so I knew it was going to be challenging, especially if I wanted to run
a "social" game. Instead, I
took the advice of +Todd Nicholas and gave them something concrete to do/accomplish
right off the bat.
Seeing as how we had a Juggernaut in the game (armor
described by Jordan as a "steampunk monstrosity") I determined that
he would be the protector of the Hardhold.
His name was Lucky and he called his armor "Ton-O-Phun". The Hardhold was a fortified village on the
Olympic Peninsula of Washington State, surrounded by trees and rolling hills
and very near a mountain range, from which the 'Hold mines iron and coal. The Hardhold, back before everything went to
hell in the world, was a boy scout camp called Olympic Pines. That name stuck, but now everyone just calls
it the O.P.
The Hardholder, Foster, had not heard back from the mining
supervisor who had been sent with a small party to investigate a new vein. He decided to send Lucky and his pal, Cal,
who has a dog named Icarus to investigate.
The mine was about an hour by foot away so they set off through the
woods. I described a scene in which they
suddenly noticed that all wildlife sounds had ceased, and it wasn't because of
the steaming, whistling monstrosity that was Lucky's armor. I introduced them to the Read a Sitch
move. Cal rolled and only got one
question. He decided to ask about an
escape route, so they did not detect the ambush when a small explosion felled a
tree right on top of Lucky. He rolled to
Act under Fire to dodge the tree and got a partial success. I allowed him the option of dodging the tree,
but having it strike his machine gun, potentially damaging it, or taking the
brunt of the tree himself. He chose to
allow the tree to hit him. Since
Ton-O-Phun as 4 armor, he was not hurt but was knocked off his feet into the
foliage and missed seeing a couple guys slip out of the bushes on either side
of the trail with submachine guns. One fired on Cal, but he successfully dived
into the foliage himself, landing directly on top of Lucky. The other fired blindly into the bushes,
hoping to hit Lucky. As Cal helped Lucky
to his feet, one of the ambushers pushed through the bushes and fired a burst
at Lucky's chest. He ignored the bullets
and reached out and grabbed the poor guy by the head, crushing it in his
huge, armored hand. Meanwhile, the other ambusher had gotten in
position to take an easy shot at Cal, but his dog, Icarus, streaked in out of
nowhere and locked his jaws around the attacker's wrist, breaking it and
forcing him to drop his gun. Lucky let
loose with a burst of machine gun fire and easily killed the attacker, but
barely missed Icarus with his spray of bullets.
Lesson learned for Lucky and Cal was left breathing a sigh of
relief. The two exchanged some harsh
words about Lucky's carelessness and they decided to push on.
The Mining camp was empty, but there was evidence of a fight
as bullet casings littered the ground and there were many pools of blood in
evidence. The mineshaft had also been
collapsed, but they investigated the ground and determined that some bodies had
been dragged into the shaft before it was collapsed (At this point I have no idea why the
mineshaft is collapsed, I just wanted to give them a challenge to overcome that
didn't involve combat). I assumed that
they would use the Juggernaut to try to dig through the blockage, but Cal
decided to use a move that allows him to consult his dog for insight. He wanted to find an alternate entry, perhaps
an air shaft or something. Sure enough,
he hit his 10+ and so Icarus led them unerringly to a narrow air shaft higher
up the mountain. The Juggernaut couldn't
fit in, so Cal slipped in and slid down into darkness by himself (armed only
with the infinite knives he selected as his weapon during character
creation). Meanwhile, Lucky decided to
Read the Sitch at the airshaft (unprompted by me) and so with a great roll I
allowed him to spot the sniper perched in a rocky nest about 300 yards up from
his position. When Cal slipped into the
shaft, the sniper opened fire. Since I
knew that I could not hurt Lucky and he was not able to hit the sniper, I
decided to turn up the heat a bit. I
described how the sniper, an incredible shot, was hitting the faceplate of his
helm, which he had previously described as a deep-divers helm repurposed as
armor. The first shot cracked the thick
glass and the second shot put a hole in it about the size of a fifty cent
piece. This did the job and Jordan got
very nervous, so he had Lucky dive for cover behind some rocks.
Down in the shaft, Cal found a couple of guys setting up
some more explosives to fully collapse the mine. He recognized one of the guys as Hugo, the
brother of Matilda, the hardholder of a nearby settlement. Those bastards were sabotaging the mine! Cal managed to hide so that he could prepare
a plan when I had Hugo hear the heavy machine gun fire from up the nearby air
shaft. He sent his partner, Monk to
investigate. Monk left through another,
larger shaft that the player's had not known about. Up top, Lucky cowered for a bit, terrified
that his faceplate would be completely destroyed, until he heard the sniper
moving. He risked a quick glance
(reluctantly) and saw the sniper repositioning to get a clear shot. They saw each other and exchanged fire. The sniper missed and Lucky's blast of
machine gun fire tore him up. Four armor
and he fights like a gang? What was I
thinking? Jordan LOVED it, though. Over the years I guess I've gotten inured to
the violence and tension in scenes like this.
It was fun and refreshing to experience it again through new
players. They were laughing and joking
and speaking in first person (which I had to coax them to do in the beginning)
and really getting in character.
To wrap it up, Cal managed to ambush Hugo with an awesome Go
Aggro roll, taking him prisoner. Monk
was spotted by Lucky as he attempted to escape and Lucky's shots went wide, so
he got away. Monk escaping really
troubled the players, which I loved.
They cared about it and felt it was a failure on their part. I ensured them that it would just make our
next session more fun.
I finished the game by explaining how I could use the
elements of the story we created to push the game forward in future
sessions. What will Matilda do to get
her brother back? Why was she sabotaging
the mine? How will Lucky repair his
faceplate? Cal finds that Icarus has
fathered a litter of pups back at the hardhold.
What will he do with the pups?
They cannot wait to play again and, honestly, neither can I.
(Sorry for such a long post.
TL;DR - It was fun!)
