11. Timeline of play

New to the 2nd edition is the inclusion of the short section “Timeline of Play” to the opening chapter of Apocalypse World: “The Basics” (page 13). Here’s our text:

Pre-play prep: Read through this book, download and print the playbooks and ref sheets, and daydream some apocalyptica.

The 1st Session: Lead the players through character creation and begin play. Get to know the characters and their world, especially where their lives are unstable, tenuous, and unpredictable. Create threats.

Subsequent Sessions: Escalate and build. Daydream more apocalyptica. Push the situation, following the logic of your threats, to its conclusion.

This is inarguably an excellent addition to a chapter designed to lay out the backbone of the game and to introduce the general scope of both the rulebook and play itself.

The heart of prep (other than knowing the rules and printing out the necessary materials) is thinking about cool apocalyptic details. “Daydream” is a wonderful word for it because it communicates a sense of play and leisure. It doesn’t command you to watch movies, read books, find pictures online, and write up some background material—all of that is work. No, you just need to daydream—prime the pump of your imagination and find some cool things lurking in the back of your brain so you can bring them to the table. It may be the Platonic ideal of prep, but I dig it.

The overview of the first session is the first time it’s made clear that the plot of this game is created at the table rather than prepared ahead of time. Hell, you don’t even have an inciting incident or set piece prepared according to the rules laid out here. Instead, play is about exploration of the characters themselves, “where their lives are unstable, tenuous, and unpredictable.” You are watching the characters and poking and prodding them to see how they act and where they are susceptible to drama. Character will be revealed through decisions and actions, so make them decide and act and compare who they think they are to whom they really are. Everything comes from the particular characters at your particular table.

After that first session, the goal is simple: “Escalate and build” and “[p]ush the situation.” “Build” is an important word because Apocalypse World is about consequences, about every action and decision building upon the fallout from the last set of decisions and actions. Equally important is the use of the word “conclusion.” AW is not about playing characters until the playbooks turn yellow with age. It’s about creating a complete story with not only a beginning and a middle but also an end. The themes and concerns that have been building from the first session don’t mean anything if the arc is not brought to a conclusion.

Not a word is wasted. The section is short and straight-forward, but it provides a lot of details about the nature of the game and how the stories it prompts are born, evolve, and come to a rest.