Apocalypse World: The Verdant Mountains Campaign

Our 2nd Powered by the Apocalypse campaign, this one went way better; we even finished it!
Set in a world over run by wild malicious forests, where ruins of the old world are being choked out and eaten away by plants. Nestled in the mountains of the this world is the dam our protagonists call home. A community divided, politically and physically.
Our characters will have to navigate the political waters of this world to try an accomplish their various goals.

We hope you enjoy listening, if you like to see what we thought of the campaign you can read more after the break.

Raymond: I loved running this campaign. It took a completely different turn than I expected right off the bat. The whole political aspect really surprised me, and I’m so glad I could run it well. I’ve had trouble running political plots in the past, and I got pretty nervous after the first episode.
I did have trouble giving peoples characters things to do in every session, but we made it work in the end.
I was pleased that we managed to keep the tone and world building consistent. And I think the storytelling was some of our best so far.
It was great fun running a Powered By The Apocalypse World campaign and we defiantly need to run more of it.

Ryan: For me, the Verdant Mountains campaign didn’t really hit its stride until somewhere around game 7 or 8, when the threat of the Mountaineers became apparent. Before then, the story meandered a bit, the players resisted having scenes together, and our characters (with the exception of Ozair) were all very noncommittal about their choices. Ayazama played the game of hardhold politics, but eventually decided not to manipulate himself into a position of greater power. Saffron, despite what others assumed about him, was rather naive and thought of himself more of an artist than a businessman. He pretty much allowed others to lead him by the nose at every turn–including his mask, in the end.

However, the setup paid off big time during the second half of the campaign, when we found out about Jean the Thirteenth Paratrooper and the Mountaineer plot to cause a war between the Dammers and the Burners. If not for the squabbling and angling for power in the first act, the characters’ decision to throw their collective weight behind the community would not have been half as meaningful. The concluding arc had so many memorable moments, too. Who can forget Ozair’s shocking “king hit” on Con Pacifica, or the miracle for which Ayazama paid so dearly afterwards? And the endings that our characters got were really fantastic. Though the first part of the series may have been too slow a burn for my tastes, it built to an explosive finale that was well worth the wait.

Alex: I agree with Ryan for the most part, except that I enjoyed the slow burn of the first act. I thought the politicking and the going back and forth were interesting. I do, however, regret some of the choices I made. There was a time when I kept waffling on Ayazama’s motivation, and it shows. However, I did like how he eschewed everything he set up for himself initially once he realized he was being played and was way over his head.
And the climax was fantastic — we all managed to put aside our differences for the sake of the community. Which, really, was all Ayazama wanted.