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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7598186" data-attributes="member: 42582">I started with the butler, because that player is more adept at answering questions ("What are you doing in London?") and introducing the necessary story elements (like the Earl being "indisposed"). I wan't keeping time, but moved back and forth between them maybe every 10 or so minutes? Basically at appropriate break points in the action - and meanwhile trying to establish parallel/overlapping elements so the intertwining could happen - like making sure that the apartments of Smythe where Appleby was visiting were next door to the apartments of Livingstone where Randal had his evening appointment. And in due course connecting Smythe as well as Livingstone to the East African colonies.And Appleby's player helped here, by presenting the Earl as an adventurer/explorer type and hence a good candidate to have colonial connections. Another way he helped was the following: when I first asked the player where Appleby was staying, he had nominated the Forlorn Trap, a carriage house on the south side of the river. I had Granvill invite him to stay at the Smythe apartments; his luggage was going to be sent for but I decided that the drama of the fire and the cannister removal had meant this hadn't happened, which would give me an excuse to have him go out to the Trap later on. Which paid off: when Randal was travelling on a steam launch with his coat (and the cannisters) to The Pride of Bohemia, intending to discuss the return of his coat with Smythe, I had Appleby spot him while travelling along the river bank - on the boat with the canisters! And Appleby's player again started calling out "Thief! Thief!" (and made a check for this, committing his sanity die, and thus resulting in a failed SAN check and going into a mad frenzy which resulted in another trip to Armand's clinic for some nerve tonic).That sort of player proactivity helps bind the paths of the PCs together and gives me more material to work with.Even at the end the PCs (Stone, Appleby, Armand) were essentially strangers who happened to have found themselves collective witnesses to some strange events, but not actually a group. (Whereas in our previous Cthulhu Dark session, at the end the PCs ended up cooperating to try and stop the horror.) Most of the RPGing I do focusesmuch more on "party play": in Burning Wheel and Cortex+ Heroic we've also had some of this sort of "separate stories" thing, but not the full "strangers with a shared experience" thing.My understanding is that this "separateness" of the PCs is a big part of Apocalypse World but that's a game I know only by reading and reputation, not from play. I'll call on [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] to see if he will share any thoughts about managing non-party play and intertwining PC story paths.</blockquote>

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