Absolutely. Apocalypse World (AW) is tonnes of fun to play for a single session, but it was actually designed for long-term play. The full possibilities of the character-development mechanics require several sessions to unfold.
There are three common lengths of Apocalypse World games.
Single session. These are fun, as already mentioned. This is a good way to introduce the game. You get to experience the innovative resolution paradigm and mechanics, and you do get to explore the character and world to an unusual degree for a single-session game, but you don't really get to see the characters grow.
A single story arc. This is the typical "long-term" game of AW, and the longest I've personally played. We had two (sometimes three) characters, and we went from just trying to survive, to dealing with rebellions (one of us was a Hardholder, the other a Hocus), to going on a quest and uncovering the nature of the Psychic Maelstrom — and then we killed it. It was epic. That game lasted a dozen or so game sessions over a few months of play.
A single story arc is enough to really get your teeth into the characters and world. You get to see hard choices made, maybe changes of PC philosophy, and you have the chance to significantly affect the world. It's long enough that the PCs can get enough advances to start taking moves from other playbooks, and maybe even pick up a new playbook entirely.
How long is a single story arc? It ends when the Big Stuff That Is Happening wraps up in a satisfactory way. AW just generates Big Stuff (at least, big to the characters), and when you're in the middle-game of a campaign of AW you'll start to see the interesting events start to agglomerate around a particular set of larger-scale conflicts. It's just how the game tends to play. When that larger set of conflicts resolves, you'll find there's a pause – a breathing space for the characters – where it feels natural to just end the game.
An ongoing campaign. This is what happens when you don't end the game during that breathing space. You keep going. You maybe skip a year of in-game time and Ask Questions* of your players about the intervening time. This is just like starting a new campaign, except you have existing characters and you already know a lot about the setting. (This is a good time for people to have characters retire to safety† too. You don't have to have all the same characters.)
This is how the designer, Vince Baker, runs Apocalypse World, and it fully supports this kind of ongoing play.
The wonderful thing about AW is that you don't have to plan an ongoing campaign. There's no difference between a one-shot session and a campaign's first session, so you just play one sit-down game of AW. If the players want to keep going, you play an arc. If they want to keep going, you have an ongoing campaign.
You don't have to do anything different as the MC, either.** So since you don't plan the campaign ahead of time, the prep for the first session or a one-off session of AW is the same. Prep before the first session is actually non-existent, beyond reading the book and printing out the play materials. (Make sure you have a copy of your Agenda, Always Say, and Principles. Read and re-read them!) Prep for the second session is more involved, but it gives you the seeds of an entire story arc.
So run a first game, and see if the players take to the game. Use and fill out the First Session sheet while you play (p. 122 for details on the First Session). If they do like it, do the After The 1st Session prep (p. 132) and run a second session. If they like it, you've got a campaign.
* This is referring to one of the MC's Principles: "Ask provocative questions and build on the answers."
† One of the possible advancements for a character.
** The most important thing about AW is that you do not plan a campaign. Do not. The rules actually forbid the MC from doing that, and your players are completely in the right to call out an MC for cheating if they pre-plan the campaign. (If this is confusing, it'll make more sense after reading the game book. A core principle, and an assumption that all the game mechanics are built around, is that the MC is not pulling strings to make the game follow any particular plot. The game simply doesn't work if you pre-plan plots.)
New and changed moves
There are several new moves, with the largest additions being
- Road war moves (vehicular combat)
- Subterfuge moves (cat and mouse -style tracking)
- Tactical and support moves (laying down
fire, standing overwatch and keeping an eye out)
- Single combat (plain 1-on-1 duking it out)
- Seize by Force receives clarifications for use in varying combat situations, like assaulting a secure position
Many moves have been clarified or have slight changes in wording: for example, the "new" move Sucker someone basically spells out the rule from 1st edition that one-way surprise violence should be handled using Go Aggro move. The changes to moves make gameplay somewhat more intuitive, as things formerly explained only in the rulebook are more clearly spelled out for the players too.
Road war moves give the Driver and other characters with cars a lot more to do with their steel steeds and a high Cool stat. Where first edition completely lacks vehicle-specific moves, the second edition's new moves give the sucker behind the wheel a lot more options to take instead of just "Acting under fire". New moves for shouldering cars, boarding moving vehicles, T-boning, chasing/escaping another vehicle and maintaining control in harsh terrain makes it much easier to have an exciting, interesting motorized chase scene.
The Optional battle moves of first edition have been removed, as they're pretty much in the niche of the new Tactical and support moves.
With the amount of added moves, the feel of the game changes notably. While various situations now have more specific moves, it is also far more difficult to remember all the moves by heart. This can work against the general "lightness" of Apocalypse World experience and I recommend having move prints handy at all times when playing 2e, or culling down the move set closer to first edition for those who value the simplicity.
New and changed playbooks
In the basic reference book, there's one new playbook, The Maestro'd who runs a social establishment (bar, casino, brothel, you name it). Maestro'd was originally a limited edition playbook for 1st edition but is now a part of the core package.
There are also extended playbooks as extras:
- The Faceless is a mean, masked brute
- The Waterbearer controls a source of water, possibly with special properties
- Quarantine is a former special operative from before the Apocalypse, just awoken from stasis
- The Child-thing is a creepy, semi-feral child
- The News hosts a media outlet, eg. a radio station
- The Show is a musician capable of impacting entire crowds with their playing
The Faceless and Quarantine previously existed as limited edition playbooks for the first edition.
Only one playbook of the 1st edition core package, The Operator, has been removed from the second edition. Their shtick, gigs, has been simplified and made accessible to almost all playbooks. Some of the Operator moves were given to The Driver.
The playbooks contain minor changes to remove references to the Operator's Moonlighting ability, and to include references to new content like prosthetics and new battle and subterfuge moves. Most playbooks give starting out with a vehicle or prosthetic as an option to be discussed with the MC.
Hx assignment has been made somewhat simpler, with each player only filling their own character's sheet instead of telling other players what values of Hx to mark.
Gigs and lifestyle
While in 1st edition characters would spend roughly 1-barter per in-game month for living, 2nd edition instead ties lifestyle to sessions. Players can choose to have their characters pay 1-barter for stingy living or 2-barter for secure comfort at the beginning of each session to cover for their lifestyle, for most playbooks.
This change tends to cause more barter getting spent for lifestyle - in 1e, a single point of barter would suffice for roughly a month, which could translate to dozens of sessions, but in 2e, the steady expense per session makes sustenance a more pressing issue for most playbooks. Tying the barter to sessions instead of in-universe time reduces the need for timekeeping, which simplifies play in longer campaigns.
If PCs need jingle during the sessions, their players can ask the MC to let them work gigs. Most playbooks have suggestions for gigs for the character to work. Working gigs is the player's own call, giving them more control over their character and providing something easy to do in downtime - but they're also a way for the MC to provide them with new kinds of challenges and trouble. The MC can decide how much to "zoom in" on a gig - things may go quite well without an incident, or the gig could go totally south and get the PC in serious trouble that becomes the new focus of action.
Harm
Characters in 2nd edition no longer have the option to accept debilities (exchanging all incoming harm to a permanent -1 to one stat). However, they're not fully subject to death either, anymore. When a character's harm reaches 12:00, their life instead becomes untenable: they have the option to die, but can also choose to survive with -1 hard, +1 weird, or playing a different playbook.
Prosthetics are implemented as a flavor mechanic, without readymade moves. Players can ask the MC to have their characters start out with prosthetics, or may wind up having one after being treated by an Angel when their life was untenable.
d-harm (deprivation) is given as a flavor mechanic, and induces effects varying on the type of the deprivation. For example, d-harm (food) causes irritability, hunger, weakness, lethargy et cetera when inflicted on an individual. When inflicted on a population, it causes rationing and hoarding, desperation, infighting, eventually cannibalism. Essentially, d-harm gives the players an idea on how different types of scarcity impact people, and also helps the MC roleplay these needs appropriately.
Psi-harm (stylicised as ψ-harm) is also included in the core rules, being originally a special feature in the 1st edition limited edition playbooks. Psi-harm has the ability to wrench NPCs into total lunacy and put the PCs out of player control for brief moments. Psi-harm is a pretty solid option as a hard move for PCs opening their brains.
V-harm (for Vehicle harm) describes effects from having one's car hit by something substantial enough to cause loss of control. Possible effects range from minor swerves to full-blown crashes. Unusually for Apocalypse World, V-harm suffered is rolled by NPCs too and is computed based on two stats, the vehicle's massive and handling.
Building harm, also from 1st edition limited edition playbooks, has descriptions of larger-scale harm on structures, up to 9-harm and more. This makes it clearer on how a fortified position in a structure protects the people within, and for how long can it last.
MC prep
Fronts have been replaced by a threat map, a rough visualization of where the different threats are in relation to the players. The map is divided into eight directions: North, East, South, West, Up, Down, In and Out. The first six correspond to actual directions while "In" means threats inside local landscapes and populations and "Out" means threats originating from the Psychic Maelstrom or further out still. Each direction is divided into "close" and "far" areas, for threats that are within immediate vicinity and ones that are a substantial distance away, respectively.
The Threat map can seem quite unintuitive for games that lack a solid, static home base, but more often than not the division into direction and distance is granular enough to get the idea. Apart from the map, the countdown clocks, stakes and threats remain the same and provide for the same type of threat-driven plots as the first edition.
There are some changes to the threat types. In particular, Vehicles and Terrain are new threat types with their associated threat moves.
Do I need to get the 2e book to play 2e?
The changes are mainly to the playbooks and rules reference that can be downloaded for free on Apocalypse World's homesite (pdf link). The bulk of the advice given to the MC in 1e's book is still equally valid in 2e, so upgrading to the 2e book is not strictly necessary. You will miss out on the developer commentary on the new features. The rules for creating a prosthetic part for characters are also only found in the 2e book, not the rules reference.
Best Answer
I'm the MC that SevenSidedDie was referring to. In our game, we had a Hocus and a Hardholder who were, at times, allies, enemies and mistrustful participants in the advancement of the community they both needed to survive.
The way I handled it was with the PC-NPC-PC triangle. I put all the major NPCs in between the two characters. I put the characters at odds with each other via the NPCs and their pressures / desires / actions. Look at the things they both have stakes in and ask them to solve those problems. For us, it was an easy job - divide the community by Church and State. Let's say Kettle doesn't have enough food, right? She wants to eat. So she goes to the Hocus and says "Hey, Want, I need some food, man." and Want says "let me meditate on that" and then she goes to Mom and says "Mom, I didn't get my rations last week - I need food!" and Mom says "Okay baby, let me see what I can do" and then see what happens.
Find weak points in the status quo, represent them with real human problems and don't be scared to pit the PCs against each other that way. Give them lots of things to agree on, sure, but complicate them. They both want Kettle to get fed, but why does it matter who does the feeding? Want would sure look good if he could scrounge up some rations - that'd make Mom look like a pretty poor leader and paint Want as the real boss of this place.
Think of the NPCs as human beings - simple for the most part, but desperate, sad, in love, hungry, sweaty messy idiots, too. They need things and they turn to the PCs for them. they're manipulative and earnest and nothing complicates things more than people being people.
I find that the most successful games of AW aren't about mutant hordes or unexploded nuclear ordinance but the way those scary things force people together or apart. The question you ALWAYS want to be asking is "what do these people want out of life?" and then let that guide you forward.