...as far as I can tell, the game is always a little bit of a power fantasy in that you are always the unquestionably cool guys that the story's all about, and all of the non-trivial limits to the things you can do come from having to deal with the other unquestionably cool guys.

This is kind of off-topic, but both Murderous Ghosts and Dark World are apocalypse engine games that involve powerless main characters. I think I agree with what you're saying, though, but I'd add the caveat that any apocalypse engine game that uses playbooks is going to be about power fantasy, as one of their purposes is to give the PC cool stuff he can do, that other people can't.

I also agree with you about prophecies, but I think it's not that it's hard to make an AW game in which true prophecies are a large part of the game, but that it's hard to make a Story Now game in which true prophecies are a large part of the game, because choices and uncertain outcomes are important to making Story Now work.

I might or might not be running this in a couple of hours, and I'd really like some confirmation or rejection of this. If I don't get it, I'll play it by my reading.

I think there's some sense of honor, but not of face. Their insulting you helps you, giving you +1 to your next action, because it means they showed they were actually affected by your claim. If this were a society where face were important, then it would be the reverse? I guess that sense of honor is a kind of face. I get the impression that in this society, it doesn't matter that much to be called a bad king. It does matter to be called a false king.

I don't think that insulting someone in response to Claim Your Right forces the claimant to stand up for themselves. They're already standing up for themselves, that's one of the triggers for Claim Your Right. They can respond to your insult however they like, and whatever they do, they get +1 forward.

About drawing someone out as an active conflict move, the way I see it, all of the basic moves are active conflict moves, except maybe Take Stock and Take Your Bearings, and Pray. Their AW equivalents read more like Conflict Resolution, since they have to be used in charged situations, or against the potentially inimical Psychic Maelstrom. But, I'm trying to learn to play Sorcerer right now, and that affects the way I'm thinking about things. Draw Someone Out is clearly a conflict to me, because it's used to get information from someone who would rather not give it to you. If they would be willing to just give it to you, you wouldn't need to draw them out, you could just ask them directly. If you wanted to insult someone into doing something, using it, what you could do is ask "What would you do if I called your mother a whore?", and then, knowing that, call their mother a whore.

It occurs to me, that maybe what I mean about face not being a part of the setting, is that I see a character wanting to make another character lose face. The character might want another character to do something, to reveal something, to admit something, but not just to make them lose face.

On the other hand, I think maybe revealing emotion is bad in some circumstances, since it's something you have to Hold Steady against, and if you do it in response to Claim Your Right, the claimant gets +1 forward.

So, I rambled a bit as I collected my thoughts. I think the TL;DR is: a concept of face is present in the Dark Age, as revealed by the basic moves, but it's not a concept of face where an insult hurts, like in Monsterhearts's high school.

I had a really cool idea for how a joust could be handled, but then looked at the actual Going Into Battle move and realized it didn't quite support it, since Going Into Battle doesn't have a "Reduce the harm I inflict by 1". So, although it could be a custom move, here's the idea adapted to actual Going Into Battle.

A joust is a battle, in which standardized tourney lances and armor put Harm at exactly equal to Armor, for all participants. There's the expectation that you will put your choices into things like "seize definite control of your objective" in order to unseat the person from his horse and win. However, once in a while, you'll find someone who plays dirty, and picks "strike hard, inflicting terrible harm." This is cheating, but it could have been an accident (accidents are likely to happen on a miss.). If you think the person you're facing off against is likely to cheat, you might pick "You protect yourself, suffering reduced harm." But, in a joust, timing is definitely going to matter, so you have to pick "Protect myself" before the opponent picks "strike hard", reducing your ability to actually pick things that will help you win.

This only works for a PC vs. PC joust, of course, though it could maybe work if an NPC cheater had a custom move that let him do +1 harm in a joust.

Anyway, just a cool rules application idea. I'm really looking forward to playing/running AW:DA. Unfortunately I have to wait until our current game of Sorcerer finishes up. :(

Another one:

Hiding in the King's Latrine: Hold Steady in the face of disgust. Waiting there for hours: Hold Steady in the face of impatience (possibly with +1). The King arrives: do your Harm, no other move.

Oh, and to clarify the idiom "to draw someone out" means to get them to expose themselves. The way I interpret Vincent's use of it, that might be in conversation, or in a duel, or in a war, or whatever context.

@fealoro, I think you did fine, provided 1) you followed the text of the move, and 2) the results of the move were clearly possible as results of the fictional action taken. I find this article really helpful for thinking about how to handle this: http://mightyatom.blogspot.com/2011/05/apocalypse-world-guide-to-hard-moves.html

Ok, what is the difference between a 6th rank farmer, and a 7th rank peasant/serf? That the 6th rank does not own land, but has personal rights and non-land property, while the 7th rank has nothing?