Agendas definitely are supposed to be secret and that's not the problem; the problem is that some people just seem incapable of coming up with more than 1 thing their character cares about. I think you might have a good idea with what you said about establishing some big moving pieces first; that might give the less creative players a better starting point.

I can certainly rewrite Cast a Deadly Spell to be clearer, but that doesn't resolve the fundamental disapproval of how it works that one of my players has. The big question is essentially whether it's a reasonable idea to have a move that only works in conjunction with another move.

Hello, everyone.

A friend of mine introduced me to Apocalypse World a year or so ago; I immediately liked the game and have run several campaigns of it since. I decided for my next one I would make and use a hack of AW, so last weekend I wrote one up for my favorite style of low-fantasy mystery/spy-thriller/political intrigue kind of game.

I've got it on google drive here: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B2hIfpmotX2cTWNkY1R1Q1ZkYzA&usp=sharing

It's complete or close to it. Most of the basic rules (5 stats, 7 basic moves, harm clock and harm move, barter moves, etc.) are similar to or the same as AW's but reskinned with some minor changes or additions. Replacing all the old playbooks are 17 new classes.
Perhaps most significantly, the game now revolves around 3 or more secret Agendas for each player's character, established in private with the GM during character creation. Pursuing your Agendas is the main way you get XP, along with deepening your relationships with the other characters. However, the Agendas are set up such that many of them will conflict and interfere with one another- thereby bringing the player characters into a messy web of alliances of convenience, betrayal, and opposition that none of them fully understands as they struggle to accomplish their own characters' goals.
That ongoing and chaotic struggle is the main focus of the game and so a lot of the moves and class features are designed to mess with the other PCs or find out what they're up to and subvert their plans and so on.
At the same time, the GM is encouraged to introduce events and problems that require the PCs to find common cause with one another from time to time as well as shake up their plans.

That about sums up the game in a nutshell, I'll be beginning playtesting soon and I'm very interested in any of your feedback about the game.

Oh, and at what point is a hack complete enough that it can get its own page in the Hacks section?