This is great stuff, thank you!

I don't create specific lists for the first session. I use the one on the threatmaps.

Then after the 1st session, I build a list for the players, and I take it from the feeling of the session. Here's an example from my last game.

2 players couldn't make it so we started with 2 players + 1 MC (me). Playbooks are Hardholder and Brainer.

The players wanted an old school wasteland madmax/fallout type of game. The Hardholder chooses a broken aircraft carrier lost in the wasteland as a holding. We play the game and create a bunch of NPC with the game's list: Roark, Spicey, etc.

Then after the 1st session I googled "aircraft carrier", "naval glossary", "military glossary", looked for illustrations and maps of aircraft carrier, to get an idea of what could be found there, and imagine some names, sometimes twisting them to give a "forgotten" feeling.

I ended up with : Amiral, Commander, Torpedo, Sonar, Control, Tower, F16, Deck, Dock, Enola Gay, Prop (for propeller), Mess, Lunchbox, Ballast, Avera, Starboard, Ironclad, Mayday, Bisco, Brick, Vietnam, Cean, Titude, Royal NAvy, Pothole, Watch, Iceberg, Turbine, Lash, Moor, etc.

I made another list, with evocative names but without a shared theme. I voluntary mixed the order randomly so when one reads the list, he founds mixed themes, and not a logical chain between them.  Molly, Demon, Venom, Iggy, Shazam, Blizzard, Chili, Viper, Motorhead, Crowley Aaron, Ven, Bomber, Melody, Rage, Atrium, Mars.

I do this second list so the player will have choices in evocative themes.
I gave these lists to the Hardholder, with these stuffs from Hatchet City, plus specifications from the game.

Dear Hardholder,

Choose your gang :
- Border patrol. Leader : _________. Others : Taboo, Maniac, _______ and others.
- Personal security. Leader : _______. Others : 47, Mr. Whamma, _________ and others.
- Hit & run. Leader : __________. Others : Karkass, Screw, __________ and others.
- Defenses. Leader : __________. Others : Kick, Smash, ____________ and others.
- Enforcers. Leader : __________. Others : Roark, Franz, ____________ and others.

Some of these blanked spaces are already fit with names, because we played it during 1st session. I add the following part, depending on the hardholder's choices of holding options.

Choose your population :
- Doc. Leader: Kash. Two assistants : Krass, Tumor.
- Armory. Secured by ____________.
- Stewardship. Overseer : _______. Others: Coyote, Axel, _____ and others.
- Factory. Leader : GrandMa. Overseers : White, Lala, Pellet. Workers : Tao, Groum.
- Harem. Overseer : ________. Women : Ouija, Blanche, Spicey, ______ and others.
- Crude farming. Overseer : _______. Others : Mex, Popcorn, ________ and others.
- Hunting. Leader : Roadster. Others : Crispy, Koko, _________ and others.
- Scavenging. Leader : ________. Others : Skiff, Solo, _________ and others.

I ask the hardholder to fill names in the blank. Last time my PC (new to AW) was really excited and wanted to make plans for NPC between sessions. I politely refused and I send my name list with this part, writing "Would you fill this list with names during our next session, while I explain the game to the 2 new players. If you're really excited, you may do it before the session, but don't make any description or backgrounds for NPC. Just fill names into blank spaces. Remember, there is no statut quo in Apocalypse World."

During the session, I asked some provocative questions to the Brainer. Something like this.

"Brainer, who is haunting your worst nightmares. Pick a name on the holding's list of name. It can be an unused named, but I invite you to use used names in the gang or the population part." Then I continue to ask provocative questions, inviting players to pick names from the Hardholder's choice.

@Munin : you totally answered my question. Which doesn't solve my problem. There is a clear situation in which I don't see which move is triggered.


Keeler has a gang. He faces Dremmer's gang in a western situation style. Everybody is ready to fight.

Keeler : "These dogs are gonna die, now, we just open fire on them, we want them dead." Which move is triggered?

It is not single combat.
Nothing is seized by force.
Maybe you lay down fire, trying to "take an opportune shot on an ennemy within your reach" (but the -1 harm is not very clear for me in this specific case)?

Oh, now that I'm writing it.... This is my question : maybe the whole point is that I misunderstand the meaning of single combat (which I understand as "1vs1 combat") ? It is single combat, but Keeler attacks with its gang, against a gang (which would be a non english native mistake which make sense, I translated it as "1vs1" and sticked to it but with this discussion, I'm doubting)?

Thank you all and thank you Vincent. This is very clear.

It's a discipline and a paradigm shift to learn to always get back to the "how do you plan to do this" instead of looking for  the move to trigger.

Now I have this strange feeling, you know, when you realize something totally new but simple but still, you're not sure you're right. Question : is "exchanging harm" a battle move?

Like,  "I just shoot at Dremmer to kill him", and the move triggered is "exchange harm"?

Hi,

Thank you for your replies.

Ebok, I kinda had something like this in mind, to deal with "act under fire". But now that I read this and I think of it, some things come in my mind, a more complicated option, and a simpler one :

Option 1)  I want to to kill the strongest guy or their boss. I do something like read a stich to have this information. The boss like.. Dremmer. Then I go in battle : I want to seize Dremmer by force. We are in battle and I act under fire to go this guy .. I hit partially, I'm in the front of Dremmer and now separated from my crew (or I took damage, whatever).  Now I want to seize his life by force. But he's in a fight so .. Are we not in a 1vs1 where acting together under fire, finally ?

Option 2) I want to kill Dremmer. Can I seize his life by force ? - Hmm No, says the MC : you should take Dremmer by force first. - I seize Dremmer by force using my gang as a weapon, we rush with shotguns and chainsaws tayaaaa. Roll+Hard. I miss. We exchange harm as established but I still choose an option from the list, and I want to take take definite and undeniable control of him. Now we have Dremmer but we are still fighting its gang. Now I want to kill him. He's helpless but its still a fight. So i'm gonna Sucker him but as we are still in battle, the MC decides that instead of treating it as go aggro, it's still seize by force, but now we are seizing Dremmer's life by force. Dremmer himself is helpless but his gang is responding. So I seize Dremmer's life by force, I miss (I'm a battlebabe, not gunlugger :D), we exchange harm as established and Dremmer's dead.

Another option could be, instead of continuing battle, everything freezes when I seized Dremmer by force from his gang and we treat it as go aggro, something like "Stop or I kill him".

Finally all of this are just customing the battle moves for a special situation?

I think I prefer this option 2. What do you thing, does it seems legit?

Edit : I don't consider missing seize by force leads to a hard move, as stated by Vincent in the other post, so there's no bad input when missing this move in my example.

Nice, thank you all

I use it in both ways.

1) I use the threat map as it is designed for myself, as MC. I use it as a pragmatical tool to remember threats in directions they are going. It's more an organizational tool to me: I know which particular threats I have to keep in mind when they go there. Much more useful than fronts to me, I don't use fronts, even if i'm using ideas from the "Threat Analysis" threads. I generally don't write what kind of threat it is, as I have index cards for that, just a quick reminder of what is where and how they move (I draw direction arrows).

2) I think I read this advice in Dungeon World or something related: on the Region map we draw together, I add "traces" of some of the threats. Can't remember where I read this but in DW it was something like "if one of your threat is a troop of orcs marauders ravaging the region, draw a burnt village not far from the PC's location". So they don't know it's "The Horde", or the "Fire Cult", they know there's has been the sound of an explosion there, and refugees there.

So PC can see real traces of threats on the map, but only the MC can see the threat map. My goal is to preserve immersion.

[Edit: some details]

Hi all,

We played our sixth session of AW yesterday. I want to thank you all for your answers and participation, this really helped. The problems I mentinonned in this post are being solved. These problem didn't appear even some of these situations occured. Again, thank you. Here some stuffs I did, I hope it will help some new players too.

- I stopped trying to put situations in the right "box" of the system. I don't try to roll, I just play until roll become obvious.
- Precision: Most of the OOC dialogue I've posted before had not take place during the session, but after. Anyway, during the game,
- I only roll when the conditions of the move are there. If there's not, I'm not trying to ask them or to think about them. There' not there, no roll.
- We clarified with the players that if something doesn't exist in the situation, it doesn't exist. They are not hidden threats. There are explicit threats,  or none (understand: the NPC doesn't act as there is a threat even if he can understand there is one).
- I simplified the behaviour of the NPCs: everything is instant. No big plans. Their intentions are clear to the PCs. I googled the Maslow Pyramid of needs and wrote each of them on a index card. I keep this kind near me when I activate a NPC behaviour, so I can choose him a need easily. I used this visual: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Maslow's_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg/2000px-Maslow's_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg.png
- (relating to my other post asking for advices to design threats here http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=7623.0) : I wrote each threats on Index Card with: NAME, TYPE, IMPULSE, and thus the list of Moves. This allowed me to "mix" some of the moves or to make specials moves on the fly when I write it, if I'm creative (if I'm not, no big deal, it has his generic threat moves). I write custom moves or Clockwork on the back of the index card.
- I also wrote MC moves on an index card.

I want to say that we never had big problems with the situations I previously describe, just looking for a nice RP flow. Now it's flowing!

There's still one thing I have trouble with, the psychic maelstrom, but I'm opening a new thread for this.