Yes, thanks John for that and thanks everyone for responding to the original post.

It sounds like you've already got a direction here, so I'll chime in with some more general advice. All the time my savvyheads, my hocusses, they throw shit at me. My current hocus is all about building webs of connections in the maelstrom, and last session she decided that what she really wanted to do, long term, was build a web all the way around the maelstrom and ensnare it.

Awesome.

And in all these cases, where the players say something outrageous and out of left field that makes your jaw drop, a really good first thing to do as MC is to ask "How? What would you do in order to make that happen?"

Because then you can make the savvyhead do the work, right? You can make him come up with the idea that he'll need a weather scrubber. You can make him come up with the idea that he'll need a containment device for the horrible black silt that he's filtering out of the rain. You can make him come up with the idea that he'll need the witches brain in a vacuum jar in order to open the maelstrom up.

When the players announce great big grandiose projects, I always get them to break it down into little steps. It's easier to see how you, as MC, fuck with the little steps, make them hard and complicated, how they interact with your threats and fronts.

That's good advice Tim, but what if your player says "Fire a rocket up into the sky that blows up and cleans out the atmosphere, I don't know."

The player didn't really have an idea so he half-heartedly threw out that crazy rocket idea which I found rather zany and out of place in our game.  So I was looking to offer him suggestions and work it out with the table.

This thread has been immensely helpful, thanks everyone.  If you have any more ideas keep 'em coming. 

Thanks FigureFour, those are some great ideas.

I figured the healing of the environment would actually be accomplished via the psychic maelstrom, hence why he would need the psychic queen's help.

The trouble is, where did that black shit come from?  I'll need an answer for that because I'm sure the player will want to go to the maelstrom to figure it out.  It could be a tear in the fabric of realities and the taint of the maelstrom bleeding into the atmosphere.

I'm struggling with the fact that I don't want to define what the maelstrom is and leave it sort of vague - but that makes it difficult to deal with the above questions that arise, like "why is the maelstrom tainted", "how does this tie into the black empress (queen woman)?"

But Hack and Slash seems to encode the defender striking back, doesn't it?  

So that would include a threat of danger already?  Making the Fighter also roll to Defy Danger would seem to be somewhat unfair.

I think that's what Ludanto is saying and that is why the Fighter is so beastly in our games.  We play that Hack and Slash includes Defying the monster's attack (as the move implies) so the fact that a Fighter will get a 10+ 60% of the time means that he doesn't take damage very often.  That's really the essence of my original post.

By the way, sorry for the lack of extended examples of our combat - I've been busy and lasy with other stuff and couldn't find the motivation to type out a long combat.

I think it would be enormously beneficial to post some extended combat examples from our play.  I'll try and do that when I get home from work tonight.

That's awesome Judd.  Moments like that are why I still game.  If you work up any new Fronts be sure to post them.

I do find it surprising that your Fighter had no problem being "flanked" by several foes.  If he's got three higher level monsters biting at him at the same time for 10 damage each, that's pretty much a guaranteed pair of Saving Throws and 20 damage per round (before armor), unless he's doing something clever.

It's simple.  One of the 3 monsters he hacked and slashed and rolled at least a 7 (which makes it a 10 with +3 strength, rolling 7 or above is the norm).

The second and third monsters he rolls Defy Danger against as he's attempting to keep his distance and fight them off.  He has to get a 6 or below on those Defy Danger rolls to take damage.  Say he fails one.  Bard heals him for 12 HP and he's better than where he started.  Plus, there's probably only 2 foes next turn as I'm sure the first one he wounded was also hit by the Wizard.

Now, I guess you could say those other 2 monsters hit the fighter automatically, but I don't like making that hard of a move without the player blowing a roll.

1st sessions rock.  We have:

-Pandora (Touchstone): She's a confident, strong woman standing out amongst the crowd as a beacon of hope, and also because she has a weird potted tree sticking out of her backpack

-Allan Mann (Savvyhead): He's weird as hell, disconnected from society, and just discovered the psychic maelstrom which he is now intent on figuring out

-Rouge (Battlebabe): He's a smooth, deadly assassin who arrived in the holding a month ago with an odd briefcase handcuffed to his wrist.  Now he's Uncle's (the NPC hardholder) strong-arm and bodyguard

-Wire (Chopper): Wire is Uncle's muscle, leading a gang of 30 well-disciplined road warriors.  He controls the goings-on in Site 55 like an old west Sheriff while trying to maintain a semblance of peace in his own unit

The holding is a long abandoned missile silo located somewhere in the Southwest.  There are three missile tubes burried in the ground along with a small network of tunnels and bunkers.  Uncle and his elite live underground in the silo while the rest of the holding makes do in the abandoned buildings and prefab shelters above.

The missile silo is of course non-operational but it is clear to his followers that he is attempting to bring it back into commission with the help of Allan (Savvyhead PC).  Allan works for Uncle out of the Radar Station/Control tower at the edge of the nearby air-strip.  At the other end of the airstrip is an old rusted out hangar that Wire's gang inhabits, guarding the armory which is one of Site 55's largest assets. 

So the social dynamic was that all of the group was working for Uncle except for the Touchstone Pandora, who is subsisting off the people's generosity.  She is a threat to Uncle but he can't risk getting rid of her as it could cause a wholesale uprising due to her popularity.

Scenes:
-We started with Uncle addressing the populace concerning the water shortage.  He's standing atop a platform and encircled by a wall of choppers with Wire directing crowd control.  Uncle attempts to explain to the people that they are doing their best to distribute the water they have but with the recent loss of a supply caravan from nearby Dead End they're going to have to bear down and hold out a little longer. 

Shit hits the fan as the people don't believe Uncle's bullshit - rumors are the silo contains a deep well in order to sustain the inhabitants and Uncle's hoarding it for his elite.  Bottles are thrown and Wire's men have to take down a couple of harrassers before Uncle removes himself from the podium.  Rouge tries to convince Uncle to tell the civvies that cooperation with Dead End must be maintained and this violence cannot persist but Uncle is pissed and refused to be made a fool of.  Rouge blows his manipulate roll and I have Uncle shove the megaphone into the Battlebabe's hands, directing him to speak to the crowd himself.  He does, of course, and diffuses the situation with a shotgun blast tot he air and a dose of fear. 

-Some small talk with Pandora chatting with Rouge about the water supply and she wants Rouge to admit Uncle is holding out.  Rouge looks up to Pandora as the Touchstone told him that if he continues on his current path there's no place for him in the hopeful future. 

-Allan churning away in his workshop in his radar tower, messing with his crazy signals and transmitters.  He discovers one of his receivers is picking up a strange noise (Augury) and he opens his brain to the Psychic Maelstrom.  The noise is beautiful chaos and the paint on his walls begin to peel and melt away as his heart races.  He catches a glimpse of a beautiful woman who cradles his face before the whole thing ends.  Somehow Allan managed to record the whole goddamn audio experience onto a cassette tape (isolating a piece of the maelstrom).  Very cool. 

-Rouge spotted a couple of newcomers in the crowd when his speech was being delivered and one in particular caught his eye, the dude was wearing a heavy duty arctic fur-ligned coat with the hood pulled up.  He had small goggles on his eyes and was wearing a surgeon mask (clearly a Brainer).  Rouge followed up on this lead by heading to The Shed (tent/bar area in the middle of the holding) and getting some solid intel by speaking with Dog-Face, a one-legged destitute civillian who subsists off others charity. 

-Wire heads to Allan's to speak with the techie about patching up his bike.  Wire caught word of Roark (a former gang member who broke away with Wire's lover Goldie in tow) attending the Circus this month in the Salt Flats.  The Circus is like this monthly gambling den, racing camp that is flocked to by inhabitants of all the nearby holdings for miles around.  Wire hasn't seen Roark since they split and he's planning on racing.

Allan agrees to work on the chopper's bike as he hatches this crazy idea.  He's going to audio he captured from the maelstrom and etch it into a belt in the bike's engine like a vinyl record.  Wonder what will happen when Wire takes to the Salt Flats in his maelstrom infused chopper?  Wire doesn't know this, of course.

-Allan, Wire, and two of Wire's crew (Lars and Rufie) head out to the Junkyard to scrounge up a proper belt.  I stole the Junkyard from a poster on here (not sure who?), it's basically this huge area outside of town with tons of crap, although it's infested by a group of mutants called Outlanders and you have to roll a custom move to navigate the area without trouble. 

When Lars shows up on his bike Rouge (Battlebabe PC) is riding on the back.  They're lovers and Lars thought they would need all the help they could get for the trip.  This pisses Wire off as he sees Rouge as a threat to his leadership, Lars being his lieutenant and all.

They hit the junkyard, get lost, and are attacked by a band of Outlanders.  Allan takes a crossbow bolt in his thigh and Rouge is cut up from a blunderbuss but they get what they came for and make it back intact. 

-Pandora shows up at the Shed (the only bar) and speaks with Dremmer, Uncle's right hand man.  We establish Dremmer's been making moves on Pandora for a while with no luck.  Nevertheless, she convinces him to go to Uncle and attempt to loosen up the water supply.  In exchange, she promises to back him for Holder if Uncle ever falls. 

-The people returning from the junkyard hit up the only doctor in town, a woman by the name of Joe's Girl (she was a former slave who somehow was set free and now practices medicine - roughly) who runs what people call the Hack Shop, a free-standing medical tent placed right between the 3 missile tubes above the silo. 

-Allan successfully etches the audio recording into the new belt for Wire's bike and puts the thing back together.  I made him roll a custom Weird move and he hit a partial success.  I gave him the option, either you don't put the bike back together correctly and Wire takes a -1 on his roll at the Circus, or Wire realizes what you did to his bike (although he doesn't understand it).  He chose the latter - awesome.

Oops I skipped over a small scene where Pandora convinced Allan to build a water purifier - Allan still needs to meet with Jackabacka in the bazaar to get the parts.

-Final scene was Lars running up to Wire who was drinking with some of his crew.  Lars tell Wire that Hammer (another chopper in the gang) was loaded and heading towards Rouge.  He's armed and was mumbling about offing the son of a bitch.  (Note - we established in the first crowd speaking scene that Hammer was afraid of Rouge after the battlebabe made his speech and sees Rouge as a threat to himself and the holding, so Hammer got liquored up and acting on fear went to attack Rouge in his quarters).  They find Hammer in the silo with a grenade in one hand and a 9mm in the other banging on Roug's door.  That's where we cut.

Sorry for the lack of brevity, I'm hoping to use this to document our game in case we take a long break so I didn't want to leave anything out.