Where is the line between "MC makes as hard of a move as he wants on a miss" and player control of their character's actions?

If the floor is unstable, and someone is taking a minute to look at it, why make them roll?  Apocalypse World isn't Dungeon World, so if folks take time to examine stuff, give them the obvious info. 

(Less obvious info, base it on what the character knows - "Shit, you're a gun lugger, you get the mechanical parts, but the wires?  Better get the Savvyhead to look at this.")

But having just played a campaign where we had a few "Read A Sitch" misses not result in hard moves, here's my take when it does happen -

1. Turn the questions around on the player.  If there's no NPCs currently present, they show up shortly and take advantage of those answers.

2. "You're poking at it to test the stability.  You scramble up at it goes collapsing shaking the whole damn city block.  So much for the quiet approach."

Have them do something smart, you can even give them the info, the question is what kind of hassle do they incur in the process?  Did they lose equipment, break something, did their gun fall into the floor below and it'll be some sketchy climbing to fish it back out?   Did they give away their position?  Will they have to go the long way around?

Assume the characters are smart, and bad shit happens still.

Chris

With PCs, I don't need leverage so it doesn't come up, right? I make my roll, they get the carrot or the stick, and any leverage I have is just gravy, so it never really needs to be decided "officially" whether something is leverage or not.

I mean, when it's PC vs. PC and you're trying to figure out when to make it a Move or not.

Chris

When to use Manipulation:

"Hey, I want you to do this thing."

a) "Yes, I want to do this thing." No Manipulation
b) "I'm not sure..." "Oh, come on, you SHOULD do this thing because X reason".  Manipulation
c) "No, I don't want to do this thing."  "Oh, come on, you SHOULD do this thing because X reason." Manipulation.

When does it count as leverage?

a) "That actually does matter to me.  Ok, that counts as leverage."
b) "That don't mean shit to me.  That's not leverage."

This may seem really floaty, but it actually says a lot about different characters based on WHAT they do and don't care about, what they can and can't be pushed into, and over what.

Notice that, Going Aggro doesn't have the same kind of judgment factor- avoiding violence is always assumed to be a form of leverage and gets it's own Move because of that.

Chris

This seems to be the violence -> Move breakdown I've seen happen:

1) Are they fighting back?  - Seize by Force
2) Do you have the drop on them?
   a) Do you want them to do something (or not do something) OR you'll fuck them up?  Going Aggro
   b) Do you want them to just die? MC decides: Going Aggro if it's a pain, straight Harm if they're giving it to you.
   c) Do you got the drop on them, but it's a hassle for other reasons?  Act Under Fire

There's also weird cases sometimes where people might have guns on each other and the MC just says, "Trade Harm for Harm!" and ouchies all around.

The big advantage to NOT doing Seize by Force is that you're probably not risking getting Harmed in return.  Since most NPCs are pretty fucked up by 2 Harm and dead by 3, you can put them down easily.

For PCs, even if 2 Harm doesn't seriously fuck them up, it puts them in a place where the MC can start asking for Acting Under Fire for anything:

"I'm going to shoot him!"
"Act Under Fire to get your gun out the holster."
"What?"
"Hey, sucking chest wound and your fingers are going all numb.  Or you can lay down under cover and just focus on breathing.  That seems really good right now."

Chris

This session began with the three way negotiation between:

- Nile- biker and hardholder of the gasoline refinery and mutant city
- Saffron - head of the Rave
- Winona - Hoarder, drug cultivator, and collector of fine goods

Initial negotiations didn't go so well, Nile holding the fort with the gatling gun at ready and offering a token 2 barrels of oil if they leave.   Winona Augustus Rockefeller III saves the negotiations by suggesting a "peace tie" put around the gun ("neon green and orange jump ropes, the double-dutch kind with the plastic bits") and a more detailed meeting during the rave.

Which, by the way, the rave was decided like this - Saffron says, "You forget, you may control everything inside the city, but out here?  I control everything out here.  We're laying Party Siege, and the party won't stop until we have a reasonable negotiation set up."

(I desperately want "Party Siege" to be a special move somewhere.)

Sandalwood is sent by Rhyme & Third to go retrieve Flamethrower the Michael and Rhyme's remaining followers.   Smith confronts Sandalwood and makes about the best deal you can get from Smith : "Go ahead, leave, but if I see you again, I'm shooting you."

Rhyme's new Skinner/religious thing is about beauty and removing ugliness- and Smith's sociopathic violence rates as something which needs to be removed - Apocalypse World will be made beautiful through careful pruning, like a bonsai.   Sandalwood isn't sure about this plan- "Who's going to take care of the Rave?"
"God will protect the Rave."

Which leads to Third, Rhyme, Sandalwood, plus followers blasting into the Rave in the uber-ambulance, music blaring, flashing lights going, armed with guns.  Smith starts shooting- armor piercing rounds ripping through the ambulance, followers spewing blood left and right.

Everyone is shooting, the shit is going down. Ravers are getting hit, and Sandalwood demands a cease fire, by going aggro on EVERYONE (including Third & Rhyme).   The violence stops, for a moment.

Bunny arrives on the scene, walks through the tense situation, up to Third.  "Come home."  And Third and her get into a shooting match, Bunny dead, Third bleeding and crawling to hook himself up to the automated medical bed.

And the shooting begins anew!  Smith rolls a 12 with an Advanced Act Under Fire and finds hirself inside the ambulance.

At this point, Nile and Princey (!) show up, with Princey looking to put Smith to dead.   She tells Sandalwood - "Just grenade the ambulance" and Sandalwood decides instead to go in with a machete.   

Outside- Saffron had begun another round of Rave/Augury and the blue flashing lights of the ambulance lead to "The Blue City" that exists within the Maelstrom, somewhere.   His followers rush the ambulance, dispersing the gangs and ending the firefight, and LIFT it up while Sandalwood and Smith commit horrible violence upon each other.

Rhyme crawls in, slams the nearly dead Smith into stasis, and throws Sandalwood on a medical table to stabilize at 11 o'clock harm.

Princey decides to have gross bloody make out with Sandalwood for helping enact her vengeance.

....

Three weeks later:
- Sandalwood decides to break with Rhyme.

"I don't know what your plan was, but that wasn't the way to do it.  We could have just gone after Smith, but we left a lot of people dead, people who didn't need to die.  It was sloppy, and I can't support this future of yours.  I don't see how this was going to be more beautiful"

Rhyme, touching Sandalwood's newly Disfigured face - "You were once more beautiful yourself."

He goes and signs on with W.A.R.   "I want steady pay and no drama.  One condition: I won't do acquisitions, only security."

- Nile the Queen of the Brotherhood

Princey comes to Nile.

"We need to talk.  I'm going to take the gang."
"I know.  They're yours.   Take care of them."
"I thought you'd put up a fight."
Nile shakes her head.   The bikers quietly gather their stuff, and join up at the gate, driving away from Brotherhood city.

Princey rolls her gang to W.A.R.'s holding - "My man is here, and so I'm here and my gang is with me."

- The end of the Rave

Saffron walks up to the accountant, Nickelbee. 

"Hey.   I think I need to take off.  Do my own thing.  I'm leaving the Rave in your hands.  There's something I need to go looking for.  The Blue City - there's more than one."
"Let me tell you something.  You may know how to throw a party, but you don't know business.  Here.  Take my machete, I won't need it, I'm not an accountant anymore."

Saffron heads over to Third & Rhyme.

"The Rave?  I think I was trying to make it a business when it should have been something else.  This needs to be a journey, a religion.  Let's go find it together."

- Smith is always in control

One night, when the ambulance is empty for the moment, Half Pint sneaks in and gets Smith out of Stasis.

W.A.R enters his office and finds Smith waiting.

"Close the door.   Let's make a deal."

We figure Smith negotiates back into being security for W.A.R.  Which probably means some kind of really intense negotiation would have to happen to stop Princey & Sandalwood and Smith from killing each other... but provided that can happen, W.A.R basically has a small army of the most dangerous motherfuckers around.  (shudder).

I'm done here, thank you.

Chris

it's all in service of making sure the right person is in tip-top condition to shoot the right people.

That's mostly what I saw it as being, but Zenith's arm really puts it into context.   I'm really excited to see what happens with everyone, from here.

Chris

If you go with a mix (everyone has different love-related triggers with different outcomes), then maybe you're doing a little of both.  But I don't know that there's an analog to that in AW.

That's a really good point.  I think each Clan-type will have different triggers, because each type is sort of a take on the issues of the samurai ideal- warrior-artist, etc.  I'm also leaning towards different results, just like how AW does, though which clan gets what I haven't figured out yet.

I'm seeing the subjectivity as a good thing, but asking in case there's big things I'm missing. 

One of the things that I want to highlight is the chasm between the ideals you get in samurai culture vs. realities: the family is supposed to love each other, the liege and sworn warriors are supposed to love each other, people are supposed to love their arranged marriage spouses, there's a whole lot of people you're NOT supposed to love, etc.

Tying the subjective part to the players' declaration makes it both an interesting comment on who your character is in the face of all of this, and, also sets it up as "delivering it on a silver platter" for the GM. 

"You don't see it as a betrayal?  Man, your best friend does.  He's not looking at you the same way, how could you do that to her?"   

"You just doomed your dad to die.  You don't love him?  Oh man, we need to find out what kind of person he was... or maybe we'll find out what kind of person you are..."

"You're not doing this out of duty?"
"No, I'm not choosing duty over him. I'm doing it FOR him."
"Oh! OH. Ooooooooh."

Like I said earlier - in this kind of setting, strings free sex is easy.  Love, that's the one that gets you.

Chris