I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but we've been consciously playing Size Someone Up as something that happens a little bit into a conversation - which is different than our intuition of the move's written trigger, which is that it should happen when you first encounter someone. But rolling it effectively when the *player* says "wait, what's he want?" seems to work well.

It seemed like a possible reading of Call for Aid is: the text says "a player's character" which sometimes might be intended to include NPCs as the MC is a player - but that seems like a stretch.

The biggest difficulty with a small table Co-MCing was that front/threat/things that impact the Stronghold really impact your own character really easily, so not talking to yourself becomes tricky. The thing with Agerzam as the pawn to advance a front rose out of that - at least I wasn't talking to myself.

Lastly, and here I'm less sure about this wholesale lift from AW Classic, but I feel like front-y things need countdowns, but akin to the Meeting Death lists, and with the explicit, up-front decision to rejigger them as events unfold. So something like:

The Ixone Gambit:

• Young Kwella goes missing
• Ransom demanded
• Cruel displays of brutal intent.
• The Ixone march with Kwella as a shield
• Sabotage!
• Attack on the stronghold

I think I'll keep my Thing in the Basement list to myself for the moment. It is my sense of magic, mystery and danger, after all.

Now I'm cheating: Josh has already built some threats, of which we know not everything, but something.

First, old friends of Tinitran - the White Caps, a mystery cult who take their name from the mushrooms they consume to spur visions - have come to beg hospitality. As it turns out, in hard times they fell to banditry and were Agerzam's late adversaries over the season. So: I count Tarbirt's commit or withhold right, Tinitran's keep acquaintance and step out of earthly life, and Agerzam's wage war all at least weakly addressed.

Second, a ward of Idus's household offended the gods of the Abrika by denying hospitality to Agerzam's dam. Irat has demanded that she be banished. Idus's confront your betters seems addressed there, and indeed he has already begun the process of having his ward beg forgiveness.

Third, the Magdolna are up to no good. Irat's aspiration to generosity works against us here, perhaps, as he's welcomed Magdolna luminaries into the stronghold, where some of them have snuck into the the subterranean vaults and crypts. My guess is that we'll work up to outright warfare. So Agerzam's wage war, likely trained warhorse, Tatbirt's feel the pulse, commit or withhold and maybe Idus's single combat all seem like they're in play.

(I dunno if anyone in the Crown of Towers game wants everything to be a mystery, but I'm going to lay out most of my thinking as a Co-MC here, so...)

So, as Josh was laying out in his posts, our last session was a dual attempt to reconcile moral philosophy and to figure out how we as a table were going to proceed next session. One of the big takeaways was that we needed there to be some kind of techniques on the MC side of things, and that addressing the rights of the PCs was kind of important (at least to us.) So, I collected a list of the rights everyone had actually chosen, as well as trying to get a quick gist of where their character was coming at (i.e. asking some provocative questions, with the intention of acting on the results.)

So, here's what we've got:

Idus, the surrogate father of orphans and outcasts, himself something of an outcast, nonetheless War Champion of the Crown of Towers
He has the rights to

• be known by reputation
• confront you betters for justice
• own an enchanted weapon
• single combat

Tatbirt, the effective Castellan, fulfilled in her role but unrecognized. She is also a new mother, though no one knows who sired the babe. (Josh is also clearly interested in the questions about a female Castellan and her unclaimed offspring - maybe not their answers, but certainly the questions.)
She has the rights to

• Commit or withhold the stronghold's resources
• Feel the pulse of the stronghold's walls and stones
• muster laborers
• offer sacrifice for luck, harvest or victory

Tinitran, the ne'erdowell, wastrel, above-it-all Outranger. Tablesaw was clear that the hook for her will be opportunities. She's sort of a pre-medieval backpacker.
She has the rights to

• find your way by road and trail
• keep acquaintance with the people you've met
• of noble blood, but a lesser descendant
• step out of your earthly life

Lastly, Agerzam, my character, is the War-Captain, already beset by duties and demands. He wishes mostly for a quiet life, even if he has to decimate all hereabouts to accomplish that.
He has the rights to

• at the beginning of a session, roll War
• own a trained warhorse
• supplicate the gods of war
• wage war as you see fit

Likewise, the peoples hereabout:
The Abrika, of which stock all the PCs descend, are the descendants of governors and the owners of the stronghold by inheritance. Irat is a notable of this people and the Keep Liege.
The Magdolna, remnants of a former crown, descendants of Queen Magda, for whom much nearby is named.
Including the local trade town (Magdavros) and its inhabitants the Magdavronites.
Clan Ixones, one of many clans hostile to the Abrika and the stronghold.
The Walhaz, a populous group of rebelious landowners, farmers of the pastures and fields near the stronghold.

Ultimately, two things:

I suspect as a playtester I will do badly by way of testing Denied Rights. Maybe we'll run into something - I hope so. We'll hit the rest of the game twice as hard, Vincent.

I'd be really keen to hear someone else's actual play of Denied Rights coming up. That'd help me understand it, maybe.

Part of my point is that in any game I'm actually playing, rights are likely to get treated as absolute - as if the Denied Right move included a line like "first, insist that they name another player's right that would be denied unless yours was granted - if they can't they must grant your right." So I can't actually see being in a game where it would be a problem in actual play - having taken up the task of playtesting I want to call that out: I'm having trouble imagining playtesting this rule as I understand it.

Conversely, imagine that I can make the case for MC moves and principles covering the above exchange. E.g. all of this is because the Lord's people are turning against him, and I'm showing evidence of what's coming and introducing complications. Heck, I could have decided, as MC, that I would start play by taking his power away from him, so basically none of his rights will be respected.

You pick a character, and in no small way the choice has to do with a list of rights.

Except as written, our read on rights is that they hinge on the Denied Right move, which amounts to "feel free to throw a tantrum."

In other words, this exchange is within the rules of the game:

P: I'm choosing Liege Lord, and I'm taking all the in fiction rights.
...
P: I demand that my daughter's suitor be brought before me!
J(MC): Not gonna happen.
P: A right denied! Instead, that my daughter be brought before me!
J: Nope.
P: Then I will hold it against you!
J: You do that.
J: Moving on as if none of that had happened...

Am I being a dick? Yeah. But I'm also being a dick within the rules. Your frustration as a player as I ignore all your mechanical effectiveness is part of the rules.

Normally, there'd be a conversation here about "um, but that's kind of what my character is about" and we find some middle ground or we don't in a way that's outside the game. I'm having a hard time working out how that interacts with the Denied Right move, though.

I'm taking a shortcut here but: it means that everything past basic moves is like an unreliable currency, which effectiveness depends 100% on the whim of the MC, and that objections to whimsical application might be cheating.

It's weird, and it's hard for me to wrap my head around in a lacking-fun way. As a result, I'm likely to avoid the whole circumstance by:

• never denying a player their right as an MC
• avoiding rights that are mostly in-fiction
• assuming that rights that are crunchier - with moves attached, or stat boosts etc - will never be denied

Conversely, for purposes of playtest, I don't even know how I'd go about legitimately exercising those rules. Like the above ("Nope")? I don't know.

If the Liege Lord were a list of ways for the character to be disappointed and frustrated, totally. I think Josh (and my) anxiety is that it's a long list of ways for the Lord's player &c.