Talk in the "Are the book monsters useful" thread reminded me of something that continues to confuse me somewhat.  How do you use defensive monster moves?  In cases where its all-or-nothing, like a dragon's scales that are impervious to ordinary weapons, that's easy, you just deny their move.  But suppose your Ninja has "Leap out of the way of an attack with incredible agility" or your Duelist has "Parry and riposte with elegance and skill".

In a traditional system, this would raise their defenses or give you a penalty or something.  You could make a custom move that does something similar, but assume you just want it to be a normal monster move.  Presumably you don't want to let a player make a move, be successful, and then invoke the monster move to negate them ("Hack and Slash, 10!" "He leaps clear."  "Boo!")  That would be pretty lame for the player.  Would you use it like the dragon's scales, and deny them the use of their attack moves until they do something to pin down the bouncy ninja or break the duelist's guard?

I guess my confusion is in the fact that, fictionally, the ninja isn't so agile he can't possibly be hit, or the duelist isn't so great that no swordsman could possibly break through his parry.  It's just supposed to be harder to do.  Whereas the dragon is just immune to plain old steel.

I've been turning this issue over in my head planning for a Bloodstone Idol run with some friends.  I figured Grundloch would conjure himself a protective shield or something once trouble starts, but I wasn't sure what that would mean, mechanically.

I'm hoping to run some DW soon and am trying to get a good handle on the rules.  One thing I've been wondering about, is what kind of ability to affect fictional positioning the PCs have.

In Apocalypse World, the Seize By Force move offers the option to take firm hold of something.  So if you want to seize the high ground, corner an adversary, or whatever, then you could pick that option.  As far as I can see, DW doesn't have an equivalent (well, Defy Danger is pretty all-purpose, I suppose).  When a player wants to do something in a fight other than defending or dealing damage, how do you handle it?  Is it entirely up to Defy Danger and the GM's whim?

Alex