i like the new idea for leveling. it has very good potential but a fear that they might end up pigeon holing classes into acting a certain way. but if they are general enough that should not be an issue! but again i really like the idea!

i also really like the alignment xp from this game. i think a way to keep that feel would be to have a list of general actions that is augmented by a few from the alignment. just an idea.

i agree with john harper for a change against marking stats. in the sessions we had where someone got a stat they actually use marked they shot up way too fast in XP (like 20-30 a session...) while everyone else got less than ten. my other issue is the general moves themselves. this has already been mentioned, but a fighter with his wisdom marked can discern realities with impunity but a wizard with strength marked cannot willy nilly go stab the minotaur. (basically its easy to force tests for mental stats than it is for physical ones)

im going to redirect you to my above posts.
the stats vs the bonuses matters a great deal with the ability to raise stats. having the stats and not just the bonus keeps the bonuses down and prevents anyone for getting too many high stats too quickly.
lets see if i can pull this out of my memory...
you start with 17 16 15 12 10 and 8, right? thats +2 +2 +1 +1 +0 -1
the major difference between having just bonuses and stats comes out here. to get that 12(+1) to a +2 bonus you need to spend two stat increases on it. to get that 10(+0) to a +2 you need to spend three.

basically giving you stats instead of just bonuses makes the player choose three "good stats" and three "bad stats" when they start that will define their character throughout the game.

as far as confusing new players. if you take some time to read the character sheets you should know what stat that class will need. all of the moves special to any class say on them what stat to roll.

i dont think you need to worry about the wording of the result as much as the spirit of what is being said.
dont think of "worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice" as being three choices that you can pick from. just take them to mean that the player can achieve what they want but, as john said, something doest quite go right. i take the spirit of choice and bargain to mean that you can give them the option, "okay you can avoid the dragons tail, but you are going to lose your axe in the process what do you do?" is the axe worth it to the player to take the hit or would they rather get out of the way.
(and if you want to get into semantics hard bargain and ugly choice may as well be synonyms...)

i agree, no penalties. i see adventuring gear as an easy way to say "you have stuff" rather than a means to punish players for something. if you have a dagger and a dagger can work for picking the lock go for it! if not just face the fighter headbutt the door down.

adventuring gear: you dont need to plan for every situation, just but a bag of gear and go!

i would say that in the narrative the animal companion does what you want them to, and that narrative action gives you the mechanical bonus of a trick of your choice. if you failed, your animal companion would disobey you in the narrative (or maybe just ask for belly rubs) and you would gain no bonus from your companions trick.
yes, you have to pass a roll to gain a benefit of a trick.

you can do as much, if not more damage to someone with holds as you can with striking. when i used to wrestle in high school we had to worry about a plethora of illegal holds that were illegal because they could easily do lasting and extremely painful damage. a lot of holding that happens in wrestling is because the joint wont bend any further by the person getting held's own volition or without putting yourself over his/her pain threshold.

in a fantasy setting i would see this as exaggerated, imagine grabbing a gobbling and snapping his arm or squeezing him out with a bear hug. i think of Beowulf ripping off Grendel's arm fits the motif of 'hack and slash with grapple' well.

it really comes down to how you want hack and slash to work, i guess. with the way grapple looks to me, i havent used it but i want to, it doesnt seem like the fighter would be doing much while grappling. im not sure if i could justify in the fiction taking most moves while trying to keep that minotaur in a headlock besides doing some sort of damage to it.

yes, ive read your posts. your slight dismissive of my entire post over a single choice of words is rather irritating, though. i understand that are not rounds in the your turn my turn sense of other games, that has been established through pages of discussion earlier in this post by you and others and, i will admit, it is something that we have been doing wrong.

as per your examples of hack and slash with 7-9 and 10+ on the previous page, the 7-9 exchange leaves you in the situation that agony first started this whole thread about. if the 'flow of combat' hinges on the hero who is hack and slashing as long as a 7-9 is rolled then the monster is effectively 'locked down' (the fighter brings his axe into the ogres shin and gets a knee to the spleen for his efforts, fighter gets to make the next move) the only way this is broken is if the DM/MC makes another move with the monster.

on the flip side, if the monster has the initiative (in a narrative sense so i do get 'there is no initiative in DW') and is attacking the fighter the fighter can respond in several ways; defend, defy danger, hack and slash. if the fighter defends or defies danger then the flow of the narrative will stay with the monster until something special happens, if the fighter decides to engage the monster with hack and slash then what happens? does the fighter:
a) roll defy danger then hack and slash
b) roll hack and slash and a defy danger
c) roll hack and slash and a defy danger on a 10+ and 6- result?

and again, i think this would be fine if taking damage was not the only option for getting a 7-9 on hack and slash.

in this case i would say it would be hack and slash. you are proactively attacking the ogre in melee(driving you sword into its spine)

while i do appreciate the story aspects of this game the mechanics need to be taken into account as well. if, in this situation, you were to:
a) defend; you could protect someone from taking damage (okay this makes sense if the ceiling is falling, but it currently isnt, the ogre is trying to bring it down)
b) defy danger; prevent youself from taking damage (again if the ceiling was in the middle of falling i say this would be great, but again the ceiling isnt falling yet)

hack and slash is the only move that can do anything in this situation (of the three) the fiction should never dictate you do a useless move. if you want to stop the ogre by driving a sword into its spine, that is clearly an attack. the results you want to get from attack it, that is different.

a "get something you want by force" move would be great, but if the feel of the game is supposed to be like DnD that is usually done by hitting something with your sword. if one did exist it would generate a lot of conversation about just what can you force to do something you want? (walk in on a dragon, make it do something by force! how? ummm, hit it with my sword until it submits! how? etc etc etc)

i still do not feel at ease with hack and slash's ability to take damage twice in a round. maybe this is because we have routinely fought things that do half on my total hp per hit but it seems like it makes melee a very very dangerous option. if hack and slash is not meant to be a joined combat between two agents then i feel like the outcome for a partial hit should not be take damage but rather a set of inconveniences like casing spells or volley.