Excellent example, thanks. Very clear! (Except for the switch from Domino to Diamond, which threw me for a second, but no biggie.)

What switch? (he says, having edited his post...)   ;D

Does anyone have a favourite trick, scene type, or formula for learning more about the PCs in a more play-active fashion?

I'm always a little careful with flashback scenes - if your players are anything like mine, they seem drawn to doing things in flashbacks that break causality. In the game where the Psychic Maelstrom had something to do with time being broken that was great, but in most cases it just causes headaches.

But if you want to learn more about the PCs' histories with each other, I find that the PC-NPC-PC triangles are a good place to start, because chances are good that someone else was present when that thing that happened in the past went down, and how they interact with that person/those people now informs their past. It also lets you barf some apocalyptica into the history, which is always worth doing.

... and the MaestroD brings food.

Point of Order! My Maestro'D is going to bring Fight Club.  8)

That's one of the things that's so cool (IMO) about Apocalypse World - its elegant simplicity encapsulates some really nuanced stuff going on under the hood. One of the recent discussions about seize by force was cool in this regard, because it highlighted situations in which MCs were doing very similar things but for slightly different reasons.

Yes, the issue is absolutely one of player agency, and I think we might see it slightly differently. I have no problem saying "you tried to shoot but missed" when narrating an opponent barricading themselves securely in (if the fictional situation warrants it or it seems like it's a reasonable consequence), but saying, "yeah, you just don't have the stones to pull the trigger" feels like it crosses a subtle but important line. So rather than say, "no, you cannot make this decision about whether or not your character takes this action," I'd much rather tell them the consequences and ask. As in, "yeah, you can totally drop the hammer on this guy - but now he's gonna get his licks in before he goes down. Do you still want to?"

Further, while a 7-9 is a hit, it is important to actually look at the results of the move in question. Much like a 7-9 in act under fire is likely to complicate your life or a 7-9 in pack alpha is going to make you make some tough choices, the 7-9 case for go aggro explicitly gives your opponent the capacity to NOT do what you want. I guess Vincent can chime in here himself if he chooses, but I think this is intentional; if 7-9 always made the other person cave (with or without complications), then everyone would be going aggro all the time because it would be the easiest way to get people to do what you want. There are a number of moves where things are really only "good" for you on a 10+, and while the partial doesn't totally suck, it's 50-50 whether you can really call it a "success." Remember, one of the "ugly choices" you might be given when you act under fire is "you achieve what you wanted but also suffer this other consequence, or you fail to achieve what you wanted and avoid this other consequence - which do you choose?" In other words, failure is a valid player choice even on a 7-9.

This is awesome because it puts the question (and the agency) directly in the player's hands. You know going in what the consequence will be, so how important is it to you to succeed? The example I gave works exactly the same way - Oh, shit, Squiggy has a gun too! How badly do you want those narcostabs? Enough to start a close-quarters gunfight over it? Ball's in you court, friend, what do you do now?

It's also important to point out that I would explicitly not have Squiggy suddenly produce a weapon and start immediately blazing away (exchange harm) as that is not one of my 7-9 options as the MC. But on a miss? Jesus, fuck, Squiggy is quick as a snake! You don't know whether he's jazzed on combat stims or just a fucking gun-snatching kung-fu ninja, but now you're looking down the barrel of your own gun, and Squiggy is jabbering a mile a minute about how you need to back the fuck off or he'll plug you and you can almost feel the trigger spring straining. What do you do? Hey, look at that, I've just flipped the PC's move! But that's appropriate for a miss, not a 7-9.

A 12+ on advanced go aggro is the only situation in the game that completely removes agency over intent from a player (with the possible exception of an arresting skinner, but that has baked-in limitations), and I think that's as it should be. Even a 10+ on seduce or manipulate still leaves the choice of "is leaving XP on the table and/or losing a highlight worth it to me?" which is fantastic!

And again, it's important to note that this is purely a narrative choice on the part of the MC to change up the fictional position of the characters involved because "I go aggro on him again" is pretty uninteresting and (I feel) against the spirit of how PbtA games generally work.

@arakn_e: the part about "exchanging harm" in the section on the battle moves is not a move in and of itself (at least not one a player can invoke). You will note that it has no trigger, for instance. It's simply an indicator of how the mechanics for a number of battle moves work, the situation upon which they are predicated. The move single combat is a good example - regardless of the outcome of the roll or options chosen by the player, the move includes the exchange of harm. You can't engage in single combat and NOT exchange harm. If you're lucky your armor may soak all the harm you receive, but you still exchanged it.

That said, trade harm for harm (as established) is an MC move. That means that at any point in the game (if it's fictionally appropriate), it's totally cool for the MC to say something like, "Yeah, you and Dremmer's goons are all shooting at each other in a blaze of gunfire. You take X harm in the exchange and they take Y harm." Nobody's rolling anything (as the players haven't triggered any moves), it's just that the fictional situation includes bullets flying everywhere, and it stands to reason that people are going to get shot and take harm. I find that this sort of situation occurs mostly when the characters are "in battle," though this is the part of AW2E that is the least clearly-defined in my opinion.

Does that answer your question?

@Paul T: the reason having a gun suddenly appear in the person's hands is a reasonable outcome to a 7-9 in go aggro is simple - you only get to inflict the "free harm" on someone if they elect to "force your hand and suck it up." The option to "back off calmly, hands where you can see" is fine as-is if the situation warrants it, but I find that often it doesn't make narrative sense in the fiction.

For example, I stick my gun in your face and say, "Give me the narcostabs, motherfucker. I will not repeat myself." If you simply back up, there's nothing in the fiction that keeps me from saying, "Fuck this, I pull the trigger," which is an identical outcome you forcing my hand - which you didn't choose to do. Further, nothing prevents me from saying, "If you take another step backwards, then so-help-me-Goddess I will blow your brains out," which is essentially me just going aggro again.

But as we know, AW isn't really an "I do it again" kind of game, so something in the fiction needs to prevent me from simply re-asserting my threat. And at the same time, "back off calmly, hands where I can see" has to be a valid option that keeps you from simply being able to plug me (because I am explicitly not forcing your hand and sucking it up). Ergo, by altering the fictional situation to include an escalation (Squiggy now has a gun of his own) I have made it clear that both a) he's not going to do what you want, and b) if you want to resort to violence, you're risking taking harm yourself. The fictional situation itself prevents you from triggering go aggro again, which is as it should be.

You see a similar dynamic with "barricade themselves securely in." I often narrate this as someone either making a run for it before you can bring your weapon to bear or moving quickly enough that you try to hit/shoot them and miss - because you don't get to automatically inflict harm on someone on a 7-9 for this move, even if they're not doing what you want. But at the same time, the fictional situation needs to change sufficiently that you can't just re-trigger the same move.

If you don't enforce a change in the fictional situation, the entire go aggro move loses something, either being too powerful or too wishy-washy, depending on how the MC interprets it.

Make sense?

Yeah, Mollisol, it sounds like you're getting the crux of how PbtA games play.

In terms of "the world outside the players," I think the best advice is to "ask provocative questions and build on the answers." The important caveat here, however, is that the question does have to be provocative, i.e. it must provoke a response. The trick for the MC is to structure the question such that a brief, non-committal answer isn't really relevant. You want to build a hook into a question in order to elicit a response. Asking, "Who taught Skeeter to fight?" is extremely open-ended, and doesn't really provoke the character. Instead, ask, "Who taught Skeeter how to fight, and who killed that mentor?" That establishes something in the fiction - you (the MC) have introduced a fact about the world - your mentor is dead - but left it up to the player to decide who and how. Riff off their answer.

As an aside, the Hardholder playbook is aces for this: From whom did you seize power, and how did you get into a position where that was possible? Who did you have to put down like a dog? Who still opposes you and thinks they could do a better job? What did you have to compromise to get the support of the Water Clan?

Seriously, you could (and should) have a field day with this kind of stuff.

In terms of introducing NPCs, I find that it's often most effective for the MC to give an NPC a name and some tidbit of defining detail, then ask the player a question about that NPC's motivation in regard to the player: "There's this wiry, shifty-eyed dude named Skint. Rheumy eyes, always disheveled. Anyway, he's pounding on your door in a panic - what does he want?" This establishes that the PC and NPC already know each other. They clearly have some history (as evidenced by the fact that the PC recognizes Skint by sight, knows his name, and knows he's always unkempt), and you're inviting the player's input into that history.

But the important part here is that Skint is panicked, pounding on your door. This isn't a situation you're likely to blithely ignore. You are doing this expressly to provoke the player, to present them with a situation to which they must respond.