Well, I have no idea how to make it about NPCs, I'd probably be looking at The Operator's Reputation move.

But I wanted to chime in and say that if I were writing this, it wouldn't give your opponent -2 on your Read a Person rolls. It would let you spend the hold on their behalf instead, as long as you told them something they didn't already know. Thus ensuring that the Secretmonger still has to answer questions, and come up with weird allusions to other secrets, but letting them avoid the issue they actually want to keep hidden.

I'm guessing this entirely from the name, but I bet that if you're playing a Secretmonger then really you want people to be suspicious of you, to be trying to read you, but never quite to be getting what they want.

The first campaign I ran, crikey, the end was a high point. Our Chopper pulled a "get a gang" move from another play book and calmly declared: "Those things in the tunnels, that have been picking us off one by one? I want them as my gang."

So then the whole story came out about the gap between this world and the world the aliens had come from. About how the leaders of the world-that-was managed to close the rift back during the Apocalypse, and about how the creatures that were stuck on this side were slowly trying to open it again.

The savvyhead had salvaged a nuke from a stealth bomber that popped out of the air one session, having jumped fifty years forward in time from the run it had been on. The hocus had been preaching all game about how heaven was the transcendence of the flesh, and about how we were destined to step beyond. It seemed logical when the one took his bomb and the other took his followers and they both stepped into the newly opened rift between worlds and blew up whatever they found.

I think the final scene was the driver, bus full of the NPCs that made it out alive, heading out into the wasteland into who knows where.

Yeah, I could see that the big issues in the background were going to flop out all over the table, and that when they did something was going to have to be done about it. I don't know how obvious that was to the players though. It was a good session, there was a lot of "Oh, that's what the deal with XYZ was. That makes sense!" which I always love as a GM and which seemed to happen with very little forethought on my part. It tied things up neatly. But then, there were also social pressures on us to end the game, so we were all psyched to push things hard.

The second one, well, the characters had gone in very different directions geographically, and the players were bored of not interacting, so we called it to a close. Wrapped up things that were outstanding, but it was functional, not a climax.

This is a really interesting topic and I hope we get more answers out of it!

I've not played with the Maestro D yet, but isn't it simply a matter of what conflicts we expect to be interesting?

The Operator is all about balancing the conflicting demands of the project she's running. If her crew are guarding a bar then they're not raking the wastelands for salvage or keeping her boy toy away from the slavers. Juggling does this, of course it's on the sheet.

A Chopper is all about being the brutal enough to keep control of a pack of savage murderous thieves. If she gives an order to a gang, we're want to see whether or not she has to break her second's jaw to get him to pay attention. Pack alpha does this, of course it's on the sheet.

Now we might care whether or not a particular Maestro D can focus her staff, or keep them in line, or whatever. Especially when the PC-NPC triangles start emerging. But that's not the jumping off point of the concept, it can be handled with basic or custom moves as and when it's needed.

http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=294.0

I don't, on the intuitive level that some people talk about, get Apocalypse World. I'm in my fourth campaign, there are still really obvious things that people say that revolutionise how I think about the game.

It's not just Bret's lessons that are cool. It's the whole idea of sharing the lessons people are learning. More of that please!

I have no idea how you should handle this, but I love that the question arose.

http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=181.0

And the thread before that one from the same game. Ah me. When Bret says he's been made to feel like he's been playing the child friendly version of a game, it's worth a notice. Who didn't shudder at the fallout from deactivating the extermination sub-routine?

Also
http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=188.0

This thread is just warming up. In my own games, I've wondered whose job it is to bring the Weird, whether the MC is meant to be receptive, as in the Dogs supernatural dial, or whether they could push things into the bizarre. Some nice ideas here as to *how*.

Reading that example was a massive breakthrough for me. I mean, I'd skimmed it when I first read the book, but I hadn't twigged what actually happened until I re-read it about half-way through the first game. Then a whole bunch of stuff suddenly made sense, like the riddle of how to run for a Battlebabe with a sniper rifle.

Keith, have you considered that, moment by moment, it's as simple as "Make apocalypse world seem real. Make the character's lives not boring."

Oh sure, I'm very excited about being able to pre-order this game. Excellent. But that's not the satisfaction I'm aching for.

Does anyone else remember the arrangement for Vincent's starting Battlebabe to go up against DWeird's starting Gunlugger?

There is sand as yet unstained by blood. When is that going to happen, huh?