You'd throw them, right? So wouldn't it be close range? And then, like, you duck down or run? Most people could toss the sucker far enough.

I know it's got the area tag, but (hand area) isn't the same as (close area) - one affects an area at arm's length, the other affects an area within a shouted conversation's distance.

Or am I reading the (hand) tag wrong?

Okay, the issue I've still got with the game is that sometimes I can't discern when to Go Aggro versus when to Seize. Like, okay, you Seize by Force when it's a fight, right? Guns out on both sides? But aren't there some exceptions to that?

- I run past all the explosions and gunfire to slide under your legs and chop you in the back with a machete. Act Under Fire first, but then what - is that a Seize, or Go Aggro? As in, what if you manipulate circumstances in order to set it up that they can't really defend themselves well? You're such a badass that they have no opportunity of defending against your crazy leg-sliding-machete-attack?

- We're full on fighting, but what I want to do - and let's say there's a countdown clock and everything going - is convince their gang leader to back the fuck off and end the fight. He's gunning at me, but I want to threaten him with violence: "You're outnumbered! Chill the fuck out or we'll shoot you dead!" Is that Seizing by Force (say, their submission?) or Going Aggro? Does being in a fight demand only Seizing, or can you throw in an Aggro if the situation calls for it? And if so, how can you tell which is which, like in the above scenario?

I usually get the sense that a "holding" is bigger than just one building, like a small city, like some fields and some buildings, like a village, like a warren of underground tunnels, whatever. And then there's one base, your compound, that's *your* place.

Just my 2c.

That's what I was wondering! Like, I could see it either way. A special HQ within the holding, or the holding itself.

Mostly because I noticed that when a non-Hardholder PC takes a new holding as an improvement, there's no mention of compounds at all, or even a description of the holding. Which made me wonder if you and the MC just flesh that out, and the Hardholder gets a special base within.

This isn't clicking for me - strangely, though, I've made these very same judgments. In a fight we had last session, it didn't count as someone's move for the tick to move a short distance before they laid the pain on someone (their actual move). One of the players expressed that, theoretically, the movement towards the target should count as the action for the tick, but I said, No, it's just moving, it's not that far.

Kind of the same as saying, No, using the projector is just a thing you do with your thumb, you can do something else now.

But I still don't get why. I guess there's a discomfort there because I don't get what I'm supposed to be judging as my case-by-case criteria? It seems autonomous and I think maybe there's a rhythm to it that needs to be picked up, but I'll be damned if I could explain how it works to a new MC.

I don't like I have just the thing. It doesn't seem like it should be a move here - it more has the appearance of a custom MC move or something. As it stands, using the move doesn't really do anything spectacular, it simply tells you the status of some items you may or may not have. But wouldn't the MC already do that for you? Imagine your Swapper without that move, and someone asks if you have something. Probably, the MC will invent something on the fly that is remarkably similar to that to figure it out.

Looking at the class now, that move seems like a waste to blow a choice on. If anything, I could see it as a move you start out with next to Lassie Fare, or like a custom move attached to you, like how a Hocus has insight or augury or something.

Then two additional things:

1) I first read Papal in the names section as "Paypal," and was solidly disappointed when I was corrected. I will give you one awesome-buck if you add Paypal or more economic puns to the name list.

2) On a similar note, totally keep the name "Lassie Fare", digging it like ten shovels.

Why does every NPC get listed as a threat? I dig it, but I'm not sure I see why. Is that an aspect of the system, or an inevitability of the setting?

None of my players really dug the set names!  We've had Sparrow the battlebabe, Jesus W. the angel, the Chinaman the operator, Puma the skinner, Doppler the savvyhead, and Yusuf bin Rahman al-Ahmad the driver, among others.

If anything, all the players I've played with have been incredibly turned off by the fact that there was a list of set names to choose from, and immediately branched away. After going through multiple games and mining the 1st session worksheet over and over, I got into the habit myself of just conjuring up weirdness from thin air.

What was cool was Sparrow was a battlebabe in our first game, and he had an adoptive parent figure - an operator named Finch. Well, when we played a second game some months later, we decided that this game was sort of a prequel to the other, and we had Finch appear in that one as one of the players' characters. I've come to realize this is a really bad move, as it's basically pre-planning plot points, and has sort of pigeonholed the story a certain way. Still coming out cool, though!