Given 2097s hilarious GDNS post on Storygames, I just figured they were on an epic trolling spree.

Oh, okay. That's a very different thing. My advice there is: never think about 'which Threat should I use?' -- just think about what should happen next, using the other tools (Agenda, Principle, MC moves). You should think about who might show up or what might happen or where would be a cool next scene... and then you've already answered your question as to 'which Threat' because you know who is there or where it is, and now you only have one or two Threats at most to keep track of: the ones that are in the scene.

If it is literally a matter of physical organization of paperwork, I suggest one index card per Threat, with the most relevant Threat moves written on it. It should hopefully be pretty straightforward to shuffle through them and select the 1-3 ones that are relevant for the current scene. (This could be adapted to help you with MC moves in general, too: pick a few MC moves that you think that Threat is likely to use as well, and put them on the card. That puts all the likely MC moves for a scene in one place, by focusing them through the Threats.)

As for countdown clocks, my feeling is that those are basically just for Fronts, unless you have a really great idea for a Threat-based one (though even then, probably should only be Threats that are part of Fronts.) I can't imagine running a game with more than two or three countdown clocks running at once -- like one per Front, max, unless I thought of something really cool or clever, in which case I shouldn't have trouble remembering it anyways.

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As to the general 'there are too many moves omg' -- MC moves are there to help you when you don't have any other ideas. Most of the time, you will just think of something to happen next and it will turn out to be very similar to an MC move --  but you don't have to think 'what MC move am I using right now.' You just need to say what happens, using Agenda and Principles. The big list of MC moves is there for when you're stuck -- either stuck in the moment, or stuck repeating the same patterns over and over.

Like, there are lots of MC moves I never think about, because they're part of my natural idea of 'things that happen in apocalypse stories' -- but there are other MC moves that I will almost never think of by myself, because they aren't part of my storytelling habits. So when I am going to MC a game, my only move-related prep is usually going to be picking ONE or MAYBE TWO of those second kind of moves -- and writing myself a reminder to try and use them this one session.

The key is not to worry about all the moves at once, the key is to prep yourself a very small sub-section of the moves for that one session. That way when you are feeling overwhelmed you just look at a list of like, five things, and pick one of those. Instead of a list of 30 things. You don't need to make every MC move in every session, after all -- just spend a little time if you can before the session starts, going over the list of MC/Threat moves, and pick out a few that seem likely to be relevant. Like, 'okay, they're going into the radioactive swamp this session, so 'Separate Them' is probably a good one' -- and then maybe one or two of the Threat moves for the swamp, based on what kind of Landscape it is, and there you go -- a really short list, that can fit on one small piece of paper. If you're not sure where a session is going to go you can prep a few of these -- and don't be afraid to overlap moves. Sometimes I'm just like 'ok, MC, your ONE GOAL this Session is gonna be to Separate Them at least once...' and then I just run the game as best I can and when I'm stuck I'm like 'oh right, Separate them!'

I don't have time to go into detail here, but let me summarize:

Everyone and everything is a Threat. EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING. EVERY. ONE. AND. EVERY. THING.

The only choice is a) when you are going to bother figuring out what kind of Threat they are and b) whether  they are part of a Front or just on the Home Front.

But if you have bothered to give somebody a name in more than passing, they are a Threat. All these things you described are Threats, or part of Threats. They are not selectively Threatening to only one PC -- they are just Threats. To everyone. They may manifest in a way that is a bigger deal to one or another PC -- the angry mob might try to kill the Brainer first, and only later destabilize the Hardhold -- but they are ultimately a Threat to everyone.

On a) I suggest doing a run-through early on, but don't worry if you end up with a few left over where it just doesn't seem that important yet to figure them out. Then keep those ones in mind, and if they show up in more scenes you should probably decide what sort of Threat they are (hopefully the scenes themselves will help you figure it out.)

On b), you can be more selective. If you have a ton of named NPCs left and right but only a few Fronts, you may have lots of Threats in your Home Front. Only put Threats in a Front if it makes sense. And unlike Threats, you DO want to limit yourself to a smaller number of Fronts.

On the other hand, if you have some Threats that are clearly a big deal in the fiction, but aren't part of a Front -- you should think about building a Front around them, in an effort to bring their Threat-ness into focus.

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The distinction between something being 'just a Threat' and something being a Threat that is part of a Front is I think maybe why you seem reluctant to call things by their proper name. Deciding what kind of Threat something or someone is doesn't mean _they are currently a huge problem_ or that _they will always be acting out their Threat moves_ -- it just means that when (not if) something goes wrong with them, this is how it is going to go wrong. Knowing what kind of Threat something is makes it easier for you to decide what happens on a Miss -- you can just look at the Threat type and go 'oh, they probably do THIS' or 'oh, maybe THIS happens'.

Something that is part of a Front, though -- that's something that is actively threatening things, or is about to be actively threatening them if the PCs don't intercede. Fronts are on the move, and their Threats are their moving parts. Threats that hang out on the Home Front are just chilling -- something specific will have to provoke them, whether it be something the PCs do directly or something that results from the activities of the Front-related Threats. But they're still THREATS, and your life will be much easier if you know what kind they are before a PC randomly decides to shoot one in the gut.

Well, now if she dies, it has to be on purpose. Random bullet in a bar fight gone wrong: not on purpose. Throwing herself off a bridge because a PC rejected her advances: probably on purpose? A PC's cult specifically trying to kill her: definitely on purpose.

There's lots of different ways this could make sense -- JustusGS provided a good one -- but also... why not just ask the player what it means? It seems unlikely that they chose the option without any ideas about what it meant, fictionally, so just wait until it's triggered and then ask them what it's like, in the same way you're going to already be asking them what it's like to Open Their Brain to the Maelstrom. Most likely, the two will be strongly connected.

I also don't see any images.

Have you read the book on what happens when a leaderless gang takes significant casualties? Has your Hardholder's player? Either way, if you want to make losing Jamaica more obviously troublesome, you can just specify 'Jamaica dies; the gang is without a leader' as that option. If the gang takes few casualties, that might not matter as much; then again, what will this gang do if they gain unsupervised access to an enemy hardhold? Gangs tend to be made up of violent, savage individuals, who tend to have historically poor interactions with 'mostly defenseless 'enemies''. The Hardholder's goal may be to assassinate Elbow, but having to deal with a civilian massacre could hollow that victory out quite quickly.

So yeah, losing a competent NPC leader REALLY does not seem like a 'non-choice' to me, though you certainly know your players and your game best. Maybe in your game those sort of people grow on trees, but in my experience with AW that's not something one throws away in exchange for a few violent thugs.

Yeah, what Tim said. Impulsive action, obsessive love, foolish belief that everything will work out OK. Or maybe she has some more complex belief system that just looks like this on the outside, but will emerge more completely in time.