The range is already there: "your victim has to be able to see you." I would define it further based solely on the fiction. Like, maybe it works if they see you on a tv monitor, or in psychic maelstrom visions, or through a telescope, but mostly I'd rather leave that up to the judgement of each individual group and game.

Hm, okay. Your answer is interesting to me because it means this fear effect is unlike other weapons/harm-establishers in the game, even direct-brain whisper projection (which also says the victim must see you, but also has a range in addition to that).

One thing that occurs to me to ask is, how close to the TV would you have to be? Or, would it work if you saw the last child on the horizon, off in the distance? I can imagine movie-like scenes that work like this move, but most of them would involve close range -- if not close to the last child, at least close to the TV, kn'a'm sa'in'?

Would the move become too powerful (or too bulky, or too colourless) if you said, close range, but also explicitly said it can be transferred through images and electronic devices (as long as the target is within close range of the receiving device)? That would kind of like be turning a TV or a phone into a brain relay.

I figure s-harm is already ap? You just have to act under fire to do anything, so I wouldn't figure that armour stops that. Shutting down this move just because somebody has armour is kind of a dick move, though, so I admit it might be best to clarify that yes, fear is ap.

s-harm isn't ap by default. Note that tasers and such also inflict s-harm, but they're not ap, because armour can prevent that effect. Mental effects are generally ap, explicitly marked.

Other than that, I expect actual secret knowledge to be revealed (because secrets are meant to be revealed, right?), but how a group determines that is up to them. If your group is cool with an ad-lib, great! And hopefully your MC will ask questions about how you know what you know, etc etc. If your group wants you to discover something first, great! I recommend a high sharp and reading people a lot.

One thing that occurs to me is, here's a cool direction you might take this in. You could turn "secret knowledge" into a resource for the last child if you added a move like the savvyhead's bonefeel (be there "with or without explanation", hidden or in plain sight as fiction suggests), or maybe some kind of scrying move (at the beginning of a session, roll or just hold 1, spend hold to be viewing something from afar with or without explanation). Then you have something on the playbook that suggests how you're going to acquire "secret knowledge".

So the hoard is conscious and can speak into the hoarder's mind.  So what?  What does a hoard want, except more stuff?

That all depends on what kind of threat you're listing the hoard as. You are listing it as a threat, right? Even if it's not conscious, it might be a Landscape (like Breeding Pit or Furnace) or an Affliction (like Condition, Delusion, or Sacrifice).

But if it's conscious, it might be a Warlord, or probably even better, a Grotesque. Mindfucker seems particularly apt to me, but it could also be a Cannibal, Pain addict (for other people's pain), a Perversion of birth, or even a Disease vector (wouldn't that be something!).

Once you make it a threat, you can let the threat moves guide you. You can use its telepathic communications to display the contents of its twisted phantom heart. You might have it insult, affront, offend or provoke the Hoarder. You might have it offer something with strings very much attached, or threaten someone, or "steal" something by having things go missing and show up in the hoard later. You might even have it "seize and hold someone" by having it trap someone who strays inside. It will always be trying to befoul, rot, desecrate, corrupt, and adulter the Hoarder's personal life and moral fibre. You might also give it custom moves that allow it to speak to others in some special circumstances, allowing it to lure people in or to turn people against each other.

Does this help?

This is an interesting idea! Here are some random thoughts.

What do you think about making "stun" a kind of harm? Analogous to s-harm or psi-harm, and it just knocks someone unconscious? If you did that, then "set phasers to stun" is just establishing harm, and the PCs can incorporate it into other moves as needed. It also gives the MC a convenient way to use it against the players.

Why is "Read a charged situation" limited to the Security Chief? The source material provides plenty of examples of everyone getting a turn to figure things out. (And I think the source material shows the Security Chief isn't necessarily any better at it than anyone else.)

At first blush, I like making the Science Officer a Weird-based character. I can't help but notice that neither of your science characters (Science and Medical) are Sharp-based. I would think at least Medical would be, no? What do you think is the main difference between a Star Trek Medical Officer and an AW Angel?

I'm not sure I'm feeling the Hot-based moves. I mean, frankly, I'm not sure Star Trek has anything like "Hot" in the universe at all. I mean, many of the characters are sexy, but that's not what they do, you know? It's not how they get things done. In Star Trek, when characters get what they want, they get it through the force of the stronger argument, or through brute force, or trickery. (Federation officers usually go through those in order, bad guys usually go the other way.)

Heck, even when the protagonists in Star Trek seduce someone, it's almost never for an ulterior motive, and it's never because they're particularly sexy. It's usually because sex in the Star Trek universe is always depicted as a human tenderness. What I'm saying is, I think maybe Star Trek probably has "special moves", but not a "seduce" move.

It seems to me the Captains of Star Trek are HARD. Not in the biker gang way, not in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer way, but definitely in the "aggressive, strong-willed, emotionally strong" take-no-shit kind of way that the AW stat partly encompasses. Tough, like. Bold, you might say. Captains often go toe-to-toe in melee with Klingons and whatnot; Picard got stabbed through the heart by a Nausicaan twice his size in a bar brawl, right?

It might be worthwhile to reflect on what virtues the characters have that enable them to win the day in the source material. That might be a better guide for stats! Being compassionate and reasonable is typically way more important than being sexy or even subtle, right? So I might take "Hot" out altogether, or even replace everything with something like Bold, Shrewd, Wise. I'd have basic moves like Act Under Fire (Bold), Seize By Force (Bold), Read a Sitch (Shrewd), Read a Person (Shrewd or Wise? Could go either way), Offer Reasons (Wise; the persuading move, instead of "seduce or manipulate").

Maybe some of this helps you, or jostles something loose? I hope so!

More examples are always good, right? I'm envisioning other situations and how I'd deal with them. Like, for example, what happens if Rex not only refuses, but the thing he does instead is also a move? Go Aggro, say. I think I'd handle that case something like this:

Barbecue, the hardholder: Hey Rex, you know your mom? Here's 1 shiny jingle. Go punch her in the face for me, she needs it.
Rex, the gunlugger: What? No. The hell, man? Fuck you! Don't you talk about my mother that way!
Me, the MC: How pissed are you right now, Rex? What are you doing?
Rex: Oh, I'm super pissed. I've got my heater, right? Take it back, Barbecue, or I swear to God....
Me: Are you just trying to scare him? Or are you for serious here?
Rex: I'm serious as hell. Enough's enough. I'm going aggro here.
Me: Okay, but first you gotta roll to Act Under Fire, and the fire is, this might come off as way out of proportion.

Rex rolls, hits a 10+
Me: Cool. Sorry, Barb, you've got this coming.
Barbecue: Hey, whoah, c'mon man....
Rex now rolls to Go Aggro, as usual. Barbecue can roll Hx to interfere.

- or -
Rex rolls, hits a 7-9. Here's a hard bargain I might offer.
Me: You can do this if you want, but you know, no matter how it turns out, everyone's gonna know you're a big sucky baby when it comes to your mom.
Rex: Fuggit. I'm doing this.
Rex now rolls Go Aggro, as usual, and again, Barbecue can interfere. And now I'm looking at Rex's mom through cross-hairs.

- or -
Rex blows the roll. He's left himself pretty open to being put in a spot here, and I have an obvious resource I can bring into play.
Me: Well, how about that. You notice that Omie's just standing there in the doorway. Remember Omie, Barbecue's lieutenant? You didn't hear him coming. And it looks like he's got Wee Bo, Jeanette, and four or five other members of the gang behind him. They must have heard you shouting. Looks like they walked in to see you with your weapon on their boss. Still wanna Go Aggro, or you want to try something else?

So, I'm building on the idea that, in the Act Under Fire roll, the fire is, what does it mean to refuse in this situation? What does it look like, and what kinds of consequences are there going to be in the near future? In Vincent's example, Rex wanted to keep talking, and the fire was, someone just told you to punch your mom, and you look like some kind of reptile because you're still talking to them like it's no big deal. In my example, Rex wants to force Barbecue to take it back, so the fire is, you look like the kind of guy who just flips his shit and does something way out of proportion. If Rex blows the roll, I want people to KNOW that's what he looked like, either by putting them there to see it, or making sure they find out later. And if he flubs Act Under Fire, he looks like a fool even if he succeeds at Go Aggro (and all the more so if he fails, I reckon).

Does this look plausible to you guys?

This concept was hard for me to grasp, too. I found an old thread about it, with this extremely helpful post from Vincent, which is worth quoting in full:
http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=652.msg5727#msg5727

Oh no, you can always just choose to refuse. You're acting under fire because you've refused, not in order to refuse.

Paul, 3 things. 1: make as hard and direct a move as you want to make, not a hard move in any absolute terms. 2: make a move that you CAN misdirect, not a contrived move. 3: don't call for the roll+cool until you know what the refuser is going to do instead.

Barbecue, the hardholder: Hey Rex, you know your mom? Here's 1 shiny jingle. Go punch her in the face for me, she needs it.
Rex, the gunlugger: What? No.
Me, the MC: What do you do instead?
Rex: I just refuse. I'm not going to go punch my mom, as if.
Me: Sure, that's fine. What do you do then, instead of punching your mom?
Rex: Oh. I still want to talk to Barbecue about Hapler.
Me: So you just let it slide, keep talking?
Rex: Yeah.
Me: Okay. That's under fire, because of the shiny jingle. Roll+cool.

Rex rolls, hits a 10+
Me: Cool. Carry on.

- or -
Rex rolls, hits a 7-9. There's kind of an ugly choice already present in the situation, so I just say it out loud.
Me: Huh. Do you accept the jingle, though?

- or -
Rex rolls, misses. I give my list of moves a quick glance. I've got nothing else brewing, no raiders or cannibal cults or handy interruptions, so I decide just to tell consequences and ask.
Me: You let it slide? If your mom finds out, she's going to be wicked pissed you didn't do anything about it.
Rex: Yeah. I can deal with that when it comes.
Me: Okay, your call! You want to talk about Hapler, you said?

-Vincent

The thing being done under fire here is not "refusing the offer". If Rex refuses, then he refuses. That's that. The thing that he's doing instead is "letting it slide totally unaddressed", and the fire is the sorts of thing that can happen when someone suggests that you punch your mom and you keep talking to them.

I like this example, because the point here is that ugly choices and hard moves are NOT about punishing one PC for refusing to obey another PC. The PCs have full agency at all times. The MC's moves here are about making the PC's lives interesting and real, which in this case just means spending a little bit more time considering all the angles of the situation. Dwelling for a moment and considering all the fictional implications is exactly the MC's job and one of the things the MC's moves make possible.

I don't have a lot of table experience with AW, but I hope this helps!

AW p205-206 says:

It's best if both the players -- the acting one, the helping or interfering one -- roll at the same time, but don't be a nit about it. If the player's like "oh wait a second! I provide covering fire of course, am I too late to roll to help?" the answer's no, not too late.

So, RAW, it should be simultaneous, but it's okay if it's immediately after. I'm sure the "To do it, do it" rule would also address some of the fictional issues -- you should probably already agree on who's going along with you before you roll, so you know who's helping.

Does that cover your question?

This is my first post. Hi all!

I absolutely love the "brief intros" in AW 97-99. I like that they convey the strengths and the weaknesses of each playbook in such a straightforward way.

I also have the LE playbook 6-pack. I think I have a decent sense of what each one is "about", but only vaguely. I was hoping, maybe, those of you who have more experience with them might be able to break these down for me. What kind of "brief intro" would you write for the LE playbooks? What warnings would you give?