I would argue that in a lot of CoC, as it is played, there are no real stakes. The players will figure out the mystery one way or the other. There might be some stakes regarding how well the characters survive the experience. The CoC I've played has exclusively been about the experience of uncovering the mystery, not about whether the players will succeed.

Coming up with police procedural moves is fun.

When you break a suspect, hold 3. Spend hold 1 for 1 to ask questions:
What did you see?
Who was with you?
Where were you at the time?
What do you know about X?

When you rough up someone in interrogation, roll +hard
10+ you break them.
7-9 you break them, and the MM chooses one.
On a miss, the MM can introduce a complication, advance a countdown clock, or give a red herring, and the MM chooses two.
- They're hurt pretty badly
- You get caught
- Someone else sees you

When you talk a suspect around to cooperating, offer some genuine insight into their motives, and roll +sharp.
10+ you break them
7-9: they give you a titbit (MM's choice)
On a miss, the MM can introduce a complication, advance a countdown clock, or give a red herring, and the MM chooses two.

When you leave a suspect to stew, the MM can advance a countown clock, but hold 1 (max 3). Spend hold 1 for 1 to take +1 on any roll to break the suspect.

There's this thread here: http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=448.0

Basically, it's hard!

I think the question you need to answer is whether "Do the investigators figure out the mystery?" is really at stake. If it is, then you need to make sure play is fun even if the investigators fail. If it's not, then you need to make sure there's something else at stake. Neither of those seem like easy things.

I heard someone talking about an investigative game where each failure meant there was another murder, and therefore more clues, so you'd eventually succeed, but possibly at great cost. That seemed like a reasonably good middle ground.

In terms of concrete moves, for a police procedural I'd focus on specifics of different investigative techniques:

When you dust for prints, you collect samples of any prints in the vicinity, and roll +focused. On a hit, you get to ask questions.
10+, ask 3
7-9, ask 1
On a miss, the Mystery Master can introduce a complication, a red herring, or else you just can't find anything.

How many different prints are here?
How old are the prints?
Was this thing touched by someone?
How was this thing held or used?

Oooh! And:

When you send a sample (DNA, fingerprints, trace, camera footage) to the lab geeks, roll +hard.
On a 10+, hold 3. 7-9, hold 1.
Spend 1 hold to get one of the following (MM's choice):
Introduce a new suspect
Introduce a secondary crime scene
Locate a suspect
Identify a murder weapon

Oh! And of course:

Once per session, when you make a terrible pun over a dead body, take +1 forward. YEEAAHHH!

Hi Matteo,

That's cool! I think though, that you could achieve the same effect without the time-consuming roll. For example:

Magic Spells
When you try to do something using magic, you do it. If it requires a move, roll +will instead of anything else. If it doesn't require a move, you're acting under fire instead.

Deadly Magic
Your magic spells count as a weapon, 1-harm hand/close, and choose one: +area, 2-harm, +far, +ap (Choose at the time you use it).

Hypnotic Magic
Your magic spells can count as leverage, when you influence someone.

As I see it, this solution retains everything from the previous version except the possibility of taking +1 forward, but it removes the requirement for a roll.

I think there's a danger that this move will make it easy to achieve things without a detailed description of what's happening in the fiction. "I'll just magic him so he gets out of the way" "I'll magic myself out of danger!" and so on. Beware!

Thanks, Paul.

It does seem like Vincent and Ron are using the terms to mean different things, TSoY not being, as far as I can see, a particularly "fiction first" design.

EDIT: I see now why I couldn't find the thread. The archives are not held in the section marked "Archives" as one might expect, but in "Inactive".

I think there's some confusion because of something Ron said on the Forge recently. I'll see if I can find it.

My recollection is he talked about designing a TSoY hack "colour first" in the sense of he knew what he wanted play to look and feel like, and then he was designing to reach that goal.

This was before "colour first" was being used consistently to describe games like Apocalypse World and D&D3E which privilege fictional details over situation and stakes in resolution. "Fiction first" is, in my opinion, a better term for this approach.

And so it does!

Here's the skeleton of a thing that my be getting introduced in our game:

When you take harm past 12:00 and your brain is open to the world's psychic maelstrom, you can, at your leisure, change your character type to Maelstrom Ghost.


Maelstrom Ghost

Choose a look

Wisps of smoke, shadows in darkness, flickers in dreams, glimpses in mirrors

Choose a voice

Whispers in ears, crackles over the radio, writing in the dust, signs and portents

Basic Moves

Of the basic moves, you get Read a Sitch, Seduce and Manipulate, Act Under Fire, and you can Help or Interfere

You can't physically interact with anything, except by virtue of one of your moves.

Maelstrom Ghost Moves:

You get 2:

Open a Brain:
When you open someone's brain to the world's psychic maelstrom, roll +weird. On a hit, they get glimpses into your world.
10+ you can show them something you've seen in the maelstrom, and you can ask them questions
7-9 The MC will show them something, and might ask questions
On a miss, they take ?-harm.

Move through the Maelstrom: (this is pretty particular to our own maelstrom)
When you attempt to manipulate the world's psychic maelstrom, whether you're physically moving, or just taking a look, roll +weird.
10+ choose 3
7-9 choose 2
- right time
- right place
- right reality
On a miss, the MC will take you somewhere interesting.

Familiar Spirit:
When you use any other move, if it makes sense, you can roll +Hx instead of what you'd normally roll.

Possession:
When you force yourself into someone's brain, roll +weird.
10+ you control their body, like a fleshy puppet, for as long as you want it. When you make them do something, PCs can act under fire to force you out, in which case you take s-harm. If the body you're controlling takes harm past 12:00, you take s-harm and are forced out.
7-9: You are acting under fire to make them do something. On a miss, you'll take s-harm and are forced out of their brain.
On a miss, you take s-harm.

Spirit Fingers:
When you have time and intimacy with someone, at your option, they take ?-harm.

Fast, good, cheap is a great custom move to add to a game. I used it like this:

"When you're executing a complex multi-stage project, and you've got the time, resources, and knowledge, and we don't want to play out the details of it, choose two of Fast, Cheap, and Good. The MC will generate trouble based on your choices."

In the context of our game, the Savvyhead was fortifying the town in anticipation of a full-on assault by the cannibal hordes. He had been given the run of the town by the hardholder, and had drawn up plans for the fortifications, but I figured it wouldn't be Apocalypse World (or real life) if everything went exactly according to plan. So choose 2: Fast, Cheap, Good.

He chose fast and good. So I describe: "Ok, it's going well. The walls are strengthened, the watch-towers are up, and it's all only taken a few days. Joan's gang have been making sure you get everything you need, but to get it done this quick, they haven't been able to be polite about it. A couple of people have been shot, a lot of people have been forced out of their homes, and there's a shitload of bad feelings and grumbling. The threat of being eaten by cannibals is mostly keeping folks in line though."

That's all describing the outcome of the move. Then, genrating trouble, I make a move for one of my threats:

"Pierre, the owner of the brothel in town, comes up to you. Joan's gang have been acting like they own the place, ripping off fixtures, using it as a watering hole, and getting free tricks off Pierre's girls. Pierre is not happy. He says "It stops now, or maybe you wake up very cold one morning, you get me?" Here's the thing - you need Joan's gang onside a heck of a lot more than you need Pierre happy."