what MC move to just describe ?

What can a MC use when he just want to give further description of a scene or character, after a player asks ? Offer an opportunity seems to work when it could be an advantage for the PC, announce future badness if this could go wrong, but if it's obviously neutral ? Like I just said "you enter the room of the Brainer, it's tidy and the smell is awful, what do you do ?" and the player want more details. I want to add that there is many lumps of earth, shaped into people of the village, or that there is a bed with pictures scattered on, what do I use as a move ? And I don't even talk about really common details, like the stairs, wooden walls, or chimney in a concrete block.

My question stands for Dungeon World, too, although I believe the answer will help me for both.

That's covered by the principles, not the moves. Barf forth apocalyptica.

I'd barf forth while misdirecting, then hitting them with a soft move, so it'd keep the ball bouncing.

No offense, but this sounded a bit like a "how do I breathe?" question. :) You don't do moves to describe, you just describe. There are no moves to describe stuff because moves are a MC tool to make things happen in the fiction. Description isn't making things happen in the fiction, it's just makes it be.

As far as I know, AW does not have any rules that directly affect who's turn it is to say things or describe stuff, so you just do when it comes naturally.

Or is there something in your game that's activelly stopping you from putting in descriptions of things in when they're needed? If so, we probably need the details.

There is also "make Apocalypse World seem real"; between that and 'barf forth', you refer to all of the 'always say' rules, then tie back to being a fan of the players.  You shouldn't be using a move in this case until asking provocative questions, responding with fuckery and intermittent rewards, and disclaiming decisions leads to making a move that arises naturally from taking a real close look at the brainer's flat, like, as you said, announce future badness or off-screen badness.

When the characters are looking closely, you are having fun according to your agenda, focused through the lens of your principles; once they ignore your soft moves (announce badness) because, hey, it's just exposition, then you snowball those into fronts and threats and harder moves.  If they are more proactive, great, that's the game, you are making their lives not boring quite handily.

Ha ha ha! Welcome to the dogpile, Nocker.

Since we seem to have good and nailed that one down, any followup questions or comments?

Ok, I'm not dumb, thanks. I was not asking because I can't "just" describe, but because I'm trying to understand the conversation structure created by the rules in AW.
And as far as I know, it's written "Whenever there's a pause in the conversation and everyone looks to you to say something, choose one of these things and say it", so I assumed the MC never do anything apart from using moves. Until that question came out to me, it felt like it covers pretty much everything, so the all-is-a-move rule was conceivable. But if a player looks to me to say something after he entered the Brainer flat, I need to take a move, by the rules.

Now that Vincent himself announces that a MC does say things beyond moves, I'm a bit lost. It seems that the rules I just quoted is wrong. So when do you use a move, and when do you not ?

"So when do you use a move, and when do you not ?"

All the time.  You're in a conversation with the players all the time.  They're not just making moves and neither are you.  But when they describe something that sounds like a move, use the move mechanics.  When there's that lull in the conversation or when someone fails a move-roll or when the players allow something you've got cooking on the back burner to explode, then you make a move.

Nocker, the rule you quoted doesn't say "when someone asks you about the stairs, make a move." it says to make a move when there's a pause and everyone is looking at you to do something. The text is giving guidance about what to say when you're unsure of how to carry the conversation forward (if the reader was sure how to carry things forward they really wouldn't need the advice.) Thats different from saying every time the MC speaks it must be a move.

But I will say that every time the MC speaks the MC should probably consider whether to make a move.

Sorry if my off-hand comment hurt you, Nocker. Didn't mean any harm with it - it was just, at face value, your initial question sounded like "how do I describe things in a roleplaying game?", which just seemed strange. No hard feelings, I hope.

Thing is, I don't think there is really a rigid conversation structure (there's an emergent one based on MC principles and player moves that ask questions, but that's different).

So the thing you mentioned (when the room goes silent and everyone looks to you...) to me seems not like a rule that says when an MC gets to talk, but a prompt in case of an awkward scenario. It's a reminder of the tools you have available, when there is a lull in game activity and the players look at you expectantly. If you already know how to fill that silence, you don't need the reminder.

As for when you use a move and when you don't... Maybe it's worth looking at it a bit differently? Like Christopher says, a MC is in a conversation, is "just describing" all of the time. Some of the times, what you're describing also happens to be a move, but not necessarily so.

Now, most of the stuff you'll be saying will in fact be moves, I'm sure - you use move when things happen and things happen often in AW. But moves are not primary in the way talking about what's happening in the fiction is.

So you don't use moves and not-moves, you just talk and sometimes use moves while talking.

Edit: A bit of this is a cross-post with noclue. Sorry for any redundancies.

No harm, DWeird. I was a bit unclear about the reason behind my question.

So I think I begin to understand. You use a Move when there is nothing that comes naturaly (i.e. describing things). And you must keep the Moves in head to move (no capital M) things. Because if you always have something to say, but it's not pushing the fiction, then you aren't doing your job. So the Moves are reminders as well as safeguards. The rule I quoted is more of an advice than a mandatory action when the trigger appears.

I already was a bit afraid of the advicy feeling of Principles, Moves and Always Say in AW, and now that the rule I hanged to is crumbling into another advice, I really fear the moment where I will be in a game not knowing what to do.
My last campaign fell out of gas as I failed to provide serious adversity and I resented the players not making any opportunity or flaw in their characters, nor human relationships. When Vincent says "hit them where they aren't in control", he doesn't say it is fun to look for weak points, and that's because it isn't. At least to me. It's a game of power I don't want to play.
I feel like I have disgressed a lot. Sorry

This seems like an interesting problem, actually. I don't have anything to say about AW rules being advice-y, but I don't think thet really leave you in the dark in this particular situation.

Your initial problem went something like this - "I want to describe things in the game, but I think the game is stopping me."

The only thing that changed is now, when you want to do things, you can. When you want to do things but can't, the rule you were relying on is still there to be relied on. To feel more at ease with AW's rules, you could look at this post: http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=594


Is your last campaign the one you posted about on these forums?

Yup, all that's changed is the MC is allowed to tell the players what color the stairs are if he wants to, without making a move.

When Vincent says "hit them where they aren't in control", he doesn't say it is fun to look for weak points, and that's because it isn't. At least to me. It's a game of power I don't want to play.
I feel like I have disgressed a lot. Sorry

That's an interesting thing to say. The way I see it, every character with externalized power has a weakness built right in. Maestros have someone they owe, Hardholders and Hocuses more often than not have at least one want, etc. There's always something over that next hill and the PC's don't know what. Enemies are easy to come by, not just the big ones that you get everyone together to shoot the hell out of but the little ones like one member of some other PC's gang who you pissed off. Haven't pissed one off yet? How about one of them making a reasonable seeming request that the other PC isn't likely to go along with? Now its a question of alienating this guy and maybe pissing off his boss or doing something equally distasteful.

Threats and fronts help with this, of course, but just making AW seem real, barfing forth apocalyptica and making the players' lives not boring (ie just conversation) should open up plenty of opportunities.

So I think I begin to understand. You use a Move when there is nothing that comes naturaly (i.e. describing things).

Don't forget that when someone rolls a miss it's a "golden opportunity to make as hard a move as you like."