Increasing difficulty? PC's never fail?

There's a signfigant difference between "don't roll dice" and "can't do anything". Now, admittedly, its very difficult for an NPC to do anything directly to a PC with much degree of success. But make Apocalypse World seem real calls for at least some enemies to be smart. That means they'll hit where the PCs are weak when they're not ready to defend.

Is that windmill guarded 24 hours a day? Are all of the guards 100% trustworthy?  What happens if it burns down while the PCs are off killing another gang?

Does the Savvyhead have mines around his workshop? If a few of them go off, there's an obvious hole that has to be plugged. So will he stay home and make mines or track the source of the maelstrom leak into reality?

I hate to reiterate the book but find places the PC's don't have perfect control and push there. Or find places that NPC's can put a dent in that control, dent it, then push.

they have no mechanical role in the system

There's a thing I'm not sure I understand about "mechanical role." 

It sounds like you think that if the game tells me as the MC playing NPC Bubba, when I decide that Bubba wants to beat your PC down to roll this and that and compare it to a table and let the PC react in this way or this other way, that that's a mechanical role.  Am I close?

Apocalypse World guides me along a little about when I should decide that Bubba acts on his wanting to beat you down and gives me some rules for what to say.  I mean, I don't roll those dice like I described above, but I do say something like "OK Keeler, take 3 harm AP as the rifle's bullet passes in through your neck and down through your shoulder.  Roll the harm move."

To your thinking, what is the critical difference between those two scenarios that "divorces [NPCs] from heavy PC consideration?"

I don't know if you guys are talking from the same point of view, here.  Mean Liar seems to be saying that the NPCs aren't real people.  Well... obviously.  I'm not sure that's an issue with the system in Apocalypse World.  NPCs aren't real people and there's no real consequence for not treating them as real people except that your game might kind of suck.  It's as true in D&D or Shadowrun or Burning Wheel or Star Wars or whatever as it is in Apocalypse World.

I think certain players approach the game as a problem to decomplexify.  In their point of view, the end goal is to have a system you can control.  Be the king and have only loyal subjects and plenty of resources for that number of people.  See, that's a simple system.  Because there are only loyal subjects, there will be no attempts to subvert your rule or muck up your resource situation.  How do you get there from a complex field with multiple powers in play and limited resources?  The easiest way is to kill everybody who's not a loyal subject (and take their resources).  It's not really roleplaying unless you're playing high-functioning sociopaths, but it is a game.

It's not a game that AW plays well, I suspect.  To have a satisfying game of "kill all the opposition" you probably want stats for them so that so-and-so can be too powerful to kill by just ringing his doorbell and blowing him all to hell.  AW doesn't do that naturally.  You could give him a large 4 harm gang with 2 armor and bunkers and have him hide there like a bitch, but what's the point?  Even then, the PCs can probably sneak in or subvert his gangers or whatever.  You could make a custom move like this:

When you fight Mary Sue, roll +Hard.  On 10+, choose 1.  On 7-9, choose 2.  On a miss, the MC will kill you in a spectacular fashion.

• You lose a limb or your genitals.
• You cry like a little baby.
• You are horribly scarred and no one will love you again.
• You can breathe okay as long as the machines stay on.

But, you know, your players might whine.

AW isn't made to describe the high-functioning sociopath game.  The players, like the MC, have to make Apocalypse World seem real.  Real people don't execute everyone around them to simplify their lives.  Real people get involved in relationships and try to make other people happy, often at expense of their own wishes, and stuff like that.  If you buy in, you get a fun game.  If not, that's okay, just find something more "gamist" and less "color-first" or whatever that phrase Vincent uses is.

The problem with that is that in AW there isn't some vague "the opposition," there's Millions and her kid brother Pip. Pip sometimes has trouble breathing, and that's why Millions offers to sleep with the Angel in return for medicine. Of course, Jacka Backa is none too happy about that. He's the jealous type and he also controls the hard hold's supply of go juice. Lucky, you have an armed gang to back you up. I'm sure Balls and Stix don't have any designs on taking over or anything...

Similarly there isn't some vague "the sick" There's Pebble, she's twelve. And she's healthy. It's her father, Dognose who's got the bloody flux and needs to be put down. If only Pebble wasn't holding his shotgun...

And I dont get the statement that the NPCs cant do anything. That's plain incorrect. They don't have to roll because the MC just makes a move. Pip steals your gun (Take away their stuff). You can chase him if you want, but you'll be alone (Tell them the consequences then Ask, Separate them). Ah, looks like you walked into a trap (Capture someone).

Yes. I agree they're playing a different game.

Thank you noclue, that's the best articulation of what was on my mind that I've seen yet. It also gives me a bit of hidden advice, since I'm looking to start my first AW tabletop: start the setting small so there's room to develop all these overlapping and interlocking relationships.

The only schemes that mattered were our own, since NPCs were just there to impart pathos and import rather than able to actually meaningfully affect the story.

You are not describing Apocalypse World in general -- you're describing the way you decided to play Apocalypse World. What most people in this thread have been pointing out is that this is a choice you made, within the world of the game. You decided not to care about any NPCs, apparently on account of how fragile they were, and as a result the game was 'easy'.

I believe the term here is Working As Intended.

No surprises here. Of course your game failed. You made two big mistakes:

1. You put mecahnics first (you probably rolled act under fire to dodge attacks or some shit like that, thus, "NPCs can't do anything"). In normal AW, the fact that an NPC doesn't have to roll to shoot you is scary -- not a free pass. When you puts mechanics first, and judge everything with a PC roll, the game breaks.

2. Players didn't follow their one overriding rule (p. 96): Play your characters like real people (not sociopathic automatons).

So, yep. That's a sure fire mess.

Without those problems, powerful PCs are lots of fun.

You can mischaracterize our play if that helps, but that's weaksauce strawmanning. "High-functioning sociopaths" was pinpoint accurate, but "roll to dodge" is just massaging yourself.

It's clear that AW isn't a game for us. I went into the game thinking of playing Lord Humongous in a psychically-charged post-apocalypse wasteland. Apparently, the game is more Days of Our Apocalypse rather than Road Warrior or The Road. That's fine, but... not exactly the sort of flavor that we felt came out in the aesthetic style of the rulebook.

To each their own.

I have enjoyed plenty of murder-centric games, no doubt.  I just think you're missing a sweet spot in between a soap opera and killer robots where people are tough but human.

I do think you could play Lord Humungous in AW and have it be interesting.  He doesn't kill Wez when Wez challenges his authority... he says that he understands Wez's pain and hints that he, too, has loved.  "Be still, my dog of war. I understand your pain. We've all lost someone we love. But we do it my way!"

What if Humungous met a woman (or man or marmot) and loved again?  Would his gang of rapey fucking hyenas keep their hands off her?  He cares about his dogs of war, too.  He doesn't kill Wez when he publicly challenges Humungous' leadership - he chokes him out and later Wez is back in line doing good stuff for the gang.  What if his lover didn't like him murdering his way across the waste?  It's not like the dogs of war have other useful skills.  He can't turn them into a farming commune.

None of that means that Humungous isn't also burning and raping his daily bread out of hardholds in the Outback.  There'd be loads of combat in this story, but since AW doesn't have a real tactical combat system the combat wouldn't be the part that's challenging you brain-wise.  It would be keeping your lover happy and safe and your dogs of war alive and together and punishing that fucking Driver character for helping hardholder Papagallo keep his petrol from you.

You wouldn't play that game?

Have you read The Road? Cuz the body count was pretty low. As in almost none and the few killings are necessary and emotionally traumatizing for the protagonists. Not a lot of killing. Much more bonding with his son and trying to raise him up to be a man in a fucked up time. 

AW does a great The Road.

It's pitch-perfect for Road Warrior style games, as the dozens upon dozens of badass psychic wasteland AP posts will attest. It's a shame that your game went so poorly that your impression was skewed that badly. Because, wow.