Seduce

Cool, I think we're coming to an understanding.

Chris, I'm with you in that I also hate games where the GM picks a target number.

The way I see it, a lot of AW moves are about letting the MC make the easy decisions, and leaving hard decisions up to the dice. Is Balls carrying his shotgun, or his pistol? Easy decision, the MC decides. Does Balls blow your head off, or do you kill him first? Hard decision, it's up to the dice.

Same with seduce and manipulate: Does Balls want sex with you at all? Easy decision. He does unless there's some good pre-established reason for thinking he doesn't, is what the principles tell me. Same with "Does Balls want a handful of jingle?" and the like. But whether Balls wants sex with you or a handful of jingle enough to do what you're asking, whether you can be convincing enough, that's a hard decision, so it's up to the dice.

Here it is: It works like this:

You say "I sidle up to Balls, stroke my finger up and down his arm and say "y'know, I'd be real grateful if Dremmer were to run into an accident out in the waste somewhere. Real grateful."

Then I, as MC, decide if this counts as leverage on Balls. Does Balls want to fuck your character? Probably he does, unless there's a real good reason to think he doesn't. I'm making Apocalypse World feel real, but also I'm not preserving the dignity of my NPCs.

If it's leverage, we roll the dice for Seduce. If you have to make a concrete promise, maybe I'll say "Balls looks at you and he's like "For reals this time? You've jerked me around before." And you can make a concrete promise if you like. If you don't follow through on that promise, maybe you can't use the promise of sex as leverage with Balls in the future.

and it works like this:

"June, baby, how about you let me hold that key card to the armory for a bit and I'll let you hold ... something else, gnome saying?"

Roll. +10

"Eh, you know I don't swing like that, babsy. But I know why you want in that armory. Joe's Girl done fucked up, right? I hate her too. What say you let me have that sweet, sweet sniper rifle instead? That's more my kinda gun."

If the PC promises or does it, then the NPC does as well.

But this:
When you have leverage on someone and want them to do something that the MC thinks that they ordinarily wouldn't, roll+hot. On a 10+, they ask you to promise something [concerning the leverage of course] and do it if you promise. On a 7-9, they want concrete assurances right now, if possible.

The way I see it, a lot of AW moves are about letting the MC make the easy decisions, and leaving hard decisions up to the dice. Is Balls carrying his shotgun, or his pistol? Easy decision, the MC decides. Does Balls blow your head off, or do you kill him first? Hard decision, it's up to the dice.

I don't know. We're deep into the weird forum discussion territory, but it's a weird thing. Like a decision the MC makes is "Does Balls fight back, with his death as a possible outcome, or is he trying to run?"

Seems like a big one. But I also don't have a problem with it, because I, the MC, am not making it, Balls is. Weird. Same issue as the leverage line. Need to post about disclaiming decision making and what that means.  Need to take a shower. Unpack the brain. Do some dishes. Watch my exgirlfriend make me a grilled cheese sandwich. The usual thinking activities.

Fair enough.

What makes for hard and easy decisions is an interesting subject. Also, what is a fun hard decision, and what is not fun?

I'd like to add to the discussion in the beginning. We've always struggled with this move, and our best interpretation (or modification to be exact) is the following.

When you try to get something from someone that is not for sale, roll+hot. On a 7-9, it turns out that it is for sale after all, and the other character tells the price. On a 10+, it is for sale, and you can choose to reduce the price or just promise the full price. The details of the action - whether you seduce, manipulate, threaten or offer something - sets the arena, the general type of the price the other party asks for.

This worked quite smooth in play and has some nice features:

• you might try a different approach on a failure: bribing if seduction does not work
• can be used if something's for sale, but you want to pay with something different
• no awkward "prenegotiation" phase
• the MC has some options as the NPC might want different things in different arenas
• plays well together with read a person, as there are multiple arenas
• both parties have a say in the outcome
• some negotiation can still happen after the roll
• you might decline smoothly in the fiction if the price is too high
• can be used for bargaining as well: 7-9, full price, 10+: reduction or credit

Way, very nice.

-Vincent

Agreed, that's cool. I really want to get the bargaining aspect out of the move in my hack. I dig that.

How did it work for you in play for the 10+ results? You can "reduce the price" right? How does that work? I mean, how much can you reduce it by? If it's sex, it becomes kissing or oral sex? If it's murder it becomes beating someone up?

How did you adjudicate that?

Exactly, as you say, but that's where the real bargaining starts. The GM just tells the price the NPC wants and then we negotiate. Not much structure, actually, we just go through a couple converging offers at most from both sides, but there were options: the player could decline totally or choose the "promise the full price in the future" option anytime during the course of the negotiation. We never felt it required more rules.

You know, the details of the bargain never caused any pain, the pain was that something had to decide if making a deal is possible in the first place. I think this move is good at this and the consequences crystal clear, with the actual economical benefits less important than the fact that I've made a bargain. Sometimes, of course a reduction or a negotiation does not make sense in the fiction, no problem, default for a future promise.