Disclosing the Fronts

This issue was already discussed in this thread http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=528.0
but I don't worship the forbidden discipline of Necroposting, so I start a new thread.

Should be the Front totally transparent to the players? I mean, should I as MC show the front sheet (Agenda, Stakes and all) as it is, should I unveil it while they explore the world?

As actual situation, in the first session I played some week ago the players explored a city. Then I made all my duty, with fronts and thread and all, then as we started the second they messed a bit the things in the city and decided to go away and change city (they are a nomadic chopper gang). No problem at all. The front change alittel, but the scarcity and the threats are quite the same.
My question is: should had I shown the agenda of the front (that was "normal" people and "mutant" people will fight one against the other until the city was only ruins)? Knowing the agenda would have let the players feel more "real" the world?
Or is it better to see the agenda developing in the exploring, and it doesn't matter if they don't have enough time to get the agenda?
There is a clear rule that I overlooked?

What your experiences or your interpretation?

I don't think it's useful to show the players the Front sheet -- and it's definitely not a good idea to do so in advance of revealing the Front through the fiction and through play. Seeing a non-fiction representation of something is not generally going to help the players see the game world as more real -- if anything, it will have the opposite effect. This is why for example the MC is given instructions to 'misdirect' when performing an MC move -- to encourage them to focus on the effect in the fiction rather than the mechanical bits and pieces that are creating that effect.

Of course there are players who have no trouble with this and might be curious about the prep and planning that has gone in to the world, but personally I would only really want to show the players the Front details once the Front itself had been fairly thoroughly encountered (and ideally resolved) in the game -- at that point it could be fun to reveal the Front prep, since players could retrospectively see how different events and characters in the fiction were influenced by or representative of the Front. But revealing a Front outside of the fiction prior to the PCs actually encountering that Front -- or while they are in the middle of dealing with it -- seems like a bad idea to me.

It occurs to me that I may have misread your post, and you are talking about showing them the Fronts for the town they just left (and will presumably not be returning to) -- that would fall under what I just said about the Front basically being resolved, so it just comes down to whether they are curious about it.

thanks Daniel.
You interpreted right, I was talking about showing the Front in the middle of exploration.

I never, ever, ever share my front sheets with my players. As a player, I never, ever, ever want to see my MC's front sheets.

After the game's done, if one of the players is curious about what I was doing because, like, they thought it was cool and are trying to figure out how to do it themselves next time they MC, or something, I'll show them then. But not as a rule.

-Vincent

Thanks Vincent

I think this settle the issue!