Initiative and Position

Who goes when? How many times can they act before it's someone else's turn? How far away is too far away? How do I get closer?

So, I'm getting ready to run DW for the first time, and have not been reading this forum carefully, so my apologies if it's been mentioned before.

I've been running AW for a while. None of the questions above have ever been raised during one of my AW games. I'm not convinced they'll come up in DW either, but there are some differences in gameplay which leads me to believe they might.

"Initiative" is a fairly pointless construct in AW play, since PC-things happen when PCs do them, and MC-things happen when PCs miss or look to the MC for input. In PvP, should it happen, it makes sense to just trade turns between players, with the MC making moves when it seems to make sense.

But DW is a potentially (even) more physical game than AW. There are "monsters" there exclusively to be killed. In AW, antagonists can be dealt with in a very large number of ways, of which killing in combat is simply one option. In AW, even grotesques are distinctly human, and mindless "monsters" are afflictions to be dealt with on a potentially higher level than sheer firepower.

So as I see it, the difference is that (to use terms borrowed from WFRP3, but you know what I mean) in AW, I'm always in "story mode", with actions taken fluidly, conversation-style. In DW, I'm imagining being forced into a kind of "encounter mode" which requires a bit more structure. Maybe I'm wrong. But what do we do, if this comes up? Do we trade turns?

Yemin: "I run my sword through it - hack & slash style. Hit. Oh look, 6 damage. It pierces through its scaley armour, through its left side, blood pooling at it's feet."
GM: "That made it angry. Its head snaps forward quicker than you can imagine on its long, flexible neck. It's going to bite you with its nasty serrated fangs. What do you do?"
Yemin: "I hop out of the way, Defying Danger."
GM: "Okay, roll it - 7? Okay, you hop out of the way just in time but trip over a nearby protruding rock. You're on your face in the muck, trying to get up. Now what do you do?"

or:

GM: "Its head snaps forward quicker than you can imagine on its long, flexible neck. It's going to bite Cyllia unless you do something. What do you do?"
Yemin: "I quickly move to Defend Cyllia. Hit, 1 Hold. I spend it to halve the damage. I knock its head with the broad side of my sword, knocking it away from her but it still grazes her."
GM: "Okay, Cyllia, you take 3 HP damage, and you feel the sting of some sort of poison coursing through your face. Cyllia, what do you do now?"

or is it just moving from PC to PC to PC, with the GM only making moves when the PCs fail?

What about non-active moves like Defend or Spout Lore - what DnD4E or WFRP3 would call a "maneuver" or "free action"? When the GM asks me what I do now, can I say:

Me: "Well, I'm still standing beside Cyllia, Defending her. Then, I tell the others what I know about this creature from my travels, so I Spout Lore. Hit! Okay, how can I prevent it from regenerating? Oh, immerse it in water, okay. 'Hey guys, let's push it back towards that pool we found!'. Next, I shoot it in the eye - Volley - to blind it, so we can push it back there more easily. Hit, okay, so he's blinded in the one eye? Alright, I guess Cyllia can do something now."

Is that cool? Or are you limited to one move effect per person and then it moves on to the next (PC or GM)?

And on position:

GM: "You're all in this small cavern, the floor is covered in thick green slime."
Ysildan: "Yuck. I'm staying out of that, hanging back in the tunnel the others came in through."
GM: "Okay, fine. Suddenly a large, winged creature descends rapidly towards Yemin, claws protruding and aiming for his face. It screeches and its eyes burn red. What do you do?"
Ysildan: "I strike at it with my rapier! Hack & Slash!"
GM: "Hold on a second, you said you were outside the cave. You can't get there before Yemin is shish-kebob. Yemin?"
Yemin: "I bolt for the tunnel, squeezing past Ysildan, making him a more suitable target."
Ysildan: "Hey now! I'm Interfering with that."
GM: "Okay, Yemin, roll Defy Danger. Ysildan, roll to Interfere with Yemin."
[rolling happens]
GM: "Okay, Yemin tries to squeeze past Ysildan but he stands his ground, ducking from side to side, preventing his passage. The winged creature's claws dig into Yemin's back. Yemin, take 4 HP damage. Its screech ring in your ears and its claws are still stuck in your back."
Ysildan: "Okay, now I hit it with my rapier!"
GM: "Hold on, Yemin's body is in the way, the creature is attached to his back and we've already established the tunnel is narrow enough that a person can block it. I don't think you can hit!"

See any flaws in the above? Or does it all sound cool and reasonable?

I can see how AW's lassitude in handling initiative and position may also work in DW, but given how DW has roots in games which either have a strong DM-role of "enforcing the laws of reality" (early D&D) or are heavily tactical (D&D 3.x - 4E), I imagine at least a chapter on "managing combats", covering some of these issues, would be useful. Similar, if you will, to the "Moves Snowball" chapter in AW.

Feedback appreciated.

The key thing here is: it comes from the fiction.

All of your "initiative" examples work fine. Something takes as long as we think it takes. It's really helpful if you don't think about moves as turns. Someone might make more moves, that doesn't mean they've done more in that time.

What you can do is use the moves as a springboard to go see what someone else is up to. You fail you move, so your spell ends, and I ask the fighter who was benefiting from the spell what they do about it.

Play by your agenda: be a fan of the characters. Keep coming back to what they're doing. Your monsters will act as needed.

Remember to describe what your monsters are doing even when it isn't a move. They're still doing things, and those things might still drive character moves. "While you're doing that the crocodillian slinks back into the acidic water, which doesn't seem to have an effect on it, and the gem's still in its mouth. What do you do?"

Basically, don't try to do initiative. Describe the fictional things going on. The characters will describe their fictional actions. Then maybe some moves occur.

That sounds like a good plan, Sage. Like I said, I don't know that it'll even be an issue, but if it does rear its ugly head it'll likely be easy to respond with "neither adhering to game balance or what seems 'fair', nor portraying the world realistically, are part of the GM's principles in this game, so initiative and positioning are simply not on the table". I doubt any of the people I play with will take issue with that statement.

Nevertheless, I imagine it's probably worth a mention somewhere in the text. Especially for people who have not played AW before, the lack of a meaty chapter on "Rules For Combat" is likely to be noticed and cause some head-scratching.

Yes, the text will deal with it in more detail.

And, just to be clear, while you're not trying to portray a real world, your agenda is to portray a fantastic world. It's still consistent and somewhat real, like a movie scene: amazing things happen, we don't see everyone walking between every location, but it's still grounded in causality and a consistent world.