Changing prep

Do you allow yourselves to change the prep you've made, that hasn't been onscreen yet? Or is that disallowed from treating the world as real and what the prep demands?

I've just MCd my first second session and I'm not at all happy with a lot of the prep I did. Now I'm not sure to what extent I want to change it over, add stuff, or remove stuff.

Do you allow yourselves to change the prep you've made, that hasn't been onscreen yet? Or is that disallowed from treating the world as real and what the prep demands?

I've just MCd my first second session and I'm not at all happy with a lot of the prep I did. Now I'm not sure to what extent I want to change it over, add stuff, or remove stuff.

Are you talking fictional changes?  "Oh, I know I said that there was a Hold nearby and they were at war with you but instead they're a Cult of Love and Flowers." or are you looking at your paperwork, stuff you've done a little bit of Announcing about and saying to yourself "Self, this is lame.  Let's change it."?

Mostly the later. I'm thinking stuff like changing someone to a different threat type, moving cast from one threat to another and stuff like that. I wouldn't retcon things that have been on screen.

However, there is also a disease running in the holding that totally bores me, but I'd feel like a cheating coward if I'd just decide it slows down and eventually disappears without the angel defeating it or something.

Pretty sure you can do that, and changing Threat types even once its been onscreen is whatever. Remember stuff is prescriptive AND descriptive, so like if your cannibal gets a gang, then she's probably no longer a grotesque and is a warlord now.

And I find myself often shuffling things like when I have a front that isn't really active yet and my PCs do things that shut down the threats before they even get started. It's necessary, really.

Your prep is a tool to make things easier for you. You don't serve it, it's the other way around.

Definitely revise things so you're excited and happy about them.

Good advice, guys, thanks!

Your prep is a tool to make things easier for you. You don't serve it, it's the other way around.

On a note related to this, at the moment I'm feeling very bogged down by the prep, because I don't have enough of a handle on it, mainly on the threat-specific moves, to be able to use it in play fluently. Instead I feel that to keep the different parts of my prep in my mind takes an effort that distracts me from the rock and roll of play. The basic mc moves I've grokked now, well enough to choose, misdirect and make illusion from any fitting move without braking the pace of play, and I'm not worried I won't get there with the rest of the moves as well, and pretty soon too. My dilemma at the moment is how much I should focus on keeping the play rocking, using mostly the old basic mc moves, and how much I should focus on getting better at handling the rest of the stuff, by using it even if it distracts me.

Any thoughts on this?

I doubt there's a cut and dried answer for you, Simon, like 'Use a new move 40% of the time." or whatever.

The game is limited by the moves you have available. (That's not a bad thing, it just is.) Until you feel comfortable using the whole array of moves at your disposal, you don't have as many options to rock the game with. Once you get a handle on the full array of moves, you may find that your game rocks just fine using a smaller selection - or that the game rocks that much harder with additional moves.

On the other hand, you don't want the game to suck while you practice your new moves.  And unfortunately, I can't think of a way to 'woodshed' MC skills.

My thought would be to limit the amount of new material you're trying to get a handle on and break it into more easily managed bits.  You might try restricting yourself to just one or two Threat Types to start, or maybe limit the number of moves for a Threat type, and add more as you get the hang of it.

Like rather than putting all five threat types into play, limit yourself to just Brutes and Afflictions, or whatever, until you get those down. 
Or you could just use, I dunno, the first three moves available to the Threat, like Warlords would have these to start:
• Outflank someone, corner someone, encircle someone.
• Attack someone suddenly, directly, and very hard.
• Attack someone cautiously, holding reserves.. 
..but they wouldn't initially have access to the 'offer to negotiate' or try to 'buy out someone's allies' moves.

This isn't all that different from the way PCs get new moves as play progresses. The advancement is informal, so if you got to a point in play where you go, "The Warlord should totally make a show of force here!" then have 'em do so.  But by limiting your choices, you're not trying to take in the entire list of moves at once.

The rule for MC moves is: When everyone is looking at you to say something, and you don't know what to say, choose a move and say it.

The Threat moves aren't a chore you have to complete. They're an opportunity you can take when the situation presents itself. If your game is rocking along, go with it. The threat moves exist to help you rock the game. If you're already there, it's all good.

To put it another way, it's the Agenda and Principles that are important. The MC moves as written give expression to the Agenda and Principles, but they're not the only way to express them and they're not, like, mandatory. The game doesn't say, "Always and only say these moves, and be sure to use all the threat moves, too."

Your moves are your tools. If you're building the barn and you haven't used your bandsaw, it's no big deal, right? The barn is still going up just fine. But when you run into a problem that needs a bandsaw, and you're stuck without it, you'll have a way forward. "Hang on. I have just the thing."

Finally, a tool can inspire the thing you make. You might look at a Threat move when you're prepping between sessions and think, "Oooh, yeah... 'Buy out their allies?' Roark will go for that in a heartbeat..."

Hope that helps.

The game is limited by the moves you have available.

I'm only just reading through the prerelease MC section now (first session as MC tonight, yay), but this is absolutely not my understanding of the rules. My reading is much closer to what John said -- the principles and the agenda are the thing, the moves are just examples of those things in practice. Just because I don't have a move that covers something I want to say as MC, doesn't mean I can't say it -- I can say it so long as it supports the MC's agenda (make Apocalypse World seem real, etc.) and doesn't contravene any of the principles.

That helps a lot, thanks! If nothing else just for restoring my confidence. I'm totally down with the agenda and the principles, and I'd have no problem making the game rock all over the place with just those and my feeling about the threats and the setting.

However, I'd still feel I was missing something if I didn't use the countdowns and all. But then again, maybe that's just me wanting to play with the shiny new bandsaw even if I'm not that good with it yet! :)