What Honesty Demands

Hey folks,

So I've got this Hocus in my game named Acacia, a 7 year old girl who sees crazy visions and whatnot. There's a grotesque that wants her for her own nefarious reasons. This grotesque has a right-hand man named Flint, who runs a cult, which is a front man for the grotesque's nefarious machinations.

So last session, Acacia went to try to convert Flint over to her Family. She read him, and asked the question "What can I do to get him to convert."

I answered "If you agree to come visit Mother (the grotesque, but Acacia doesn't know that) and listen to our offer, I'll come join your family."

The problem is, this is a lie. Flint's not gonna join her cult. Flint just wants to lead her into a trap, get Acacia alone and separated so they can do terrible things to her.

Does this run into conflict with "What Honesty Demands"? Of course, Acacia's player knew she was walking into a trap, and she was all for it, but I wonder. I even cracked the ol' "It's a trap!" exclamation to make sure everybody knew what was going down.

Still, what does honesty demand?

My understanding was, that as the MC, I needed to answer those questions honestly.  So if there really was no way in fucking hell that Flint would join her family, I think you should have told the player that.  I mean, you could say that Flint says what you said, but since Acacia successfully read him, you should have, in my opinion, made it clear it was a big ol' lie and there really was no way to do it.

As an aside, I also think it's kind of lame if there's really NO way to win him over.  I probably would have presented something difficult but possible.  Like demonstrating conclusively the divine (or whatever) nature of her visions to show she really is the prophet she claims to be.

Gotcha. So, really what I should have said is "he says this, but you know it's a trap" and then answer the *real* question with something like "if you convince him that Mother (the grotesque) is a horrible monster, he'd abandon her. Good luck with that."

Yeah?

Yeah.  That's my take too.

Yep, that last thing.

G'day Kevin,
To my mind, depending on the player's choice, the resultant sitch makes for juicy letter writing prior to the next session.

I mean either way; doing nothing causes a threat as Mother advances his nefarious schemes and convincing Flint of Mother's monsterhood  is a tribulation in and of itself. How it all shakes out will leave plenty of unanswered questions and imbalances to the status quo that you can directly put to the character via a start of session move through the context of a 'letter with love.'

Grand grist for the mill methinks.

"He mentions this 'Mother', a lot. That he'd like for you to meet her, and he obviously respects her a lot. I bet if you converted her, that he'd follow, yeah?"

Sometimes you can be misdirecting, even with the truth.

But yeah, if they make a successful read move, tell them the truthful answer to their questions. Unless you've got something set up like, I don't know...

"<b>When you successfully read Rolfball</b>, ask one extra question. One of the answers to your questions will be what Rolfball wants you to think it is, rather than necessarily what it actually is."

(Personally, though, I'd warn them that there's a custom move in play when they read Rolfball, although I might not tell them what it is exactly. Or I might!)

"<b>When you successfully read Rolfball</b>, ask one extra question. One of the answers to your questions will be what Rolfball wants you to think it is, rather than necessarily what it actually is."

(Personally, though, I'd warn them that there's a custom move in play when they read Rolfball, although I might not tell them what it is exactly. Or I might!)

This is a very cool idea.  Personally, for Apocalypse World, I prefer transparency, though.  I'd let them know the rules of the move.  Otherwise, it seems the players have every right to expect that they're getting the truth from their questions, and that doesn't seem fair and sporting.  I'd prefer to see them wondering and talking to each other, speculating on which answer wasn't true.  Plus it avoids a possible unpleasant argument when a player acts on bad info and objects.

But what's wrong for my group and my MCing tastes might work just fine for yours, so...