Custom move: "When your gang attacks the Vega..."

My Hardholder is sending his gang out against an enemy holding (the Vega) at the beginning of next session. None of the PCs are actually in the attacking party, so playing it out using the battle moves won't work, so I thought this called for a custom move.

When your gang attacks the Vega, roll+Hard. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7-9, choose 2. On a miss, choose 1:
   - Elbow is killed
   - The blockade is broken
   - Jamaica survives
   - Your gang takes only mild casualties

For context, Elbow is the Warlord of the Vega, and his gang has been blockading the PC's holding, leading to a food shortage that's about to get real nasty if they can't start trading again soon. Jamaica is the leader of the Hardholder's gang, and is part of the crack team whose goal is to take Elbow out.

So what do you think? Is this a good move? Are any of these options secretly non-choices that I missed? I'm considering folding Jamaica's survival into the "mild casualties" option, but I like that the current values give them a hard choice to make no matter what they roll, so four options seems like the sweet spot.

First thoughts: I like it. If you're going to have the fight without any PCs and with random resolution, I think it's a really solid set of choices. It's definitely going to hurt the Hardholder, though. It's... moderate fuckery? I'm a little curious why none of the PCs thought this operation was worth joining. Narratively it changes the battle from "the big action scene in this week's episode" to "brief flashback when one of your gang members returns".

If you weren't going to randomize it, just looking at the state of the fiction, what do you think the outcome would be? Is this attack a good idea or a terrible idea? If Elbow's troops are stretched thin because of the blockade, and Elbow isn't expecting this, and Jamaica's been established as a terrifying and competent character, maybe complete success is a possibility, so fold the last two options together. If Elbow's got his shit together and the PC Hardholder is thinking this is kind of a desperation move, leave the hard choice as it is.

Or bend the usual move structure a bit and add "On a 12+, you get all four".

What's the primary goal, kill Elbow or break the blockade? You could do, "on a hit, kill Elbow. On 10+ choose 2 of the others, on 7-9 choose one, on a miss choose 1 but Elbow lives."

This assault, as I see it, is in that sweet spot at too crazy to work in real life but just crazy enough to work in an action movie. The odds are long enough that it would be a stretch for it to go off without a hitch, but I think they could reasonably accomplish some of their goals in exchange for some casualties, or else they could call it off without achieving their goals but preserve the gang's safety. None of the PCs are participating because none of them are really fighty-types. Brainer and Hocus are more interested in their mindgames, and the Operator is too busy trying to save her own skin and is kind of on the outs with the Hardholder anyway. The Hardholder could have gone, but I guess decided he'd be better off leading from the rear, as it were.

The ultimate goal is actually to break the blockade, but he is very explicitly going about that by trying to assassinate Elbow. So I figure splitting those into two separate goals means he either breaks the blockade but has a live, powerful enemy who can retaliate, or else he kills Elbow, but the military organization of the other gang is strong enough that they hold together and maintain the blockade even without their leader, or they accomplish both objectives but it'll cost them.

Part of my concern is that Jamaica is definitely more disposable than multiple other gang members--she's liked well enough, but none of the PCs actually care about her deeply enough to make killing her off that much of a consequence. The Hardholder will probably just promote someone else and move on, whereas the "significant casualties" option will have lasting repercussions. So since that's secretly a non-choice, I think I definitely want to fold those together. But then I need a fourth option... There were a few other things they mentioned as "it would be nice" type things, like also killing the second-in-command who's less sympathetic to them in the hopes that the more sympathetic officer would take over, or kidnapping a medic because the Brainer murdered the only one in the holding, but I don't think those would ever get selected since they're comparatively unimportant.

Have you read the book on what happens when a leaderless gang takes significant casualties? Has your Hardholder's player? Either way, if you want to make losing Jamaica more obviously troublesome, you can just specify 'Jamaica dies; the gang is without a leader' as that option. If the gang takes few casualties, that might not matter as much; then again, what will this gang do if they gain unsupervised access to an enemy hardhold? Gangs tend to be made up of violent, savage individuals, who tend to have historically poor interactions with 'mostly defenseless 'enemies''. The Hardholder's goal may be to assassinate Elbow, but having to deal with a civilian massacre could hollow that victory out quite quickly.

So yeah, losing a competent NPC leader REALLY does not seem like a 'non-choice' to me, though you certainly know your players and your game best. Maybe in your game those sort of people grow on trees, but in my experience with AW that's not something one throws away in exchange for a few violent thugs.

I think it's a cool way to do it! Also a good idea to consider the gang leaderless if Jamaica dies, as Daniel suggests.

We did something similar once, with an operator that was inspired by the tv-series sandbaggers. When you pace by the radio, waiting for reports from agents on a mission... Something like that. That game didn't get off the ground, so I have no experience using it, but I still think the idea could be fun.

Oh, good point. I guess I'll add Jamaica's death back in as an option. I still think he'll probably pick that one, but I'll just have to make sure to make it hurt if he does. Not sure if civilian massacre is the way I'm going to go, since it's a particularly militaristic holding, but I'll give it a think. Thanks everyone, it's been very helpful!

Alright, just thought I'd update you guys on how this move turned out. I put it in front of the Hardholder last night, without changing it from what I put in my first post, and he rolled a whopping 13. I was expecting him to off Jamaica for sure, but he surprised me by letting his gang take heavy casualties to protect her, after I did emphasize that with her dead, they'd have another source of instability to contend with as the gang members jockeyed for promotion. I dropped the gang size from large to medium as a result, but they definitively defeated the other gang and killed Elbow, and are in a way better position now than they were at the beginning of last session.

So thanks for all your help; I'm really pleased with how it worked out!

Alright, just thought I'd update you guys on how this move turned out. I put it in front of the Hardholder last night, without changing it from what I put in my first post, and he rolled a whopping 13. I was expecting him to off Jamaica for sure, but he surprised me by letting his gang take heavy casualties to protect her, after I did emphasize that with her dead, they'd have another source of instability to contend with as the gang members jockeyed for promotion. I dropped the gang size from large to medium as a result, but they definitively defeated the other gang and killed Elbow, and are in a way better position now than they were at the beginning of last session.

Cool! I was rooting for Jamaica. I'm glad you ran with the original selection, since his choices wound up surprising you.

I think that, as a general rule, the Apocalypse World moves operate on the idea of presenting interesting choices in the fiction, without necessarily considering what a player's priorities might be. The player's choices *reveal* their priorities, as they did in this case. Thinking about this too much during the design portion ("ooh, I'm gonna get him by not presenting X as an option!") can be kinda short-circuiting the process.

Great to hear it worked so well!