Maestro'D - Fingers in Every Pie

Another dumb question.
The move states that when I want something, and roll 10+ it shows up in my establishment like magic.
Is it meant so that I just get what I want? Straight up, no strings attached? No monetary cost? No convincing? No nothing?
Or is it meant to just make whatever I wanted available to me, but then I still have to pay/convince/etc according to the fiction?

What I'm trying to understand is: is the MC cheating the Player out a good roll if the thing becomes easily available but still requires "something" to be obtained?
Or is this exactly what strings attached are for?

mmm... if the Maestro'd asks for frikking firethrowing tank, and rolls 10+, my gut feeling is to have someone show up in her establishment and offer to sell/trade for it. The cool result is that such a thing is available at all.
But considering that "make them pay" is actually a Hard Move, maybe my gut feeling is wrong? >_<

What if the Maestro'd asks for something unreasonable?
Is the MC's job to judge this and maybe say "sorry but that's out of the Move possibilities ... maybe you can get INFO on the thing you want, is this acceptable for you?"

found this discussion from years ago: LINK

Still it would be nice to have a clearer answer to the MC's boundaries in regards to moderating the Maestro'd requests, or producing consequences.
Maybe a reading key could be that "strings attached" are things needed in order to acquire the thing, not whatever reasonably happens AFTER the Maestro'd gets the thing?

So asking for barter, favors, to fight off someone in order to get the thing, are strings attached.
But if I get the thing, and later someone comes to me expecting barter, favors or else... this is fair game... it's just the game world existing and acting around the Maestro'd, right?

Like magic, for free.

It's a genuine gift from whoever used to own it, because sucking up to the maestro d' is reward enough.

The player already paid for it by choosing this move instead of one of the others.

-Vincent

Fair enough.
Thanks for the clarification :)

mmm... if the Maestro'd asks for frikking firethrowing tank, and rolls 10+, my gut feeling is to have someone show up in her establishment and offer to sell/trade for it. The cool result is that such a thing is available at all.
But considering that "make them pay" is actually a Hard Move, maybe my gut feeling is wrong? >_<

Which Agenda are you pursuing?

I could say my agenda was to "make their lives not boring" but it would be a lie :P
To be honest I was just thinking (in that very hypothetical example) that something like a tank is too big/important to just appear without some sort of cost being paid.

It's just my old inner "Traditional GM" that misbehaves when something big happens without an obvious cost.
But Vincent cleared that pretty well:
- cost was paid in XP when the character got the Move
- cost was paid in risk when the character rolled the dice
- additional cost TO GET the thing is a Hard Move, so it's a blatant No No unless a 6- is rolled
- shit can easily hit the fan "because it makes sense" AFTER the thing is in the character's possession, no problem

'Make Apocalypse World seem real' seems like the more relevant agenda. If your Maestro D' is asking for something that seems actually impossible, or stretches the boundaries of the world as you understand it, you should probably address that when they are first using the move -- not by messing with the result of the 10+, after the fact. Like, if there is no suggestion so far in the game that someone owning a functioning tank is even a thing -- like so far you are in some sort of low-tech jungle region full of spear-hunters or whatever -- then that sort of request seems outside the boundaries of the fiction. But if this is a world where there's lots of scavenged stuff around, and military hardware (even of a lesser size) is around, then sure, why not.

It is obviously super not-boring to have somebody give you a tank, after all.

My feeling is that the move is specifically about allowing the Maestro D' to avoid having to use Barter to get what they want -- the flip-side of that is that if they are asking for something that could not reasonably be acquired by Barter (up to and including like, a million barter) then maybe I should be concerned. But other than that, go for it.

I could say my agenda was to "make their lives not boring" but it would be a lie :P
To be honest I was just thinking (in that very hypothetical example) that something like a tank is too big/important to just appear without some sort of cost being paid.

It's just my old inner "Traditional GM" that misbehaves when something big happens without an obvious cost.

Yeah, that was basically my point. To my mind, a tank is a not boring magnet.

Like, if there is no suggestion so far in the game that someone owning a functioning tank is even a thing -- like so far you are in some sort of low-tech jungle region full of spear-hunters or whatever -- then that sort of request seems outside the boundaries of the fiction.

On the other hand, there are a bunch of other moves that clearly have the power to change the boundaries, like augury or the workspace rules, for example.

Still, Vincent's reply above came as a surprise for me, I don't think I would have dared to read the move as boldly as that. I think I would have played it like, sure, a firethrowing tank shows up, like magic; now, despite the 10+ result, this is the most obvious opportunity on a plate ever to make them pay, so I'll do that.

I'm glad I saw Vincent's reply, because that is so much cooler. :)

On the other hand, there are a bunch of other moves that clearly have the power to change the boundaries, like augury or the workspace rules, for example.

I don't really see them as very comparable -- and the workspace rules absolutely follow the same logic as what I said, since my answers as the MC are bounded by my principles regarding the fiction as it stands so far.

Augury is a move that, itself, suggests a new or previously undiscovered reality -- e.g. that the Maelstrom can be manipulated in some specific ways -- so it is definitely closer. But the Maestro D' move itself does not suggest any new reality; it fits very clearly into the boundaries of any fiction in which a) the Maestro D' is an important social figure and b) people want to curry their favour.

It would be something else if the move was like 'pick from this list of things you could ask for' and the list included a bunch of crazy stuff like 'dragons' and 'a tank' -- a clumsy parallel to the augury move, but hopefully it illustrates the point. In one case, the move itself brings a new structure; in the other, the new and potentially fiction-disrupting element comes from the PCs choices when using the move. I feel like those choices should be bound by the fiction, within reason -- and I gave a general sense of my reasons, but obviously each group will have their own take.