14 thoughts on “So “everything” you should say should be a move right.”

  4. Whoops, I misunderstood. Just follow the Always say rules section:

    ALWAYS SAY

    • What the principles demand (as follow).

    • What the rules demand.

    • What your prep demands.

    • What honesty demands.

  5. As an MC, you should be making an MC Move any time people turn to you to see what happens. Personally, I need to work on that. The making it real and apoc-barfing principles simply inform the Moves.

    Mind you, there’s stuff like setting the time of day or changing the location that are MC stuff that might not necessarily be a “Move”… although even that’s generally to conceal something like Revealing Badness or making a Front Move.

    Yeah, and as a player you pretty much say whatever you want until you trigger a Move…

  6. I think John Harper said something like that on Story-Games. Every! Time! someone looks at you for stuf it’s a move. It should generaly be a soft move that set’s up a hard move. 

    I sometimes just say stuff without really thinking about the moves. In hindsight i guess a lot of these are moves but i should be a bit better about doing that. 

  7. Yeah, the rule of thumb it’s to make a soft move, that is a move which lets the players time and opportunity to deal with it. An hard move, instead, it’s a move which you can’t avoid. It’s going to hurt you somehow.

  8. All you say is either a move, or part of the misdirection. Setting the time and place? Misdirection, unless it’s putting them in a spot or something.  They ask a question? The answer’s your move. Sure, give them information, but that information is announcing future badness, or asking them to pay, or whatev. They’re talking to an NPC and play it like it’s a real conversation? Each line from that NPC is a move. Or the whole conversation’s a move and you’re misdirecting by taking your time before revealing it (“…I’m pregnant. You’re the father.” Bam, put in a spot.)

    And, be it move or misdirection, all of what’s coming out of your mouth should match your agenda, always say and principles. ALL OF THEM.

     But that’s just me being flippantly technical. Here’s the secret.

    Pragmatically, here’s how I do it : as usual. You say stuff, they say stuff. It all makes sense somehow. But when something’s off, like you don’t know what to say, or you feel the session is lacking, or your players are fiddling with their smartphones or something, go through your MC sheet and do exactly as you’re told. 

  9. Framing scenes is often a form of announcing future badness or offering a choice, with appropriate misdirection so it isn’t obviously those moves.

  10. As the MC what is and isn’t a move is sometimes a bit unclear! When you do what your agendas and principles demand, that’s not necessarily making a move. The move list is a fairly strict list of things, called “MC moves.” If a player asks me about a thing, and I tell them, even if I’m barfing forth and making it seem real, it’s not necessarily a move. That said, in practice it’s rare that you do something in Apocalypse World that couldn’t be interpreted as a move, whether it’s announcing future badness or what have you. Generally speaking, even when you’re not directly making a move, you’re setting yourself up to make moves in the future. That said, it’s really not that different from GMing other games; AW just makes you more self-aware and intentional about it.

  13. It’s like jiu-jitsu.

    What you want to do is achieve a dominant position (agenda) because you want to limit your opponent’s opportunities to do damage while maximizing your own (principle).

    The specific move you make to do that varies from situation to situation, depending on what’s happening. Maybe you do a sweep to transition from bottom to top. The sweep is the move, which expresses the principle and achieves the agenda.

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