Re: MC Moves – I find I have trouble holding all of them in my head at once, which interferes with my ability to…

Re: MC Moves – I find I have trouble holding all of them in my head at once, which interferes with my ability to…

Re: MC Moves – I find I have trouble holding all of them in my head at once, which interferes with my ability to make a decision at the table without always picking the most obvious thing or spending ages going down the list. So I sorted the MC Moves into categories. With only seven broad things to remember, I’m hoping I can juggle them more efficiently during play.

Positioning – separate them, capture someone.

Portents – announce future or off-screen badness.

Harm – trade or inflict harm (as established).

Stuff – take away, make them buy, activate downsides.

Choices – spell out consequences, offer an opportunity, put someone in a spot.

Reversal – turn their move back on them.

Fronts – make a threat move.

Now I have a shorter list to look over, and I should be able to winnow down the list more quickly by considering which categories are suited (or totally unsuited) to the current situation.

What do you think? Would you organise them differently? How do you remember the MC Moves and make your choices at the table?

7 thoughts on “Re: MC Moves – I find I have trouble holding all of them in my head at once, which interferes with my ability to…”

  1. I can see where you’re coming from, but personally I’d rather keep them separate as they occupy a different head-space when asking yourself if they apply. The first requires you to consider how their move could be reversed. The second requires you to consider the fronts and threats in play.

    Also I probably wouldn’t use a sub-category of moves called “Moves”… Seems a little self-referential.

    I briefly considered putting “in a spot” with “turn against them” and call it Misfortune, but decided to keep things as-is.

  2. Fair enough. I naturally grouped them because I rarely reverse a move just mechanically, like with -1 penalty or something. Usually I present some threat gaining or blocking the advantage the PC were after, so I usually consider threats and fronts when turning their move back on them.

    So maybe: 

    Threats– make a move, turn their move back on them

    Anyways, this just me nitpicking a brilliant idea. Good work!

  3. Thanks, and I guess individual MCs can group things in ways they personally find useful. I must remember I’m not out to dictate the One Way to categorise things, but put forward a useful tool to make recall easier. There are certainly a couple of edge-cases that could be shuffled around “to taste.”

    I suppose I should think about applying the same principle to the Threat Moves, too! As they’re not always on the front page of my reference notes, they tend to be one step further removed from my fore-brain than the basic MC Moves…

  4. Oliver Granger, on reflection I’m coming around to your way of thinking. Both turning moves around and making threat moves are effectively an NPC (or the world in the case of a landscape) making a move against a PC , aren’t they?

    Threats is a good name for it, but I wonder if there’s a better one to reflect the proactive nature of the response? I couldn’t come up with much other than Retribution, which might be a bit strong in some cases… Other than that, I couldn’t come up with a one-word category name. 

  5. Yes and yes. I really like your grouping but there probably are 30+ different ways to group them usefully. For example, I’m tempted to move “put someone on a spot” under Positioning because its not about single decision point (this or that, do it or don’t) but about being in a place where there are limited choices and they’re all tough. Separating them and capturing someone are almost just examples of putting someone in a spot. 

    NPC making a move against a PC, yes exactly what I wanted to say!

    I liked your reference to Fronts, it helps reconnect to other bits of the MC armoury. So you could call them Fronts. Except that Fronts are just an organisational tool; the threats are the real antagonists, the things that actually exist and do things.

    Also, all NPCs are threats so any NPC move against a PC should be a threat move. Unless they’re an ally, but then you shouldn’t be making a hard move with them. 

    You could name them something like Threaten but that lessens the link to the Fronts toolbox and doesn’t mesh so well with the tense of your other categories.

    All good fun though!  And useful too!

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