102. Moves Snowball: Part X – Tags

”I set off my pain-wave projector.”

”Sweet,” I say. “That’s . . .”

”1-harm area loud ap”

”The loud is their screaming,” I say. “They’re like – “ and I hold my hands over my ears. On a whim, looking through crosshairs, I add, “Church Head isn’t. He looks paralyzed, he’s rigid and silent, his eyes are rolling around in their sockets but otherwise he’s not moving” (130).

Tags serve several purposes in Apocalypse World. Back on page 12, we read:

[T]ags work in 3 different ways. Some of them are straightforwardly mechanical, like 3-harm, fortune+2, surplus and want. Some note the circumstances under which the thing can be useful, like close and reload. Some tell you, the MC, things to say when the character uses the thing, like loud, 1-barter, augury, judgment and savagery.

In this example, we see all three types of tags. I’m interested in that third type, the one that gives the MC “things to say.” Here, that’s “loud.” But to say that “loud” is just a thing to say is to understate its role in play. “Loud” here is a fictional cue for the MC, a detail to bring into the fiction that can affect the development of future fiction. Without that detail, it would be easy for the MC to simply note the damage done to the NPCs by the pain-wave projector and move on. The tag brings the specific fictional details of the pain-wave projector to bear on the fiction itself. Here, the MC brings the onrush of the NPCs to a halt so that they can react to their pain. And thinking about that pain and the internal nature of it (they’re grasping their heads) prompts the MC to think about how that pain might really fuck someone up, which leads to Church Head’s “eyes rolling around in their sockets.”

This is also the moment that Marie’s player seizes the intiative and goes on the attack. While Plover is dealing with his ringing skull, Marie puts her violation glove on his cheek as pulls his in-brain puppet strings:

A subtle thing just happened. I’ve been saying what they do and then asking Marie’s player what Marie does, but here she’s seized initiative from me. It isn’t mechanically significant; we’ll still both just keep making our moves in turn. It’s just worth noticing (130).

It might not be mechanically significant, but it is narratively significant. Because the MC allowed the tag to impact the fiction, Marie had her moment to turn the tables and go on the attack. The MC didn’t do it so she could go on the attack, but it had enough weight in the fiction to affect how things developed from there.

Earlier in the example, when Isle forced Marie’s hand after her direct-brain whisper, Marie’s player chose to not use the loud tag (it was “loud-optional” – page 127). There again, the use of that tag had a direct impact on the fiction. Because it wasn’t loud, the MC interpreted the psychic attack as doing serious enough damage that it did not even allow Isle to scream out. That interpretation led to Isle’s slumping and her bleeding ear, which would lead to the attack on Marie’s home an hour later.

These types of tags are made to affect the fiction, and anything that affects the fiction should be given a full cause-and-effect relationship with the fiction that follows.

Right after this passage, Marie picks up the chainsaw and takes it to Plover and Pellet as they fight. In the conversation about that attack, the tag that becomes important is the messy tag:

”How much harm will I inflict?” she says. She has to decide which seize-by-force option to choose and wants to know what’s what.

”With a chainsaw? 3-harm. Messy, so you might hit one or both of them” (131).

The messy tag prompts the MC to think about the ways that the chainsaw exists in the fiction, in this case being able or likely to cut into both attackers in one swing, which is what Marie wanted to do in the first place. And that’s exactly what happens, of course.

It’s easy to think of tags that gives the MC “things to say” as just flavor, but in a game that uses the fiction as the basis of play - in a game that puts the fiction itself at the heart of the cause-and-effect chain created by the game’s system – anything happening in the fiction is never “just” flavor. Those fictional details directly impact the fiction that develops from it.