117. Read a Sitch – Examples

It seems to me that the most common misapplication of read a stich is to treat it like a general perception check, where the player is rolling, or the MC is prompting the player to roll, to see if they can figure out what’s going on. If there is not immediate or impending danger that is either being responded to or prepared for, read a sitch is not your move. In those situations where the move isn’t triggered, the MC has no reason to be coy – tell the players what is happening and get to the good stuff. Make the situation and the threat plain. If there is no threat, then the players can ask their questions and should get straight answers from the MC without a move being involved.

It’s with knowledge of this common misapplication that I find the first example in this section lacking:

“So that’s weird,” Marie’s player says, at some point. “What IS going on with Birdie?” “Roll to read a sitch,” I say. She misses the roll, so I get to make as hard a move as I like. A good one here is to turn the move back on her, so that’s what I choose. “I dunno what’s up with her,” I say. “I mean, I do, but she’s opaque to you. Anyway, where would you say you’re most vulnerable to her?” (144)

What is happening here? First, this is carried over directly from first edition, in which a miss does not get the PC a question. So, the MC fails to let the PC ask her single question before turning her move back on her. Not ideal in an example. Second, it is unclear what is motivating the player’s attempt to read the situation. If Birdie is a friend, then read a person seems like the more appropriate move here, which would then let the player ask questions like what’s Birdie feeling, what does Birdie intend to do, what does Birdie want me to do? But no, the MC sees the character’s musing about Birdie triggering read a sitch instead. So what does that imply?

Birdie must be posing a real threat to Marie in order for the move to trigger. My own feeling is that Birdie is about to betray Marie in some horrible way and Marie’s spidey-senses are tingling, but that is conjecture because of the move. If Marie’s player had succeeded in her roll, she could ask who’s really in control here, or what should I be on the lookout for, or who’s my biggest threat, which means some shit is about to go down in the not-too-distant future. Birdie’s looking for Marie’s weak spot implies the same thing.

But none of that is clear and it requires a lot of mental work in order to make sense of it. Instead, it looks like the move is being used just to generally suss out what is going on, which is a disservice to the readers and their desire for clarity.

Let’s jump to Keeler and Tum Tum, because that is an awesome example:

Keeler doesn’t like the way things are going, so she takes a quick look around. She hits the roll with an 11, so she gets to ask three questions. I answer that Tum Tum isn’t her biggest threat, Tum Tum’s psychically linked cultist-bodyguards are. Her enemy’s true position is closing in slowly around Tum Tum’s temple, where they’re talking. And if things go to shit? I think her best escape route would be to take one or the other of Tum Tum hostage. (Keeler’s player: “Aw fuck.”) (145)

What I love most about it is the “sudden unhappy revelation” of Marie’s best escape route: “take one or the other of Tum Tum hostage.” That’s so much better than a get-out-of-jail-free card! The ace up Keeler’s sleeve is messy and unpleasant and fraught with uncertainty. Can she get that close to Tum Tum? Can she seize one of them successfully to take them hostage? What the fuck does she do with them after she escapes with them? What will be the long-term repercussions? So much good stuff here! Before the move was triggered, the only thing in the fiction was that Keeler had a bad feeling about the situation. After the move, we can see the cultist-bodyguards surrounding the temple, we know that they are the biggest threat present, and we know that this could all possibly end in a hostage situation. What more could you want a move to contribute to the fiction?!

Now let’s dive into the final example, the “mistake & correction”:

Audrey’s got an old plastic box, like an interoffice mail box, with 2 dozen fresh apples in it. She brokered them from somewhere and now she’s delivering them to her friend Partridge, but there’s as usual a stretch of way she has to go through that’s in Dremmer’s territory. She stops at a safe spot and reads the way forward, and hits with a 10. “Cool. What should I be on the lookout for?” “Dremmer sends patrols through here, of course,” I say. “You should be on the lookout for a patrol.” “Makes sense. How far will I have to go exposed?” “A few hundred yards, it looks like,” I say. “Okay,” she says. “Question 3—” “Oh no, no,” I say. “that didn’t use up any of your hold, I was just telling you what you see.” “Oh! Great. How often do the patrols come through?” I shake my head. “You don’t know. Could be whenever.” “But can’t I make that my question, so you have to answer it?” “Nope!” I say. “You can spend your hold to make me answer questions from the list. Other questions don’t use up your hold, but I get to answer them or not, depending on whatever.” “Okay, I get it,” she says. “So I’m on question 2 still? What’s my enemy’s true position?” (145)

This example addresses the common issue of players asking questions that aren’t on the list. How does the MC handle it? We have a clear, imminent danger in this situation as Audrey is about to move through a chunk of Dremmer’s territory. Sweet. The first question lets the player learn that Dremmer’s gang patrols this area. That makes the player want to know more about the patrols and Audrey’s potential exposure to those patrols. There are two ways to interpret the MC’s response to these questions; either she’s being a jerk and making the player find the exact question, or she thought Audrey’s questions were legit and not an attempt to use up her holds. I’m going with option two. Audrey’s player wants to know how much exposed land she has to travel through, and the MC thinks the player wants to know this before asking her next question. Audrey the character knows the expanse of exposed area so the MC just answers. When Audrey’s player asks about the patrol frequency, the MC thinks she’s asking if Audrey knows the frequency. She doesn’t, and the MC tells her so. Those questions are, in the end, just questions to know what the character knows, and the MC still has to answer them according to her principles of saying what honesty and her prep demand. This is all part of the conversation surrounding the move. The player only get three questions from that list, but she is of course free to ask any related question she’d like because players always have an invitation to do that in Apocalypse World. Through this exchange, Audrey’s player pieces together that what she’s really trying to figure out is where that patrol actually is, her enemy’s true position. The move naturally creates this kind of back-and-forth in the conversation.

As the MC says, “You can spend your hold to make me answer questions from the list. Other questions don’t use up your hold, but I get to answer them or not, depending on whatever.” And that’s really what this example drives home. The list of questions are not the only questions you can ask, but they are the only questions that use up your hold and whose answers are binding (and mechanically supported by the +1forward).