50. MC Moves

We’re moving on to MC moves! There are 14 basic moves you can make as an MC of Apocalypse World:

1. Separate them.
2. Capture someone.
3. Put someone in a spot.
4. Trade harm for harm (as established).
5. Announce off-screen badness.
6. Announce future badness.
7. Inflict harm (as established).
8. Take away their stuff.
9. Make them buy.
10. Activate their stuff’s downside.
11. Tell them the possible consequences and ask.
12. Offer an opportunity, with or without a cost.
13. Turn their move back on them.
14. Make a threat move.
After every move: “what do you do?”

For today, I just want to talk about the order in which the moves are presented. Why not, for instance, start the list with the most common move: announce future badness? They are not presented alphabetically, and they are not presented in order of importance or anticipated frequency of use. But you know that the authors spent some time stacking them in this order, so we should spend a moment ruminating on why.

It seems to me that the list begins with the most visual, dramatic, readily understood, and easily interpreted. Placing these at the top of the list puts the reader in the proper mindset to understand what a move is and how it relates to the fiction unfolding at the table. Just as important, when the MC consults the list at the table, these first three items put her in mind to keep the story dramatic and active. In addition, all three moves directly affect the PCs’ physical bodies—separating, capturing, and putting them in a spot.

The two moves involving harm (trading and inflicting it) also directly affect the PCs’ bodies, but they are not lumped together; instead, they are separated from each other. I don’t have a good reading for why they would be separated. It could be that trading harm has more in common with the first three moves and that inflicting harm has more in common with taking away their stuff than either harm move has with each other. Trading harm suggests a mutual struggle between a PC and an NPC. This struggle fits nicely with the first three moves as an easily grasped dramatic device. Inflicting harm on the other hand puts the character on the receiving end only, just as taking away their stuff does. Both of these two moves fall naturally on the harder end of the spectrum and can be quite hard if the MC is so inclined. If the moves aren’t hard, they really fall more into the “announce future badness” territory.

Coming between the two harm moves are the “announce badness” moves. These two moves point to the dangers that may separate, capture, harm, or put the PCs in a spot. Why does “off-screen badness” come before “future badness?” I think “off-screen” is favored because it is an easily understood term, whereas “future,” at least in this context, is initially vague. Once you read the explanation of the move, its meaning becomes very clear, but for the purposes of the list, “off-screen” is much more immediately graspable.

Moves 8-10 are all concerned with the PCs’ “stuff”: take away their stuff, make them buy, and activate their stuffs’ downside. “Stuff” is another aspect of the PCs that the MC can poke and prod at and these moves provide an avenue for doing so.

After covering their persons, the dangers before them, and their stuff, the next three moves target ways to play with what the characters themselves do. Telling them the possible consequences and asking and offering an opportunity with or without a cost are two sides of the same coin. You want to do this thing? Here’s what you stand to gain or lose by doing so; want to go for it? If the previous MC moves put the PCs in situations to see what they do, these moves highlight the situation they are already in to see what kind of choice they make. What kind of choice the characters make is always the name of the game, because it is through choice and the action that follows that the characters will reveal who they are, what’s important to them, and how they engage with the world. This is where the gears of the characters’ moves mesh effortlessly with the gears of the MC’s moves, each one directly powering the other.

The final move of course gives the MC access to all the moves specific to her threats.

The common theme behind all the moves is that through them, the MC puts the characters in a position to (1) make a choice, and (2) act. Each move on this list forces the character to react, which leads naturally to the MC making a move as a reaction to their reaction. That’s the engine that makes the game move forward. But it’s more than the propelling of plot, as I said earlier; it’s the revelation of who these characters are through the choices they make and the actions they take. It’s not just that you should ask “what do you do” after every move; it’s that you should design all your moves to compel everyone at the table to ask themselves “what will they do?!”