97. Moves Snowball: Part VII – What honesty demands

”Plover thinks she’s just leaning her head on his shoulder, but she’s bleeding out her ears and eventually he’ll notice his shirt sticking to his shoulder from her blood. Do you stick around?” I’m telling possible consequences and asking.

”Fuck no.”

”Where do you go?”

”I go home, I guess.”

”So you’re home an hour later?” Se me setting up my future move! I’m thinking offscreen: how long is it going to take Plover to get a crew together?

”Hold on, it was only 1-harm – “

”I know. She’ll be okay. It’s Plover who’s the biggest threat.” This is what honesty demands. “Are you home an hour later or where?”

”Shit. Yes, home.”

”Having tea?” Always ask questions!

”No tea. Pacing. I have my gun and my pain grenade and the door’s triple-locked. I wish Roark were here.”

Let’s jump to the middle of this passage to talk about the moment that the MC says “what honesty demands.” Marie’s player is concerned about whatever the MC is planning here, but we never know what she’s thinking exactly, only that she protests that she did “only 1-harm.” To her concern, the MC responds, “I know. She’ll be okay. It’s Plover who’s the biggest threat.” This, we are told, is what honesty demands.

I find this to be so interesting because it is not immediately clear which part of the MC’s response is the honest part. That Isle will be okay? Did Marie’s player think that the MC had killed Isle because of Marie’s brainer move? Possibly. Or did Marie’s player think that Isle herself was coming after Marie because of the attack and the MC is honestly telling her that no, it’s Plover who will be coming for her? Also possible. What I propose is that whatever Marie’s player thought was going on in the MC’s mind, it’s the statement “it’s Plover who’s the biggest threat” that is the honest statement .

This is fascinating because a moment ago (see post no. 94), Plover’s being the biggest threat was a little bit of misdirection, a “fact” the MC capriciously made up in answer to a question. How can Plover’s threat level be both misdirection and subject to what honesty demands? How do you resolve the tension that exists in having misdirection and honesty apply to the same statement? This moment I think is at the crux of how fiction is handled by the MC in Apocalypse World.

There’re plenty of times when the text (as I have pointed to again and again) urges the MC to follow the “logic” of the fiction, to follow through on the logical chain of cause and effect that the players create in the fiction. The MC preps threats and NPCs and sends them all out on their trajectories to see how they interact with the players’ characters. That method is one of the key ways the MC keeps her thumb off the scales and can play to find out what happens. So there’s that on the one hand. On the other hand is what I was talking about in post no. 94, that the MC is constantly making decisions based on real-world factors and then using misdirection to present those decisions within the fiction as though the details of the fiction are actually responsible for those decisions. How do those two things coexist? Where do they meet?

In this chapter, they meet in the statement “Plover is the biggest threat.” When Marie’s player asks that question, the answer doesn’t exist and the MC has to capriciously decide. That’s the misdirection. But once the MC decides and lays out the misdirecting fictional details, that decision becomes a fact within the fiction. So when we get to who is coming after Marie, “Plover is the biggest threat” has moved from misdirection to fact and created something of a trajectory for Plover that the MC is bound to follow through on, even though it was mere fancy moments ago. Now, pursuing Plover’s reaction to Isle being psionically attacked is what honesty demands. Trajectories begin as mere MC-driven whim, but once they are in motion, the MC principles demand that they be seen through on their logical course.

The other thing to note in this passage are all the questions being asked by the MC. Does Marie want to stick around? Where does she go? Is she at home an hour later, or somewhere else? Is she drinking tea or doing something else. As the MC asks questions trying to make the fiction concrete for her upcoming move, you can feel Marie’s player trying to squirm into a protective positioning. Fuck no, not here. Home. What a minute, are you being fair? Okay, home. Not tea. I’m alert and waiting. I’ve got my gun. And my grenade. And a door that is triple locked. It’s cool whatever her answers are. The MC just needs to know, not to fuck over Marie, but to have a concrete fictional setting in which to establish Plover’s efforts to settle the score.

The asking of provocative questions (and the MC’s questions here certainly provoke Marie’s player) is to establish an agreed-upon fiction. The questions themselves aren’t a move by the MC, but a necessary precursor. If the fiction is not clear, the MC cannot make a move. The player has the right to decide where her character goes, so the MC cannot make a move placing Marie someplace Marie’s player hasn’t agreed to. Questions are the means of bringing the concrete details into focus in a way agreed upon by all concerned players so that the MC can make her move. These questions are a more focused form of “what do you do” that we saw in the last post (no. 96), but they leave the answer no less under the control of Marie’s player.