[Apocalypse World] I just care too much

[lumpley]

I'd love to hear Graham's answer too.

My answer is: basically, the dynamic you're worried about comes from a conflict of interest built into the GM's role in other games, where, because of her systemic agenda, the GM can't be trusted with her systemic responsibilities. Apocalypse World is designed to eliminate that conflict of interest. In this particular case, the MC's torturing your character in order to get you to make a move, and furthermore she quite strictly doesn't care which of your moves you make. Accordingly it's not in her interests to prevent you from making a break for it at all, and the situation you're worried about just never comes up.

-Vincent

[Graham W]

I think Vincent's right (which isn't surprising, of course).

If a character has been captured, the player will often be happy to have really bad things happen to them. It makes it more narratively interesting and doesn't prevent them doing stuff later.

Presumably captured and tortured is a move the MC makes, yeah?

Well, everything the MC does is a move. The game makes you think of the MC's role in terms of "The MC's moves", which is rather neat.

Being captured and tortured, though, sounds like a hard move. So, probably, the MC has made that hard move in response to a failed roll, or has built up to it slowly.

So how does your group figure out how much mileage you get out of a move? Is the MC like, no, you don't get to make a break for it yet, because Foster needs to give you a few more paper cuts? At what point do I get to be like, dude, I'm escaping this place!

You can do it any time, really. It's worth thinking how the scene might progress:

MC: All right, so you're in your cell and Foster comes in.
Player: I spit at him.
MC: OK, he wipes the spit off his face and on to your clothes.
Player: "What do you want, Foster?"
MC: He just laughs. He gets out a pair of pliers, grabs your hair, and, one by one, starts to pull your teeth out.
Player: Wait. No he doesn't.
MC: Well, look, that's what he's trying to do. He's got these pliers, he's grabbing your hair. What are you doing about it?
Player: I roll to flee/go aggro/whatever.

So it's like that. The players can make a move any time they want.

Graham