[Apocalypse World] Questions

[Paul T]

Vincent,

Just a few minor things here, before I run the game.

When seducing someone (another PC, specifically):

"If they refuse, it's acting under fire."

I'm not sure what this would look like in play. I say, "Hey, hot stuff, why don't you let me borrow your truck." I roll a 7. Now, I'd probably choose "you mark experience", but if I chose "acting under fire", you then roll your dice:

10+     You do it. Meaning what? I guess you can give me the truck or not; you're unflapped.
7-9      You flinch or hesitate. MC offers you a hard choice. I can see this one being fun, cool.
miss   This one got me stumped. Is the threat that the MC brings down badness on you? Like, "Someone else sees you talking about the truck and is pissed off?" Or, the MC thinks: "Hmmmm. I guess this means so-and-so is hiding in the truck with the stolen drugs. We'll see when they find out..."

Is this along the lines of what you had in mind for this move, or am I misinterpreting it in some way?

I just want to get a handle on it before I play. In any case, this one isn't super-clear from the text, to me at least. Thanks!

[lumpley]

Yes. On a miss, use the normal rules for what happens on a miss -- as MC, you get to make as hard and direct a move as you like, within the bounds of misdirection and not speaking its name.

Just to be super-clear, the subject of the seduction isn't acting under fire to find out whether she can resist. She can, and has. She's acting under fire because she's resisted the seduction.

Misdirecting, by the way. means not rewriting causality, and it's crucial. You shouldn't be deciding now, on the miss, that something happened differently in the past. There was already a guy hiding in the truck, or there already wasn't, for the most part; a missed roll shouldn't retroactively put him there. When you make moves as MC you should treat the past as solid and done, and consider only what happens going forward.

Sometimes this means that the move you make is not especially hard or especially direct. That's fine. You can pass initiative [not a technical term] to the would-be seducer, for instance -- that's offering an opportunity, with or without a price -- and that's probably exactly what's called for.

-Vincent

[Paul T]

Vincent,

That's solid advice, and I hope it'll go in the book somewhere. "On a miss, consider handing initiative to the would-be seducer." The way I'm reading this, as well as the 7-9 partial hit, is that the character being seduced is distracted momentarily, or thrown off, by the manipulation/seduction. If that puts them in a tough spot, then it does. If not... well, don't choose that option, seducer--it's not going to do you much good in a situation that's not tense with immediate problems.