Incumbency, Meddling, and Long-Term Schemes
So I was thinking about the playtest of Incumbency, in particular the Meddle move. In our session, the move basically worked, but was still unsatisfying for me. I think I know why, and I have an idea for one possible solution.
The turning point in the game was when wendiferous' Populist launched a media firestorm to destroy the reputation of her NPC opponent in the mayoral race. It was a heated move that dragged in all the PCs, saw everybody spend all their money, and was generally pretty fun. In the end, the Populist & co. succeeded. It was decided by group feeling afterwards that this meant the NPC lost the election.
This felt appropriate at the time, but still left me unsatisfied. The election was clearly related to this move, but victory wasn't set as a stake going into it, only the reputation of the NPC. This outcome was only decided afterwards. And what if the players had disagreed about the logical outcome of the fiction? For that matter, do I really want whole elections to turn on a single Meddle move? It provided nice closure in a one shot, but might not have worked so great in a longer game.
So what do we do when a player wants to set something at stake that is bigger than what they ought to be able to accomplish in a single Meddle move? I'm not sure yet. But I do know that Apocalypse World has at least one move for this already: the Workspace. Tentatively, I'm thinking something like:
When you start a new scheme, say what's at stake. Then say how you're going to get it. Pick 1-3 below. The GM may then tell you about some additional costs you didn't foresee, and pick 1-2 more.
You'll need to get a particular resource.
You'll need to destroy a rival's resource.
(More options will go here, once I write them.)
Write down your goal and your means. When you fulfill the conditions, your scheme comes to fruition.
I'm curious what people think of this concept, particularly people who were in the playtest.