The playing to find out that happens in Apocalypse World is, however, qualitatively different from that which happens in classic OSR games.
In Apocalypse World there is no pre-established fiction, and the nature of the characters themselves is likewise to be discovered, not pre-established in any sense. So we play to find out if the Hardholder has what it takes to acquire a water supply. What will he do? Will he deprive the Sand People of water? Will he shoot some rivals? Will he condemn his own sister to death for being a water witch? Play to find out! I've never played ANY trad concept game where this kind of finding out was on the menu.
Now, I'm no OSR guru, but OSR originated out of a desire to go back to the 'original game' and use it as a vehicle for understanding what the most basic elements of RPG experience were. I've always been a bit of a skeptic, but I don't think there was ever anything wrong with stripping things down and trying different ways of making RPGs. So, I have no reason to doubt that things which are explicit in Apocalypse World also exist in the OSR, nor is there any reason to think AW invented them. I don't think that's ever really been claimed. Still, what AW is playing to find out, that's not something that OSR has done.
As I mentioned in a subsequent post, the explanation of play to find out found in Blades in the Dark feels quite similar to my existing understanding of emergent story.
There may have been all sorts of other discussions going on prior to and concurrent with what was written in Blades that take it in different directions, but the basic explanation I quoted earlier and everything else I took from the Blades rulebook was perfectly in keeping with my existing understanding of the concept. I read about about Play to Find Out for the first time in BitD and my only thought was, "Cool, that suits me just fine, it's my preferred way of playing." Nothing since has really changed my mind about.
To my mind, there is nothing particularly special about the questions you're asking above with respect to Hardholder. In my recent Dark Sun game (which was more of a stealth sandbox than an overt one, to be fair, but was certainly a fairly trad game, being run with Mythras) I was very interested to see how the PCs would react to learning that all was not what it seems in the village of escaped slaves where they found refuge. Very specifically relevant to your examples, how they would handle water sources that they need but so do other perfectly decent people. How they would balance pragmatic needs with offering people basic human dignity. Seeing how characters deal with moral quandaries and conflicting priorities has always been part-and-parcel of my gaming, sandbox or not, and I am surprised to see anyone suggesting this is rare or unusual.
Similarly, finding out about characters through play is absolutely part of OSR and trad play among those who oppose complex backstory. My general preference is for PCs to have enough motivation to go adventuring/fit in with the premise of the game, but no more. The game is about what your character is going to do and become, not who they used to be or what they did before. What kind of person they are is something I want to learn about when I see them played. Similarly, when I just played a PC in a very trad (although not especially sandbox) game, I had a concept for my character, and I was interested to see how the character's attitude changed through play and to what to degree his experiences would shape him. Would he cleave to his traditional values, or accept that the world was a bigger, stranger, more complex place? Would he keep up his brave face, or admit to some of his fears? I don't need special mechanics for any of that, and never have.
Which is not say I am opposed to the use of special mechanics, or games built specifically to focus on asking those questions. I'm just saying these aren't new or unique concepts at all and, while I am happy to believe you if you say you haven't seen them in trad gaming, I just think that the fact you haven't seen them doesn't mean they weren't there. As I commented in another thread recently, I believe the hobby is a lot more insular than many people realise. It is entirely possible for two people with decades of experience to have moved in very different circles where what is liked or disliked, played or not played, accepted or rejected, can be extremely different.
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